Mothers' day

Paul and his Susan put on an excellent brunch for Jenny and Nanna at their place and invited me along too.

Susan excelled herself by putting on a breakfast that had it all: bacon, black pudding, scrambed egg, chipolatas, blueberry pancakes and potato cakes. She also had a banana and nut sauce for the pancakes and icecream too. Quite remarkable and inventive. She is quite a cook. And in consideration of Jenny it was all gluten-free too. Neither Nanna nor I would try the black pudding though.

As Nanna will soon turn 87, we discussed a bit what people used to eat in her day and noted how she has arrived at her age in reasonable health despite having a diet for most of her life that would give food freaks the horrors. All meat in those days was fried in dripping (beef fat) so they got a heavy dose of fat practically EVERY DAY! These days only oldies even know what dripping is.

I was also interested to hear that Jenny's father was a successful fisherman during the Depression, so that helped them to survive the hard times fairly well. Fish in those days was mostly cooked in dripping too -- and the custom of covering it with batter made sure you got an extra heavy dose of animal fat! Batter soaks up fat.

We chatted quite a bit about politics -- with Ms Gillard's latest brainwave of sending illegal immigrants to Malaysia evoking many groans.

We asked around for news of Joe and I was able to provide a little. We all respect that this is his time for independence, though. We were all very pleased to note that his "addiction" is not to tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, heroin, cocaine or "speed" but rather to -- wait for it -- Milk! Many parents would envy that!

I drove the Humber out but was by myself as Anne was being entertained by one of her sons.