Well here we are at the beginning of another brand new year. Firstly let me wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas break however you decided to spend it and are now ready to begin another year. The time goes so quickly it seems to fly past doesn't it?
Therapypages.com has been in existence for almost 2 years now and we are growing steadily, the web site is expanding all the time. Please keep your comments and ideas coming in we love to hear from you and if you have any recipes don't forget we will include them on the site also.
The events in New York seem to have dominated the news in the past few months and as I said before we had booked tickets to visit America and we decided to go ahead as planned. We flew out on 29th November and arrived at JFK Airport at about 9.30 in the evening, it was very exciting and travelling on the subway is quite an experience. We were lucky to have Stephen to meet us and show us the way around although he did have to work so he left us to do our own thing on the Friday and we walked and walked and walked around New York City. It is an amazing experience, everything is so much bigger than here, the pavements or should I call them sidewalks, the roads, the cars, the stores even the decorations in the shops. We visited places that I have seen on television and it seemed to be quite unreal that we were actually standing in the Rockefeller Centre and Tara and Michael went skating. I sat and chatted to a lovely couple who were also visiting, they were from Cincinatti and were visiting family and taking the opportunity to do some sightseeing. We left there and went into Saks a very exclusive store we visited Times Square and also went to Central Station and watched the laser display above the famous clock. We also went to the library which was such a beautiful building we were spellbound. There are 52 million books and the building is immense and apparently goes underground for some distance.
Sadly it was the day that George Harrison died and so when we met Stephen from work we made our way to Strawberry Fields in Central Park where the John Lennon memorial is. There were crowds of people there, a lot of them singing Beatles songs and the memorial itself was buried under a mountain of flowers and there were candles burning brightly in remembrance of the two men who had made such an impact on so many peoples lives. The Beatles were very much of my era so it was a poignant moment to be there and the memory will linger for a long time. As we left more and more people were arriving and I am sure the vigil continued long into the night.
We had planned to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island but due to the events of the 11th of September they were still closed to the public. We took a boat ride around the bay instead and saw them from the water, the helicopter flying around constantly was a grim reminder of the horror that had taken place previously. When we disembarked from the boat we walked to the site of where the Twin Towers had been and found it very moving. The flowers the pictures and so many teddy bears left as a symbol of love were heartbreaking and it made us all realise how devastating it must have been. The streets are still filled with dust and the remains were still smouldering. Our deepest sympathies go to them all.
But life goes on in New York as everyone looks to the future, it is certainly an exciting place to visit and we had a wonderful time there. On our last day we went to ToysRus in Times Square and it was breathtaking. They actually have a Big Wheel or as they would call it a Carousel in the store, when my daughter saw the video she could not believe it and now wants to take her son there or perhaps to go for herself.
I forgot to mention the best part of all, we went to the top of the Empire State Building and were lucky enough to see the most beautiful sunset and the lights of the city coming on around us, it was pure magic.
We are going back to having the news letter on a more regular basis of every other month instead of every three months so I will save the news of the lovely event we had of the handfasting ceremony on 21st December until the next time. Until then…
Love and Light and Turkish delight
Hazel.
As most of you know our site continues to grow, and we have added so much to it since the minor face lift.
Our shop has loads of products for sale, from relaxation CD's (including Tara's own which you can order on line or by snail mail for those of you who like conventional methods), to interesting therapeutic gifts, cards, and even Feng Shui products. So why not take a look now and book mark the shopping page as we are adding original hand crafted goods all the time. We have had some very nice comments from those of you who have shopped on line with us to say how easy it is. We try to keep as many people we can happy, and value all your comments, and make changes as we can, or help you out if we know that it is your software, and we do that for free.
We have increased our downloads section to include on-line games. The current one is Hangman, which Steve wrote one night in New York whilst he was working over there. All of the words are based on Therapies that you will find listed within this site. If you have any ideas for games to be added to the site contact us.
Our on-line sign up for therapists has now been modified to take you straight to the shopping basket rather than back to the index page when you submit, so you should find it easier to sign up or renew on-line with us.
We do have a mailing list for on-line news readers, so if you would like to be added then click here. We will endeavor to add this as a link to the site soon.
You'll also notice our nice and easy site map to navigate the site.
I am sure you are all fed up with rich food so the recipe this month is for a meal of Baked Tomatoes with Avocado this recipe is taken from Gail Duffs book of vegetarian cooking for this you will need:
Heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5 and grease an ovenproof dish, cut the tomatoes in half horizontally, scoop out and reserve the flesh taking care not to pierce the skins. Place the tomato cases in the dish, cut the avocado in half and cut the flesh into 1cm cubes and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over avocado and add the reserved tomato flesh and chopped basil. Season the mixture to taste and carefully stir in half the grated cheese, divide the mixture between the tomato cases, piling it up neatly then sprinkle over the remaining cheese. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes until heated through and the cheese is beginning to bubble on the top. Garnish with basil sprigs and serve at once. This dish will serve 4 as a starter, alternatively, serve as a light snack or supper dish with hot garlic bread.