BBQ

It’s been something of an eventful few days. I’ve been contacted by an old friend who I never thought I’d ever hear from again. And played host to some other old friend’s on the weekend, and there in the process, discovered a somewhat penchant for food of a savoury-sweet nature.
My daughter while initally shy, eventually warmned to the new guests, with amusing results...

So without further a-do here is my recipe for the puur-fect homemade burger, be it plain or spicy:

You will need to make 6 x burgers:

1 kg of minced beef

1 x tbs of mustard

1 x tbs salt

2 x tbs of black pepper – 1 ground 1 whole

1 x eggs

2 x slices of bread (crumbled by hand)

1 x diced onion- of your personal preference

1x finely diced red pepper

(½ jar x Jalapenos if you wanna add a little spice)

Mix by hand in bowl, pat and shape into six burgers and cook.

For awesome if somewhat cheating smoked ribs-

1x BBQ source of your choosing (the cheating bit)

1 x ts of cinnamon

1 x pack of ribs

1 x ts salt

1x 50g brown sugar

1x 200 ml honey

Mix all and baste with additional layers of honey and brown sugar on ribs. Then store in foil sealed tray overnight chilled.

Whilst cooking in smoker/BBQ grill, baste and layer with sugar and honey, turning every five minutes for 30 minutes. Ensure ribs remain in tray keeping ribs submerged in source.

I use charcoal and then add cooking wood kindling which is soaked overnight in cheap whisky to add a bit of a punch to the smokey flavour...

Enjoy:

Warning: the following may occur should these steps be followed…

Tiredness from over indulgence:

Bloated-ness and trapped w…. daughter?!:

Lesbianism in Rabbits… (Of Course)

Confusion as to which specie you belong to- human or Rabbit?!

And finally sleep….

Failure to do so may also result in…

Tantrums:

Princess Pollys Potty

Princess Polly’s Potty (Andrea Pinnington 2009) is one of my daughter’s favourite books. She’s only two and a half but she’s already really into her stories. Yes, she is a Papa Pig fiend, and we have several short story books, but PPP is a current bedtime firm favourite.

Originally we got it to introduce her to the idea of using a potty. Daughter on the other hand was initially resistant to using a potty, instead choosing to skip the potty all together and move straight to using the toilet- with booster seat.

There were a lot of things I really liked about the book. The illustrations encouraged parent/child to explore each page, picking out little details. Daughter is pretty good with her paying attention and focus, just like her dad, but some books have very bland images which can be looked at only once without the need for closer attention. Good detail is vital to the replay factor of a book. Bedtime stories can be a little repetitive for parents; especially the early years when all the kids wanna do is look at the images. With a good illustration, you can read the same page, like if you watch a good film, and notice something you haven’t done before.

The noise button (HoooRaaay!) can be a little bit of a pain; perhaps if they’d made one that used more than one sound effect it wouldn’t be as bad. But provided you don’t let your child press it whenever they want, i.e. except when the book prompts you to, it can really encourage them to interact and articulate better. Daughter can already distinguish between what potty/ pants PP would like and what she would like, usually very different. The story itself is both informative and fun, with good tips for girls- wipe front to back etc and ade the book a fun interactive experience for me and her. and encourages hand washing. There were quite a few pages where you had to ask and get a response or opinion on a choice PP made, which I thought really m

I think the book really helped assure daughter about potty training, showing that everyone uses the toilet, wears pants etc. Even if she has accidents, the book assures her that this is ok and that she is still clever and its part of her learning process. PP also has a baby sister- me smells the hint of a sequel … ;)? The book also comes in a boy version, which we will probably get when the 'wee' wee man gets big enough…

Gardening

You positively couldn’t imagine a more stereotypical Sunday in the garden today. Having done 87% of the house renovations, I turned my keen (yare right!) eye to our shabby, yet potentially reasonably sized garden. Apart from the strange Swedish style cabin/ shed thing that hogs all the space, the garden has your typical mundane ‘old’ man low maintenance shrub affair stuff, with some non-descript non-producing tree plant thingy’s.

With the idea of maximising re-saleability, as we still have aspirations of turning a pretty penny in lieu of property development. Small or non-existent flower/ growing border beds are good because they give a potential buyer a veritable vegetation-able-ly clean slate from which that can image their imagine-in-edibles (yes I did just type that!) can go. (Exhale)

 

My daughter was kind enough to want to help and/or hinder-now two and a half, potty training is something of a bit hit and piss. (ha-ha, see what I did there) Having peed three times out of her nappy on the wood floor I laid myself not six months score ago. She also did a lovely big poo in the downstairs lav(oh yes, the joys of parenting!). So pluses and minuses, she just about broke even.

The Rabbits also did their part digging up the plant beds, though I somewhat suspect they were actually trying to re-enact the great escape, tunnelling up under the rabbit run I erected for them.

Four hours later, and a lot of false wee-wee alarms, half the garden is now done and no-heat stroke. And to top off my manly graft, there’s nothing like a manicure and hand massage from my beautiful and brilliant wife.

Pass me an ice filled glass of Swedish Kiwi and Blackcurrant Cider, and my day is done!

Ok, Fine! I’ll return my man-card tomorrow… L

StraightNecked-Feck is Dead! Long live Ccwc

It has been brought to my attention that SNF gets flaged on peoples email accounts and gets forwarded to their junk. this is cr*p and Ccwc is back. Yay!

Its time I did something a little different, I’ve changed my blog name and address for many reasons.

Firstly, I have changed, but back to that. Confessions of a care work contractor somewhat limited my horizons as to what I could blog; I wanted to write more about fatherhood, writing, marriage, health and other things which interest me in my life right now. I guess this is a substitute for an actual social life, or a social life where I can talk candidly about my interest and views with people who have either the time, studies to fully understand.

Gone are the days I had the time to discuss into the early hours of the morning the folly of the American dream illustrated in films such as Blue Velvet (1986), or the subtle nuances and gritty rawness of Pi (π) (1998). I guess some eight years on, I realize how much I took for granted those years at college and university where I was in an environment I could study at leisure film, media, and literature.

A hunger I’ve never truly sated. Do not misinterpret my sentiments, I wouldn’t trade my circumstances for anything, being married, being a parent; it’s the single most important thing I have ever done.

Who is straightnecked-Feck?!

SNF(sounds like some form of American Sports Association) it sort of my new Alias. I’ve been blogging on and off for the better part of a year now, and for the life of me I’ve never been clear what I wanted this to be about. For the most part I originally wanted to share my experiences about the industry I work, the good, and sometimes the very bad. Hence the need for Anonymity, but life has carried on, I now have a baby boy, and my little girl isn’t so little anymore. So I’ve ditched my old screen name and Blog address, CCWC (Confessions of a care work contractor just didn’t fit anymore.

I am also more aware than ever that my children may one day read this, and perhaps this might give them a snap shot into the muddled world of their old mans mind.

The name comes from a minor malady I’ve been recently been diagnosed with. I have a straight neck- ‘isn’t that normal?!’ you ask. Apparently not, normal necks have a curvature in the sine, mine does not. How this was caused I cannot say, I have been involved in five, yes 5 x car crashes all involving some form of whiplash. But the fact that I suspect that my snoring, which is linked to my sleep apnoea that I’ve had my entire life, somewhat makes me believe I have a congenital disposition.



Fortunately I’ve been getting treatment, as per my previous blog- Cracking. But I think the name fits quite well, its descriptive and self-deprecating, which comfortably suits my borderline manic-obsessive-depressive tendencies, a slightly neurotic writer, how original!

 


(Mine)                                    (Normal)

Silicon Glove

Being as conscientious as one can be in this age of penicillin resistant super bugs. One if fraught with the challenge of keeping oneself clean and heathy.

Most care homes, (should)have at least one hand dispenser pump, usually in the dirtiest place in the building. No not the toilet, that at least gets cleaned once a day.

No, I'm talking about the signing in book.

For you see, even diarrhoea can mean death for the elderly or ill.

For me, it's compulsive now. I see infection control stations, I have to use them. And it's not just because the alcohol clears my sinuses.

No, it's the fact that in all my life, I have never caught a vomiting bug, and though one time I had food poisoning from un-cooked sausage(a word I still struggle to spell) I never vomited. Begged for death, and felt so cold I nearly set myself alight cosy-ing up with a halogen lamp heater. But never sick.

Hospitals are the worst for me, there are so many pumps, so many infection control stations. I even cleanse my hands as per the twelve, yes 12, stage NHS prescribed hand cleaning process. OCD springs to mind.

But when you have to realise I come into contact with every bodily fluid and excretion you could imagine on a daily basis; with little more then out of use by date latex or vinyl gloves.

Cross contamination and MRSA are always sitting around in the back of my mind, metaphorically speaking.

The side effect of this is in fact less obvious, no not a weakened immune system. After a year or so, i hardly get ill, and my allergies have subsided. No doubt busy with a constant barrage of dirt

It is surprisingly, dermatitis. The skin on my hands, especially the corners of my fingers are nearly always split and dry. The answer came from my mother in law, a product from avon no less, it's called- Silicon Glove. And basically forms a barrier from which not alcohol can sting all the cuts and cracks in my dry mottled hands.




I guess I could of posted that I got some hand cream because my skin was dry. But that would hardly fill a page...

It can be purchased here...

http://reviews.avon.com/5588/33981/reviews.htm

Cracking

A local spine clinic were doing a special consultation offer, and the long and the short of it is, I'm seeing a chiropractor.

The stupid part is, I don't know why I never went to one sooner. And since Ive been going, I've sort of started converting others to the back cracking religion.(I ought to get commission for this)

Being a life long, undiagnosed- until recently sleep Apnea suffer- (basically I stop breathing while I'm asleep starving my brain of oxygen and causing sleep deprivation.) Not to mention the weakness in my right side and stiffness in my upperback.

I accepted that diagnosis, and the necessity to wear a breathing CPAP(looks like CRAP I know) machine for the rest of my life.

Wrong.

Turns out, among other things, the vertebra in my neck are misaligned, changing the shape of my throat causing it to close while I'm asleep.

To quote my chiropractor, Apnea is actually a medial term for something doctors don't know the cause for.

This is so typical of the NHS and most health services. About six years ago I saw this clip you tube, it was an animation highlighting the fixation with only treating symptoms not cures.

The animation crudely illustrated this using driving a car as a metaphor. In short, a town decided to reduce accidents(disease) by preventing skid marks(the symptom) on the road by covering the road in Teflon. In the process removing all the stop lights (the cause, American roads). Unsurprisingly the people making the decisions were also owners of the car repair shops so they had a vested interest in accidents occurring.

Like the NHS, quite happy to dish out pain killers to mask the symptoms rather the address the under line issues.

A simple x-ray of my neck could of identified the cause of my Apnea.

But instead, people like me, and people worst off. People like my brother with a slipped disk who's unable to work and is currently having his rent paid for by the state and is on incapacity. will probably never be able to support himself again, costing the state 16k a year just in housing benefit.

But for the price of 24 sessions- about £700. He can be cured and a productive member of society.

So why why why?! doesn't the NHS refer those type of maladies to specialists like chiropractors let alone offer the service themselves?!? A chiropractor is not a form of alternative medicine, it is medicine. I myself read the tarot and practice Reiki, helping and guiding people on a spiritual path.

I look at all those people with back 'ache' who sponge off the state, who, instead of paying for private investigators to follow them costing thousands; for £30, send them to a chiropractor and prove they don't have a problem!!

That's my rant for the day...