Red, Rum Tum Tugger in the Daffodils and Tulips.

10/31/2018

Did you see the musical, Cats?

Was the musical, Cats, just pure entertainment for you, or did it carry a message?
These messages we receive from fiction are all subject to interpretation by the observer, and reader. What you got from that message would have been quite different from what I drew from it.

Which comes to my inquiry of readers and writers. Do you write or read to receive a message, or to give or receive entertainment?

Me? I am innocent of pushing a message through my stories. I'd never push my opinions on readers.
However, I have had an unruly mob of characters, and I don't control what they do about certain issues.

A giant company claimed that their cost-saving measures haven't caused death, injury or substantial damage. I'm old enough to have been around during that historical event and know what was published about it, at that time, were lies. I did my research and I wrote my favorite novel, a family love story, woven into recent historical fiction, which contradicts the official account. That's been primarily what I write. Historical fiction that shows a different side of history, the human side, and not the official account. My publisher squashed two of my manuscripts, telling me it would be too dangerous to take on 'that family,' or 'that company.' As I pay him to know his stuff, I took his advice about those stories. Safer to write deeper into the past. Hence my love for historical fiction as a means to express a different opinion of what happened, based on oral histories.

I have tried to write to market but I struggle to be interested in a story, as a reader or writer, that doesn't give me something deep to think about. So, try as I may to be interested in escapist writing, I am always drawn back to the stories with a message.
Ive read some great, 'make you think,' novels recently. There are some brilliant stories and writers.

Eating Healthy, Naturally, in a Rural Setting, Today.

I used to grow all my own fruit and vegetables, I might use ALDI for yogurt, powdered milk, but not much else as while they are cheaper in most things than Woolworths, they also focus on processed foods, which I do not purchase. Their regular meat and poultry prices aren't as low in price as when I purchase those items when marked down. I also love a good sourdough multi-grain bread and the no-name rolled oats from Woolworths' bakery. I don't mind paying for an aged vintage cheese for the extra flavour, as I'm not trying to feed a family, and the taste is important to me. I did all my own cooking, with no processed foods such as sausages or fish fingers, not even for the children. I love lots of fresh nuts, and the only spread we use is honey from the beekeeper, which we know is real honey. That is how we used to shop.

Now, we have pre-prepared, three week's supply, at a time, of home-cooked standard (not commercial brand) frozen meals delivered to our home, (a variation from meals on wheels for the disabled) and we heat our main meal in the microwave. I've needed to change the garden to low maintenance, so our delivered frozen vegetables and some home grown salad and fruit are the most I can grow. We eat healthily. We eat minimally processed. I also strive for no added sugar or fat, and definitely to hydrolyzed protein, preservatives, colours and artificial flavours.

I'm a fine print reader and don't mind paying extra to get fruit preserved in pure fruit juice when I must purchase preserved fruit, or fish caught in clean Atlantic or far southern ocean waters over commercially grown fish from Asian fish farms grown on sewer and antibiotics. If I could not get fish from a clean source, I would not eat it. Watch those chicken nuggets, if you feed them to your children.

The chickens used for the chicken nuggets are specially grown with far higher dose of growth hormone in the feed, so much so that the Australian sports' coaches suggest that the athletes who require extra muscle eat lots of chicken nuggets, and the Australian Institute of Sport's diving team and gymnastic coaches tell their team members that they must never eat any of them as they need to maintain a smaller body frame.

Children are developing artificially fast these days due to all these processed foods with growth hormones getting into the system.

Puberty comes faster to girls eating chickens bred with the aid of estrogen, and male infertility and breasts development arises from the same cause, estrogen pumped chicken. I'm more interested in striving to eat food not pumped full of antibiotics. I read and research a lot. For instance, Australia was selling cheap grapes from California here a couple of years ago. I would not touch them. Our market was flooded with them because they were banned from sale in California because they failed their pesticide screening. They were not sold with that warning on them, it was a case of buyer educate yourself about what is happening in the food industry. The closer we can get to eating food from the source, as you strive to do, is our best insurance for our children's future health.

Today's garden show and tell. Two of my four camellias have opened, another flowers during winter, the other is still to flower. All grow easily here in my temperate climate with full morning sun and afternoon shade.