All posts by northlondonhousewife

Rants&Rambles

Little Old Lady

Increasingly I find myself embracing my inner little old lady.

Little old ladies are scary buggers. They are not the people to mess with, if you’re ever given a choice. Whilst some of the little old ladies that I know can be the sweetest people alive, they also give the fewest fucks about living up to expectations, and just occasionally, they are the meanest humans to ever walk this earth. Never ask a little old lady what they think of your looks, your clothes, your politics, or anything really, unless you’re happy with a brutally honest reply.

So a few years ago, I finally decided that I’d sat for long enough in a hairdresser’s salon, and allowed my hair to revert to its natural colour. I like to describe it as silver, but I’m entirely ok with the idea of steely grey. When I turn around, people are shocked with how much younger my face looks than my hair colour might imply – and you never really want it to be the other way around.

Last Summer, I spent my entire life living in a version of the same free-flowing linen dress, which could plausibly be described as a bit “Maid Marion”. It’s not quite a sack as it fits too well cross the shoulders but it’s certainly not shapely, not hugging my menopausal waistline. It does happen to be incredibly comfortable, easy to wear and has pockets, something most women’s clothes seem to bizarrely lack. Trousers make no sense to me whatsoever at this stage of life.

Having worn my little-old-lady dresses to death, I’ve invested in similar free-flowing linen dresses for this year. I can dress them warm with leggings and thin under-layer long sleeve t-shirts or just wear them as they are on the warmer days. And forget heels. I’m wearing flats these days because they just feel better on my feet. And when I write flats, I mean comfortable well-made flats, none of that trendy platform nonsense, though clogs are tempting.

I will not be one of those tiny “attractive” flirty little old ladies. I am growing into a battle-axe persona with considerable joy.

When someone beeps their horn behind me as I drive along, I’m now more likely to stop my car, get out and politely ask them if there’s a problem that I need to know about. When some young men look to be hassling a young girl on the metro or bus, I’m almost certain to ask the girl if she’s ok and, if pushed, tell the young men that they should be ashamed of themselves for being such bullies.

I am also much more interested in my garden, my tennis, visiting galleries with girlfriends and playing bridge, because this stuff is fun. The people that I meet through all of these activities are entertaining and exasperating but mostly out to have a good time, rather than pick a fight or score points on some unknown cosmic ego scale.

And all of this means that I spend more time with women than men, which is just a lot more pleasant. Men are harder work than women in everyday life and at each stage of life, and I’ve reached a point where mostly they just don’t seem to be worth the effort anymore. My partner is obviously worthwhile, but other people’s men, not so much. men are just too convinced that they’re entertaining intrinsically and without effort. It’s just not true and never has been.

The world pretends young men’s opinions have some value out of politeness, just as parents pretend everything their toddlers do and say has some significance, but now if men are basically talking bollocks, it seems entirely reasonable to point it out or just note that I disagree with them without a need to make an argument at all. Why dignify a half-arsed opinion with a logical rebuttal?

Maybe men die earlier, often when they retire because no one can be arsed to spend time with them anymore, not even their own wives and daughters. Men do not seem to age well. I have run out of patience for sitting at a party asking a man questions, waiting for them to ask anything about me or my life, where they mistake my politeness for interest and their own monologue as conversation. Fuck off.

I’m a little old lady now and if you want me to pay you some attention then be interesting or interested. Only family get a free-pass for my time and attention.

Home

May Garden

I’ve started tracking my garden through instagram. The alliums have started to flower and are just so ridiculously cheerful as bright white and purple pom-poms. The smaller pinkish alliums are appearing in the new beds whilst the yellow alliums are just about to brighten up the gravel. Last year at the Chelsea Flower Show we fell in love with the allium display, not really noting that they’d had all their leaves cut off. The reason why has become obvious with slugs and snails really enjoying making a mess of them. Still worthwhile though.

Allium + bee

The surprise has been the early appearance of the pink roses which are now flowerful enough to need to cut. We headed off to the shops for two new smaller bowls just to cope with the overspill of rose blooms about to go over. The white roses have yet to make an appearance en-masse but they are a year younger and it is still ridiculously early in the year. Bizarrely the nine roses were planted out at regular intervals (measured by an OCD partner) but have grown quite obviously into three groups of three. It’s not unattractive, but it’s certainly unexpected. I’ve replaced some penstemon in the gaps.

The very old roses are flowering but very straggly and riddled with blackspot. The books tell me that this fungal disease is basically endemic to all rose plants though the younger varieties should have some resistance. Anti-fungal sprays are available but th basic answer seems to be to remove the infected leaves and try to limit the re-spread that way. Maybe if I feed the roses and keep them relatively well watered it will help them just through avoiding plant stress.

My hanging baskets are still alive which is cheering though only because I’m still in the first month of watering. This year I’ve added some of those water retentive pellets to them, but ultimately the answer is pretty obviously to water them daily and not lose interest after 6 weeks. Ho hum.

Allium

This year I’ve added some white leucanthemum to a border for late Summer and a couple of white lupins in front of the magnolia shrub. I’m finding white works well against the green and looks sharper in late Summer when everything starts to look a little dry and tired. Though I’m still not sure how any of this will hold together if we go away for a three week trip to Japan.

Most of the pots are still in the courtyard part of the garden where they were all brought for our last trip in order to try out a new automatic watering system. In the end we just set it to continuously drip rather than sticking it on a timer. The tap into the garden is so old we struggled to find any connector that would work reliably. I’ve added a fats in a pot to make the area look even more lush and jungle-like.

It means that all of the potted ferns are together though they could usefully be moved towards the very back, the dry dark garden, which is currently being overrun by geraniums. Again. Geraniums, tiarella, woodruff, euphorbia and bugold are impossible to kill but pull out in a very satisfying manner. Obviously euphorbia is an irritant so gloves will be required for any serious removals.

There’s also quite a lot of weeding to be done up on the gravel roof with clover picking through the gravel everywhere. A little bit of rain and a lot of sunshine make the weeding up there look a little daunting. I’m wondering whether to put the miniature confer I have in a pot in the middle of the bed within the blue grasses, but it might just look a bit twee.

So everything seems to be arriving a little bit early, including the weeds and as normal, I’m putting off the weeding.

It does look beautiful though.

Rants&Rambles

Tattle Tale

If your son sent an unsolicited dick pic, would you want to know?

Would it change your answer if they were 14 or 24 years old? 34 or 44 years old? Does it change your answer if you have a teenage daughter who has just been sent such a picture?

Someone sent my daughter an unsolicited dick pic in her first year at university. She was 18 and he was probably the same age. It was neither the first nor the last unwanted picture of a man’s genitals she has received.

The man involved was someone whose name she knew. She had come across him at some social event, but hadn’t had any kind of conversation with him. He was entirely peripheral to her experience that evening. Two days later he sent her a few pictures of his penis. & when I received a picture file on-line from an unknown telephone number, his name was mentioned in passing. His pictures were unsolicited but not anonymous.

& knowing his name, meant that I could look him up on the usual social media sites, so I know he has parents (also easily contacted on-line) and siblings, though not a sister.

I wonder whether his mother knows or would want to know what her son is doing to random young women. & I wonder how big a step it is from sending unsolicited pictures, to making unsolicited comments, threats and abuse on-line. How big a step is it from on-line abuse to real-life abuse?

When did the kind of behaviour ever start to seem reasonable?

Food

Black lime tofu

Dried limes are especially popular in Iran, Iraq, Oman and the Persian Gulf and they come whole or ground, black or white (they also go by different names such as Omani limes, Iranian limes or noomi basra). Use the black variety here, if you can.

I usually serve this dish with steamed white rice or warm flatbreads to scoop everything up but I’ve also been known to use the tofu as an addition to a spinach salad.

Yotam Ottolenghi’s black lime tofu.

Prep 10 min
Cook 20 min
Serves 4

1 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
1 small red onion, peeled and cut into thin rounds (use a mandoline, if you have one)
Salt and black pepper
600ml sunflower oil, for frying 
2 blocks extra-firm tofu (560g), patted dry and cut into 2cm cubes
2 tbsp cornflour
2 onions, peeled and roughly chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
60ml olive oil
2 tsp cumin seeds, roughly crushed in a mortar
10g dried black limes (about 2-3), blitzed in a spice grinder to get 2 tbsp
2 tbsp tomato paste
20g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
250g baby spinach

In a small bowl, mix the vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar, the red onion and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, then leave to pickle while you get on with making the rest of the dish.

Heat the sunflower oil in a medium saute pan on a medium-high flame. In a bowl, toss the tofu in the cornflour until well coated. Fry the tofu in two batches, until crisp and lightly browned – about six minutes a batch – then transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper, to drain.

While the tofu is frying, make the sauce. Pulse the onion and garlic in a food processor until very finely minced (but not pureed). Put the olive oil in a large saute pan on a medium-high heat, then fry the onion mixture, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned – about seven minutes. Add the cumin, lime powder and tomato paste, cook for a minute, then add 400ml water, the last teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon and a quarter of salt and a good grind of pepper. Bring to a simmer, then cook, stirring occasionally, for six minutes, until thick and rich. Add the tofu, parsley and another grind of pepper, stir to coat, then add the spinach in increments, stirring, until it has just wilted – about three minutes.

Transfer to a shallow platter, top with the pickled onion and serve.

Travel

Japan

Planning a trip to Japan, and I’ve started with some standard tours from a specialist firm called Inside Japan.

What I want is an extended introduction, preferably with some Ghibli overtones for my kids to enjoy. The basic specialist tour looks something like this:

Tour 1: Basic Japan – 15 Days

Map for Best of Japan

The list price for the basic trip seems to be around £1500 per person, not including air fares. A quick look at sky scanner shows a standard fare from London to Tokyo to be around £1100 each so a total starting cost for a family of four adults of around £11,000.

The basics focus most trips is Tokyo, Hakkone (Mt Fuji) Kyoto and Miyajima (Hiroshima) with a trip to countryside (Takayama). It also makes the most of the excellent rail system. With some old work colleagues living in Tokyo, we may need an extra day to hang out and visit with people. At the same time, I’m probably happy to skip the days in Hakone.

Shinjuku

But there are some interesting ways to mix things up which would all add to the cost. The basic trip includes a few days in the Japanese alps in Takayama, but we could also head south to the sub-tropical islands. We could include a bit of the countryside and more traditional Japanese towns and villages.

Looking through a Studio Ghibli article, there are a couple of places that jump out.

  • Ghibli Museum (near Tokyo)
  • Tomonoura, Seto Inland Sea – the setting for Ponyo
  • Yakushima Island – a setting associated with Princess Mononoke
  • Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama – the tea house most closely linked to Spirited Away

The Ghibli Museum is easy enough to include on any trip. Dogo Onsen, Matsuyama is currently being refurbished so would not be worth a visit and a Ghibli themed tour of Tokyo seems to claim an alternative bathhouse with Spirited Away. Hmm.

It looks like it could be a long long journey by ferry, train and shinkansen from Kyoto to the island of Yakushima, but once there it seems to be the kind of place you would stay for a long weekend’s retreat. To get to the island mostly involves travel via Kagoshima so maybe we could follow a route down through the islands from Nagasaki.

As well as being the famous second site for the US nuclear bombs, Nagasaki has an interesting role as the only Japanese port open to the West for most of Japan’s long history. It’s probably worth a visit irrespective of a jaunt south to the islands. A trip to Nagasaki would add maybe two more nights to the trip.

Maybe we could travel south slowly by train and ferry but fly back to Osaka? That would add another two to three days in Yakashima.

Japan Air Commuter, a member of the JAL Group, operates one round trip per day between Osaka‘s Itami Airport and Yakushima. Flight duration is about 100 minutes. The regular one way fare is around 39,000 yen with discount fares available for around 27,000 yen (around £275)

Looking at a Japanese natural history programme, suggests a few tours other than the Tokyo Ghibli trip. In particular there are a few sites close to Kyoto i.e..

  • Harie(針江), in Shiga prefecture, is known as the village of living water, near Kyoto (probably a day trip)
  • Japan’s bowing deer of Nara, Todaiji Temple probably a day trip from Kyoto

We could also include a trip to the 500 metre path through the Sagano Bamboo Forest on the western outskirts of Kyoto. All of this would need at least one extra night in Kyoto.

The places above all look as if they could be included on the standard trips via Kyoto day trips. I’d also like to visit a spa and see some macaques maybe near Nagano (Yudanaka and Shibu Onsen villages are places to stay in a traditional wooden Japanese inn and experience why the monkeys love relaxing in the onset)

Arashiyama Bamboo Grove

but we may just have to skip Japan’s black bears which are most easy to find in Hokkaido. The various cat islands also look difficult to incorporate into the standard trip – I wonder if there are any cat shrines accessible?

Or if there’s a tour that focuses on the tanuki (Japanese Racoon dogs) taking up residence in the cities?

And the firefly displays are a May-July phenomena only so we’ll miss them if we travel in September. Similarly the bioluminescent firefly squid of Toyama Bay come together in a stunning electric-blue display but in May-June, so a September trip will miss them.

Food

Vegan Rojak Salad

Rojak salad is a sour, spicy and sweet south-east Asian staple. It can be made vegan by taking care to buy a samba oelek, an Indonesian chilli sauce, without shrimp paste either on-line or from an Asian food store

Meera Sodha’s rojak salad with avocado, tofu and tamarind.

Rojak salad is an Indonesian, Malay and Singaporean mainstay that to me always felt like a dish you’d serve at a retro dinner party. It’s often studded with tropical fruit, such as pineapple, packed with deep-fried dough and tofu, and covered in a sweet, syrupy tamarind sauce.

But Claire Thomson’s version in her latest book, New Kitchen Basics takes the idea and turns it into a fresh, light, flavourful and easy salad. This is an adapted version, using avocado and apple. It is sour, hot and sweet, but not too sweet. It’s a keeper – and a new kitchen favourite.

Prep 20 min
Cook 8 min
Serves 4

2 tbsp tamarind paste
2 tsp vegan sambal oelek, or to taste – I like the Lucullus brand
1 tbsp brown rice syrup or maple syrup
3 tbsp light soy sauce
Rapeseed oil
1 x 280g pack extra-firm tofu, drained and cut into cubes
¼ white cabbage, finely shredded (150g net) 
½ cucumber, deseeded and cut into thin slices
100g baby leaf spinach 
2 Braeburn apples, cut into 2mm slices 
2 avocados, stoned and cut into wedges (250g net)
1 handful fresh mint leaves, torn from about 4 sprigs
100g peanuts or hazelnuts roasted, salted and ground
Lime wedges, to serve

First, make the dressing. In a small bowl, whisk the tamarind paste, sambal oelek and syrup with two tablespoons of the soy and a tablespoon of oil. Taste the dressing, making sure you’re happy with the balance of heat, sour, sweet and salt, and adjust as required.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, fry the tofu cubes for six to eight minutes, turning them with tongs, until golden brown all over, then add the remaining tablespoon of soy, take off the heat and tip into a serving bowl.

Add the cabbage, cucumber, spinach, apple, avocado wedges, mint leaves and half the nuts to the bowl, then toss with your hands to wilt the spinach and mash the avocado a little. Add about six tablespoons of the dressing, mix again, then taste and add more dressing if need be. Garnish with the remaining peanuts and serve with a lime wedge on the side.

Home

Garden

It’s Spring and the garden is lovely. The seasons are clearly out of whack though with everything a few weeks ahead of time.

The crocus and daffodils came and went along with the camellia and magnolia and the pear blossom. The blue muscari and white anemone (a good buy last year) have worked well and led into the tulips. After two years, the iris finally started to flower though not all of them. The white clematis is in full bloom and the glory of the wisteria and the bluebells are currently dominating.

The tulips have just gone over, except under the maple tree where the yellow flowers planted last year are looking good. I shall have to plant more of them, and maybe some of the orange ones. The latter are a lovely shade but only around 10cm tall so really only good for the very edge of the bed.

At the moment I’m waiting for the alliums to burst into life. A couple of sprinkles of slug pellets seem to be keeping the worst of the snails at bay. Hopefully the roses will follow straight after. Even though I am totally sure they were measured out very precisely, the soft pink roses seem to have broken into three groups of three rather than a consistent hedge of nine. My gardener seems to have cut back the penstemnon a bit brutally – I’ll be cross if it means I’ve lost it.

Hopefully the baby white roses in the front will grow more evenly. The salvia planted between them looks to have survived but the bed is still a bit overgrown. I wonder if the foxgloves from last year have self seeded – as a biannual they’ll just grow green this year so it will be tempting to dig them out.

I have already planted up pots and tubs with geraniums, begonias and lobelia. And possibly for the last year I’m attempting to keep alive two hanging baskets. I know the answer is to water the beggars, but despite my best intentions, I never make it much past a month.

In a few weeks I shall have to buy some more white bedding, snapdragons maybe or alyssum, to replace the anemones at the front of the bed but right now, I’m busy watering and generally babying some pots ready to distribute them around the darkest and driest bits of my garden.

Food

Apple Whisky Bundt Cake

Having invested in a bundt tin, I’ve started looking for recipes that taste as well as the tin looks. This recipe makes a hearty spice-filled bundt  made from grated apples and toasted nuts, then soaked in whiskey syrup. Plus, a bundt cake, which is really just like an oversize muffin baked in a fancy pan, is easy to whip up. The booze bath helps keep it fresh, meaning you can bake it ahead and eat the leftovers for days.

Practical and pretty.

Apple Bourbon Bundt Cake

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter 226 grams, at room temperature, plus more to grease pan
  • 2 ½ cups plain flour 315 grams, plus more to dust the pan
  • 3 tablespoons (30 grams) whiskey
  • ½ cup (90 grams) candied ginger, chopped
  • 1 ¾ cup (330 grams) light brown sugar
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons (8 grams) baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon (5 grams) bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 ½ teaspoons (3 grams) ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon (5 grams) fine sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1 cup (227 grams) sour cream or yoghurt
  • 1 tablespoon (15 grams) vanilla extract
  • 1 ½ teaspoon (5 grams) finely grated lemon zest
  • 2 medium Granny Smith apples about a pound, 454 grams, peeled, cored, and coarsely grated
  • 1 cup (120 grams) finely chopped, toasted pecans
  • ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon (20 grams)
  • 1/2 cup whiskey (20 grams)

PREPARATION

  1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt pan. In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons whisky and the candied ginger. Let stand 10 minutes.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the brown sugar and remaining butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, until incorporated.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining flour with the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream and vanilla. Pour in the bourbon from the ginger mixture (reserve ginger) and whisk until smooth. Stir in zest.
  4. With the mixer on medium speed, add the dry mixture and sour cream mixture to the wet mixture in three additions, alternating between the two. Fold in the ginger, apples and pecans. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Any excess can be used in muffin tins and baked for around 20 minutes in the oven with the cake.
  5. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out dry, about 1 hour 10 minutes. Cool in the pan 20 minutes, then run a paring knife around the sides of the pan to release the cake; cool, flat side down, on a wire rack.
  6. While the cake cools, combine the 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup whiskey in a small saucepan. Over low heat, gently stir until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the lemon juice and take off the heat.
  7. Make sure the cake is loose enough to release fully from the tin. Poke holes in the flat bottom of the still-warm cake, pouring half of the whisky glaze on the bottom and letting it sink in. Flip the cake out of the tin.
  8. While the cake cools, make 10 slits on top with a paring knife and pour the remaining half the bourbon-sugar mixture on the still-warm cake.

PS I’ve included the whole recipe as I received it, but there’s quite a lot going on flavour wise.

Depending on what you have in the cupboard you could lose any (but not all of) the whisky, lemon, ginger, vanilla, apples or pecans.

Including the first three only tastes a bit like a whisky toddy whilst including just the last three (vanilla, apples or pecans) feels more of a wholesome family cake. Whisky/pecan is also good combination.

Food, Home

Supper

The first tennis match of the year is approaching and it’s at home leading to the “forever” question of what to make for supper.

An onion tart with a cream cheese base or something more Italian in feel?

Three hefty salads, with or without a second tart? New potatoes and asparagus with mint or a version of aloo papri chaat? Ceviche broccoli with cavalo nero or some other form of green, maybe a farmer’s salad? Or what about some form of sticky butternut squash or tofu salad with aubergine with a soy dressing?

Someone else can bring desert and something to drink.

Or I could throw the pattern out and make a huge butternut squash laksa or curry with some rice and vegetable salads as sides. My partner could bring the food down to the club just before we’re ready to eat at 9pm.

Home, Rants&Rambles

Vaccines

My entire family is vaccinated against most common illnesses but that wasn’t always the case.

We didn’t routinely vaccinate or get the standard baby batch vaccinations and even now, there are some that I probably wouldn’t bother with if they weren’t part of a batch vaccine with something more useful.

As long as we’re in the UK, polio is pretty much pointless as a vaccination since it’s a disease eradicated from our country, though it was one we signed up to straight away once we started traveling around the world with the kids.

Pertussis or whooping cough has a vaccine with limited efficacy requiring a booster shot every 4-5 years but since it’s part of the DTP shot, we keep up to date with it.

There are some other vaccines that just aren’t very effective such as the flu vaccine so the elder members of our family have thought hard about using them. At the end of the day, there are just too many versions of flu around for any shot to cover everything but the downsides to this vaccine are low to non-existent side-effects outweighed by any coverage to catching flu so it’s worth having the shot for the elderly.

Standard UK vaccinations include diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (DTP) polio, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) and hepatitis B. My daughters, like most girls in the UK, are also vaccinated against HPV. Since we’ve all caught chickenpox, we should have lifelong immunity.

Travel vaccinations that we’ve also added to our list include HepA and obviously we all take antimalarials where necessary.

We have never fallen sick (beyond my uncomfortable food poisoning in Laos travelling up the Mekon) and considering that we’ve been visiting developing countries since our kids were toddlers, that’s a pretty good outcome.

It’s something we attribute in large part to decent preventative measures such as basic hygiene i.e. eating only hot cooked food, hot drinks, bottled water for drinking and brushing of teeth, water purifying tablets if required etc. and the use of preventatives such as nets over beds, insecticide sprays around rooms, and ones designed to sprayed on the body as well as basic long sleeves and trousers. It’s pretty simple stuff bit always surprising to find out how many people seem to get it wrong.

I’m not convinced that I’d vaccinate my kids if I didn’t think there was a direct risk of them catching the diseases listed i.e. if we weren’t travelling. Herd immunity, the protection of other people’s kids, is a cold reason to stick a needle into your baby and I’m just selfish enough for it not to weigh too heavily.

But the risk of catching one of these diseases is very real given the places we travel and the results of catching those disease can be horrendous, so we vaccinated.

Other, better, less selfish parents should vaccinate immediately. They work 85-95% of the time. The vaccine side effects are minimal whilst the effects of catching the diseases themselves can be devastating. Your baby will cry, possibly scream, when they get the shot but that can be countered with an ice cream. They may even have a slight temperature which will need some calpol (baby paracetamol). These symptoms are nothing compared to the actual symptoms of any of these diseases.

As the cases of measles rise in the UK, it’s worth remembering the symptoms. Measles lasts 7-10 days, starting with flu like symptoms, a runny or blocked nose, sneezing, watery eyes and swollen eyelids, sore and red eyes, a high temperature of upto 40C, small greyish spots in the mouth, cough, no appetite, tiredness, irritability and a general lack of energy.

This is followed by a rash around 2 to 4 days after initial symptoms.

Complications can include liver infection, misalignment of the eyes if the virus affects the nerves and muscles of the eye infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord or infection of the brain itself.

Some children will die from contracting measles. A vaccine is a small price to pay to reduce that risk for my kids.