Rodmell & Southease Parish Pump

Each year I write in my Christmas book who sent me cards and gifts. Each year sadly the cards get less as people I’ve known have passed on. I had 86 cards this year and many had little notes in them telling me of friends and relations having lost their partners or children over the year, or having various operations, new hips, knees or ankles. As the years go by one has to expect such news. However, I still have many friends who are very much alive, and whom I’ve known for many years. One friends has been my friend for over 80 years, and quite a few have been friends for over 70 years, and we have never fallen out, so that must show how precious friends are. Quite a few of us have decided not to give gifts to each other this year but to give to charities instead.

Today I decided I had to sort various things out, one being food leftovers. There were 6 small tangerines that I peeled and steeped in juice from apples that needed cooking to make crumble to freeze. The crumble topping was made from shortbread biscuits that needed using up mixed with spices. They make a good topping, having been finely crushed and topped with brown sugar. The tangerine slices were drained and put in the fridge ready to go on my morning cereals and the juice was used to make small pots of fruit jelly for a quick pudding/sweet or desert whatever you like to call it. Some savoury rice left over from a chicken curry was used up by mixing it with a small piece of smoked salmon, chopped bacon, herbs an egg and a little butter and cream and baked in the oven – it was delicious! I also had a big bag of mixed nuts and fruit which was a gift. I picked out the sultanas, walnuts and Brazil nuts to use on cereals, and roasted the peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts in the oven with oil and salt and now have a jar of them to pick into whilst I watch TV. I waste little and the bin men must wonder what I live on, as my bins are never full. My garden over the years (since 1968) has crushed eggshells and chopped up banana skins put into it, so the soil is good and roses like banana skins. A friend was telling me she watched a TV programme on how people waste so much food over Christmas. Like me she was taught ‘waste not, want not’ I remember a cook at a stately home once telling me that her employers didn’t want her to waste anything that could be put to use, and she was an amazing cook. There is an old saying ‘save the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’ such good advice which along with ‘waste not want not’ I and my family have followed over the years. Various friends of mine have had friends and relations over from the USA and tell me they leave heating, lights and electric fires on all over the house not seeming to realise how expensive it is for their hosts. I have also found B&Bs from the USA have done this. I suppose in the so called ‘land of plenty’ it’s what they do. Will it be like this in the future for them I wonder?

I have heard many people say what rubbish there has been on TV over Christmas and New Year. I often wonder who sorts the programmes out because they could make a better job of it as you get one nature programme after another, likewise one cookery programme following another etc. Surely, they could slot different programmes in for variation. I actually love anything to do with nature, music, travel but not one after the other as seems to happen in many cases. A lot of people tell me they no longer watch TV and don’t have TV sets now. I actually watch some lovely programmes on TV especially the Strauss concert from Vienna, The Fox, the Boy, the Mole and the Horse and some good nature and travel programmes, but I can understand some people’s views on TV. A friend phoned me and said, ‘if I see one more quiz programme following another, my brain will fry’. I told her ‘Like your phone you can always use the off button and read a book’.

One of my goddaughters who has a good job in banking, was given an electric car around 2 years ago. She likes it but can’t always use it because the river near her floods so she can’t leave the area she lives in to get to work. It’s a good job she can work from home on her computer system! The bank bought hers for her, but how people in general are expected to pay the exorbitant prices for electric cars is beyond me, and them I suspect.

When I see how so many poor people have been flooded time and time again, I feel for them so much. It must be awful and what a job for them and the services to sort it out. Where do all the flooded cars go and the rubbish that results as a result of floods. It’s the same in war zones who can hardly recycle the devastation caused by wars. Are we trying really to save the planet I wonder.

Like a lot of other people, I would like to see the Social System sorted out, with the NHS, banking, housing, immigration and jobs sorted in 2025. These are all the building bricks of a good society – will we be saying the same in 2026?

We had yet another bad accident on the C7, Thursday 2nd January where I heard a motorcyclist came to grief and the air ambulance was called out and the road was closed from midday until well into the evening (Ali tells me). Not a good start to 2025 for some poor person. I hope they are recovering.

On a lighter note, the Rodmell Panto – Treasure Island is taking place on Friday 31st January (8pm) Saturday 1st February (7.30pm) and Sunday 2nd February (3pm and 7pm). Tickets are on sale in the Abergavenny Arms. Also, the next Coffee Club is on Wednesday 15th January as usual 11am in the pub. There is a Parish Council meeting on 21st January 7pm and looking further ahead, this year’s C7 Litter Pick is the weekend of 22nd and 23rd February – more details nearer the time. Ali also tells me that the Parish Magazine is available on the Rodmell website – this has details of the events happening in the valley as well as news from all the churches: www.rodmell.net/church-news-current-month.