The Elixir of Youth

by Ruth Valerio on September 13, 2010
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We got the first Harry Potter film out on DVD for our kids to watch this week. Although they've seen bits of various films on the television, it's the first time they've properly sat down and encountered Harry Potter. As I'm sure most of you will know, this first film revolves around the Philosopher's Stone. Someone had been using it to keep themselves going and he was outrageously old! When the stone was eventually destroyed, the poor chap had to put his affairs in order and prepare for the end.

The desire to evade the encroaching signs of old age are all around us, with hair dyes to cover up the grey, make up and face creams to 'avoid the appearance of wrinkles', exercise regimes to keep us trim and, for the more desperate, face lifts and tummy tucks. We're immersed in a culture that tells us there is something wrong with getting old, and we fall for those messages hook, line and sinker.

This struck me last weekend when I was at a friend's fortieth. We were discussing age and I said to another friend next to me, 'you must be fifty soon, aren't you?' Those around me hooted with laughter and made out I'd made a terrible faux pas by asking such a question. Someone else nearby said that they were approaching fifty, 'but don't remind me'.

What I want to know is, what's the problem with getting old? Why do we think it's such a terrible thing, something to be fought against and not talked about in polite society? I'll be forty in a couple of years' time, and I can see the grey hairs and the wrinkles making their mark. So what should I do? Should I dye my hair too and start wearing make-up to fool myself and others as to how old I am? I don't think so! I want to fight against this society's obsession with defying age, and learn how to embrace it positively, as something that is beautiful and that is to be respected and admired.

Chilli Fiesta

by Ruth Valerio on September 2, 2010
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This is me, helping my lovely friend Rosemary Moon with a food demo at the Chilli Fiesta at West Dean Gardens. She was there all weekend, working wonders with chilli and creating various culinary delights, but she asked me to join her for this particular one in which she was making salami. So we stuffed salami skins together ('ooh er' jokes aside please) and chatted pigs and pork and politics and generally had great fun together.


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West Dean Gardens are really good at promoting seasonal, local ingredients with their various festivals (look out for their Totally Tomato show coming soon, and their Apple Day in the autumn): nearly 20,000 people went to the Chilli Fiesta and got a chance to look round the stalls, sample and buy, see the beautiful walled garden and view the award-winning collection of chilli plants (West Dean has the largest collection in the world). Rosemary also runs workshops for them and shares an allotment in the grounds with the Head Gardeners. We need people and organisations who dedicate themselves to promoting the good things that are around us, and it was a pleasure to be involved in something that was doing just that.

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In praise of yurts

by Ruth Valerio on August 13, 2010
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We've just come back from the Cotswolds, staying in a yurt. It was quite funny beforehand seeing people's reactions when I told them that was what we were doing for our summer holiday, and just reinforced to me all I've written about elsewhere in 'Oh to be a hippy': some just laughed; on FB I had comments about nude dancing and was I mad?! It honestly really took me by surprise! Actually, it was definitely more along the lines of 'glamping' (glamorous camping, for the uninitiated) than any sort of hippy activity: proper double bed for Greg and me, sheepskin rugs on the floor, comfortable seating, inside woodburning stove and all linen and kitchen things provided. There was even a compost toilet!

Our yurt was beautiful: set in a little woodland glen, surrounded by wildflower meadows, with loads of butterflies, and a robin and squirrel who would come onto our decking area and eat the scraps we left out for them. One afternoon as Greg was sitting out on the decking, the squirrel shinned up the pole next to him, along to the frying pan that Greg had used earlier to fry some eggs in, and began licking out all the butter at the bottom! There was a tree house and swings in the woods which the kids enjoyed, and we all tucked up in our beds together in the evenings with the log burner and candles burning and I'd read to them.

What was interesting was being away for five days with no electricity, which of course meant no computer and no television. It would be fair to say that there were a couple of points when the kids missed being able to flop in front of the TV and it was intrigued to watch them cope with it and have to find other quiet things to do. For me, it was bliss, and I found it really intrusive once we were home and the TV was on again. Thinking about it, the only thing I missed was running hot water for the washing up. It made me realise how little we really need to be complete.

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Picnic on the Plot

by Ruth Valerio on July 11, 2010
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With church bells ringing, the sun quietly sliding behind the trees, runner beans flowering and pea pods plumping, the hard work of having an allotment and/or growing your own vegetables was forgotten, as members of the Transition Chichester Grow Your Own group enjoyed a picnic on Ann's allotment plot.

Watched over by Ann's scarecrow Alice, the problems of getting lettuce to grow (put the seeds in the fridge overnight was Cathy's suggestion), the realisation that we were all suffering with black fly on our runner beans this year (not to mention the broad beans), and the challenges of keeping going when sometimes it just seems so much easier to buy from the supermarket, were all discussed.

We also heard about Anita's trip and attendance at two transition events and were fascinated about the ancestors' activity; some attendees sat in an 'inner circle' representing the people of today whilst others sat in an outer circle, representing people of 2050; it was interesting to think of the questions we would ask.

An after picnic tour of the plots brought us back to the now and we packed up, enthused and energised ,to water and weed our respective vegetable patches, before re the moon finally took over the lighting of sky.
(Thanks to Ann Emery for this account)
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