My FAVOURITE Home Front WWII movie of all time, is without a moments doubt, Hope and Glory.

A semiautobiographical project by John Boorman about a nine year old boy called Billy as he grows up in London during the blitz of World War 2. For a young boy, this time in history was more of an adventure, a total upheaval of order, restrictions and discipline. The liberating effect of the war on the women left behind. And the joy when Hitler blows up your school.

For me the movie was both wonderfully happy and terribly sad- my guess is this is what life would have been like for those living through the blitz.. it was their reality.

My heart soared and my smile broadened seeing the wonderment of the stranded blimp and then crumpled at the heart wrenching moment when Grace decides to send her children away to the country to ensure their safety- the swings of emotion at the train station affected me profoundly. God how awful those moments must have been..

One of my favourite fun scenes is the German Jam scene (see the beginning of the video above)..

Sarah Miles gave a truly wonderful performance…

You know that feeling you get when you are watching something naughty, something that pushes the boundaries, something that shows naked flesh and glimpses of aroused male toilet parts??

Your pulse quickens, your skin dampens, you find yourself breathing a little heavier, your pupils dilate and you hope to God no one walks in, looks over your shoulder, and finds out you are a secret pervert?

So “The Wartime Kitchen and Garden” has that affect on me…

It teasingly flaunts it’s 1940’s ness with glimpses of Talaware, wrap around pinafores, old radios, retro kitchens, pudding bowls and the most wonderful walled vegetable garden on the face of our planet…

I want it all…. I want Ruth Mott to boss me around in her kitchen, I want to be Land Army Girl Annie planting marrows on the Andersen Shelter, I want to walk down to the corner store with my whicker basket and ration book and join the long queue for 4 oz of bacon, I want to wear a gas mask…

Am I a masochist? Am I a secret ration book pervert?

All I know is this series is the most wonderfully, exciting, moist making and visually arousing TV series for anyone with a 1940s Home Front fetish…

Enjoy!!!!

Here is an interesting bit of social history for you….

I was also quite horrified to see how much salt was used in cooking. The grandmother instructs her granddaughters to soak the cabbage in salted water for 10 minutes (does anyone know why- please leave a comment if you do!) and then the cabbage is added to a pot of boiling water and salt is added…

I LOVE cabbage.. I have a feeling cabbage was used a lot in the 1940s household..

How do I cook it? A covered pot with a little boiling water in and that’s it (or I add it into a stew) Salt is ALWAYS added after!

Just a quick update as things are crazy here- so much for a day of rest! 2lbs off this week which makes me feel really good. I’m now 303 lbs (down 42lbs from my heaviest weight ever but 104 lbs from my first major goal)

It will be a long journey (it’s been years and years of small successes and failures) but I have to do this….

I do feel pretty good though- every lb makes a difference!

So I’m sat here crunching on raw sugar snap peas….. I would much rather be eating pizza but even more I want to see my toes sometime soon.

I am convincing myself the 1940s family would have grazed on raw fresh veggies as they picked homegrown produce from their “Victory Gardens”.

The British people were encouraged to dig up their flower beds and instead grow vegetables to supplement their rationed foods. Meals would look more plentiful and fill more tummies with a plate that was filled with a generous helping of vegetables. Indeed increasing the amount of daily fruit and veg consumed naturally was good for the health of the nation.

One thing I need to do more research on is how organic was farming in the 1940’s? Did farmers use pesticide? What about allotment growers and families who grew vegetables in their gardens?

The older I get the more I desperately want to rid my life of having to eat non-organic vegetables, fruit and meat. I fully believe that many of our modern medical conditions such as cancers and asthma etc stem from the over use of pesticides and medicines in farming and in our everyday environment..

It is so easy to not think of what is sprayed on our food because we are several times detached from that actual process.

We are lured into purchasing beautiful and perfect food (much as we are lured into wanting beautiful and perfect cars or perfect and beautiful people). But beauty comes at a price…

Your child is sat in front of you, she wants an apple. There are two apples left in the bowl. One apple is larger than the other, it looks perfect, it looks like it has been polished it is so shiny. The other apple is a little smaller, a few blemishes on it’s skin…

Your child reaches for the beautiful apple….

Stop. Wait a moment. You pick up a can of fly/bug killer spray (you know the stuff that you mustn’t breath in or consume- it says so on the can) You spray it over the apple. Would you give that to your child? Of course not…

Don’t be silly, you’d go run it under the tap/faucet first before letting your child enjoy it……. NO??

NO- there is no way any parent would feed their child an apple that has been sprayed with bug spray and then washed under the tap.

BUT the reality is we all do that, each and every day. (except the bug spray is used in the fields and the orchards)

The more I think about it the more I try and introduce more organic produce into our household….. my income is very limited and often organic prices are beyond my reach but I’ll keep trying…..

I know there is something fundamentally very wrong with the way modern society continues to live it’s life……

We all need to change it…

So I lost 5lb!!!!. I’m sorry! I meant to share this weeks weight loss and video it but I had SUCH A CRAZY WEEKEND it didn’t happen… I didn’t even manage to get my blood pressure checked but I’ll do that later this week.

I have set myself a shorter term goal just so I can focus and strive for something…. My first goal will be to lose 20 lb by the time I weigh in on 9th August…. so that will be 20 lb in one month. I know that seems quite a lot but I have quite a lot to lose- it should come off quicker in those first few weeks.

Woo Hoo!!! I am off out for the day so just a very quick update BUT yes I did lose weight this week. Will post results later!!

Today I felt invincible…. Today I feel like I may indeed have some Kryptonian in me. Just call me the “Woman of Steel”..

OK so I didn’t metamorphosize inside a phone booth and fly “up, up and away” into the sky, nor did I catch children falling from tall buildings, I didn’t even lift a fully laden passenger plane with one hand BUT I did say no to a plate laden with burgers and buns and potato salad when we had a FREE lunchtime BBQ at work today…. even to the FREE chocolate ice cream for afterwards I said NO.

Instead I ate my salad and my fruit and even drove out to Indian Garden Farms to buy a bag of sugar snap peas that I could munch on all afternoon..

Yes I felt sorry for myself, yes I wanted burgers, yes I think I may have even pouted but I know in my heart I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to lose my fatness forever….

Today was a triumph… today I had super powers and today is another day conquered ..

C xxxxxx

It’s a good job I am a big fan of vegetables as this week, trying to get back in line, I have chosen to mainly eat veggies for one whole week to help cleanse my body ..

Tonight, although I didn’t follow a 1940s recipe, I grabbed some veggies that probably would have been around in the 1940s and made a substantial meal…. as a veggie worshipper it doesn’t take me long to get excited about eating green stuff!

What I did was lightly steamed a bunch of broccoli. Meanwhile in a pan I placed a small chopped onion, a zucchini (well actually part of a chopped marrow), and a little organic cheese curd and lightly sauteed it in a small knob of organic butter..

Once done I drizzled it over the heaped plate of broccoli and sprinkled with a little sea salt.

It was damn tasty!!!!

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