How to win friends and influence people

I like to learn from my mistakes and hopefully improve myself. Learned a lesson this weekend- How to win friends and influence people is not to speak your mind. It is to keep your opinions to yourself. How to stay everybodies friend is to agree with everyones point of view and never say anything contentious. Hold your counsel and move onto the next subject so as not to offend anyone. Never be negative, always smile and say how do you do. Just laugh and be gay (in the old fashioned sense of the word). Always listen to others point of view and nod in the right places. If you make others feel good, they will always seek your company. Dont talk about business at 11 o clock at night and if there is a disco on, get up and dance.

Mona on Food and Nutrition

I would have been good as the kid in the Bisto advert, a real sensible kid, with sensible eating habits giving her mum some cookery advice she learned in Domestic Science that day- I can trace my good sense about nutrition back to when I chose to do Home Economics at school instead of typing. At times I have regretted not doing typing but I have always been glad that I know what a balanced diet is. I might not be Mrs. Beeton, I was always the one left with a huge pile of dishes with my final ensemble still in the oven and no garnishes at the end of the Home Ec practical. Time Planning was not my forte, Organisation was not my Hamlyn’s all colour lemon meringue pie, but I know how to put a healthy meal together. I know all the food groups, recommended daily allowances and food tables. I instinctively know how to make a roux sauce, a mayonnaise, a béchamel, a tartar and sauce béarnaise. I know how to make a short crust pastry and a rough puff; bread dough and plum duff. I can do choux pastry and hot water crust. Etouffe is not a problem; guinea fowl salmis just give me the cloves. Pasta sauces like mamma used to make, Biriani?- even make my own yoghurt for marinating the lamb. Bouillabaisse, vichyssoise and consommé. The secret of cooking rice, I have it. I know the theory of the pressure cooker and raising agents, how to fillet a fish and I can name and know what to do with a cut of meat just by looking at it.
Good food takes time to prepare. The longer food takes you to prepare, the healthier it will be and the better it is for you. Instant gratification makes you fat.
The kilojoules spent adding the oil drop by drop to the egg yolk whilst you beat furiously with a garlic clove skewered on the end of a fork- more than makes up for the dollop of home made mayonnaise you will have over your delicately grilled Chambo fillets.
Pounding of the spices in a pestle and mortar and grinding them on a curry stone after you have ventured to the bottom of the garden to pick some fresh curry leaves and coriander and jointed the chicken yourself before tempering it in your freshly ground paste will just about cover the knob of ghee and cream you have added for flavour.

Tips on how to be the weight you want to be:

• Always eat breakfast- porridge and banana with a dollop of honey and cinnamon is good.
  
• Try not to eat between meals. If you do, make it fruit, nuts or raw vegetables
  
• Eat at least one square meal a day. Eat little and regularly
  
• Keep your portion sizes down. Our stomachs are the same size as our fist!
  
• Eat 5 portions of vegetables and fruit per day
• Eat some dietary fibre/roughage every day (brown bread and rice, potato with skin, beans, pulses)
  
• Kilojoules IN should equal Kilojoules OUT. Try exercise!
  
• Drink plenty of water.
  
• Wine is good but don’t overdo it or you’ll get a wine bop.
  
• Eat as much fish as possible- especially oily fish
  
• Spend a long time preparing your food- the results will be worth waiting for.
  
• Eat a varied diet- that way you are sure to get all the nutrients you need. Be adventurous, try new things. Try making a paratha!

Dont get hung up about food- take a leaf out of Nigella's book. Try her lemon linguine X

Always do your best

Always do your best, no more, no less. Dont try too hard to do more than your best or your best will never be enough. If you always do your best, there is no way you can judge yourself and if you dont judge yourself, there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame and self punishment. From 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz

Mona Lisa by Tamar age 11

Mona on the Postal Service

I Love Postman Pat. What a lovely world he lives in with his little red van and black and white cat delivering all the postbags early in the morning just as day is dawning. I admire his work ethic, his honesty and his sense of community service.
The day will dawn that I receive any post through the Royal Mail. Why cant Post offices get their act together? They charge enough for stamps.
It's easy.... you write a letter, put it in an envelope, put on a stamp to the correct postage (it doesnt have to be a pantomime), post it into a postbox (those red things that look like waste paper bins these days). Pat 1 will then collect it in the morning. In the afternoon it gets sorted by Mrs Goggins. The next day it goes to the airport by train (now there's another issue) to catch the next available flight to Malawi. Two days later it arrives in Blantyre post office (which by the way is looking a bit run down these days). In the afternoon it is sorted and no one opens the letter or parcel to rifle through its contents before putting it in the correct box number.
I'm still waiting for a Christmas card posted on 1st December, a book from Amazon dispatched on 12th December and a certificate dispatched on the 15th. Come on Mrs Goggins. Post offices everywhere- it shouldn't take 6 weeks for a letter to arrive. Time to jack yourselves up.
Pat only thinks he's a very happy man.
Purum pum pum pum pum pum...........

Appreciate what you've got

After all, one can't complain. I have my friends.
Somebody spoke to me only yesterday.
And was it last week or the week before that
Rabbit bumped into me and said "Bother!"
The Social Round. Always something going on'

From 'The Secret of Pooh's Social Success' by A.A Milne and E.H Shepard