I’ve not written a blog for a good few days. The reason? My poor old Dad had a stroke last Sunday 🙁 Well, I say old, he’s only 55. I think that too much stress has finally caught up with him – so let that be a lesson to those of you who put their work before their own health!!!

Anyway, he lost the use of his right-hand side but fortunately he is beginning to regain control of it. He’s very weak though. I wanted to make him a little stress ball so he could use it to build up the strength in his hand. Unfortunately the result of my hard and love-led labour was even more special than my owl phone cover! Haha, aw well, can’t blame a Daddy’s girl for trying……

I basically followed this pattern:http://www.craftdesigns4you.com/freecrochetball.htm although I made a few simple changes to the way the colours worked. The pattern instructs you to make two halves of a ball which you sew together, then you add stuffing before you finish the last few stitches. I figured that stuffing alone wasn’t going to be squidgy enough for a stress ball, so I also added a balloon which I filled with flour via the use of a funnel.

Unfortunately I think my bad sewing let me down. I’ve never been any good at sewing! Hopefully Dad will see the funny side and appreciate my good intentions!

I’ve also made him some soup because as you can imagine, the hospital food isn’t exactly the tastiest cuisine on the planet. I made up the recipe as I went a long and stupidly didn’t write the quantities down, which was a shame as its rather good, even if I do say so myself!

It contains:

• Carrot (for their vitamins, anti-oxidants and blood pressure controlling properties);
• Onion (for taste, anti-viral and cholesterol lowering properties);
• Potatoes (scrubbed but not peeled for vitamins, anti-oxidants, and dietary fibre);
• Chickpeas (for their iron and essential amino-acids)
• Brown rice (Good for the heart, lowering cholesterol, for fibre, essential amino acids, magnesium and selenium)
• Vegetable stock cubes.
• Black pepper and smoked paprika for taste.
• Soya milk (to thin down).

I basically grated the carrot and plonked it in a pan with just enough stock to cover, then simmered for a bit. Then I added finely diced onion and simmered until the onion started to go translucent. Then I added the chickpeas and rice along with a jug-full of water. Once the soup started to simmer again, I added diced spuds and simmered away until everything was soft.

Then I added black pepper and smoked paprika, allowed the soup to cool then whizzed the f*ck out of it! (Didn’t want any lumpy bits for my Daddy to choke on!).

Whizzing made the soup a little thick, so I mixed in some soya milk until it was a nice consistency, then warmed it up again to boiling point.

The best thing about this soup was it tastes quite nice once cooled down to a luke-warm temperature. Which means if I take a flask into the hospital, it won’t matter if I can’t blag access to a microwave 🙂

Please everyone send healing thoughts to my Dad!

Flash-Gordonette…x