'Tis the season for wearing hats and scarves

It has turned decidedly Autumnal over here, with the mornings proving particularly chilly. I have already had (I use the past tense slightly prematurely perhaps, but with a view to being positive!) my first snuffles of the season and have been wearing my winter coat from day 1. Yesterday I started wearing a scarf and today my woolly hat will get its first outing of the year. That's not to say we are not enjoying gorgeous sunshine, but the sky is a crisp blue and there is "Winter on the breeze", as an old song by Melanie Safka goes. I got my first organic box in a long time yesterday and much to my delight, it contained a Butternut Squash! You can't get more Autumnal than that :) I plan to to cut it in half and bake it in the oven tonight. Anyone know any clever ways to season it, or stuff it even?

I realised after my last posting that I was still in 'catch up' mode after my prolonged period of Internet isolation in the Summer and that I had in fact not mentioned anything about what is going on here and now. Well, other than the snuffles (which by the way did not prevent me from trekking across to East London for choir practice last night - Vive le Verdi Requiem - oh joy! :), I had my first day of clinical training at the UEL Herbal Medicine clinic last Thursday. In fact, I was supposed to attend on Friday as well, but slept through my alarm clock (oops!) so didn't.. ho hum. Anyway, the 100 clinical training hours I have to put in over the next semester will form an essential part of my Clinical Practice 1 module and involve observing patient consultations, learning diagnostic methods (by practice palpation, percussion etc. on fellow students), finding my way around the dispensary etc. So on Thursday, luck would have it that the first patient I was able to observe was practically a textbook case for a rookie herbalist! A child with a skin condition who has been told by the orthodox medics that there is as yet no cure for the condition, comes to the Herbal clinic earlier this year. Having bravely taken the prescribed herbal medicine all summer (herbal tinctures don't tend to taste that great!), a distinct improvement can be seen - Not exactly magic, mystery or miracle, but a clear example of what will make my studies worthwhile going forward. Here's hoping for many more cases like this one :)

The week ahead looks fairly quiet so far, apart from a long awaited jam session on Friday :) Happy Autumn days M xx


Jam session at M's flat, 15th June '07