Carol Yeomanson Books

So one of the things I love is to cook, so let me share one of my unusual recipes with you and believe me I have a collection. This one is from 14th Century Germany. It’s called Heathen Cake.

2lbs Ground Beef

I pack Back Bacon

I small Onion

I tablespoon Salt

I carrot roughly chopped

I tablespoon pepper

1 stick Celery

2 large apples

Water

2 pie Crusts

2 Tablespoons Italian Herbs

I dozen large eggs

Combine the Beef, Carrot, Celery and Apples and herbs with enough water in a stock pot and bring to a simmer and shred. Cook Bacon until Crisp. Remove Bacon and allow to drain. Cook Diced Apple in the Bacon fat. Remove apple and drain on paper. Combine Beef, Apples. Bacon, Eggs, Salt and Pepper. Turn into pre baked Pie Crusts. Bake at 400F for 10 12 minutes until egg is set.

Each pie will serve 6 to 8 people

Yes, it sounds strange – but try it out. As we say unless you give something a try – you will never know what’s it’s like !!!

A NEW WAY OF DEALING WITH MIGRAINE

As you all know I’ve suffered from Migraine headaches since I was six years old.

They ruled my life and crippled me. There were so many things that I couldn’t do including driving a car because I was never sure whether or not I was going to get an attack while I was behind the wheel.

Suddenly I was given a plunger that contained a small amount of a new drug that went straight to my brain and within twenty minutes the migraine that had always crippled me is gone.

My son and I playfully call them my UP THE NOSE JOB. I never go anywhere without one now but at least I have a normal life now.

Yesterday my son and I went to what was supposed to be a Christmas Concert at Glyndebourne. This was our experience and I know there are others out there who will disagree with me, which is their right.

Will either of us ever go back again – NEVER.

We live in London but Glyndebourne was one of those places that had been on our Bucket List so we thought it would be a lovely thing thing to do with Christmas coming up, so, despite the dreadful weather we went. We had booked a box for two people and taken our own Picnic Basket to eat in the Marquee. To find that our name wasn’t on the list to eat in the Marquee, but it all turned out to be alright, because we had been upgraded to the “Posh” Marquee for some reason. So in we went, and were told to unpack our picnic and start eating, which we did. Other people did the same. We had bought out food from Marks and Spencer and that’s when our first problem became obvious.

Our selection of cold meats, breads, cheese, cracker, and other finger food just didn’t match up to the foods that the other people, who obviously came every year just didn’t match up to the food the other people had, and our poor Colin the Caterpiller Cakes – well they signed our Death Warrant in that Marquee – let me tell you. You could hear poor Colin sobbing his little eyes out back in London!!! There was one man, dressed in evening dress with his wife, who had brought a container full of ‘his’ home made soup, his home grown chopped herbs, containers of salt and ground pepper.

This is the same man, who wore a bright pink tie, matching pink cuff links and matching bright pink socks of course!

Anyway, we were allowed to leave our Picnic baskets in the Marque and walk into the Hall. Hall? hall? That place in like – lets just say it’s enormous and you need a Guide Book to find your way around – and that’s if your’e lucky. So Jack and I are looking for Red 20. When we finally found it I felt like shouting out Bingo! I need a toilet Mum he said. Be back in minute. Minute? I sat there, and sat there. I started to wonder if I would ever see the poor soul again!! Finally he re-appeared and we sat on a bench outside Red Door where our Box was, bearing in mind we had booked a Private Box for two.

Lovely lady on the door. She told us the time the doors open. No problem there, then she said But it might be – this time – oe that time – – or on the other hand it could be……….

I got visions of a a very old t.v. series I used to watch and loved. It was an off shoot of Are You Being Served but it was called Are You Being Served Again!!!

In the end it was a completely different time!!!

I admit my patience was starting to wear just the slightest bit thin.

Can I search your bag? says another young man. Bearing in mind I’ve only got a very small handbag.

“What for?” I asked politely bearing in mind you can’t get a thing in it hardly except a handkerchief and my reading glasses.

“We had Just Oil in here” he said looking proud of himself bearing in mind I was feeling fed up by this time and snapped back “Really, back in London we cope with people who carry Bombs!!!”

So onwards are upwards to our Private Box. That’s when Jack was ready to give us, but as your know I do not give. I fight my corner and I fight to win.

This so called private box was so small that when the two of us were in it,, we couldn’t stand up. TRUTH. We were supposed to have two chairs. What we actually had were Two bar stools. TRUTH. One in front of the other. I am 72 years old, and I’m not very tall. So I couldn’t get up on mine. When I finally did, the supposed Private Box was so small that I was actually learning up against Jack’s knees and making his uncomfortable. When we called for the Manager, and asked to be moved to a more suitable box, we were told NO. So we said that’s fine then, just give us a refund, and we’ll go home. We were told NO. When I told her than I will go to every Newspaper out there and tell us how you treated us, she suddenly found us a box for two with a restricted view and two Chairs. However, they were still wooden chairs.

So yes, I will accept that we did book a box of two, but we were told that we could move our seats around. Move the seats around? You are joking!!! Stools that are so high that you can’t get up on and your feet are dangling off the end of. Plus if you book a box – you haven’t got a door on it – from what I remember – you kind of walk along – turn – walk down a step and there you are!!!!!

No thanks Glyndebourne – we’ll stick to London in future.

I’d like to chat this time about a lovely place called Glenormiston Smallholding.

The lovely people who run the Smallholding moved there, which is their home seven years ago. It’s not only their home, they have a little bit of land, they grow fruit and vegetables and have a few sheep. NOW this is where it becomes interesting.

The lady of the house starting crafting with the wool from the sheep. She started making Christmas Baubles and Christmas Decorations, Lavender Pillows with the lavender grown on their own land, wreaths with their own home grown Willow Inspiration is taken from the Countryside and the animals and birds around the smallholding.

In the last couple of years hand stitched leather products were also introduced. All the leather is hand stitched. All the leather is a mix of English and Italian, and everything is made in a sustainable way.

If you want hand quilted Quilts, Cards, and leather Love Heart Gifts, then take a look at Glenormiston Smallholding.

If you are on Social Media you will find them on Facebook.

Their theme is Quality Workmanship, Quality Materials, and their own Creativity and that is exactly what you will get.

As you all know my passion amongst loads is Ancestry. I love finding out about my past and going back as far as I can. Nothing shocks me. The good, the bad and the really bad. I’m not in line to the Throne and believe me I wouldn’t want to be. It seems I am related to the Royals going back and back via my Grandmother on my Father’s side, but then I’m sure thousands of people who have done a DNA test are. Is it true? I’ve no idea but after all they did dig up the bones of someone Royal blood or so they tell us, so who am I to argue.

I am surprised though at the amount of Family I’ve got in Australia. I know my Great Grand Mother threw one of her sons out onto the street and he went there by passage to make a new life but it seems he had no children. Then there was Old Mary as we call her. She landed in Canada Bless her heart. One of my Grand Mothers something of other removed. Long Dress, dainty head covering, carried a Bible. Must have forgotten to tell the Authorities she had just come out of prison had old Mary!!!

Now I’ve had a look in Ancestry as I’m doing this. Nicola Adams the Boxer has 26 percent in common with me for fitness! Excuse me here. Nicola is a Boxer and young. I’m 71 years old, with a back problem. Think maybe they might have got this wrong somewhere????

I have found some family though so I’m not really complaining. A Cousin in Hawaii. Family in the U.S. and so many Family in Australia and New Zealand.

But back to the past. My Dad had one Sister. My Auntie Emily. She was – I don’t know. A good time girl of her day? She had two children, by a man she never named. My Dad was so ashamed of her. Two children out of wedlock in those days and the Father disappeard to – well – anywhere. Am I ashamed of my Auntie Em? No. Why should I be? One lived until she was eighty years old and was my Cousin Elizabeth. She had five children and there are some older than me now and we still keep in touch.

Admiral Richard Hawkins is my DNA match and Mary Bushe was in Hobart Womens Prison is also a DNA match.

One of the strangest things ever happened to me recently. My son and I love to go Horse Racing. We were sitting at our usual table in Sandown Park’s Members Room having a cup of tea and chatting to one of the Security Guards about when we were much younger and it turned out that we had known each other when we were children because our families had lived a few streets away from each other. How about that for co-incidence???

So take my advice and never be ashamed of your past!!!!

This viewpoint angered and upset me this morning which is why I chose to use the power of a blogger to speak out. It concerns what happens to the bodies of our much loved Race Horses when they die.

I’ve never really given it much thought. Mainly because I’ve not liked to. The thought of my beloved Shishkin going up in flames – I can’t cope with although I do believe there are some Cemetaries for Race Horses somewhere. I do realise though that bodies of Race Horses do have to be cremated but surely they do deserve respect?

This statement said that a Certain Royal said that they have no problem at all with Horse Meat – being sold on as food. Any horse meat as I understood it. Now I can’t even – in my own mind – even make excuses for eating Horse Meat during the War. Horses as I understood it played their own part during the way and did win medals.

A Royal though to make that Statement? Who is supposedly a lover of animals? Maybe sometimes it’s better to keep your opinions to yourself and this might have been one of those?

Both my son and I are very proud to to be Members of the Worshipful Company of Educators and enjoy our time with them, but last night we both left feeling very hurt and upset. My son is a Livery Man. I don’t have Livery Status, by choice. We arrived dressed in our Gowns, were offered drinks and found seats until called to watch the Installation Ceremony of our New Master which is always lovely. Then went into the Hall to find out seats for the Dinner. That is where our problem really started.

Jack and I were seated facing each other. To my right was a lovely young Gentleman, who chatted to me. To my left, and to my sons – either right or left – depending on how you look at it – were a group of Clerks. Who quite honestly in our humble opinion shouldn’t have been seated there.

Why? They have a perfect right I can hear you saying? Fine they might have had a perfect right – I agree. If they had behaved a bit better and not spoiled the evening for us. If I said we felt like something the dog had just done on the best sofa in the house – even that wouldn’t have covered it!

The one to my left – and obviously I’m not going to tell you who he was on here – couldn’t wait to tell me how he pops into Buckingham Palace any time he wants and his family are such good friends with the Royals, and how it must have been so dreadful for me – being brought up in the poor family that I was. In fact, being honest the rat made my son cry at the table and in the end he was fighting back the tears because – well he just wasn’nt good enough for the Educators was he???

When he asked me what I did I told him that I did a lot of work for the Mission to Seafarers. Excuses me Sir – You are the Clerk to the Master Mariner over here – you don’t seem to know much about the Mission to Seafarers and their work and their Volunteers??? Maybe you were too busy Hob Nobbing at the Palace with the Royal Family to notice people who actually worry about the Crew on the ships lovey!!!!

Yes, I know I’m ranting on this page. It’s because I’m furious and I’m hurt at the treatment he got as a Livery Man. People made my son cry and I would have expected better of the Worshipful Company of Educators.

As you know my son and I love our Racing. We have shares in a lot of Race Horses, so we decided to take a trip to Newmarket and take a look around, spend time up on the gallops watching the horses exercise and generally enjoy a weekend away.

So we had booked a couple of rooms in a Best Western Hotel. That was our first mistake. We got there. Tried to book in. Very nice young man who hadn’t got a clue what he was doing, of why we were there. Now having had a small amount of luggage that might have been obvious you would have thought? For some reason our rooms were on different floors. Well Jacks was on a floor about mine and then quite a walk away. This Hotel was based on some sort of prison. Awful wasn’t the word for it. Stark, brick built. Grey in colour. So we go to our rooms. Fine, pretty basic. First think I notice is no toilet brush in my room. So ask me why that was important to me? Well if any of you know about suffering from this perishing condition called Diverticulitis – which I do – you will know while it’s vital – and I mean vital – to have a toilet brush in your room.

So I’ve missed out about our day before we got to the Hotel. Sorry. We stopped off at the Race Horse Museum and had a look around. Absolutely wonderful, and what made it even better was that there was seating for people who need to sit every now and then like me. All the different rooms were clearly marked. Obviously there was the shop you could buy from, but if I’m honest everything in the shop was educational or – what am I trying to say? Not a bit of junk in sight. Some gorgeous bags. Evening and day which I didn’t bother with and then of course who got back to the Hotel and found a walloping great hole in the bottom of her bag? We decided to have lunch in the Museum Restaurant. Marks out of 10 – 60 at least.

We decided to spend the evening in the Hotel Bar because it said you could get Bar Snacks and we knew we had to be up and out for 6am next morning to be on the gallops to watch the horses train. Bar snacks – as she falls down laughing!!!! The Bar Snacks were actually a bag of crisps, one flavour only – that was it. Never mind said Jack. I’ll pop to the Garage and get something. Sorry was the rebuke of the staff. We don’t allow you to bring food in Fine – there was a Fish and Chip shop over the road but we’d already had a huge lunch. So this is a Hotel, selling alcohol, from early evening onwards to people, but they don’t sell any kind of snack except bags of crisps, and one flavour only but won’t let you so much as bring in another bag of crisps. It has to be bought there.

I had a sleepless night due to the fact that they allow dogs. Now this might be fine but there was definitely a dog that barked all night long in a room close to me. I don’t dislike dogs but wouldn’t you have thought the owner would have take ‘Mutley’ out for a walk away from people trying to get some sleep.

Up early the next morning, and we were on the Gallops for 6.15am. It was beautiful. Really what we had come for. We knew the Trainers, we knew exactly who’s string was who’s and they waved to us as they went past. Thankfully the weather was good. Alright we needed a coat, but we could get out and watch. We were so close to the horses as well. They started at around 6am and the final string came through at sometime after 11am.

We had booked Afternoon Tea and in all fairness to the Hotel it was gorgeous. Just the normal Afternoon Tea but they had laid a special table for us in the Corner but it was lovely and they did make us feel very special.

In the evening, something amazing happened. A coach full of ‘kids’ arrived complete with three adults. Now all we could make out was that these so called kids were French and very well ‘controlled’ Now that’s a funny word to used about kids being controlled but they were. Two men and a women and these men were enough to scare me let alone them.

So my curiosity had got the better of me and I spoke to our Bar Lady and she said Oh they come every year. They come over from France – every one of them is a Trainee Jockey.

Trainee Jockey’s???? They didn’t look old enough. Are they just out of school!!! It was true though. All these kids were trainee Jockey’s. So me being me went to talk to the Lady in Charge and she was so lovely and thanked me coming over to ask after them and translated what I had said to them. So I never know, some day one of these kids might win the l’Arc or whatever it is.

So our next day was supposed to be a visit to Tattersalls to see a Horse Sale which had been on my Bucket List. What do they do? Cancel it because they didn’t have enough Horses to have a sale. Typical my luck! We were going to Ely but then didn’t much fancy that either, so just checked out which was a blessed relief if I’m honest, and then made our way home. We did say though that we would go back again and watch a Sale at Tattersalls but next time we would stay in Jockey Club Accomodation.

Would we stay in a Best Western Hotel again. Never as long as I live thanks very much.