another day in paradise

It is paradise. Paradise. We are all alive, most particularly Favourite Handyman and Fionn and Brighid and I are alive.

I don't take it for granted. We live very close to Fionn's school. But a state highway lies between our road and the school. A busy state highway and despite endless lobbying, we have never been allowed a pedestrian crossing or lollipop flags much less the overhead bridge which would be much better. About half of the school population lives on our side of the big road.

Every day the staff of Fionn's school take turns bringing all the children across the big busy road and across the smaller one which runs parallel on the other side of the train track. We don't worry too much about crossing the train track as there are never more than three trains per day. Trains don't speed up from nowhere.

At the end of each school day, the traffic is crazy. Dense and going in all directions. Sometimes people stop to allow the staff to cross the children over the road. Sometimes we all wait a very long time for a gap to cross the road in. Last week a parent from our school stopped. Another car from behind came up and overtook from the inside.

Where are you going that is more important than the lives of our children?

If you have never encountered the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, then it is an interesting read and provides much food for thought. I feel like our community is living that story each time we cross the state highway to and from school.

In other news, I made scones with my organic freshly zentrofan milled otane flour today. I thought they were a bit average actually. It could be that I didn't put enough liquid in them or it could be that given otane flour is a good flour for gluten sensitive people to eat, I need to add a bit of gluten flour to the mix, or adjust the raising agents. Or just experiment more. I am making another sourdough starter with the zentrofan rye. It was bubbling for the past two days but not today. That happened another time but this time I shall not chicken out and turf it. I fed it some water and flour and we'll box on experimenting.

I investigated tools (weapons?) for making sauerkraut today. I am the weird one who plagues the fancy kitchenware shop we have in town. Last time I wanted the perfect strainer for kefir. Just read Nikki's blog (comments) about how much sauerkraut smells. I think it would be wise to save the experiment until after this weekend when my parents in law are in residence.

At lunchtime I went to my first meeting of the Blackball Working Class History Museum Trust. The website is down at the moment but I'll update when it is going. The Trust has been going for a while before I was asked to join - probably a few years I think. Today's meeting wasn't riveting - financial accounts and debates on where the windows should go aren't really my thing - but I think the concept is fabulous and look forward to being able to contribute more later on.