Breakfast - beyond cereal and milk

 After a month of watching the USA slipping into reactionary darkness, something lighthearted ... 

Seventy years of cereal and milk ... cereal and milk ... cereal and - well you get the idea. From childhood to retirement, breakfast was nearly always cereal and milk. There were occasional exceptions - usually when travelling and staying in hotels where a "Full English" might be on the menu. But, in the normal course of events, it has been seventy years of cereal and milk.

Cereal and milk is a very practical choice. When you have woken, with just enough time to wash and dress before leaving for school or work, five minutes for cereal and milk is the ideal answer. Even the Egg Marketing Board's encouragement to "go to work on an egg" didn't dissuade. Not that cereal and milk will get you to lunchtime, but it might do until morning tea.

Retirement changes everything. When I retired at 73, one of the first things to change was my morning routine and especially, breakfast. I'm not lazy; I still get up around 6:30 am to make a large mug of tea (for me) and coffee (for Annette). We drink these while reading the day's news (phone, not newspaper) and doing Wordle. At 7:30 I feed the dog and head for the shower. By 8:30, I am dressed and in the kitchen ready to cook breakfast. By and large, this has been the routine for the last three-and-a-half years.

I realised the other morning, as I was standing at the stove, that this was probably my favourite retirement activity. Many other activities bring me pleasure, but breakfast happens Every Single Day. I look forward to feeling the knife cut the first mouthful, as my tastebuds jiggle with anticipation. They know what's coming because I cook the same breakfast every single day too - if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Before the fold.

Breakfast recipe: Two well-beaten eggs in a frying pan; five minutes. Then a slice of homemade bread is cut in two and placed in the egg. Sides folded in and the whole thing flipped. Tomato sliced and arranged on one piece of the bread; mushrooms sliced and arranged on the other. Hold the mushrooms in place with a cheese slice and fold the whole thing into a sandwich. Fry each side for five minutes. Eat.

Having the same breakfast every day may sound rather boring to some; to me, it provides a foundation of certainty from which to tackle the uncertainties of elder-life. If you like, a slice of heaven in the here and now. You might want to give it a try.

Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary

I was saddened when, in 2009, Mary Travers passed away. Now, at the beginning of 2025, Peter Yarrow has gone too. He was 86. Noel Paul Stookey is now the only remaining member of Peter, Paul and Mary, he is 87.

I feel the loss - which makes no sense as I didn't know them in person; only by their music which was part of the background to my teenage years. Two of their LPs (Long-Playing records), from 1962 and 1963, sit in my attic and the 24 tracks are on the phone in my pocket right now. So, in a real way, I still have them with me in 2025. And yet I feel the loss.

So what is this loss? I never met them and I still have their music so nothing is missing today that I had back in the 1960s and have had every year since. But, if I let my mind dwell for too long, there will be tears - I can feel them lurking even as I write this.

There is something more than the physical going on here. However tangentially, these people were part of my life. I assimilated their music because it resonated with me; the resonations were part of me then and are still part of me now. Even today (perhaps especially today) I could feel the intensity in songs like "If I Had a Hammer" - PPM sang them, but for about two minutes each time, I would be singing with them (in my head), I could share their passion. The death of Peter Yarrow and before him, Mary Travers, doesn't change any of that, except now I know that the source of the passion has gone. 

As I age, there have been several times when It dawns on me that I AM the older generation. The people I used to look up to are going. Each time it happens it's a bit sobering; I do hope that no one is looking up to me.  I'm living in a world that I helped to shape and, quite frankly, there's a lot about it that I don't like. My parents and their generation came through a World War but they handed on a world of hope, and a vision for a better future.  I'm not sure what my generation will be handing on. It looks a bit of a mess, frankly. Perhaps, If I had a hammer ...

2025: A fresh Start ...

"Ivy" - 2024
Oppo A9, developed in DxO PhotoLab

 

2024 was an odd year. I turned 76 which, given the less-than-stellar state of my kidneys, was an accomplishment in itself. But, looking back, 2024 largely seemed like a year of waiting for things to happen rather than grasping the year by its horns (as it were). Partly, this was down to a January bout of COVID which left me unable to focus on anything for more than half an hour at a time. Or that could just been an excuse for idleness. It's hard to tell.

Anyway, I am determined that 2025 should be different so, rather than wait around for things to improve on their own, I am developing new strategies to help me work in smaller, bite-sized chunks. If I can't write a blog post all in one session, then I need tools to manage all the little bits and pull them into a semi-cogent whole at the end. It's a work in progress but there are positive signs (the existence of this post being one of them).

Our family grew by one during the year when "Ivy" joined us. We have been a 'dogless' family for the last ten or more years since "Izy" (our Whippet) had a stroke and died, so there has been quite a bit of adjustment on our part. By the way, the similarity in dog names is entirely coincidental; Ivy came with her name already attached. She is, officially, a "Chinese Crested Powder-puff" and is of somewhat nervous disposition, but growing used to us as we are to her.

Photography was the one thing that didn't take too much of a hit in 2024. Perhaps because it is, quite naturally, an activity that proceeds in small related chunks. Day-long sessions at the computer were out, but this was a good thing as it made me work on one image at a time. This slower, more deliberate, approach to picture-making has meant that I have been generally much happier with the outcome. "Silver linings" and all that.

"Long Shadows on Pearson Park" - 2024
Nothing Phone 2a, developed in DxO Photolab.

At the end of 2023, I had decided to try my hand at print-making. A cyanotype kit even arrived at Christmas that year. In the event, the mental challenge of working through the intricacies of making cyanotype prints, just seemed beyond me during 2024 and the kit sat unopened all year. I now feel that 2025 is the time, though the task still seems a little daunting. Time for the "girding of loins", methinks.

 Never one for making New Year's resolutions, this post is beginning to sound remarkably like one. Perhaps it's the recognition that 2024 seemed so uneventful that's prompting a backlash of resolve? Though I keep reminding myself that, just because 2024 didn't turn out the way I had planned, it does NOT mean that it was a wasted year; far from it. Many things got done, many lessons were learned and we continued to move forward. Just not in the way I had originally planned.

 The lesson of 2024, it seems, is that plans are only good for filling in the gaps that life leaves blank. The rest of life is about learning to surf the waves that life delivers. Me, novice surfer.

"Wipe Out" - 2010
Nikon D80, developed in DxO PhotoLab.

 

So, that's the stake in the ground. Let 2025 begin.