Where Are Your Shoes And Sandals Worn Down?

Problem - Worn Shoes and Sandals
Checking Heels
I check all my shoes. For a no-walking event, sometimes I think a down-at-heel shoe will do.

But for a long walk, all day, you need proper support.

Checking Inside
One day I put on a pair of sandals and expected them to shelter my heels from impact. But I felt more pain after putting on the sandals. So I felt inside.

I found it hard to feel or see if there was any problem. Nothing was protruding. However, when I held my sandal in the light, I could see, to my surprise, the opposite problem, I had indentations in the inside sole!

Previously I have found that liners wear down and expose and reveal metal underneath.

The more protection the better. Hammer them down? Shoe liner? Thicker socks?

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How to remember 23 Portuguese words - or any foreign language

Flag of Portugal. From Wikimedia Commons.

Problem
I am learning Portuguese. I need a working vocabulary of about 300 words, which I can do in a month if I learn ten a day. I need to practise every day or I will forget the words.

Answer
The simple solution is to keep the word list on a page in my diary. I write the foreign word first, then the English translation.

Alphabet Letters
I list the letters of the alphabet down the left hand side. How many lines do I have? I have 26, enough for one line per letter of the alphabet. (In theory if I know there are few words, an few I need to know, starting with x, y, z, or any letter that language does not use, I could drop that letter or put two on one line, leaving space for a each use letter, such as c in French or S in English.

I started with the letters of the alphabet at the beginning of the line, but I was short of space. So I wrote over the letters, making the initial letter in the margin. When I started the next page, for German, I had the system more condensed.

Margin
Now the initial letters are in the margin. I write as close as I can get to the edge of the page.

Saving Space
I started by repeating the letters, leaving the initial letter separate. However, now I use it to start the first word.  So instead of
A agua - water
b boa / bom - good
c carta - letter

I write
agua - water
boa / bom - good
carta - letter

Save Space With Dots
The hyphens between the Portuguese and the English were taking up too much space. I changed the line for a dot.

agua.water
boa.good
carta.letter

In this blog post I am not so short of space. I also want to make the words easier to read. Therefore here I am sticking to the hyphens.

If the word is the same in English I write the letter s in brackets.
pizza (s) 

Why Not Capitalise Initial Letters?
I could write
Agua
Boa
Carta

However, I have been trained as a sub-editor to use small letters to start words in dictionaries. That way the reader knows when a word always starts with a capital letter.

Folding
The page is narrow and I need all the space I can get. I fold the page in half vertically and then in half again. So I now have four columns.

Four across by 25 down makes space for 100 words on a page.

Here are my first 23 Portuguese words with my memory aids:
(Only 20 are listed in this blog post under labels because the limit is 20 labels)

agua - water (like aquaduct)
abacaxi - pineapple (P and B sound and look almost the same. AP - pineAPple - apple pine, pine apple, cut it down with an axe - ee! I might not remember translating from English to Portuguese, but I am well on the way to remembering it when I see it written on a menu in Portugal or Madeira)
boa / bom - good (As in Bombay. Good bay. How do I remember it's good and not beautiful. If it's beautiful it's good.)
carta - letter, a carta or uma carta is a letter. (How do I remember 'a carta', feminine? I visualise a lady writing a letter.)
com - with / to / by
de - of
é - is
ele - he / him / it
eles - they
eu - I
falamos - we speak
gosto - (I) like
jornal - newspaper (o / um jornal) (like the French journal but drop the u, just as the Americans drop the u from British English c o l o u r and make it c o l o r.)
lê - you read
leio - I read (I remember: Add i for I, + O for I as in Latin Amo amas amat meaning I read, you etc)
livro - book
menino - boy (I remember men, but little ones, o as in boy for masculine)
mulheres - women
nós - us / we
um - a / one / some
você - you (I remember vous with v in French. V looks like Y.) 

Other useful posts:
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/port-and-portuguese-wine-labels-and.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-to-ask-for-food-and-drink-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/learn-your-first-ten-words-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-do-you-say-please-in-portuguese-is.

visitportugal.com

visitbrasil.com

http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

duolingo.com

earwormslearning.com

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/polyglot-poem-by-angela-lansbury.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, learner and speaker of many languages (a polyglot). Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts. I have several more on Portuguese, Spanish, German, Chinese, Hebrew and other languages and countries.

First Trips To A New Country Are Like Trying A New Recipe: How to Plan and Reduce Stress, Familiarity Versus Novelty

Problem
After our first attempt at cooking a frozen croissant was a failure, I thought about first trips to a new country or destination.

Cooking didn't work the first time? Never mind. It doesn't mean the product is faulty or you are an idiot. On the contrary, you are step one in the process. Remember Edison, who was asked whether he was depressed by so many failures. He reputedly replied, "I did not fail to find the answer 1000 times. I learned 999 ways not to do it."

If you want a reassurance and encouragement related to cooking and recipes, remember the advice often given, by professionals and amateurs alike: Never try something new for a dinner party. It is the same for professional theatre productions. Do a dress rehearsal.

Sometimes your first trip to a new country or destination is wonderful. Repeat visits don't compare. Why is this? It may be that you want an exact match. If the restaurants and hotels have changed, your memory matching is out of kilter.

Finding The Familiar
The first day in a new hotel, restaurant, even the toilet, is a challenge. Even an hour later, go to the toilet and you have your favourite cubicle, your prefered wash basin. Back to the restaurant and you have your familiar table, your preferred table. Your family or friends are by the window with the view, or in the secluded, private corner. You have the right chairs. Your known waiter.

Every day, your memory is further reinforced.

Righting Wrongs
You might have righted the wrongs on your first trip. You had a back room with no view, a noisy room. A day or two later, you changed to a sea view room. On your second trip, you have requested the sea view room and got it from the start.

On a return visit, you remember the people. Sometimes they remember you.

Holidaymakers often say that what made the trip was the people. Sometimes it's the friendly way they smile and greet you. They might smile at everybody, or more so at regular guests. (They know you like them, tip them, whatever. A familiar face is less stressful for them as well as less stressful for you. They know you are friendly.)

People, Places, Problems
A friend or familiar person is easier to approach when you have a problem. They are keener to help right wrongs. They know what you like. 'You want your usual table, sir?'

Preparation
In addition to the people righting wrongs, an enormous amount of preparation has gone on before you arrive. Somebody built the hotel. Somebody checked the toilet paper was replaced. Somebody cleaned the room.

Somebody planned the tour of the city. Somebody learned to speak English. Somebody filled your hire car with petrol. You are indebted to the kindness and efficiency and planning of dozens of people from the moment your plane takes off or the moment you set foot on the soil in another country.

Enjoying Novelty
If you have a different experience or are a different type, you may like new places. Going to the same place is boring. Going to a new country is always exciting. Novelty. Can't fail. Even the disasters are great. They distract you from problems at home. As the saying goes, a change is as good as a rest.

If you go on a business trip, then return to a country with your family later, you can use your first trip as a planning trip.

Holiday Planning
When our groups go on hiking holidays, the organizers do a planning holiday first. They check out the hotels, the restaurants, the prices, the hiking trails.

Learning From Mistakes
The first time you do anything, with a new place or new equipment you and your helpers will make mistakes. Motivational talks tell you every apparent mistake is a learning experience. First is research, then action (preparation), then the test or experiment - practical experience. You become 'streetwise'. Finally, you are experienced, an expert. You have a system for safety.

Novelty Seekers
You can introduce novelty and surprise (local differences for novelty seekers). You can repeat seeking novelty for yourself (I ask a tourist board, "Find me something like a local factory shop, or something newly opened, or bizarre!) You can show the novelty, or the familiar, to other newcomers.

Alternatively, you can supply the familiar. (A Japanese breakfast is welcomed by the Japanese. Chicken and chips pleases some Westerners).

If you treat every activity and trip as a dress rehearsal, you will be less stressed by not achieving 100 percent perfection the first time. Every trip is a learning experience. You are becoming an expert who can guide others and yourself.

Planning The Best Of Both Worlds
We take to Singapore things which are cheaper. Western items are cheaper when bought in England.

Others Western products are hard to find. For example, thick cut marmalade, tinned prunes in juice rather than sugary syrup.

Fulfiling Dream
Sometimes you go back to fulfil dreams. What do I dream of? Drinking almond milk in a lakeside restaurant in Siem Reap, the town near Ankor Wat, in Cambodia.

Planning
What have I learned? When checking in to a hotel, ask about the position of the hotel room. Which floor? Does a higher floor have a view? Is there a lift? Front or back room. Noisy road? Sea view?

If the sea view is dearer, how much dearer? Can you see it? (You might want to pay more, or move tomorrow - in which case don't unpack.

Overlooking what? The noisy road? Maybe you are so tired you don't care. Ask if they have any alternatives. Why would you want the room allocated? At the back is quieter! Getting it right - better
late than never.

Singapore flag

Singapore
I lived in Singapore, on and off, for several years.
Sometimes you remember the wonderful sights, and forget the snakes, cockroaches, ants, puddles. If so, that's the joy of travelling and a selective memory. It leaves you with happy memories. Above all, you are the editor of your own memories, and your own future travels.

If people look glum and cross when they hear I am going to Singapore, I reassure them: You wouldn't like it. Just drop a cake crumb and you get lines of ants.

But if they respond to hearing I am travelling with a happy smile, "How lovely for you! What do you lie about it?" I reply, "The palm trees, swimming every day, sunlight until six every day, all year."

Of course, enjoying Singapore requires planning. If you put off swimming until the afternoon, you are likely to get rain and no swimming that day. So now, if I can, I swim earlier in the day. I used to be disappointed when it rained in the afternoon. Now, I can anticipate. Each time I swim earlier in the day, I congratulate myself. Getting a swim in that day was not chance. It was planning. That's learning. I bet you know lots of things which I know. And we all, as they say, 'learn something new every day'.

Happy Travelling!

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How To Cook Frozen Croissants At Home And At A Holiday Home

Uncooked croissants. Cobbs Farm Shop. England. UK. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Travel writer and photographer.

Problem
How do you get a delicious crroissant, crispy and flaky outside, buttery inside? Cheap!

Answer
We can buy fresh crosissants from supermarkets all over the world. In London Tesco, even many of the small branches, cook fresh croissants (we presume using the prepared uncooked croissant delivered in those huge container lorries  (Americans say trucks) which visit twice a day. So they don't need mixing, just heating up in the morning).

Buying Uncooked Croissants
We bought croissants, uncooked, from Cobbs Farm. This is a  place I described in a previous post. We had no instructions, so we looked up instructions on the internet. If I were to buy again, I would ask the shop for instructions.

Once you have got the idea of buying frozen croissants, you can look around your nearest supermarket's frozen department to see what is available. Check which brands, and check the ingredients and cooking advice, if any. I shall check out other brands, to see how their cooking advice compares with what we have been doing.

Ovens and microwaves can vary.

What can go right or wrong?

You want the crossants cooked through. Same as a steak on a grill or any food on a BBQ, you want to avoid too high a heat, charring the outside whilst leaving the middle uncooked.

Home cooked croissant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

Our first attempt, the crossants did not rise. They were dry on the outside but uncooked and chewy in the middle.

Defrost Or Not?
You might find it better to defrost them for an hour, rather than trying to cook from frozen or a too quick zap in the microwave. This means the first person out of bed must take the croissants out of the fridge.

Filling Waiting Time
You have to hang around for half an hour! The time soons goes. After removing the croissants, then shower and dress, take your pills, lay the table, eat your cereal, muesli, banana, whatever, drink water and prepare your coffee whilst waiting.

You forgot? Croissants still frozen? (While waiting, read the day's news. Will that stress you out? Instead see social media.) Check your emails. Look at Facebook. Send birthday wishes. Set a buzzer or you'll be eating breakfast at lunch time.

Preparation, Heating and Cooking Variables
Cooking is just heating. There are four variables. The ingredients. Mixing. The temperature. The time.

A frozen croissant has done two of the steps for you. Hurray!

Remedy
Add butter and jam or marmalade. We added home made marmalade. We made home made marmalade after I bought Seville oranges 'by mistake' and we found they were too bitter to eat so to save wasting them by throwing them away my husband made home made marmalade.

We lifted our spirits by congratulating each other on our past success with marmalade.

The dress rehearsal lets you try out cooking a croissant. So long as it's edible, it is fresh, good, and your own work. If it's not perfect, next time it will be even better!

How are you doing? Ready for tomorrow? Stocked up? Croissants are ready to cook!

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer. See my other posts on Cobbs Farm Shop. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Saving Breakfast and Other Recipes For Holidays And For Students And Second Homes

Problems Of Lost Recipes
1
Mother's Recipe Book
After my mother died I wished I had had her recipes.

2
Granny's Recipes Never Written down
I never had the recipe for my paternal grandma's crispy biscuits. She would not have needed to write it down. She would have had a standard recipe When I was a child and a teenager I visited her every Sunday afternoon and the biscuits were always the same.

Answers
A
Many months after mother died, at the back of the kitchen utility cupboard, I found a battered old recipe book (the classic Florence Greenberg). Old newspaper cuttings of recipes were folded inside the back cover. On the notes pages and flyleaf were recipes written out by hand by my mother, spidery almost Italic writing. She had compiled the recipes for herself, not for me. However, it was very useful and nostalgic for me.\

To be sure I could find mother's book in a hurry, and to ensure the book was not thrown out or given away by my family after I died, I pasted a photo of my mother on the cover.

Angela's Mother Netta's Recipe book. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

B
Classic Biscuit Recipe
When I described my granny's 'crispy biscuits' to a friend, Gene, at a book group, she said that like British scones, crispy biscuits were a staple of Poland or Eastern Europe. Therefore I could probably find two or three recipes online.

Biscuit Oven Temperature
The recipe must suit my oven temperature and type. I have a fan assisted oven.

Biscuit Texture

My friend, Gene, pointed out that I would have to try them out until I found one which was right. I could adapt it to the right crispiness and brittleness to suit myself.

What texture would suit me now? I don't like chewy biscuits because I think they pull out fillings. Crispy items which don't melt annoy me because they stick in my teeth. A biscuit which is crisp at first bite, yet melts in the mouth would be right.

Biscuit Ingredients
I imagine the biscuits would be made with butter, not margarine. Being poor, my maternal granny would have bought food at the market, not in a shop. (Aside. I remember eating waxy chocolate, which my paternal grandparents bought in the market. I now know how the recipe would have been different from the milk-based chocolate I was used to, made by Cadbury's.) However, I imagine her recipe would probably be from her mother or mother-in-law and pre-date margarine.

Saving Your Recipes
The question now arises, how to save the recipes from the major cook in your family. In our case, it is my husband who cooks. When he is in one country and I am in another, how can I reproduce the recipes and pass them on to our son, and our yet unborn grandchildren?

Compiling A Family Recipe Book
I have asked my husband to collect together his recipes and make them into a book for me for my birthday and for our son for his birthday. This involves collecting together all the recipes. Add a photo of the family eating, or my husband at the stove or oven cooking (on the front cover), and bringing the food to the table (back cover).

He has agreed, but he agreed last year. He was too busy writing a technical book requiring research. It never happened.

Making Notes
The answer is for me to do it. If he hasn't time, I must ask him questions and surreptitiously make notes. I shall do it the way I wrote my mother-in-law's life story for her 90th birthday.

For a year in advance, each time we met for Sunday lunch or dinner, or Saturday night or Friday night dinner, I would ask her a question. I would dash to the toilet and write up her answer on a piece of paper. Later, at home, I stapled the notes into my diary. If possible, within 24 hours, I wrote my notes out neatly. Then, within a week, I typed them up. When my diary got too full, the written recordings went into a notebook. (You could also do a video recording each week of your granny, grandad, mother or father cooking.

Alternative, a son or daughter or student grandchild can show a widowed grandparent how to cook simple meals. Wouldn't you think anybody can cook a boiled egg or a piece of fish in a microwave oven?

Who Needs Your Help?
My stay at home mother had done all the cooking for my father, her working husband. After she died, aged 89, my retired father, also aged 89, kept phoning me asking how to cook.
'How do you boil a soft-boiled egg? The first time I did it in a saucepan with water and got a hard-boiled egg. The second time I put it in the microwave and it exploded and made a mess."
"How do I cook a piece of fish in a microwave oven?"

You might not yet know who is going to need your family recipes. By the time you discover that a widow or a student grandchild wants a recipe, it might be too late. Your parent or spouse or friend may have moved away to a different time zone or passed away.

Collecting Spoken Records
I shall do the same surreptitious collecting as I did for my mother-in-law with my husband's recipes.
Today I got the home made Museli-style breakfast fruit, nuts and cereal recipe.

My husband said:
(Answering, 'What are the ingredients?) "The ingredients are porrige oats, apples, sultanas and milk. (I asked, "How do you make it?) The night before you take porridge oats, 25 grams, the same as you would cook in the morning, not 25 grams each, 25 grams for two. Add in two good (heaped) spoons (dessert spoons) of grated apple. Then sultanas. Finally, some milk. Leave overnight in the fridge.

Hot or Cold Breakfast?
A soaked oats breakfast takes time to prepare the night before. However, it saves time and energy in the morning.

Slow Mornings and Quick Starts
Good for night owls. Good for both slow and quick starts. Good for a lazy start, no work making breakfast. Also good for a quick departure - if you are self-catering on holiday and need to rush off for a coach tour or day out.

You are using porridge oats, but unlike porridge, no need to heat it up. (Good for summer, or hot countries such as Singapore, maybe in Florida or the south.) Good when you are happy to eat a cold breakfast, and don't want cooking making your hot kitchen even hotter.

Mixed Fruit Breakfast
This is a filling breakfast we devised with fresh fruit as a recovery diet after cancer when with a compromised immune system we could not risk meat products and preservatives. No more bacon and eggs nor full English breakfast with sausages at home nor at hotels.

Fruit and Cereal and Yogurt Breakfast
Chop bite size pieces of apple. Add small segments of orange fruit such as madarines or s , two prunes (plate on one side for the stones), apple chopped into bite size slices or cubes. Add yogurt. Sprinkle on top small nuts such as almonds, flaked almonds, broken walnuts, pine nuts, hazel nuts. On weekends or when you have time, or failing all else, halved fresh brazil nuts (time and mess from breaking them open).

I add milk as well as yogurt, for extra water, extra calcium, and teeth whitening after prunes.

Nuts or Not Nuts?
Obviously, but worth a reminder, you leave out nuts if anybody is allergic to nuts. So if you don't know your house guests, leave off the nuts until you have checked they are not allergic to nuts.

Cereal or Porridge
Either add half a piece of Weetabix or follow with a plate of heated up (in a saucpan) salted porridge with milk. (We add an 'unhealthy' teaspoon of maple syrup.) You could add

Mail Recipes
If you have a child such as one at boarding school or university, or at home when you are away on business, or living as an ex-pat, and your offspring who likes to receive recipes, or whatever you send, you could email a recipe every week. At the end of the year make a collection.

Time For Compiling, Proof-reading, Printing, Posting twice
 Allow time to sort out the book structure and cover and for the book to be mailed back. Also, allow time for the proof-reading. If the book has a mistake, such as a blank page in the middle, you might keep that copy for yourself as a spare and send off for another correct copy as a gift.

So you should start compiling a month earlier for a birthday or anniversary, two months earlier for Christmas, especially if you have Christmas recipes to use at Christmas time, or want the gift in time for Christmas and not delayed in the post arriving just in time for New Year!

If the book is posted to you, then posted by you to the recipient, or recipients, that is another double postage time. As they say about vines and trees, "The time to plant a vine/tree is twenty years ago. If that's not possible, start today."

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Fresh Fish From The Lobster Pot

Problem
Fresh fish - affordable fish or special fish?

Answer
Next door to Cobbs Farm shop, as usual we stepped into The Lobster Pot to check the available fish. Nowadays whether you are in restaurant or fishmongers or supermarket, Dover sole is expensive (because it is rare) and lemon sole cheaper but still not cheap.

We opted to buy plaice. We were served by fishmonger Keith Morgan. We spotted that the name Morgan is Welsh, the name Keith is Welsh, but he is English.

Another branch of his shop is in Swindon.

I picked up the business card. On the back of the Lobster Card with ten copies of the picture of a lobster. When it is full, says the car, you get a free special offer fish of £5 off your next purchase. We had forgotten to get our card marked. However, if you only visit once a year, it would take you ten years to earn your free fish and you'd have to remember your card and hope they didn't discontinue the card. (I am a keen loyalty card collector.)

If you are a regular, and go every week, ask if the loyalty card is still operating.

The card says they are open for fish Tuesday-Sunday.
The Lobster Pot
Cobbs Farm Shop, Bath Road, Hungerford RG17 OSP.
Tel:01488 688311.

Portuguese Words On Portuguese Wine Labels and Wine Words You Should Know

Colheita means vintage. (It's actually the Portuguese word for harvest. So this was the 1976 harvest.)

Portuguese - English
branco - white
colheita - vintage or harvest
de - of
doce - sweet
maduro - mature or aged
mesa - table (I remember: Don't make a mess on the table.)
quinta - farm, estate or winery
seco - dry
tinto - red (Think of tinted red.)
verde - green or young
vinho - wine
vinhos - wines
vinho de calidad - wine of quality
vinho de mesa - table wine

English - Portuguese
aged or mature - maduro
dry - seco
farm, estate or winery - quinta
green - verde
harbest or vintage - colheita
of - de
red - tinto
sweet - doce
table - mesa (I remember: This table is in a mess.)
table wine - vinho de mesa
vintage or harvest - colheita
white - branco
wine - vinho
wines - vinhos
winery, estate or farm - quinta
wine of quality - vinho de calidad
young (wine) - verde (literally green)

Useful Websites
https://catavino.net/portuguese-wine-label/ (Reading a wine label. Wine tours of Spain and Portugal.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.