Books, Chocolate and Liberty - What Better Topics ;)

1. What was your favourite book as a child?


I loved all the Enid Blyton books, and I spent many early mornings or evenings 'watching the smugglers arriving round the misty Butt'. I would have loved to have been one of the Famous Five. I would have been George, the tomboy who went nowhere without her adoring dog, Tim.


Another book I loved, and probably the one that stuck most with me was Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place. That book, along with other stories my father told us in our childhood, affected me in different ways:


- I have an abiding horror of what the power of the state can do. We must never, ever forget what happened in Germany in the 1940s, as well as what happened behind the Iron Curtain in communist USSR, and what is still happening in China. Liberty is not just a nice-sounding word in patriotic songs. It is what we ought to concentrate our efforts on establishing - if we do not have it - and on retaining - if we are blessed with it. We ought never to look to the State to be the guardian of our liberty or our well-being. I am frightened by what I see happening in my own beloved nation. Frightened, and saddened. 


- I developed a love for the Jews which has never left me. I weep over them and pray for them, and long for the day when they will look on Him whom they have pierced, and realize that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah for whom they still wait. 


2. Dark chocolate, Milk Chocolate or White Chocolate?


Milk chocolate every time.  Indeed any time. Day or night. 


Now, where is that bar I hid on the kids?


3. What's your biggest 'peeve' when it comes to your kitchen?


(apart from the fact that my kids find the aforementioned hidden chocolate?)


I really dislike it when guys come in from outside, come through the Utility room where they could wash their hands and arrive at my kitchen sink to wash their grubby paws.


Get Down to the Utility Room! Why on earth did you pass that sink to come up to where I have dishes??


Grrrrrr!


4. Do you use any type of water filter in your home?


Nope.


(Really showing my ignorance here: What does it filter out?)


5. What's the herb you use the most in cooking?


Coriander is my favourite herb (you call it cilantro across the Pond, don't you?). I have been very negligent over the winter, but am beginning to re-plant seed this week. I can't wait to have my own plants again. I have a couple of Thyme plants that survive the winter in a cold frame, and I do like Thyme with chicken.


Patrice, I can hardly believe the variation in temperatures you're having. We are on a much more even keel, but this past week has been absolutely gorgeous. Our temperatures have hit the heady heights of 16C (60F), and with blue cloudless skies, it felt positively Mediterranean. I could get used it, I tell you.


Our clocks changed this past weekend too, so our evenings are long and sunny and bright. If I get my camera sorted, you will soon be hearing me waxing lyrical (again) about our sunsets (again). Again and again, I suspect. 


Y'all are such a long-suffering group. I wonder that any of you keep coming back for more of the same. Maybe it's for Jackson you keep coming back, and so I shall post a photo of him here - just to make y'all happy.

In fact, I'll post a few from when he was just a little baby.

Have a great week, y'all! 


(You will have to excuse my "y'all".... I know most of you don't use that expression, any more than most of us Scots don't say 'Och aye the noo' (!!), but I love it, so bear with me, will you. You're such a kind bunch.)