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By Miriam Strickland
EXCITING news! My New York cousin is coming to visit! Her mother and my mother were first cousins, growing up together in South Yarra during the Depression and WWII. How did my cousin come to be a New Yorker? Read on.
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By Miriam Strickland
RECENTLY someone asked me if I was a local, in a context that meant local to Wonthaggi as distinct from the Bass Coast region. In this situation the simple answer was yes, I do live in Wonthaggi. But as sometimes happens when someone asks you an innocent question, it got me thinking. I could have answered no, as I’m not third or fourth generation born and bred here. Or I could have said yes, I have lived here for over seventeen years, the longest I have lived anywhere, and feel that by now the place has interwoven with my DNA.  By Miriam Strickland
AT OUR final meeting for the year, South Coast Speakers Toastmasters club holds an informal dinner gathering which includes a Kris Kringle gift exchange. We keep the value low as it’s just a bit of fun at Christmas time. I have heard that in past years some of the “gifts” have not seemed very … gifty. Socks, for example. This year’s selection was pretty good. I recall handmade chocolate treats, a very popular spiced couscous product ready to make at home, and other simple but pleasant things. Perhaps the most unexpected was a set of puzzle books. Which came to me. By Miriam Strickland
JOHN Lennon wrote in one of his songs: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” Have you ever felt that way? Thinking you’ve got a nice routine worked out, busy, maybe, but your activities nicely dovetail and there’s some breathing space built in to make a cuppa and watch the grass grow. By Miriam Strickland
WHETHER by coincidence or design, my siblings and I were born about five years apart. Therefore, every so often we all reach ages with a five or a zero ending. This year is such a year, including one of us at 75 and two at 70. We thought we should mark the occasion.  Tunisian Breakfast Soup By Miriam Strickland
HOW are you going with your legumes? I hope my previous column encouraged some of you to try incorporating some wonderful “musical fruits” into your menus. This time let’s explore a bit further. By Miriam Strickland
DISCUSSING legumes often brings out the child in us. Many of us wouldn’t admit to finding fart jokes funny but the rhyme that goes: “Beans, beans, the musical fruit; the more you eat the more you toot” makes most people smile. By Miriam Strickland
LATELY I’ve found myself saying “bless you” a lot. To customers I serve in the shop, to participants in my classes, to friends and family on the phone. Or I might say it in relation to a third party; for example on hearing an anecdote about someone I don’t know, responding by saying “oh, that’s funny, bless him/her”. By Miriam Strickland
DR MICHAEL Mosley is becoming a bit annoying. Switch on to SBS and if it isn’t a program on ancient Egypt or Hitler it’ll be Dr Mosley. A slight exaggeration perhaps, but he’s been very busy. He’s presented a dozen TV series and written many books. We now have a blood sugar diet book, a fasting for health and longevity diet book, a weight loss diet book, exercise for managing all of the above, and now a gut health diet book. By Miriam Strickland
MY LATEST adventure has involved a considerable amount of discomfort. There I was, enjoying the challenge of teaching Body Balance classes and striding out for my brisk walk every morning before breakfast, as well as getting on with the usual tasks of life; going to work, sorting out the menu at home, yanking out the occasional garden weed, and so on. By Miriam Strickland
SOME time ago I was absent-mindedly scanning the Small Paper (they’re almost all small papers these days, but you know the one I mean) when a headline jumped out at me. “Is STRESS making you FAT?” Oh no, I groaned, another simplistic quick-fix diet article. But in the interests of research, I decided I should read on. By Miriam Strickland
Regular customers to my workplace can tell you that one of the most frequent stories I recite is the one about the hungry lion and the unhappy stomach. By Miriam Strickland
A FEW weekends ago I was slopping freshly made mango chutney into hot jars (I’m yet to find a tidy way to do it), and I remembered a similar moment at about the same time last year. By Miriam Strickland
EVERY so often I am prompted to think about life and death and what to make of everything in between. Often, and suitably, the prompt is my attendance at a funeral. I’ve attended quite a few funerals and I like them. By Miriam Strickland
IT’S great to be back in print. I wish I could say my absence was due to an extended holiday somewhere exotic. But although parts of the last few months have had an air of unreality about them, there was no reclining by a sparkling pool surrounded by palm trees, nor sipping on a brightly coloured drink topped with a little paper parasol. No, I’ve just been busy. By Miriam Strickland
DAYLIGHT saving time has finished for the year and now it seems that when the day crashes to a close I have barely registered the passing of the afternoon. A few nights have become quite chilly too; we’re already starting to draw the curtains at nightfall to retain the lovely warmth dispensed into our living room by the sun, which still has some kick during the day. I WAS delighted to receive an email recently from my cousin in New York. Her husband filmed with his smart phone as they watched on TV the final moments of the judging of best in show at the famous Westminster dog show at Madison Square Garden. First he focussed the camera on the screen, where the judge was about to deliver the verdict ... “My choice for best in show is … the beagle!” and immediately my cousin was in view jumping up and down and squealing with delight.
Last weekend I attended a workshop for committee members of Toastmasters clubs based around the south eastern suburbs and regions. I hoped that by attending the workshop I might pick up some ideas that would help our club to boost our finances and membership. As I’m currently serving in both roles of treasurer and membership vice-president, it seemed like a good idea.
I WAS going to write a piece about goal setting. You know, new year’s resolutions and all that, and why they are usually forgotten by the end of January. Something light but suitably encouraging, appropriate for the new beginning of a fresh year.
A COUPLE of months ago my mobile phone company wrote to me advising that my current plan would expire shortly. The network it used was about to be shut down in favour of new, more efficient networks. Neither my sim card nor phone would be able to work on the updated networks. Bother, I thought.
A FRIEND once commented that I always seemed to do interesting things with vegetables. This came as news to me. I must have made an extra effort that day.
A LITTLE over a year ago, some time in the hours between going to bed on Sunday night and Monday morning, Angel Foster, my boss, suddenly and unexpectedly died. There had been no indication that anything was wrong, no sign of illness. If anything, she appeared well, and younger than her actual age.
AT WORK recently a customer asked if the tablets I was offering for her cold would make it go away. Before I thought about what I was saying, I replied that the cold would go away anyway, sooner or later. I quickly added that the tablets would help relieve her symptoms until it did, and fortunately the customer had a good enough sense of humour and enough motivation to buy the tablets anyway.
GOSH, there are a lot of food gurus out there. There’s a “diet” for every imaginable food theory and plenty of disciples for them all. On the other hand, there are still plenty of people taking absolutely no notice of any dietary advice from any source. Somewhere in between, many are doing their best but find the plethora of diets confusing.
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Miriam StricklandMiriam Strickland, a qualified naturopath who has also worked in health food retail, Archives
July 2019
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