better a mile wide than an inch deep

It's Remembrance Sunday today.

Sean Bean reads Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen. I've read this poem a zillion times but this reading gave me a new appreciation for and of it.

This is part of a series of short films featuring actors reading poetry from the World War One period. In the same video, Gemma Arterton reads a poem by Wilfred Owen too, and Sophie Okonedo reads one of Rupert Brooke's.

One fine day in 1974, when I was three or four, my mom and grandmother went into Dublin to do a couple of errands. My brother and sister and I were in the car's backseat, along for the spin. My mother did the first errand, going to the solicitor's office, and then couldn't remember what the second errand was. So she didn't go to Talbot Street to see the tailor like she was supposed to. Instead, she turned the car for home, and by chance and by seconds saved us all from dying or being seriously injured in the bombings like three hundred other people that day.

We drove down the street parallel to Talbot Street, and a sobbing woman ran out in front of our car. My mother missed hitting her by inches. But only when we got home to find my dad pacing the driveway did we find out what had happened.

It's the anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings today. So I'm remembering all the people affected by the bombings and the whole sad history of the Troubles, including my relatives who weren't so lucky on other days. Mostly I'm feeling gratitude for the peace process and, not least, my mom's imperfect memory.

My family and I held a coffee morning to raise funds for the hospice that provided nurses to look after my dad while he was dying. Thanks to the generosity of the people who showed up, we raised well over a thousand euro. :)

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 banana, peeled
quarter cup soy milk
1 tbsp sugar, optional
handful of strawberries or other fruit to serve
maple, agave, or golden syrup to serve
oil for frying

Put the flour, baking powder, banana, soy milk, and sugar in a blender and mix until smooth.

Heat a frying pan and drizzle it with sunflower oil.

When the oil is hot, pour half a cup of batter onto the pan for each pancake. It's quite a thick batter so it's possible to cook two or three pancakes at a time.

When the pancakes are bubbly and glossy on top, flip them over and brown them on the other side.

Serve with syrup and fruit.

Makes four to six pancakes.

1 tablespoon sunflower oil
4 large leeks
4 large potatoes
4 stalks asparagus
2 litres (8 cups) vegetable stock
a good grinding of black pepper and a pinch of salt
1 carton plain soy yoghurt or a cup of soymilk (optional)

Trim the root ends and any dead leaves from the leeks, and cut the woody ends off the asparagus. Peel the potatoes.

Rinse all the vegetables, and then either slice them thickly or run them through the large grating plate of the food processor.

Warm the oil in a soup pot and add the vegetables, sauteeing them over a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring often, until the leeks soften.

Pour in the stock and turn up the heat.

As soon as the soup boils, turn down the heat and leave it to simmer for ten or fifteen minutes until the potatoes are tender.

Ladle the soup into a blender and puree the soup until very smooth, being very careful with the steam, and then pour the soup back into the pot. Or puree the soup with an immersion blender, but I think a regular blender works better.

Add the pepper, salt, and yoghurt or milk, if using. Add extra water if the soup's too thick. Simmer a minute or two more, and serve.

Notes:
- Slicing or grating the potatoes too finely will make them stick to the pot.
- Don't use white asparagus. White asparagus needs peeling which is a drag and it doesn't taste quite as good.
- It is possible to make this soup without oil; simply put the prepared vegetables in a pot with the water and proceed as per recipe. The finished soup isn't quite as richly flavoured but it is still terrific.

This soup makes six to eight bowls and came out so well that everyone, even the people who dislike vegetables, had second helpings. I named it in honour of the enormous bucket of frogspawn that Liam and I rehomed from the garden pond to the forest pool today.

Well, that was mental.

I had forgotten how crazy live gigs can be. I was right in the middle, ten foot from the stage, and it was moshpit central, although security kept trying to break it up. But good luck to them even trying to get in there in the crush. I'd have thought that being in a heaving mass of sweaty strangers would be unpleasant, but I just threw myself in and elbowed anyone who was aggressive, and actually it was fun!

My Chemical Romance are fantastic live. They played it like they meant it. Frank Iero is incredibly rock and roll, even in a dodgy green cardigan; Ray Toro is amazing and note-perfect; Gerard was excellent; and Mikey was cool. They came out in Irish football shirts for the last song, which was well-meaning but kinda bizarre. The new drummer guy, whoever the hell he is, was fine; even the two support acts (LostAlone and The Blackout) didn't suck.

The music was such a rush. I danced and sang and screamed my guts out for four hours, and now my face hurts from smiling and I ache all over.

Brilliant.

I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across a text file of Seven Sunday Mother-Daughter Mornings by Hradzka (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). I just read it again. I can see why I saved it. It's a short and not exactly cheerful story, but well worth reading, in my opinion.