Tag Archives: coronavirus

There’s no going back…

Posted on by under Life, Lockdown life

 

A friend said to me the other day ‘I just want things to go back to normal.’ We were talking on the phone, and I could hear in her voice her frustration and sadness about what’s going on in the world. She was yearning for the days where you could hop on a crowded bus without fear, go shopping without standing behind lines of tape on the shop floor, and you could look at a crowd in a football stadium on TV and not feel like you were going to have a nervous breakdown.

Here’s the problem, you can never ‘go back’ in your life, and there is no normal now on the planet. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my thoughts on that one but it got me thinking about how people do seem to say ‘I just want my old life back.’ They usually say this (I’ve said it myself) when something bad has happened and their life has been flung up in the air. We are all in that boat at the moment, and as the weeks drag on into months, I see people getting more and more depressed as they realise they won’t be going to France this year, that there won’t be a sudden cure for all of this, and even worse, there are no new episodes of The Bold and The Beautiful to watch.

You can’t go back ever because even if you did, you aren’t the person you were once you’ve suffered a trauma, therefore your life can never be the same as it was. (But you can enjoy the best of The Bold and The Beautiful that plays on TV early evening, while sipping a gin and tonic. Who knew Brooke and Ridge had been married to so many different people, and so many times to each other!! They must be exhausted.)

It’s hard to sometimes believe we will come out of all of this one day, but we will. Like Ridge and Brooke reuniting yet again, and divorcing yet again, life goes up and down and round and round. And when it is all over, we will look back and be damn glad that you can only go forward. All great stories have big dramas, where you think the characters will never be able to be happy again, but in my experience, things usually work out for the best in the end.

So, on that note, I’m going to go and make myself a gin and tonic, and settle in for my nightly dose of drama. No, I’m not talking about the TV news. I’ll be watching The Bold and The Beautiful best of series. I wonder who will get married/divorced/killed/bought back from the dead tonight?

Wake me up when it’s all over…

 

Thank You Nurses and Frontline Workers

Posted on by under Life, Lockdown life, Uncategorized

I gave up nursing a few years ago, but my God I remember how stressful it was. I worked a lot in emergency and it inspired me to write my novel Looking For Wonderland, which is a nursing comedy eBook, with the main character being a germaphobic nurse who falls in love with an Infectious Disease consultant. When this pandemic struck, I thought, what would Celine do? If you haven’t followed my blog, you may not know that Celine Dion is my touch stone for how to deal with life’s little stumbling blocks (and fucking enormous mountains that you think you will never get over). After reflecting on what my idol would do, I wondered, how can I support the front-line workers? It’s so bloody stressful dealing with the public, and the madness of working in a hospital.

Then I had a vision of tired nurses kicking off their germ ridden shoes outside their homes, boiling themselves alive in a shower before they felt safe, and maybe they could sit down with a glass of wine (or a bucket of gin), and have a read of something a bit light hearted. So, my publisher in the UK is making Looking for Wonderland a free download from May 1-5th, from any of the Amazon sites. It’s just a little something I feel I can offer in these weird and stressful times. Something a bit lighthearted that maybe can take you back to a time before…

Thank you to everyone out there putting themselves on the front line. I know it feels like you are not always appreciated, but please know, you are.

See you on the other side.

 

Delicious

Posted on by under Food, Life, Lockdown life

Not so long ago, in a land now far, far away, a friend and I went walking one summer morning. And, we stopped at a bakery and had breakfast. I’m so glad now that I ate what was quite frankly, a glorious meat pie that morning, because now, we couldn’t do this activity at all. The bakery is closed for sitting down and eating, the road it is on is too narrow for social distancing with a friend, and if you did manage to get a meat pie, you’d have to eat it out of a paper bag, perched on someone’s fence down the road (okay, I might have done that). Yes, I know meat pies are not the breakfast of champions, but it was so delicious, and reminded me that sometimes you just have to seize the moment, because god knows (literally) what might be heading our way, so it is important to enjoy what is in front of you.

So Jane, I hear you say, share something with us that will help us while we are stuck inside. Okay, I’m not even going to pretend this is healthy, but it is seriously one of the most delicious slices I’ve ever baked (and eaten – I can’t stop when it’s around). It’s super simple too, so if you can get it into the oven and baked without eating all the filling, then you are in for a treat. It’s a really old recipe from New Zealand (where I grew up). Hopefully you can get the ingredients. It doesn’t contain loo paper or hand sanitiser so that’s a good start. Let me know if you try it!

TAN SQUARES

Base:
185g butter
310g flour
60g sugar

Rub the butter into the sifted flour which has been mixed with the sugar. Press into a sponge roll tin lined with baking paper, but save some of this mixture to sprinkle on top of the filling.

Filling:
125g butter
1 tin of condensed milk
2 tablespoons golden syrup

Warm these delicious ingredients together in a saucepan and don’t even think about the calories. Pour over the base in the sponge tin and sprinkle the remaining base over the top like breadcrumbs.

Bake for around 30 minutes at 180C