The rain has held off for the Easter weekend but only just. A beach outing didn't look like a wise move so it was the back garden for lunch. We managed to have a BBQ after a lot of briquettes, lighters and matches (all rather damp from sitting around a couple of years I think) had been coaxed into life by the King of Fire himself, recently back, weather-beaten and blistered, from three days sailing round Skye in the school's 80ft yacht. Hard life.

The women did the (entirely unimportant of course) preparation - I love mixing marinades; the Moroccan lamb was the best, lots of cinnamon, cumin, coriander and so on, but the spare ribs, not shown here, were not bad at all with honey, chili and ketchup. We sat inside the French windows to eat, enjoying the smokiness and shouting encouragement..

Back to work tomorrow. The schools are all back which means bonnets and parades and barbecues have to be Sunday. Not very traditional. London daughter has a three day week this week though as they do get Easter Monday off AND the Royal Wedding day, which we are choosing to ignore also. Xander's school is doing something that involves different clothing and jollity so that's a plus.

On a grumpy note: I finally discovered why eggs get rolled down hills - it's taken me a while. It's to commemorate the rolling away of the stone from the tomb. The stone was egg shaped apparantly, Loud 'Oh Yeah?' from the back here. Yet another example of the upstart new religion absorbing the old by rolling right over its symbols.

Recently overtaken by a sudden rush of enthusiasm for new recipes.

Parsnip fritters - grated parsnip, cumin, coriander, chili, grated ginger root, chick pea flour and there you have it. Very nice indeed. A vegetarian meal accompanied by a spicy yoghourt dipping sauce and salad or - as seen above - breakfast with a rasher of dry-cured unsmoked bacon.

Cake - I wasn't so keen on this but it was No.1 daughter's birthday and she asked for a coconut flour cake (very low carbs). It's made with coconut butter, coconut milk, lots of pecan nuts, raisins, maple syrup, sugar, and a dozen eggs (so hardly a diet item). I made a topping, which I left to be eaten along with rather than atop, of Quark and maple syrup.

The experimental muffins made with coconut flour, butter and milk with raisins were more successful - lighter - but I didn't take a picture. Neither cake nor muffins tasted of coconut in the slightest.

There are lots of ways for gluten/lactose intolerant people to be decadent these days but I confss to still prefering making and eating the traditional cakes.

Women!

Last week my ex was manning the store. This week I have had to witness the disappointment on the faces of several ladies who obviously came in just to see him again. We should employ him as a visitor attraction.

It reminds me of a party I went to soon after we moved to Brussels. I was on my own because my husband was 'en mission'. The hostess greeted me with: 'Where is he then?' When I told her he was away she sighed loudly, shrugged and left me standing alone on the edge of the crowd.

Women!

Burkas

I'm all in favour of the burka ban, mainly because I find it creepy not to be able to see people's faces.

On the other hand I'm getting to the age when wearing the full burka might not be such a bad idea, especially now when my face is swollen with cortizone because the asthma's been troublesome since Christmas and I haven't been back to the acupuncturist (NHS pills free, acupuncture £45 a pop. No-brainer.) The reason I'm so short of cash is partly because I spend a lot of money on clothing from a catalogue designed to, hopefully, disguise my shape, which a burka would do nicely and would probably be a saving. Thirdly, I love the thought of freedom from tight clothing - no need even for underwear! Yesterday I also found the answer to swimming without shame, the modestlyactive.com site for Islamic women who want to go swimming. It claims their suits are water resistant, easy drying and - surprise - UV repellant. I'm sorely tempted.

Thank Creation for books.

I took books for the journey but couldn't get into either of them so on the down train I read Sandy's homework book, Michael Morpurgo's 'Private Peaceful' in which nothing nice happens at all only sadness shading into tragedy. Why do people write these mind-darkening soul-destroying books for children? At least in Harry Potter there is the fight between light and dark with humour, heroism, comradeship - and hope, always hope. However, my poet daughter tells me teens need this cathartic stuff and maybe that's true because Sandy handed it to me with enthusiasm saying it was a really good book. He seemed surprised when I groaned continuously about being depressed by it. Once again I reach that 'what do I know?' moment.

In Hayle, on the family bookshelves, I found 'Notes at an Exhibition' by Patrick Gale which the rest of the world will have read years ago (a Richard and Judy choice) but I missed. I really enjoyed it. I loved the non-linear way in which the tale unfolds, tantalising bits revealed then left hanging. I loved the light brush strokes with which he paints in the painful progress of the bipolar artist's life, the suffering it brings her and those close to her, mostly her children, who (mostly) survive her madness thanks to their stable father. It'ss set in the part of Cornwall I was living in fwhilst I read it so that helped too.

When I got home, with time and space to focus, I changed my mind about one of my holiday reading books and am now smitten by ‘Dark Matter” by Juli Zeh. Certainly not my usual sort of crime novel, it gave me lots to think about in the fields of thought I most like to explore: human consciousness, existence, reality. What is reality? Are there multiple universes in which everything that can happen does? I tend to think, and maybe hope, that this is the case. It ties in with a lot of philosophies; the wheel that we are attached to until we have experienced and understood all consequences and facets of our actions and finally become ‘enlightened.’ Whatever that means. I see enlightenment quite literally as a dark sky slowly lit by stars which appear one at a time until the whole sky is light enabling us to see all levels of existence.

Gross over simplification, but what can you do when trying to describe the ineffable?

On another level entirely today I looked up Marian Keyes whose books I have steadfastly refused to read because I saw her as the initiator of chick-lit and not worthy of my time. She is (as so often proves true of people whose work I sniff at - look at Catharine Cookson and Barbara Cartland) a very interesting person, also beset by deep depressions.

Perhaps it’s a prerequisite of a prolific writer or artist or actor or genius to be able to go down into these dark spaces almost to the point of death to find the core of being that sustains them.

'Pain is inevitable but suffering' is optional MK says. I think that's arguable - some suffering can’t be avoided by thinking yourself out of it, like grief at loss. Still, there is a truth there that can be applied to many daily situations. Do I really have to feel as bad about what is happening to me in this moment? It's a question worth asking myself frequently.

The other quote she offers is something Winston Churchill said: 'if you're going through hell - keep going.' I like that a lot. It has humour.

Sugared skirt and sweet thirteen!

I wanted to join the sugared skirt discussion and although I know I did sugar my skirt and hang it out on the line (where it got full of bees and other delighted flying insects) I couldn't find a photo of me in the result. I too grew like Topsy and worst of all grew taller than my father who was very self-conscious about his height with three older, taller brothers, so he made lots of jokes, to cover his own embarrassment probably, but it was devastating to me, hence not many photos. I did have a neat-petite friend (long since lost touch with her) who did the sticky skirt to perfection with the wide-belted cinched waist, and hourglass figure with torpedo breasts in those bras with lots of stitching round and round that made them pointed so many decades before Madonna.

I was only happy in jodphurs.

For 4 pixels not too bad!!

The garden I left behind is blooming smugly at the moment having had a good seeing-to by a professional gardener and a large helping of bark chippings. I do claim some kudos for havng planted the bulbs in the first place!

Flight simulator

The elegant legs don't belong to me but to the atendant showing him the controls - no place for a claustrophobe!

Sandy wants to be a pilot.

Freshly baked by Cornish sunshine and two splendid days in Scotland on our return I'm now back at my post behind the counter trying to remember where one can get natural oestrogen, which cleaning fluid has the bunny logo on it, and so on.

It was a lovely holiday, chaotic exhausting, family life, seeing my son again and his little wreckers, BBQs, Cornish pasties, (fantastic and so hot they almost gave 3rd degree burns) Cornish cream tea (I didn't lose any weight obviously) and, for me anyway, lots of sitting around in the sunshine whilst son and grandson did daring and energetic feats in the sea and lakes.

Didn't get to St. Michael's Mount - again. It's only open on scattered weekends which means I'll have to be very lucky ever to cross the causeway to see it up close. Otherwise Cornwall was at its prettiest with blossom on the trees and wayside flowers growing in the earth and rubble walls that make the roads so darn narrow and dangerous but don’t get sprayed with weedkiller or chewed up by council grass and gorse cutters as they do here. Lambs, blue skies and miles of silky sandy beaches.

One day I noticed that that my camera has only 4 pixels. No wonder it doesn't give such clear and beautiful pics as other people’s. Even my mobile has more than that but I can't download or send from it so pointless to use it. In its day - at least five years ago, maybe more - it wasn't bad. Both daughters are having new cameras for their birthdays so I think I might follow the trend. Anyway, mostly all I took were the kiddy-pics which have a limited appeal for those who aren't blood relatives.

London was also looking beautiful (that's a first!) as S & I taxied through Kensington Gardens to the Science Museum in the time between trains on our homeward trek. I hate the underground and was already overly hot so black-cabbing it was the only civilised way. The Serpentine was dotted with blue pedallos and the greensward dotted with peeps. It looked like a painting by Lowry (or somebody who liked showing lots of small details. ) Boris's bikes were being used in squadrons, to the taxi driver's distress. My london-based daughter won't use them because they take a credit card and if you don't know where the next depot for them is it could cost a lot, which seems to be a new catch/cash point to watch for generally because when we got back here we found that before he left home Sandy had logged into a game that kept taking money off his mum's card until he logged out - it cost his poor mother £60

I'm wondering what the Xandman’s best memories will be. Watersports or the flight simulator in the Science Museum??

Mine are: the big hug my son gave me; the big hug g'son Finlay gave me; the impossibly deep voice of two year old Theo, who I didn't know could talk at all so I got quite a fright when this slow, gruff voice said 'Thank you!' He sounds just like Eeyore should.

The other memory will be of staying up late creating a panda suit for Finlay in response to an edict from the school that the next day was to be Panda Day. We swore and cursed about thoughtless teachers, cut up shirts and tights, sewed on ears, etc. then Georgie looked into the school bag to find the letter which read: 'A prize will be given for the best picture of a panda.' Another G&T was needed to subdue the anguish. The next morning we stuffed him into his costume anyway and dumped him into the school telling him to walk tall because he’d be the most panda-y panda for Panda day. . He didn't win a prize but got lots of enthusiastic comments and his friends pestered their mothers to dress them as pandas too, so a good result on the whole!

Well the weather has changed a few times since my last entry! Now much warmer, windy and changeable. I'm off to Cornwall with the Xandman tonight and I'm told it's about the same only probably much warmer there, which is causing panic over what to wear - it's obvious I don't get out much these days. Packing puts me in a total spin.

Lack of events and/or lack of time have caused a slow-down in entries. It's a bummer that the iPad won't let me write here for some arcane reason all of its own. I have time to write whilst in the shop although business is doing well and there are more frequent interruptions. A once-monthly Saturday morning stint caused me to buy the Grauniad for a change (I'm otherwise totally loyal to the Independent still.) I was happy to find one of my favourite Inde columnists, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown being interviewed on the subject of the burqa ban in France, which she is in favour of. Hooray for her!

I was even happier to find an interesting article about Percy Bysshe Shelley and the bicentenrary of his 'Necessity of Atheisim" publication that got him thrown out of Oxford.

Stop reading now if you have absolutely no interest in such matters.

His premise was simple: if you have seen or heard God then you must believe in God. If you haven't then the only reason for believing are reasonable arguments and the testimony of others.

The chief argument for a deity is that there must be a 'first cause' but this is an irrational statement in two ways; firstly there isn't any factual imperative behind that reasoning, only the need for human minds to find causes. Secondly, even if there was a first cause it doesn't have to have been a deity.

If one relies on the testimony of others for belief in the existence of God this is unproven hearsay and contrary to fact-based reason. It also supposes a God who commands belief which is irrational of God because belief is involuntary and not an act of God (if it was, and there was a god then everyone would believe in him!)

The article goes on to point out that the stereotypical atheist lacking soul/spirituality is also countered by Shelley's life and work which shows a keen appreciation of aesthetic beauty. I would also say he demonstrates a spiritual awareness of transcendency, which in my world has absolutely has no need of the presence of a deity.

The article was written by Andrew Copson who is, I discover, chief executive of the British Humanist Society. ironically I wouldn't join that club either after an experience with a group of Humanists in a nearbye town who seemed far too religiously zealous about it all!