Yogurt

Good morning. It's Monday and cold and sunny and bright. 

As I made my morning coffee - this morning I went for a pretty stripy pod! 
I pondered about yogurt. I love the stuff and whilst I have not checked for a response from that shop about the substitutes, I was dredging up some knowledge from the dusty shelves at the back of my brain. A quick check on google proved I wasn't mad. If you strain plain yogurt, you get a thicker creamier greek style yogurt! So that is what I shall do! And then I wandered off down memory lane trying to think of my first memories of the stuff and the earliest I can go back is my 8th birthday. Memorable because I had my tonsils out that day! No parents were allowed to stay and because I couldn't stop screaming when I came round - it HURT - the matron came in and smacked me for upsetting all the other patients! Could you imagine these days!


The hospital was just round the corner from my childhood home and was one of those hospitals without a casualty department. Its a housing estate now.  
In fact our City had 4 hospitals. The main infirmary, still there now, the original building intact and now  is the main oncology department. The site is much bigger now with new and more modern buildings being built in recent years, the one where I had me tonsils out, and two asylums. Yes TWO!

 One opened in 1816, that held 2300 patients.The other later just for children - who in turn never left and became institutionalised adults. Bearing in mind people were admitted for things like being an unmarried mother, being born with a club foot or Downs and  another for severely disabled ones. One official name states 
Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles, a charitable institution. 

As you know I like to remain as anonymous as I can, so if you'd like to know the names of these establishments - drop me a line.
Information gathered from a bit of research....
At a time when the dominant legislation (i.e. the 1845 Lunacy Act) muddied distinctions between learning disability and mental illness, the   ****** was set up specifically for the care and education of children with learning disabilities. Admitting its first patients in December 1870,  its primary focus was on those young people with learning disabilities aged between 6 and 15 years who, ideally after 7 years in the institution, would be able to leave and lead useful lives in the outside world. Of the 662 patients in 1909 85% were under 15 and 504 of its total number had been there less than 10 years.

This is in stark contrast to 1948 when of its 886 patients 45% were aged over 35 with only 12% being under 15; furthermore most of those living there could be classified as long stay patients. While the earlier asylum had been designed to prepare young people for wider world, now its primary purpose was to segregate individuals of all ages from that same environment. In line with these developments the numbers continued to rise, so much so that during the 1960’s and 70’s the hospital experienced serious overcrowding with the patient population exceeding 1,000. 

I vividly remember as a child we would play games where we'd be chased and scared of people escaping from these places! The buildings themselves are magnificent and are now developed into a college and posh over expensive flats and apartments! The extensive grounds now great swathes of houses. 

Isn't it mad how a memory of yogurt creates a blog post!

Anyway once home Mum bought me Mr Men banana yogurts. Those and SKI yogurts in churn style tubs are the ones I remember. Thanks to google for the images! It was the only thing to soothe my poor throat.

Actual video footage of me this morning in the shower!

Thank you for your comments on the garden and my wall. My garden is literally a rectangle shape and that is my one border - the opposite side has a fence and a lawn that is slowly being wrecked from being a dog owner! But I took some photos of the peony buds and the alliums.

It's crazy how this tight little cherry sized ball will become a huge bloom!

This one will bloom the last and needs staking as the heads are massive. You can see the sticky sap oozing that will have the red ants invading in a few days. The other peony plants do not do this. 

Day 5 - I'll call this one Alfred Allium

And this one Alex Allium

Finally, I have been working on an embroidery project for work. We have a set of twelve values that we focus on each moth and thoughtfulness IS NOT ONE OF THEM! Had I been thoughtful, I would have checked before setting off Vera my machine. Ho hum, The correct word is Truthfulness! It'll not go to waste - I can use it somehow in my room! Ive been trying to come up with a little slogan for it.
Try a little Thoughtfulness.




Lots of love from
Rachel * yogurt chops* Radiostar xx