May 31st - Warning - unsuitable for children. Not to be read at bedtime.

I LOVE twitter - it is full of links to all sorts of serendipitous sites. How else would I have uncovered this one? (from a tweet by the QI Elves @quikipedia)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2012/may/30/terrifying-french-childrens-books-in-pictures#/?picture=390846367&index=0

picture  from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

I am constantly amazed at the kind of things adults thought were suitable for children. It took me many, many years to get over reading Struwwelpeter. My grandmother had a copy - from her childhood? It probably wasn't that old. Perhaps it was her children's copy. "Merry", the stories were not.

The one that frightened me most was "The Story of the Thumb-Sucker", in which a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. However, when she goes out of the house he resumes his thumb sucking, until a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors. The story (in German) is here http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Der_Struwwelpeter/Die_Geschichte_vom_Daumenlutscher along with the picture that kept me awake.







I guess it is in the tradition of Hillaire Belloc's "Cautionary Tales for Children", another of my grandmother's books;







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cautionary_Tales_for_Children




"Not now, Bernard" is more of a cautionary tale for parents. As I recall, the monster eats Bernard on about page one, and his parents never notice.

May 31st - Brilliant - don't waste time reading, just click the link

http://www.drawastickman.com/share

Thursday 31st May - catching up but typing quietly

The problem with working in schools is that as the term progresses, one gets more and more knackered. By the time the half term break arrives, most teachers will be asleep on the sofa by half past eight. Which leaves precious little time for keeping up with the blogging.

I am having to type quietly in order to avoid waking myself up - after all it is nearly 8pm and my time for being awake and functional will be over for the day.

Actually, that's a lie; I am typing quietly because "The Great British Menu" is on TV and if I make too much noise on our ancient keyboard, it will affect everyone else's viewing pleasure.

Anyway, this post properly belongs to Tuesday, when I wanted to share the beautiful, unexpected, and uplifting sight of large drifts of lupins growing wild along the A272 just to the East of Rogate. If you are anywhere in the area, it is worth a detour - a smallish detour, to enjoy the sight.

There is even a handy layby (probably the old road) where you can stop and take in the view across the fields to the South Downs.

Enjoy.

Sunday 27th May - Not again

This is getting ridiculous.

How did the dining-room table get into this state again?

I tidied only last month and now look at it.

May 27th - Sunday - grrr

If goose-grass - cleavers - Robin-run-the-hedge - were a crop that I could harvest and consume, I would be giving thanks for its abundance.

If dandelion seeds could be eaten, drunk, smoked, sold, I would be rich.

But they are not.

So I am neither giving thanks for them, nor am I rich. I'm just having a moan before I take the battle to the flowerbeds AGAIN.

I do this every year. You would have thought they'd get the message that they are not welcome by now.

Sunday 27th May - Alternative to quiche for Post-Modern Christians

If there are a lot of typos in this post, blame the bordeau (Chateau Bel Air). I have managed to catch four so far, and am still in the first couple of sentences.

Years ago, at university, I bought a cagoule, learnt to like quiche, and to enjoy orange squash. This was because I had had a "conversion experience" and become a "real" Christian. It was York University, and David Watson  was mesmerising everyone from St Mike's (St Michael-le-Belfry in the shadow of the Minister). I am everlastingly grateful to his ministry, as, with various ups and downs and periods of "lying fallow", I have stayed a Christian ever since.

However, over the years, I have learnt that it is "okay" to ditch the cagoule, resume drinking wine, and become - let's say - ambivalent - over the merits of quiche.

Today I made frittata for lunch. It is like quiche without the pastry.

We moved the garden bench and collapsing foldable table to the shady end of the garden, under the old apple tree, and ate frittata, consumed olives, and shared (garlic) bread and wine together.

I wonder if frittata was around in Biblical, that is, New Testament, times?

I started with this recipe from the Daily Mail (thanks be to Google)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1196599/Recipe-Oven-baked-frittata.html

HOWEVER; the instructions are for 6, and there were only three of us. And I only had single cream. And she doesn't care for tomatoes. And I didn't have any Gruyere cheese. So I more or less halved everything, substituted some cheddar for the Gruyere, red pepper for tomatoes, and added chives and a slice of ham. I only had double cream, so used less cream and more milk.

Here is my version for three people;

Set the oven to 200 (fan) before you start

Fry one diced courgette and half a diced red pepper in a little olive oil for 5 mins, then set aside to cool.
In a bowl, mix the equivalent of 75ml single cream and 75 ml milk, 1 tbs cornflour, three eggs, some salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth, stir in some grated cheese (a couple of handfuls of strong cheddar that had been lurking in the bottom of the fridge in this case), a slice of ham chopped up, a couple of spoonfuls of chopped fresh chives, and a sprig of parsley that had fallen off the pot plant on the windowsill.
Line a 1lb loaf tin with  baking paper, pour the mix in, and add the fried courgette and pepper.
Bake in the oven for 25 - 30 mins until it looks like the picture of the real thing.

For what we received, we were truly grateful. It was very, very good.

Sitting in the garden, listening to the birds, watching the bees, enjoying the sun and the shade and the breeze.... Paradise regained.

Sunday 27th May - Form - the light goes on (at last)

Two events over the past few days have caused a Big Light to Switch On...

On Saturday I speed-read my way (that combination of words looks and sounds so wrong - speed-readed? speed-red? English is a crazy distortion of the way a decent, well-ordered alphabet should be used. No wonder reading has become an elitist activity. Anyway, back on track...) through "The Beach cafe" by Lucy Diamond - a pleasant, "chick-lit" novel.

On Friday I attended a music conference for Primary School Music Teachers. One of the workshops I took part in was run by someone called Sarah Hennessy, from the Exeter University PGCE course. Her workshop was inspirational for many reasons; as full of plums as a Christmas Pudding.

One of the things we did was create a "soundscape" (in the style of 4-7 year old children, as it was an "Early-Years" - (here we go again - why don't those two words rhyme?) workshop. This type of music teaching isn't new to me now, as a teacher, but we never, ever, did anything like this when I was at school. Standing in rows and singing nursery rhymes and folk songs, and occasionally getting a rusty triangle was about the height of it in my day.

Sarah Hennessy got us going by asking a series of questions;
"We need to choose somewhere that we don't know much about - where are travelling?" From the offerings made by the group of teachers, (space, the moon etc) we chose "Under the sea"

"Who are we? what sort of beings are dong the travelling?" Eventually we agreed on "sharks", much quicker than we would have done if we were actually 7-year-olds.

"What is the destination?" A "magical kingdom/castle under the sea"

"Now we need to have some contrasting adventures along the way." As mature adults, we quickly settled on "swimming through the nursery where the baby sharks are sleeping", "getting sucked into a whirlpool" and "swimming past some lobsters".

One of these was my suggestion - I'll reveal it at the end of the post.

We were put into groups - sharks, nursery, whirlpool, lobsters and magic kingdom, given a few minutes to create our "music" and then we were off. (Guess which group I was in!) Sarah had drawn a rough sketch of our journey on the white board - a graphic score - and - watching carefully as she mapped out the route with a beater, we bonged and tinkled and scrapped and tapped at exactly the right moments; sharks, nursery,sharks again, whirlpool, sharks again, lobsters, sharks once again and the magic kingdom. I notice that the sharks played slightly differently, within the same kind of idea, every time it was their turn; faster, or louder, or faster and louder. It was a perfect example of Rondo form.

So what has the light bulb got to do with this?

Back to The Beach Cafe; (SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE PLOT OF THE BOOK!

the heroine and the family are introduced; an event precipitates the journey; the family react; something else happens; someone from the family reacts; there is another event; some one else from the family reacts; etc etc until we arrive at the magical conclusion to the story; in other words - Rondo Form! - Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking the book - I enjoyed it as a "Beach Read".

Well, I expect all you literary buffs knew all this before. I've only been reading books and playing the piano for over 50 years and never really thought about it before. It just goes to show the difference that a little learning can make. I'm now planning my first novel. If you are really, really, unlucky, I may post it here in instalments first. Or maybe it will join my huge and growing heap of unfinished projects...

(I suggested the nursery - bet you thought it was the whirlpool!)
(I was in the magical kingdom group and got to play the Really Big Glockenspiel - Yay!)

Tuesday 22nd May - Mindful teaching, mindful learning

I've feeling a lot more cheerful about my music teaching at the moment.

For a while now (seems like years, maybe it has
been?) I've been trying to get my music students to learn with the same focus and attention that I use when teaching them. I had never realised that focused learning is not a natural skill/ability, until the time that I was struggling make it possible for someone to play a fragment of Bach (the Musette in D from and Anna Magdalena book, bar 12, if you are interested). The challenge was for her to play the four semiquavers with the vital combination of correct fingering, notes and rhythm. Finally, after many attempts, breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps, going through it slowly, finger by finger, she managed it. "Great! Well done!" I enthused. "Now, what did you do that made it succeed this time?". I was hoping that she would have gained some useful insight from all our work. "I dunno." was the dispiriting response. She had just thrown her fingers once again in the general direction of the notes and hoped for the best. Rather like throwing all your china into the cupboard and hoping it will end up in neat stacks on the shelves. All that effort, all that patient, careful teaching, explanation, demonstration, repetition - wasted.

Well, not wasted. I learnt something from it, even if she didn't. I learnt that students , whatever their age, don't have an innate ability to make a conscious decision to learn something; that most people haven't developed the "mental muscles" for learning, and that teaching them HOW TO LEARN is ninety percent of teaching the average student how to play the piano.

So, why am I feeling more cheerful? Well, an increasing number of my pupils are now showing signs of having begun the process doing "mindful learning", or developing "mental muscles". They make their own connections between notes, make their own conscious choices about which finger plays what in scales, they remember sharps and flats without needing them written in the whole time.

Yay! Celebrate! They are learning skills that will transfer to all other aspects of learning. Result! Rejoice!

Hope it lasts....

Sunday 20th May - Apropos of nothing at all - yoghurt cake



the work of the sea

I found this receipe written out in my old school geography book, 
which is where I have been collecting recipes since I made the mistake of giving up geography for maths back in 1970 (If I had known then what I know now I would have stuck with geography, but then if I hadn't been doing a maths degree I would never have met the man I love and married him and I wouldn't be who I am now, so, taking the long view, struggling through maths for three years at uni has worked out for the best.) Anyway, where was I ...  

The basic recipe

1 small pot of plain yoghurt
then use the emptied pot to add

2 pots SR flour
1 and a half pots sugar
quarter pot of mild cooking oil (light olive oil works well)
2 eggs

the work of my pen

Mix well and cook at gas mark 4 for 45 mins (my oven is electric so 170C fan seems to be OK). Timings and temperature depend upon what you are cooking it in - individual cake bites in a bun tin are hotter and quicker. I think the timings above are probably for a loaf tin.

The basic recipe is very plain. To make a decent lemon drizzle version, take a lemon and grate the peel into the mixture. Then, while the cake is cooking, mix the lemon jiuce with four tablespoons white sugar. When you get the cake out, pour the lemon juice/sugar  syrup over the cake and let it cool in the tin.

For a fruit version, use brown SR flour if you have it, and soft brown sugar, add mixed spice (somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon according to taste) and dried mixed fruit - about 6 ounces or two handfuls or maybe that would be 2 or 3 pots of fruit and cook as above. 

Sunday 20th May - What Jesus might have seen



sea ice spirals near Kamchatka

http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/33-stunning-photos-of-earth-taken-by-an-astronaut

Do you think Jesus got to see the world from this angle when he ascended into heaven last Thursday (or sometime today - depends which liturgical calendar you are using)? I hope he took the time to look around on his way up, to see what an amazing and beautiful and strange and intriguing world he had created all that time ago.



Scandinavia and Northern Lights

Of course, 2000 years ago, Paris and Scandinavia wouldn't have been lit up with street lights.

snowy fields and river in Canada

and Canada wouldn't have been divided up into millions of square-shaped fields.

I've just snipped a few bits out of a couple of the pictures. The whole sequence is "out of this world". And I'm not joking!

Friday 18th May - It's a small, small world.

I have just discovered the QI Elves on twitter. One of their tweets has this link;

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Star-sizes.jpg

which has the picture below.

Earth is the largest object in the first picture. I gues that means it would be the size of a mustard seed in the last picture? 

Thursday 17th May - Today I am not going to tell you the anwer

That's it. I have reached the end of "spoon-feeding" people who are perfectly capable of wielding a knife and fork, metaphorically speaking.

Let's face it, put a plate of chips, or cake, or sweets in front of most children, and they will have no difficulty in transferring said victuals into their gob, masticating them to a pulp and swallowing.

Replace chips, cake, sweets, with nutritious fare such as broccoli, spinach, meat, and (still inside the metaphor) they need the food cut up into titchy bits and carefully presented to them in tiny spoonfuls. You may even have to pin them down and hold their noses to get the food into their mouths, possibly work their jaws up and down to get it chewed and stroke their throats to get it swallowed. Like getting pills down the dog (metaphorically, remember).

I am told that, when I was a toddler, I would only eat eggs if there was a spoonful of sugar on the yolk. (Ugh. The thought makes me shudder. That was a long, long time ago.) But I fully understand the need to make new experiences palatable (staying inside the metaphor).

However, the bottom line is, YOU have to learn TO DO IT FOR YOURSELF, what ever IT is.

Whether it is learning E flat minor scale, or learning your spellings, or filling in your tax return, or training your dog, or parenting your child, YOU have to DO it, and keep on "doing it". "It" won't "do it" by itself.

As a teacher, my job is to make learning fun, adventurous, exciting - true. But I think it is also my job to help children to learn that sometimes the act of doing the learning is none of the above, but still worth persevering with for the long term rewards way, way in the future.

If only life could all be as easy as eating chocolate. However, we need to chew on something more solid in order to grow.

PS None of the above applies to housework or gardening. Both are an utter and complete waste of time - if you do them, a week later it will all look as though you never bothered. Unless of course, you actually LIKE doing them, in which case you can experience the pleasure over and over again as you will never, ever reach the stage of having finished the house or garden.

PPSS The exception for housework is the bathroom, kitchen and loo. If you don't keep those clean you will regret it.

PPPSSS Invest in non-iron clothes. Most of the time I only iron shirts for work (Mon-Thurs as Friday is "dress-down day" and he is wears casual clothes to work)

Wednesday 16th May - Draw your own Labyrinth

Draw the cross first, and put a dot in each corner. Then join the ends of the cross to the dots as shown, always taking the long way round.

It works if you do a Y shape, put a dot in between the spokes of the Y and join them up in the same manner. A "Trinitarian" labyrinth!

I'm getting a bit carried away now. Six spokes, radiating from the centre, and six dots....

Yes, it still works. makes a rather nice fan shape.

Now, how about transferring that to the front lawn.....
(In your dreams - that sounds like WORK)

Tuesday 15th May - Labyrinths

St Catherine's Hill Mismaze picture from wikipedia

I first encountered labyrinths when I was at boarding school. Church on Sundays was compulsory, but we could choose which church we went to, so long as we went in pairs and were back for lunch. On sunny Sundays in the Summer term, my friend and I used to choose the church of St Cross. It was a long walk through the water meadows but that didn't matter as we had no intention of going to church at all, but climbed to the top of St Catherine's Hill instead. We would lie on the grass, hidden from any school teachers who might be out walking their dog, and listen to the crickets chirping and the larks ascending. If we stayed too long, it would mean a brisk jog back to avoid being late for lunch, but we always trod the "Mismaze" labyrinth gouged out of the turf at the top of the hill before we left.

Many, many years I was planning a - I hate the word banner - but I guess I have to use it - a banner then, for church on the theme of "Walking with God". I thought of a labyrinth, a common design for expressing the Christian Life. The point is that there are no wrong turnings or blind alleys in a labyrinth, so if you just keep going along the path, you will certainly reach the centre, unlike trying to solve a maze. I found that I could bend the basic rounded shape of the labyrinth into the shape of a cross.

I cleared an area of the church to create enough space to put it together, using calico as the backing, and gluing lengths of cotton bias binding tape onto this to make the lines of the labyrinth. The background was made by layering coloured net to suggest the grass and sky.

 

The entrance to the labyrinth is wide, but the paths change from narrow to wide along your journey. Sometimes the space is so broad that you can get lost, lose your way, and end up going backwards. Other times the path is very narrow, and if you are  not paying attention you will cross over into the neighbouring channel which may well lead you in the wrong direction.

There are places where the edges seem to blur into the space outside, and you can stray away from path, leaving the labyrinth altogether.

As you travel along the path, on several occasions you will find your way obstructed by the crown of thorns, when it becomes difficult to keep on going.

At the centre of the labyrinth is the heart of God, over flowing into the adjacent spaces.You will feel its warmth quite soon when you enter the labyrinth, and occasionally the way leads you close to the centre. At other times the path seems far away from the centre, often going in what appears to be totally the wrong direction.

Tuesday 15th May - In search of perfection

On Tuesdays I have two hours to fill between leaving the school where I spend the morning, and arriving at the school where I teach in the afternoon. I need to allow about 45 minutes travel time, but that still leaves me with a generous hour to spend in getting up to date with admin on my laptop over a delicious coffee and croissant or cake.

What I want is a warm cafe, with first class coffee, excellent food, comfortable seats, clean tables at a good working height, free parking close by, all somewhere on the road between the two schools. It is also extremely useful to have a post office, bank, and small, well-stocked supermarket all close by.

Considering that I drive through two reasonably sized county towns and one village, you would have thought that there would be no problem.

Well, hey, life is never that simple.

I have found the perfect place, but the post office, supermarket and bank are missing. There is another perfect place, with all the amenities, but I can't beat the surface of the table tops. they are clean, but weirdly tacky, as if coated with the same stuff as "post-it" notes, so all my papers seem to stick to them. Ugh. The other cafes all have even worse drawbacks, like undrinkable coffee, rubbery toast, unpleasant cake. And so it goes on.

In the end one has to be prepared to compromise and adjust one's happiness index to what is available.

This is a kind of metaphor for another search - the search for the Perfect Church. I suspect that it doesn't exist either. At least, not in this world.

Saturday 12th May - Reading your Writing

I am soooo grateful that I have discovered Planet Blog. Thank you, everyone, for all your time and effort scouring the Internet to bring me new riches every day. Thank you for your time and effort in getting your thoughts into some semblance of order and rattling away at your keyboard. Thank you for sharing your insights, your sanity's, and your insanities.

I am soooooo enjoying reading what has become my personal daily magazine of news and nonsense. All day, I spend my time in encouraging, facilitating, collaborating, assisting, and when all else fails, TELLING students, en masse and individually how to read music, play music, and even make music. When it is finished, I can sit down and enter an alternate universe, thanks to you folks.

Just thought I'd mention it.

Thanks.

PS; just in case ArchDruid Eileen comes visiting; I have responded to her request and done some titivations to my blog. Hope you like the fish.

Saturday 12th May - Blue smoke in the sunshine

The garden is looking exceptionally green now. I was wondering about the "lawns" - would we go for the "rustic wildflower meadow" look this year? There seemed to be an abundance of non-grass-like plants growing there.

Before I had a chance to discuss this in any detail with the lawn-mower-operative, I woke up to the sounds of an extremely sick sounding petrol engine making heavy work of heavy going. The "rustic meadow" is no more, and we have reverted to the pocked and unevenly green areas that we euphemistically refer to as "the front lawn" and "the back lawn". I expect the pall of blue smoke - literal blue smoke, not the figurative sort - will dissipate soon. Something to do with diaphragms and carburetters, I believe. I take all such pronouncements on trust.

Unless something is done about the mower soon, this state of affairs is unlikely to last, and we may well decide to go for a more natural look this year, provided our neighbours don't object too strongly.

Saturday 12th May - Macho Morris Maids

It's been a Morrissy sort of day today in the town - everywhere you go there is a gentle, rhythmic tinkling noise as troupes of Morris dancers make their way from the square to the other square to the market to The Bear to The Stout House to the square and back to The Bear and to the market and then back to The Stout House. They clump along, pausing to shake out their hankies and and rattle their cudgels complicated patterns to the accompaniment of and assortment of squeeze boxes, penny whistles, fiddles, bodruans, and whatever else seems to make a suitably rustic sound.

While making my own way from the square to the other square to the market to the bank to the post office to the shop which sold me the roasting tin which has prematurely succumbed to rust, my attention was caught by a very different Morris team.

The accompaniment was provided by a man beating a drum, and another man clipping two substantial staves together in a simple, but compelling rhythm. There were no other sounds. Three men, dressed in tattered black, with blackened faces, and black hats decorated with pheasant feathers, stood impassively in a row, while several women, also dressed in black (but maybe less tattered), and also wielding cudgels, danced round them as though they were tracing a labyrinth, or a Celtic knot. dancers and statues had no expression on their faces, apart from a fierce, inward concentration. The whole effect was weirdly mesmerising, as though they were enacting some kind of ancient spell.

I should have taken a photograph - sorry - I was bewitched - spell bound - by the strange sense of powerful and ancient magic at work.

The dance came to an end, the women standing in front of the men, almost as a challenge. The watchers clapped and the dancers left, to be replaced by a team of "normal" Morris men with flowers in their hats, and,  jingling bells and clean white hankies.

Sunday 6th May - Rush Hour Traffic



The Luggage is a large chest which follows Rincewind everywhere.. It is made of sapient pearwood, a magical, intelligent plant which is nearly extinct, impervious to magic. It can produce hundreds of little legs protruding from its underside and can move very fast if the need arises. It has been described as "half suitcase, half homicidal maniac"
(taken from Wikipedia)

On Friday, when I made my dash for freedom-from-piano-teaching, I hit Victoria Station at around 5pm, the beginning of the rush hour. It wasn't packed with "real" commuters then, more like large numbers of people-on-the-move, many towing bags-on-wheels.

This were strongly reminiscent of various adventures I had watched on TV involving the Top Gear presenters and rage against caravanners. Things like "why do caravanners always go so slowly" as yet again I nearly tripped over the towing handle/bar/line separating the person from their luggage. Or "why do they always go too fast" as my shins were viciously attacked by an out-of-control cabin bag which was trying to overtake the thoughtless traction units (aka idiot people) charging recklessly through the crowds.

This uncontrollable urge to take surreptitious kicks at the suitcases and bags in passing was growing so strong that my companion was getting worried. Any moment we were likely to be picked up on CCTV and detained by yellow-jacked security officers for anti-social activities .

It was a near thing, but luckily we made it out of the station before anything really drastic took place. Travelling by bus proved to be a much better idea than battering our way through the tube tunnels. Once I had cleared a path through various obstacles we we able to take our seats. At last we, or maybe it would be truer to say, the luggagers, were safe from further potential incident.

At least, until we got off at Oxford Circus.

But that's another story.

Saturday 5th May - I need to have a Really Good Look

I went to London after work yesterday. Well, after school - I cancelled all the piano teaching and did a runner.

It's a  fascinating place, compared to the small town that I live in. It's full of sights.

There's the girl with hair dyed all sorts of pastel shades - basically a sort of blonde, but with streaks of pale green, light blue, pink. I just need to stop and stare and work out what it is that I am seeing.

Or those shoes; black suede lace-ups, but with four inch heels, and platforms, and the soles completely solid, no arch, and the heels narrowing, a bit like the bow of an ocean going liner. How do you walk in them? Is it difficult to keep to keep your balance?

Now that's a great lap-top bag he's got - wonder where he bought it; The leather looks soft and I love the buckled pockets on the outside. Hey, look at HIS shoes! Do his toes go right to the pointy bit at the end? What's it like to have all that extra shoe and the end of your feet? Wouldn't it keep tripping you up the whole time?

Whoah! Did I really see cardboard cup-cake thrones for sale? Yup; two, a matching pair, all printed in red and gold and monogrammed ER and PP. Whoever dreamt up those ecological disasters, consuming forests of trees and all that electricity to run the machines that make them. No! She's actually buying them! She's PAYING MONEY and PURCHASING them! Wow!

All this and I am still in the station concourse. It doesn't get any easier, trying to walk around outside. I need to stop and stare at the buildings, see the window boxes, check out the mouldings and decorative plasterwork round the doorways, examine the detail on wrought iron gates, peer at a flower making its way through a crack in the paving...

Visual overload.

And people keep bumping into me the whole time. Sorry. sorry. Beg your pardon.
SO sorry. My fault.