Firstly, I am pleased to report that my Mum (aged 79 and three quarters) underwent a very successful hip replacement yesterday and when I called the ward, the nurse I spoke to said that Mum was currently sitting up in a chair eating dinner and having a cup of tea. And that she had been walking around with the aid of a Zimmer frame (Mum would NOT have liked that, but would have done as she was told) and had been to the toilet, which I thought was too much information but necessary to know, I suppose, given how fixated hospital wards are about bodily evacuation habits.
The nurse also went on to say, ‘She’s a jolly little thing, isn’t she?’ which immediately went in my book of ‘Phrases To Cherish and Remember’ and which I shall repeat back to Mum when she goes off on one of her rants about the state of the world/ people/ Maidstone town centre/ the garden.
Later, I got to chat with her face to face via the magic that is FaceTime on my brother’s phone when he visited her. And she looked jolly animated and very excited by the whole adventure, and not like someone who’d had major surgery just hours previously. Of course, this could have been the combined effect of pain killers and relief that it was all over, but still - she looked and sounded just like Mum, only on speed, and I was pleased to see her thus. She’d had an epidural and sedative, and said she could feel that ‘something’ was going on, but was mostly drowsy, and it took only two hours post-op for her toes to start tingling with life again. The wonders of modern medicine eh? She was also shouting a lot, because she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids, and she couldn’t hear some of what I was saying, so I was shouting a bit and so was my brother, and I saw someone pull the curtains around my Mum’s bay, not that it would have made much difference noise-wise, but the thought was there.
If she’s had a good night and all is well, then she could be going home today. They’ve said she can swap her unattractive hospital gown for her normal day clothes today. None of this lounging around in a bed malarkey.
This morning, I made a favourite cake of mine - the cake tin was bare and that is always a sorry sight. And I thought I would share the recipe with you because it is jolly easy and full of goodness as far as cake can go. It’s a carrot, apple and sultana cake. It looks like this...
The nurse also went on to say, ‘She’s a jolly little thing, isn’t she?’ which immediately went in my book of ‘Phrases To Cherish and Remember’ and which I shall repeat back to Mum when she goes off on one of her rants about the state of the world/ people/ Maidstone town centre/ the garden.
Later, I got to chat with her face to face via the magic that is FaceTime on my brother’s phone when he visited her. And she looked jolly animated and very excited by the whole adventure, and not like someone who’d had major surgery just hours previously. Of course, this could have been the combined effect of pain killers and relief that it was all over, but still - she looked and sounded just like Mum, only on speed, and I was pleased to see her thus. She’d had an epidural and sedative, and said she could feel that ‘something’ was going on, but was mostly drowsy, and it took only two hours post-op for her toes to start tingling with life again. The wonders of modern medicine eh? She was also shouting a lot, because she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids, and she couldn’t hear some of what I was saying, so I was shouting a bit and so was my brother, and I saw someone pull the curtains around my Mum’s bay, not that it would have made much difference noise-wise, but the thought was there.
If she’s had a good night and all is well, then she could be going home today. They’ve said she can swap her unattractive hospital gown for her normal day clothes today. None of this lounging around in a bed malarkey.
This morning, I made a favourite cake of mine - the cake tin was bare and that is always a sorry sight. And I thought I would share the recipe with you because it is jolly easy and full of goodness as far as cake can go. It’s a carrot, apple and sultana cake. It looks like this...
I cut out that slice so you could see inside. It didn’t come out of the oven like that. For goodness sake.
Ingredients:
8oz self-raising flour
Half a teaspoon of baking powder
Half a teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
5 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 orange - use grated zest and all of juice
5oz Demerara sugar.
5oz finely grated carrot
1 medium eating apple, peeled, cored and grated
3oz sultanas
2oz pumpkin seeds
Take all the ingredients, chuck them in a bowl and mix together until they are well combined into a moist smoosh.
Place smoosh in an 8” round, lined with greaseproof paper, cake tin. Bake at 180C/Gas 4/ fan oven 160C for 50 minutes to 1 hour until cake pulls away from sides of tin. Cool before removing from tin. Eat.
The observant amongst you will see that not only is this cake a jolly nice fruit cake, perfect for cool Autumnal days, it also contains no eggs or butter which makes it suitable for vegan diets. I have used raisins instead of sultanas, and half wholemeal/ half white flour mix. If the apple skin is nice, I’ve not bothered peeling the apple. I have also coarse grated the carrot. And I have swapped the Demerara sugar for muscovado or light brown sugar. It’s a cake that is flexible according to the contents of your cupboards. All versions have turned out well!
If you can bear to divide it into 12 slices, each slice will be around 200 calories. But hey - who’s counting?
The sun is shining. All is right with this world.
Comments
KJ
KJ
KJ