Readers' favourite photographs, songs and recipes
**Snapshot: Mummy and Pops, a dynamic duo**
On seeing this picture, you may ask, "What on earth are they doing?" It is for that very reason that I took it. Never have I had a more perfect picture of my parents. This photograph depicts them both carefully trying to save a lizard from the empty pool using an extra long-handled scoop and brush, though it is nothing short of a Beryl Cook painting in comedy.
On the surface it is a funny family holiday snap. On a deeper level, I feel it says more to me about my parents than anyone else could understand – so I shall attempt to explain it.
Firstly, fabulous legs – never have I met two people with such great legs! But on a more serious note, it represents a certain commitment to life as a whole, not just their own but other peoples'. Here they are, mid-life, on holiday, supposedly relaxing (something they rarely do in big doses) and instead of sitting down on the sun lounger – from which I took the photo – they are saving a lizard from drowning, standing among a bunch of rotten pears. Their wonderful stance, bottoms ahoy, shows the commitment to the task and the lack of caring what other people think. The fact they are rescuing a tiny lizard shows their attention to detail.
Mummy is a superb consultant paediatrician. She dedicates day and night to helping other people. Most days she works up to 12 hours and if she isn't in the hospital, she is working at home. Pops had a triple heart bypass a few years ago and is a fantastic man to power on. It was a scary moment for us all but he made it through. From his career as a film director/author, he is a fountain of creativity, yet has put almost all of that aside to run a medical practice with Mummy and make sure I am inspired at all times.
So here I am at the age of 24, proud to say that these two people are just so fantastic. I am proud, too, of the fact I am so privileged to be so close to them and unashamedly call them Mummy and Pops. I am proud of how hard they work and ever so thankful for the attention to detail they have input into my life so far. Without this dynamic duo, I would not be where I am today.
Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres
**Playlist: The song that brought us together**
*Ride On by Christy Moore*
"True you ride the finest horse I've ever seen / Standing 16, one or two, with eyes wild and green"
When I first moved to Britain I stayed with my musical partner, spending most of our time preparing songs for an album we were making. Some nights, her neighbour Paul would stop by on his way home from work and we'd have a drink and maybe sing him one of our new songs.
One night it came to light that he liked singing too; he borrowed my guitar and played a rough but beautiful version of Christy Moore's Ride On. I'm ashamed to say that, coming from America, I hadn't yet come into contact with Moore's work. This song dazzled me with its romantic image of the girl with the green-eyed horse and the singer who's destined to leave her.
I asked him to play it again and found myself singing a harmony line almost immediately. I think I had already started to feel something for Paul, but this song brought up something new between us. When he'd reach the line in the song that says, "I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to," I would feel a clenching in my stomach as if it were Paul himself saying the words to me.
At the time I had a boyfriend waiting for me in America, so those words struck me as the honourable vow of a man refusing to stay where he's not wanted.
It wasn't long after that night that I let my boyfriend back home know that it wasn't going to work out – and rang Paul to ask if we could meet up. We've been together for eight years now, and he still sings me that song whenever I request it. It's so nice to hear it without feeling that my dear singer is about to run out the door! Rebecca Sullivan
**We love to eat: Nana's macaroni cheese**
*Ingredients*
1 onion, chopped fairly small
350g macaroni
1 tin condensed tomato soup
100g, plus 50g grated cheese
1 tsp English mustard
1 large tomato, sliced
Cook the macaroni in plenty of boiling, salted water, following the packet instructions. Add the onion for the last couple of minutes. Drain and tip back into the saucepan and stir in the soup, 100g of the cheese and the mustard.Transfer to a shallow baking dish, top with the remaining cheese and the tomato slices. Bake at 180C (160C) for around 40 minutes.
Now that we tend to make an effort to use fresh, unprocessed ingredients, it seems beyond the pale to incorporate a tin of soup in a pasta dish. Why not use passata or at least a tin of tomatoes? And boiling an onion?
I imagine my grandmother cut this recipe from a Woman's Weekly in the 1960s. It was her contribution to the raucous bonfire night parties we would enjoy at my aunt's house every year and its tinny, sweet smell transports me back to the excitement of those chilly evenings; the plastic Guy's mask melting into the flames, sparklers burning through damp mittens, the whizz of the rockets carving through the smoke, the thrill of being out on a school night, peeling terrified cats from under the beds. When the fireworks were done we would troop up to the house for supper, blinking under the glare of the inside lights as we shook off our boots.
My grandfather would sit in the corner with his plate precariously balanced on one knee, chain smoking and sketching caricatures of us all. Lucky for him that we all had boggly eyes and big noses. A fearsome old beast, he would get away with helping himself to all the delicious crispy, burned cheese round the edge of the macaroni while avoiding the wet bits lurking under the tomato that we all hated.
In later years, my mother got a bit up herself and started throwing in wholegrain mustard and fried lardons, but I'm sure these would not have been available in 1970s Orpington.
Alongside the macaroni cheese, we would have a Middle Eastern casserole made with belly pork, cider and apricots, which we all find too sweet and fatty now, with jacket potatoes, salad and a ham joint. The same stuff was trotted out on Boxing Day with the cold turkey. Easter for some reason called for the addition of a cheese pie.
By the way boiling onions is not to be sniffed at. Literally – it doesn't make your hair smell. Emma Page
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@guardian.co.uk. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.
**Snapshot: Mummy and Pops, a dynamic duo**
On seeing this picture, you may ask, "What on earth are they doing?" It is for that very reason that I took it. Never have I had a more perfect picture of my parents. This photograph depicts them both carefully trying to save a lizard from the empty pool using an extra long-handled scoop and brush, though it is nothing short of a Beryl Cook painting in comedy.
On the surface it is a funny family holiday snap. On a deeper level, I feel it says more to me about my parents than anyone else could understand – so I shall attempt to explain it.
Firstly, fabulous legs – never have I met two people with such great legs! But on a more serious note, it represents a certain commitment to life as a whole, not just their own but other peoples'. Here they are, mid-life, on holiday, supposedly relaxing (something they rarely do in big doses) and instead of sitting down on the sun lounger – from which I took the photo – they are saving a lizard from drowning, standing among a bunch of rotten pears. Their wonderful stance, bottoms ahoy, shows the commitment to the task and the lack of caring what other people think. The fact they are rescuing a tiny lizard shows their attention to detail.
Mummy is a superb consultant paediatrician. She dedicates day and night to helping other people. Most days she works up to 12 hours and if she isn't in the hospital, she is working at home. Pops had a triple heart bypass a few years ago and is a fantastic man to power on. It was a scary moment for us all but he made it through. From his career as a film director/author, he is a fountain of creativity, yet has put almost all of that aside to run a medical practice with Mummy and make sure I am inspired at all times.
So here I am at the age of 24, proud to say that these two people are just so fantastic. I am proud, too, of the fact I am so privileged to be so close to them and unashamedly call them Mummy and Pops. I am proud of how hard they work and ever so thankful for the attention to detail they have input into my life so far. Without this dynamic duo, I would not be where I am today.
Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres
**Playlist: The song that brought us together**
*Ride On by Christy Moore*
"True you ride the finest horse I've ever seen / Standing 16, one or two, with eyes wild and green"
When I first moved to Britain I stayed with my musical partner, spending most of our time preparing songs for an album we were making. Some nights, her neighbour Paul would stop by on his way home from work and we'd have a drink and maybe sing him one of our new songs.
One night it came to light that he liked singing too; he borrowed my guitar and played a rough but beautiful version of Christy Moore's Ride On. I'm ashamed to say that, coming from America, I hadn't yet come into contact with Moore's work. This song dazzled me with its romantic image of the girl with the green-eyed horse and the singer who's destined to leave her.
I asked him to play it again and found myself singing a harmony line almost immediately. I think I had already started to feel something for Paul, but this song brought up something new between us. When he'd reach the line in the song that says, "I could never go with you no matter how I wanted to," I would feel a clenching in my stomach as if it were Paul himself saying the words to me.
At the time I had a boyfriend waiting for me in America, so those words struck me as the honourable vow of a man refusing to stay where he's not wanted.
It wasn't long after that night that I let my boyfriend back home know that it wasn't going to work out – and rang Paul to ask if we could meet up. We've been together for eight years now, and he still sings me that song whenever I request it. It's so nice to hear it without feeling that my dear singer is about to run out the door! Rebecca Sullivan
**We love to eat: Nana's macaroni cheese**
*Ingredients*
1 onion, chopped fairly small
350g macaroni
1 tin condensed tomato soup
100g, plus 50g grated cheese
1 tsp English mustard
1 large tomato, sliced
Cook the macaroni in plenty of boiling, salted water, following the packet instructions. Add the onion for the last couple of minutes. Drain and tip back into the saucepan and stir in the soup, 100g of the cheese and the mustard.Transfer to a shallow baking dish, top with the remaining cheese and the tomato slices. Bake at 180C (160C) for around 40 minutes.
Now that we tend to make an effort to use fresh, unprocessed ingredients, it seems beyond the pale to incorporate a tin of soup in a pasta dish. Why not use passata or at least a tin of tomatoes? And boiling an onion?
I imagine my grandmother cut this recipe from a Woman's Weekly in the 1960s. It was her contribution to the raucous bonfire night parties we would enjoy at my aunt's house every year and its tinny, sweet smell transports me back to the excitement of those chilly evenings; the plastic Guy's mask melting into the flames, sparklers burning through damp mittens, the whizz of the rockets carving through the smoke, the thrill of being out on a school night, peeling terrified cats from under the beds. When the fireworks were done we would troop up to the house for supper, blinking under the glare of the inside lights as we shook off our boots.
My grandfather would sit in the corner with his plate precariously balanced on one knee, chain smoking and sketching caricatures of us all. Lucky for him that we all had boggly eyes and big noses. A fearsome old beast, he would get away with helping himself to all the delicious crispy, burned cheese round the edge of the macaroni while avoiding the wet bits lurking under the tomato that we all hated.
In later years, my mother got a bit up herself and started throwing in wholegrain mustard and fried lardons, but I'm sure these would not have been available in 1970s Orpington.
Alongside the macaroni cheese, we would have a Middle Eastern casserole made with belly pork, cider and apricots, which we all find too sweet and fatty now, with jacket potatoes, salad and a ham joint. The same stuff was trotted out on Boxing Day with the cold turkey. Easter for some reason called for the addition of a cheese pie.
By the way boiling onions is not to be sniffed at. Literally – it doesn't make your hair smell. Emma Page
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@guardian.co.uk. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 4 hours ago.