Fifty shades of Roy

My Grandad or "Poppa Roy" as he was known to his friends was the patron saint of pork pies! He was a big gentle giant of a man who had the most beautiful twinkly eyes as bright as polished Whitby jet. He wasn`t very old when he died but his life had been full of kind deeds and the legacy he left us all was Love. Whenever we are going to the supermarket we say out loud "find us a parking spot Poppa Roy" and he always does.
He had huge hands and a huge heart, a weak one unfortunately for us all. Whenever I saw him he was rattling the tins in the pantry looking for lemon curd tarts or rock buns. He only ate brown bread which my Grandma made for him most days. Like me his idea of Heaven was a walk along Filey beach and Fish and Chips from Browns chippy or a fresh crab from a pretty girl on the sea front.
In the war he was in the RAF and his plane crashed. He was burned and invalided out of the service and became a local Bobby.In his later years he was a social worker , placing children into loving homes. That was his forte -as any child lucky enough to be in his family certainly knew the meaning of a loving home. When I had to sit my cycling proficiency he bought me a new Dawes bicycle, when a boy had broken my heart he helped mend it by telling me he wasn`t the man for the job anyway. I can remember sunny afternoons in his beautiful garden eating ham sandwiches and drinking tea. When we were little we used to race to clamber into bed with him and Gaggy in the mornings. He would open his bedroom window and feed the birds with crumbled biscuits, they were so tame they would fly into his room for their breakfast too or perch on his shoulder in the living room whilst he was watching the test match. What a sweetheart he was , a man capableof charming the birds from the trees.
You get eternal life through your children, the sparkling eyes look up at me from under a blonde mop of hair every breakfast in the face of my little boy Jimmy. Like his grandfather he won the cup at school for his sporting prowess and has a fondness for one of each and pork pies. Although they never met it is so comforting to talk about my grandfather, funnily he spent his Summers in the Lakes like us, his granny had a house on Windermere and another at Ulverston. So when we are there , we really are walking in the footsteps of a giant.

Yorkshire Parkin
If Yorkshire had entered the Olympics as a country in its own right it would have had more medals than south Africa! Eee I`m proud to be a Yorkshire terrier forever...


1lb oatmeal
4oz plain flour
8oz sugar
2tsp ground ginger
4oz melted butter
300g treacle
9 floz milk
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 beaten egg
2 nuggets of ginger in syrup sliced.

Mix all the dry ingredients then add the melted butter and black treacle, crystallised ginger , egg and milk. Pour into a lined tin.Pop into a gas mark 2 oven for 1  3/4 hours. This improves and goes all chewy and clarty if you leave it in a tin for two days. In Yorkshire we would have a slice of this with some Wensleydale cheese- yes really.

As my Poppa Roy would say "Cake without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze!" Fifty shades of Roy eh... he would think the World had gone mad if he could see everyone on mobiles (talking to themselves) , a smoking ban just about everywhere and respectable young girlies like myself swapping PD James for E L James!!

What`s for dinner Clarey?: My best friendI think it is strange when people ...

What`s for dinner Clarey?: My best friend

I think it is strange when people ...: My best friend I think it is strange when people say that they have married their best friend! I love Mr N when he`s bad ...I love Mr N w...

My best friend

I think it is strange when people say that they have married their best friend! I love Mr N when he`s bad ...I love Mr N when he`s good(not v.often) and even give him time off for good behaviour and let him play ping pong and cycle his bike allover Cumbria without me. He is my life in lots of ways, he protects me whatever and I feed him lovely dinners and dance with him in the kitchen after work much to our children`s disgust! We are the best of friends(but I can`t tell him all my secrets!)   I have a relationship that has endured even longer than Matty and that is my best friend Emma.

Friendships born in childhood are special. She is like a treasure that I jealously guard like Gollum and his precious ring! We met in the 80s and have the dodgey perm photos to prove it. We had matching boyfriends who were in a band called "Shrink to fit" they unceremoniously dispatched us but I have to thank those lovely boys for giving me the best gift ever... my best friend.When my parents divorced her home was like a sanctuary to me. I remember the most delicious Sunday roast pork and lemon meringue pie at her house which was like balm to my hurt teenage mind. We went to University together and dodged the Manchester puddles hand in hand on our way home to our Moss side abode.Her Italian Nonna knitted us socks and she encouraged me to give Matty a second date! We have held onto our friendship for 23 years, repaired broken hearts and been unstinting in our loyalty to one another(better than most marriages!). She was my beautiful bridesmaid , God mother to my twins and though we are often far apart  I know we are always close by in our thoughts. Singing the same song, wearing our red lippy, hugging our children tight, teaching other peoples children how to believe in themselves and dishing out love to whoever needs a bowlful.

Love is like manure , it only does any good if you spread it around.I have blossomed and grown  as a result of her evergreen friendship and love. Every day I give thanks for Emma, she will be my bezzy til the very end when we`re going on a "grab a Grandad" fortnight to Filey(she won`t tell Mr N!) I know I may sound soppy but my best friend gives me hope , that life should be and can be beautiful just like her.

Pizza

She`s a quarter Italian , my best friend Em, so she might not like this Yorkshire scone version, but she`s so polite she`d eat it up any way I know!

8oz plain flour

4oz butter

salt

mixed herbs

loads of grated red leicester cheese

cup of milk

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

1 tin chopped tomatoes

tomato puree

sugar

fresh basil

2 mozzarella balls

3 tomatoes sliced

anchovies

I spoke to Em today and as always she cheers me on to be the best I can be.So I made this for the kiddiwinkles and Matty for lunch.

Make a scone dough base by rubbing the butter into the flour and adding a pinch of salt and a handful of cheese and enough milk to make a pliable dough. I added a few mixed herbs and a squirt of tomato puree too. Line a large baking tray thinly with the dough.Meanwhile make the tomato sauce by frying onions, garlic in butter and adding canned tomatoes , a pinch of sugar and some fresh basil, reduce to a thick sauce and put on top of the base.Top with sliced fresh tomatoes, then the mozzarella and then the red cheese and anchovies. Bake at the top of a medium oven for 30 mins. Serve with homemade coleslaw(red,whitecabbage, red onions,grated carrots ,lemon juice and nice mayo) and let your family wash up whilst you go and ring your best friend.

Let the holidays begin!

I know I have actually been on holiday for a fortnight now but it is only this morning that I bounced out of bed feeling like me again. So many of us get so ground down by work and worries that we sleepwalk through the weeks, wishing for a little lie in and a little peace.

Well I am glad to report I am awake! Ready for any hedonistic opportunities that may come my way. Yes the weather is decidedly wet but that meant I made a roaring hot curry and a roaring hot fire last night. We went to Uncle Larry`s funeral last week which was heartbreakingly sad but the day was awash with tears and tender moments. Great big dockers hugging one other and telling each other that they loved them.The priest was epic. He said that we would have all been telling stories about Larry in the days after he died, which was true. Then he asked a robust question to such a vulnerable wet eyed congregation. "What are you going to do with all the stories?" When challenged if it would just be "business as usual tomorrow?" or given the option to take the best bits of Larry`s story on earth and weave it into our own tale I chose the latter.

We all have our own story. Home is where it begins which is why I don`t spend my money on fancy holidays or cars I can`t afford. My children`s stories will have the very best beginning I can fashion for them...the middle and end will be up to them. If ever I come across a difficult person, which in my house is often, I remind myself they all have a different story to me and I let it go rather than linger on the sad or bad bits.
That`s the brilliant thing about life, your story is your own, you can write an epic, or a thriller or a romance everyday through the kind deeds you do and more often through the unkind deeds you don`t do.

My brother Leo gave me a bike at the weekend, a wonderful kind thing to do , because now I`m raring to go and fully awake. The next bit of my own story will be about biking up mountains with my special ones, chains falling off and puncture repair kits no doubt.That`s life , you`ve got to get rid of your stabilisers first, the things you think protect you but only really hold you back and stop you from bombing down the hills with your hair in a kip and flies up your nose feeling fully alive and awake calling out "WHEEEEE!"


Hairy Clarey`s biker`s Breakfast
Comfort and joy - eat the food then enjoy the ride.
Toast a bagel and butter it quickly top it with a few slices of Parma ham , a poached egg and a few shavings of fresh parmesan cheese. Accompany  with a pint of Earl grey tea and some sugar lumps then go for a ride on your bike, put your beret on your saddle for extra comfort.