Holidays: time to reflect and reminisce

Thanks to Kate for the lovely bunch of flowers

The week between Christmas and the New Year is a very special time for me.  This year I don't have any babies due, and I am enjoying the 'holiday'.  I don't need to do much meal preparation, as we have leftovers from the Christmas feast to work through.  Tonight I have made a pot of risotto, with stock made from the turkey carcase, ham and vegetables.  We have plenty of fruit to enjoy: stone fruits from the trees in the back yard, and melon, pawpaw, cherries ... - more than we can eat.  Today the dehydrator is humming as a batch of apricots are being dried.  Noel has made up a couple of pots of jam - plum and apricot so far.  The figs will be ripening soon.

Cultutal heritage in need of urgent safeguarding

Recently my attention was drawn to the UNESCO cultural project to develop a list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

Intangible cultural heritage is knowledge and skill that, unlike monuments or collections of clay pots, cannot be touched.  The UNESCO list includes a fascinating range of human activities, from Mongolian calligraphy, to Watertight-bulkhead technology of Chinese junks, to many examples of traditional music and singing.

Readers of this blog may already have joined the dots, and wondered if some aspect of 'midwifery', or 'spontaneous, unmedicated *normal* birth' (or both) could be considered an under intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding?

Is the reality of normal (natural unmedicated physiological) birth something that can be called a cultural heritage, and something worth protecting? I say "YES".