As Time Goes By Page 3

  Let me steal five minutes

  To welcome in the dawn,

  To touch its dewy fingers

  As they creep across the lawn.

  To watch beneath a misty tree

  The sun roll back the night,

  Its beams transfusing darkness

  With soft translucent light,

  To hear the birds awaken

  With delight to meet the day

  Let their happiness infuse me

  To meet my day their way;

  Let this tranquil scene give balance

  To the busy day ahead,

  To create a tranquil pool

  For withdrawal inside my head.

  I found that once I had that bit of time to myself in the early morning I was then better able to cope with the demands of the day ahead.

  I find it wonderful – and necessary – to have at least one very comfortable armchair in which I can relax with ease. A comfort chair. Sounds simple? Amazing how many uncomfortable chairs you sit into in other people’s houses. My father, who was not into designer furniture, always advised that an armchair should have an upright, firm back to support your head and shoulders. It would be an extra plus to have one with those shoot-out foot rests to encourage relaxation. Have a few nice, fluffy cushions in your favourite colours. We are very influenced by colour and should surround ourselves with splashes of the colours we like best.

  On the wall opposite where you normally sit have a picture that delights you. It does not have to be a masterpiece. I have one of geese on the bank of a river, and I love it. Pleasant pictures around your house are conducive to uplifting, happy thoughts.

  I also have a lavender candle that I light on a gloomy day. Lavender is calming to the senses and a lighting candle is comforting. Occasionally I immerse a cut lemon, cloves and a stick of cinnamon in a saucepan of water and bring it to the boil. It cleans the air and fills the house with a pleasant smell. You can re-boil it daily for the same effect. Smells can be very powerful, peaceful and evocative.

  It is good to have a lavender eye-cushion, and occasionally take a little time out to lie down on a couch with your eyes covered and listen to your favourite music. For me, instrumental music is less intrusive and more calming than vocal, but this, of course, is purely a matter of choice. We are all different and need to figure out what suits us best. It is so important to have a bit of ‘me’ time. This is not selfish. It is helping you to help yourself, and then be able to help others if the need arises. There is a wise Chinese proverb that states: ‘Stretching herself too far for others she loses herself; the wise woman waters her own garden first.’

  If you have a garden or even a tub by the door, go out often and cut flowers, no matter how few there are, and arrange them on the kitchen table. It is amazing how few it takes to make an attractive arrangement. Even the very act of collecting fresh flowers makes you feel good. The touch, the smell and colour all affect our senses. You may not feel like doing it, but kick yourself out the door, and once you get going, the spirits lift. The very sight of the flowers on the table will brighten up your surroundings and make you feel better.

  To ‘practise what I preach’, just after writing this I got up and went out into the garden and collected hellebores, daffodils and some bright yellowish greenery. There is snow on the ground and the temperature is freezing, but the flowers glow on the table. They make me feel good. If you do not have a garden, why not occasionally spoil yourself by buying a bunch of fresh flowers that you can arrange yourself.

  Everybody’s day runs differently, but I find it is worthwhile to go for a walk at some stage. Walking releases the happy hormones. While walking, you may also meet people and see things that do you good. If the opportunity arises, take time to stop and have a chat. As Barbra Streisand sang in Funny Girl: ‘People who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.’ Sometime during the day, enjoy a little silence. Our senses are continually battered by sound and we need to give our heads a rest. Too much noise is vexatious to our spirit.

  Nighttime! Some people like a warm bedroom, but I am not one of them. I like the bedroom cool, but the bed warm. But it’s really all about what suits each of us. I love my electric blanket. We spend a lot of our lives in our beds so we need to make them as welcoming as possible. A well-rested body can cope with life better and also heals itself. Recently I got a gift of a duck down duvet and, oh boy, what a joy! It is like sleeping in a warm bubble. It’s made of cotton and filled with duck down from ducks reared on the Silver Hill Duck farm in Monaghan; the duvets are actually made on the farm too. I love it. Now I have invested in two pillows from the same place. Divine! Soft, warm and comforting.

  I find that all these little things help to prevent grey days coming my way and if they get in despite all my strategies, a ‘listening buddy’ is a great help. Not a Johnny Fix It, just somebody who will listen silently and who will bury what they hear in a deep hole of oblivion. They are gold dust in any life. But in order to have good friends you must be a good friend. It works both ways, and friendship, like a garden, has to be cared for and cultivated. How true is this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: ‘Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.’ And don’t you love people in life who are prepared to go the extra mile? They enrich all our days.

  We all need special tools in life to handle a day when the sun refuses to shine. And each of us has to go through the process of working out what works best for us. Sometimes it’s all about the little things – and little things can help a lot.

  Marmalade Making

  As the days of January lengthen, marmalade oranges begin to roll around in my head. They are shouting: We’ve arrived, we’re here, come and get us. It is that time of year again. I have a love/hate relationship with marmalade oranges, but the love of homemade marmalade always wins out.

  Recently I learned that marmalade making has an old history, with its origins stretching back to the sixteenth century when it was created by Mary Queen of Scots’ physician as he mixed oranges and sugar to help ease her sea sickness. Then later, when it became known that vitamin C prevented scurvy, it became a staple diet on seafaring ships. Fresh fruit would not last on long sea voyages but when preserved with sugar it provided a more varied diet for sailors. The threat of scurvy has long gone, but the art of marmalade making, which evolved from its eradication, has lived on. Many centuries later, a nun in Drishane convent, who had the impressive title of Madame St Benignus, which we pupils abbreviated to Benny, introduced me to the mastery of properly made marmalade. In retrospect, I realise that Benny definitely had a Captain’s Log mentality! She left nothing to chance and ran a tight ship. Her marmalade making was planned with rigorous precision. She had a Captain’s Log printed into her brain!

  I was dispatched back to Drishane for a year at the age of 17, where my mother felt I would be furnished with skills to enrich my life. I’m not sure that she really had it all thought out in precise detail, but that was probably more or less what she had in mind. In any case, that is exactly what happened.

  Amongst the many things they taught us was the art of practical home-making and what my Johnny Sound All ironically terms ‘good Protestant housekeeping’! At the time I thought: Who needs to know all this? But life teaches you many things, and probably one of the most important is the art of appreciation. One of the culinary arts instilled in us was the ability to make marmalade, which I then considered a pure waste of time. After all, you could buy a pot of marmalade in any shop. It took me years to appreciate what those dedicated nuns drummed into my uninterested head. I had a lot to learn!

  But back to the marmalade making. Like so many things in life, the thought of doing it is worse than the reality, and once you get going it can, like any creative experience, be deeply satisfying. But it is by far the most complicated and long-drawn-out of all jam-making processes because it has to be done in slow stages. Like all seasonal fruit, you have to do it within a certain timescale and the time for
marmalade oranges is January. All other jam making is usually confined to the summer and autumn months, so marmalade is a bit of a maverick. Most fruit used for jam is home grown, but the marmalade oranges come from Seville and the picking of them in sunny Spain must happen around Christmas. So, just when we in Ireland are bracing ourselves to face the harsh weather of the New Year, the golden Spanish oranges sail into our shops. Very different to ordinary oranges, they are smaller and a bit wizened-looking, extremely bitter and packed with pips, which are the setting agent. Unlike other oranges, they are not at this stage very appetising.

  Until recent years many people made their own marmalade, so you could buy your required amount of oranges. But not anymore. When I inquired about them this year I was told that I would have to take a full box because if I just took a small amount the shop could not sell the remainder. It was a case of all or nothing. When I told one of my sons this, he informed that this proved that the only ones now making marmalade were geriatrics – people off Noah’s Ark. I qualify on that front! And Protestants, he added. I did not qualify there, but the nuns had instilled the Protestant work ethic in me, hadn’t they?

  So, home came a full box of oranges – too much for me, but there is a solution to most problems. The solution here was a niece who is also a marmalade maker. We split the box of thirty-two pounds of oranges between us, which left me with sixteen pounds. Still a little too much for me, but there is never a shortage of candidates for the surplus marmalade. People love homemade marmalade, but they think it is too much trouble to make. I went through that phase a few years back and then had occasion to go into the Bon Secours hospital in Cork where the nuns were still in action, and still making homemade marmalade. I came home wondering why I had ever given up on it. So I began again.

  Sixteen pounds of oranges need to be divided into two jam-making sessions of eight pounds per session. Or four sessions of four pounds per session. The four pounds per session is probably the best option, as the faster you make marmalade the better the flavour, colour and quantity. After years of practice I have worked out a simple system that makes things as easy as possible. The first step is to lay out your requirements with a bit of law and order. An extremely large stainless steel saucepan is a great asset – something I did not have until my wise sister Ellen gave one to me one Christmas. It is a real blessing. Beside this goes the liquidiser, the arrival of which has taken a great deal of the hardship out of marmalade making. Before it came on the scene there was a lot of hand-slicing or using a mincer. Next requirement is a deep bowl or jug lined with a muslin cloth, and the cloth needs to be big enough to drape well over the edge of the container.

  As you can see, I still think in the old measurements, but all the new utensils have the new, metric measurements and in the old containers the guidelines have been worn away by time. No problem in today’s world. Google has the answer to everything. Recently, when I asked my daughter how many litres there were in six pints of water, she simply picked up her mobile phone and asked it: ‘Google, how many litres in six pints of water?’ and back came an instant answer. I was impressed! Pity that Google cannot make marmalade …

  The first step is to remove the pips from each orange, which entails cutting each one open right across the middle for easy access to the pips, and then extracting them with a kitchen devil knife – or your fingers, which actually do a better job. You perform this operation over a deep plate or a bowl to catch the resulting flow of juice. Then put the pips and juice into the muslin-lined bowl. Then the gutless oranges go into the liquidiser and when they are shredded to your satisfaction you pour the liquidised contents into the saucepan. You can fit about two gutted oranges into an ordinary liquidiser, so you gradually work your way down through the pile.

  Then it is the turn of the lemons. You will need four lemons with four pounds of oranges and eight lemons with eight pounds of oranges. The lemons have far less pips, but their rinds are much tougher than the oranges, so the liquidiser jumps around in protest at their resistance to submission – because of this it is a good idea to mix the lemons and oranges going into the liquidiser. With all the oranges and lemons in the saucepan you then gather up the ends of the overlapping muslin from the bowl, forming a little sack of pips, which you tie firmly with a strong cord. This has to be very secure because were it to break in the cooking the loose pips would ruin your marmalade. You then put this sack of pips into the saucepan and also pour in the juice that has collected beneath it in the bowl. Then, if you are doing four pounds of oranges you pour six pints of water into the saucepan, and double it for eight pounds. Stir well with a wooden spoon. Now, in order to have it properly mixed, you need to get your hand in there to do a right good job! Stage one is now complete.

  You leave this to soak overnight, or longer if you wish. One year, due to some distraction, I let it soak for a few days, which gave the oranges a longer period to soften, so they needed less boiling and resulted in better marmalade. A happy accident. But it is a case of whatever works for you!

  Now for stage two of the marmalade making. It is probably best to begin this early in the morning as it takes time and if you have an Aga, or any solid-fuel cooker, it needs to be at full heat from the beginning to see you quickly through to the end. Onto the cooker goes the now very heavy saucepan and gradually it comes to the boil. Allow it to simmer until the pectin is extracted from the pips. While this is in progress you need to stir it pretty regularly to avoid the contents sticking to the base as the water content evaporates during the process. To determine when it is ready for the sugar to be added there is a simple test: you warm a little glass and into it put a spoon of the marmalade juice, and when it has cooled you add three teaspoons of methylated spirits. If the juice clots firmly, it is ready for the sugar. This is a crucial point to get right because if you add the sugar too early you will have to over-boil to get the marmalade to set – this darkens the marmalade and reduces the flavour. So you need to make sure that it clots firmly at this point. When it does, you are ready for the sugar. For four pounds of oranges you will need about eight pounds of sugar. Sounds like a lot. It is! And it makes you realise the amount of sugar that goes into all jam.

  While the simmering is taking place it is a good idea to line the sugar up along the back of the cooker as warmed sugar dissolves more quickly. Once the sugar is added and dissolved, the secret then is fast boiling. The faster you can get it to reach setting point the nicer your marmalade will taste and look. It will retain its colour and flavour. To test setting point, you put some of the marmalade into a saucer and put it into the fridge to cool. When it forms a firm wrinkle along the top, you are readying for potting.

  By now, your saucepan is pretty heavy and you may require extra muscle to shift it from cooker to worktop. You remove the bag of pips, have a pyrex jug on hand for ladling out the jam and line up your jars – the easiest way to prepare your jars is to arrange to have them coming out of the dishwasher at exactly this time, sparkling clean and warm. A few years ago in Ballymaloe shop I picked up a little gadget that is an invaluable asset when filling the jars. It is a little stainless steel, round funnel that sits comfortably on top of all jars, and you simply pour the jam into it and it disappears into the jar without a drip or a smear. When I saw this I asked myself did I really need such a gadget, which was not exactly cheap, but then I gave myself I good kick in the ‘you know where’ and brought it home with me. I am so glad that I did! It was worth every penny in the long run and every year as I effortlessly fill my marmalade pots I say: Thank you, Ballymaloe. Once the pots are filled, you can leave the jam to cool and cover later, or you may cover it immediately. Like most things in life there are different schools of thought.

  After many years of marmalade making, I have now reached the conclusion that it is best for me to do four pounds of oranges per session, because then the cooking time is much reduced, resulting in a better flavour and nicer colour. With this method, I will have four marmalade sessions, but it’s well
worth the effort. And while the work is in progress, my kitchen is a haven of tranquility filled with the flow of creativity.

  When all is complete and you view the rows of richly glowing pots of marmalade, you get a wonderful sense of satisfaction because there is something deeply calming to the soul in a job well done. The entire marmalade making takes a few hours’ work during a few days of January, but for all the other days of the year you have the blessing of beautiful homemade marmalade every morning for your breakfast. Well worth the effort!

  Posher than Posh

  His father was the master in the local school and when further education was required he was sent away to boarding school instead of going to the small secondary school in the nearby town like the rest of us. When he came home on holidays he regaled us with stories of hunger, hardship and cold. But despite his disparaging accounts about his school, Ballyfin, I sensed that hidden beneath these harrowing details was a certain awe and deep admiration for this isolated, enormous, rambling old mansion that was sited in rolling acres of scenic countryside. His description of this old building that had once seen better days, and was now home to many young students being moulded into future Einsteins, was laced with details of high-ceilinged, draughty rooms and endless, meandering corridors. To me, it sounded like a fascinating place, and into the fertile soil of my teenage imagination went a picture of this decaying mansion and a huge desire to see it.

  Time passed by and Ballyfin got buried in the back pages of my memory. But then one night a few years ago, while I was channel-hopping on the TV, it sprang to life. On rare occasions when you channel-hop late at night you can fall upon a wonderful experience. Not often, but an odd time it can happen. And when it does, you will forever recall the experience with a sense of delight. It is as if you had found the gold nugget in a sieve full of sand.