More dosas

Every day is a good day for dosas so I shouted Paul and Susan dosas for lunch today.  Matthew even has his own dosa now and got right through an egg dosa.  The Dosas we get from "Riverwalk Tandoori" (which is nowhere near a river) are certainly inspiring, even though they are completely vegetarian.  We arrived at the restaurant at 11:30, at the same time that the owner did.  So we were served promptly.

We repaired to my sitting room for tea and afters with the afters consisting of some good choc-chip cookies provided by me and some fresh strawberries provided by Susan.  Every bit of both went down.

Paul brought along his Oxford Book of English Verse and I read and explained a few poems out of it  -- mostly patriotic poems which both Paul and I like.  We read "Mariners of England" and "He fell among Thieves" but also Shelley's "To a Skylark" and Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale".  They all required a bit of explanation to people who know only the language of today.

Paul at one stage asked me what Jenny and I had been talking about at our "Ronald Reagan" dinner and I replied that we had just been talking about what family members had been doing lately.  With a big smile, Susan greeted that news with "Aha!  GOSSIP"!  I think she had a win there.

Gossip however (defined as talking about people you know) is as far as I can tell universal where people relax together or have time on their hands.  Today we had our usual discussions about politics.  I mentioned to  Paul that Ken had once asked me how I classified him politically. I replied that I categorized him as a "recovering Leftist".  From what I can gather Ken has done the usual political journey from Left to Right that most people do over their lifetime

We also had a discussion about my recent blog posts on feminism. We talked about what it means to be “sexist”. For example when I refer to a woman adopting traditional female roles as being “the perfect wife”,  I am from a feminist viewpoint revealing myself as an awful bigot and am disrespecting the woman concerned. Feminists think that all women should have "careers".

Towards the end of our get-together, I introduced Paul and Susan to Bushell's coffee and chicory essence.  It is almost forgotten now but in some parts of the world it WAS coffee for many decades.  I introduced it to them as a sort of history lesson.  I still drink it myself  -- as my father did.

Matthew was at his noisy best running around my house.  It is amazing the amount of noise a small boy can create.  He had a great time anyway.  Elise was her usual silent and serious self.

Paul wanted me to announce that he had recently been from his place to Ipswich and back in his electric car without needing to stop for recharging.   It is a cute little car.