The EasyJet Blog, Part Two, (The Ego).

The beach at Helios Hotel, Paphos.

Normally on the first night of a holiday by the sea, I wander down to let the waters nibble my toes, breathe deeply and greet the devas of the land.

This time I did just that too ... but it became a spiritual exercise to continually calm and release the chattering of my ego. The devas were a bit cross too at the start. Devas do like to be noticed and greeted and they made it quite clear that they don't give a flying you-know-what about lost suitcases. I could almost hear them sighing and saying, 'Get a grip, Whitehouse!'

Egos are brilliant for repeating things; they are the part of the brain that remembers stuff but they're not very good at anything new. You need the conscious self for that. The wonderful thing about holidays somewhere new is that we spend a lot of time conscious because the ego has nothing much to offer. Unless, of course, it can lock onto an old worry pattern. This aspect of the ego (Eckhart Tolle calls it 'the pain body') figuratively eats negative emotions and enjoys calling them up for a nice, yummy, supper.

But Cyprus was not a new country for us; some of our family live here and, the last time we visited, I was sick so that was the level of energy that my ego was just delighted to be offering.

The Hebrew word for ego is Yesod and it really was being a little sod that night. But at least I could observe it instead of being eaten up by it.

It was also doing its job in pointing out that Harold had been on the flight so something was seriously wrong. He wasn't just lost.

The only options, it said, were:

• He'd gone back to England. 
• He'd been damaged and hidden.
• He'd been stolen.

Option 1 was possible but doubtful as he'd been one of the last cases on the plane. Option 2 was also possible but seemed ridiculous. Option 3 was possible too but who would want one small case with a very old laptop and clothes? Harold himself was certainly a darling but cabin luggage isn't exactly the kind of thing hardened thieves fight over.

My ego went on (and on...and on...) remembering exactly what was missing inside Harold and giving me little digs about how utterly inconvenient it all was. Even when we went to bed in our lovely appartment at Helios Bay Hotel, just as I was dropping off, it brought up, 'and another thing...'

Given that Harold had contained essentials, this is what Yesod, with clever little jerks of distress, worked out was missing:

1. Two bras (I always travel in a Patra crop top).
2. Seven pairs of knickers - and with no balcony to our room the one pair I had would have to dry over the back of a chair which wasn't going to happen very fast! 
3. Swimsuit.
4. Sunglasses.
5. Ariadne's present.
6. Black silk trousers.
7. White linen top - these two were the clothes I was going to wear for the family party in two days' time.
8. Laptop computer with all my contacts on it.
9. Computer lead.
10. Mobile phone lead.
11. Lion's iPad lead.
12. The beautiful turquoise top, given to me by my Bishop when I was going to perform at the Edinburgh Festival. 
13. Sun dress. 
14. Cotton trousers. 
15. My blue embroidered waistcoat.
16. Two teeshirts.
17. Hairbrush.
18. Handkerchiefs.
19. My birthday cards for the next day (and a present).
20. Olive-coloured bolero.
21. The lovely golden silk scarf, given to me by my friend, Bernadette.
22. Some jewelry.
23. All my vitamins and medicines (including painkillers).
24. A hessian bag for the food shopping we planned to do because we were self-catering.

I won in the end, and the last thing my ego offered did make me laugh. It pointed out that if I were to have any genuine cause for complaint to the airline should Harold not return, I had absolutely no right to enjoy myself in the meantime. I should be miserable. Cunning! But that one's not going to work. :-)

The EasyJet Blog, Part One: Vicars Need Knickers.

I had this suitcase.
It was a sweet, happy little suitcase that had lived with us since last August, making its own nest in the cupboard in Lion's office together with the other suitcases. They got on well.
The other suitcases would tell it stories of their travels. Some of them had been to the USA, all of them had been to Europe. One of them had even been to Russia and China. That one shows off a bit but we forgive it because it's a bit of a Velveteen Rabbit.
But Harold (did I tell you the suitcase's name was Harold?) had a favourite amongst the other cases: unfortunately - hindsight is everything - his favourite was Colin.

Harold was in awe of Colin (pictured left) because Colin had an adventure on the way home from my visit to Albuquerque last April. Colin made it to New York city and then went AWOL. He took in a couple of Broadway shows, a Nascar race, ODd on Maple Syrup and hit on some pretty hot babes (that's not my bikini!). It took Colin five days to get home but he made it in one piece with many outrageous stories to tell.
Even so, Colin is an old campaigner; we've had him for more than five years and Harold was just a baby (excuse me while I wipe away a tear from writing the word 'was').
I don't even have a picture of Harold ... sniff.
But, back to the story. We were going to Cyprus on holiday and it was to be Harold's first ever trip on an aircraft, let alone abroad. He was so excited and perfectly happy that his job was to be cabin luggage because Harold knew just how important cabin luggage is to me. He didn't feel any the lesser because his great friend, Colin, was going in the hold.
I've travelled all over the world and I know about Colins and airlines and stuff getting lost. So Harold was thrilled to be packed with the absolute essentials for the first couple of days of our trip. He had my laptop, all our phone leads, some birthday cards and a present for me from a friend as it was my birthday the day after we arrived in Cyprus. He had the clothes I was planning to wear for the family birthday party we were having with our adopted son Tim, his wife Natasha, and four-and-a-half-year-old Ariadne in a couple of days' time and Ari's present (a beautiful pair of embroidered slippers from India). Even more importantly, he had all my vitamins and medicines - which are essential to keep me out of pain from the after-effects of a long illness a while ago and last, but not least, both of my bras and all my knickers.
We checked Colin in at bag drop and took Harold and Josie, the other cabin baggage, to the gate. At which point, the EasyJet staff informed us that the aircraft was full and that our cabin baggage had to go in the hold.
Harold gibbered with joy. He was to have a big adventure and travel with Colin! He was so excited to have a baggage label put on him and I was happy for him too. Lion and I actually watched him being carried onto the aircraft and we knew he'd find Colin in the hold and snuggle up if he found it a bit scary.
On the flight, Lion and I listened to recordings of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and had a great flight. We didn't worry about our batteries getting low because Harold had all the leads.
And then we landed. We were at the carousel at Paphos before it started to move and I couldn't wait to hear how Harold had got on. He was a jolly little suitcase and I knew he'd chat all the way to the hotel.
First Colin arrived. Then Josie. And then nothing.
Harold wasn't there.
Lion had gone through to the arrivals hall to sort out our transfer to the hotel so it was just me, suitcaseless in the baggage area, alone.
I reported Harold missing to a nice woman from LGS, the luggage people at Paphos. She didn't understand my concern - that I'd actually seen Harold go on the plane and she assumed that he had missed it. Her English was better than my Greek but the message didn't go through. In any case, there was nothing to do but leave Harold behind, assuming that he simply hadn't got off the plane and would return (again) with the next EasyJet flight to Paphos.
Apart from anything else, I really, really hoped that would be the very next day. Tim was due to text us with the venue in the morning and I had very little battery left and one of the downsides of the connected world is that you don't memorise mobile phone numbers. I needed my painkillers. And more than that ... trust me, vicars need knickers.

Wild Garlic Digestives

I'm learning to forage. It's something you have to be careful about but I'm a member of a Facebook group called Wild Food and Hedgewitchery which keeps us on the straight and narrow and allows us to post pictures to check what we've found is edible.

But wild garlic is fairly easy to spot; you just rub your fingers on the leaves and they smell of garlic. There was a great pathway of new growth  on Friday's beagle walk and I thought, this time, I'll do it!

Oh my! It's delicious all on its own but I was planning to make some gluten-free digestives and after crushing the leaves with a pestle and morter, added them into the mix.

Yes, I know they're not pretty (if you've read this blog before you'll know I'm not an artistic cook 😄) but oh my! Talk about yummy. With digestives, I can generally get the dough into the oven without too much interference but about a quarter of this stuff was gone before I could get it onto the tray.

I'm pretty sure that if you made the mix with a bit more care, you could roll them out and make them with a round cutter but they won't taste any better!

Recipe:

GF Digestives

12g porridge oats
20g mixed pumpkin, sunflower and flax seeds.
75g Dove’s Farm GF plain flour (or use the SR but don’t add baking powder)
½ tbsp baking powder
Large pinch salt
25g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp soft butter
1 tbsp goat (or other) milk

Preheat oven to 200c/Gas 6
Line baking tray with parchment

Blitz oats and seeds in food mixer
Add flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and butter and whizz until well mixed
Knead briefly on a floured board and roll out (if you like neat stuff!) and cut into shapes about 3mm thick
Otherwise, spoon onto baking sheet and flatten with fingers

Bake for about 12 minutes until lightly golden.

Flushed with success, I made a wild garlic cauliflower cheese last night. Yum!

The Three Day Fast

I'm on a three day fast. Which means no food at all. Nada. It's not fun but it is interesting.

And of course, I've just driven myself crazy posting a picture of a quiche I made because you're 'supposed' to have a picture on a blog posting. Sometimes I do make myself laugh...

So, you say, why are you doing the fast if you don't enjoy it? Who would?! But there are three reasons really - it's good for my body and it's good self-discipline - and because of John-down-the-road.

When I was ill a year or so ago, I ate very healthily but since then I've gone back down the 'yummy carbs' route probably because I'll never be one of those people who only eat to live. I love my food! And I love baking and making treats for others.

When I was sick I ate keto as much as I could - no sugar, virtually no carbs for 18 solid months (and no alcohol either). I certainly got slender - though ironically that wasn't any part of the goal - and people said that I'd never want to go back to sugar. Really? On what planet? I have to say I'd love to be one of those people who genuinely discovers that sugar no longer appeals but it certainly wasn't the truth for me.

When I bake nowadays I bake gluten-free (which is probably why so much of my food is messy - see articles below!) but I still include maple syrup or sugar when the recipe requires it. I focus on the gluten-free not because I'm coeliac but because I just think it's healthier. Who knows how much mess there is bound into most gluten? Apart from anything else, most pesticides are formulated to destroy the insect's stomach and if you have enough of that in your own tummy ... well, need I say more?

Incidentally, the quiche pictured is 50-50 gluten free and normal flour. That was quite simple: I just made two pastries and stuck them together. The non GF half was for my husband.

It would, of course, be healthier to drop the sugar too - but I don't want to. And I am a fervent believer that what makes you happy is a valid pathway to greater health. Eat as well as you can and eat happily and you are doing okay. I hardly ate happily any day for those 18 months; it was a grind and that's not how I want to live my life. It's not healthy!

There is research that supports what seems to be true for me - that the body tries to re-build the fat it used to have before you dieted/got sick. It seems that it believes that being skinny is not the accepted, healthy norm for it - and as the dieting doesn't actually remove the fat cells, just makes them skinny. They want to fill out again.

Hence the fast. I reckon that if I want to stay as healthy as possible and I intend to eat stuff that is 'bad for me' and which makes me joyful then I also need to allow my digestion and immune system the chance to take some time out and re-set itself. Here's an article about it. If there's no food to process, the stomach can rest ... and if there's nothing to spark any reactions, the immune system can get on with sorting out what really matters like any rogue cells, that sniffle that's gone on too long or anything else that might need repairing.

What's fascinating is that, here on day two, I'm not hungry. Truly, there has been no rumbling yet at all. But I miss the routine of eating breakfast, lunch, tea and supper with my husband, I miss the anticipation of meals, I miss the cooking. And I miss the food!  I can smell Lion's lunctime soup and his supper much more than I would notice the scent of my own food. And I'm finding it hard to concentrate which means my blood sugar is (understandably) low. But I'm incredibly proud of myself. In many ways I lack self-discipline but this is an exercise in just that and it's pleasing that I am ready, willing and (so far) able to do it.

Oh...the bit about John-down-the-road: John is an incredible man who heals people with chronic pain through EFT and kinesiology. He truly has had some wonderful results but, just like all healers, he has had his failures too, including, partially, himself. He had arthritis. Now he didn't have it like he 'should' have had it because of his work on himself and his diet and his beliefs; it has reduced and reduced since he started healing work and became simply faint but it was still there. So John (who has shedloads of money and never charges for his healing work - bless him) went off to Arizona to do a three week fast, to reset his immune system enough to clear his arthritis.

This fast was fully medically supervised - he wasn't even allowed to leave the facility which, to me would have been hell! - and all he took in for 21 days was water. He was bored out of his brain but he did it.

And the arthritis went.

Now, I don't have the guts to do 21 days but I can be inspired by John and I can manage three days and I can intend to do this at least every six months as an act of love towards this marveous, beautiful body of mine.

And on Friday, I can have another of those uttely yummy GF, organic brownies I made on Sunday. If Lion hasn't scoffed the lot.

Baby Chickens

We have baby chickens. They're almost stolen baby chickens because they came from eggs I got from  proper chickens down the road when one of our bantams went broody. They gave her something to sit on and, to be honest, I never thought for a moment they would hatch!

Woodpecker Teeth

Our darling Razzle, the sweetest, most loving, gentle beagle in the world used to do woodpecker teeth when we were preparing her food. That's the only way to describe it. She rattled her teeth like a good 'un.
RIP dearest Razzle, AKA Thunderfeet MegaBeagle (Mrs). We gave her back to the Great Mother and she now lies deep under the vegetable patch. I still cry when I think about her or write about her - it is only three months - even though we have her daughter Callisto now to lift our hearts and drive us (and our other beagle, Dessy) crazy as only a beagle can do.

Maggy at BosFest, Somerset 2017

Here's my latest comedy video, filmed by Dorian Wainwright at Bosfest. I started performing in my dog collar at the advice of my bishop, of all things. To start with, I was careful not to do so but I have a pretty brilliant bishop who thinks that comedy is part of my ministry. The only problem with that is that he will keep sending me jokes... :-)