Pinch, punch, end of the month...
no, I am a day early for that rhyme...
It is Saturday afternoon, I have taught piano lessons to seven bleary-eyed children this morning; bleary from the heat and not enough sleep...
and there are still three weeks of term left to go!
I'm already planning my schedule for next year and hoping to create one teach-free day per week, refusing all blandishments to take on a lunch-time recorder club ("only an hour and a half and it's on your doorstep") or any other "treats" on offer.
There's things I want to do, places I want to visit, now that I am of what used to be considered retirement age!
I think I have about three days of my daily journal to write up and I'm trying to think what (apart from teaching!) I have been doing. Like having lunch in Nyman's Gardens last Tuesday; a brief interlude between schools when I could sit and listen to the birds and contemplate the flowers;
and an alarming incident on Wednesday morning when Leo (the cat) discovered that both the main windows in our bedroom were open...
There was a time when both cats used to enjoy going through one open window, walking along the outside windowsill and back in through the other open window. That was downstairs, the sitting room woindow, and the old, very rough wooden windowsill. I had a very real fear that Leo would discover, too late, that the new, smooth plastic windowsill was a very different thing, and that a fall from the first floor bedroom window was a completely different experience... She was more than halfway out of the window when I realised what she was doing, and I was pretty certain that if I made a grab for her back end the result would not be good.
"Leo, Leo," I called, in my most winning tones, and fortunately she changed her mind and came back inside. Thunk thunk as I hastily closed both windows. Some cats haven't realised when they are too old for acrobatics...
It's too hot to sit outside, and to warm to sit inside, and too sweaty to type.
Roll on the arrival of the real English summer...
Saturday, 30 June 2018
Monday, 25 June 2018
Monday 25th June - Today...
Today he discovered the milk bottle lying on its side on the drive with a hole in the base. How did that get there? The hole, I mean. I know how the drive got there - several weeks of mudbath several years ago. And the milk bottle came from the milkman of course. But the hole?
Luckily we had enough left over for coffee and milk.
I watched a video tutorial on how to paint some leaves. "That looks possible" I thought. And it was surprisingly simple. You get the blotchy effect by sprinkling salt onto the wet leaves and leaving it to dry.
I had a home-grown, home-made lunch; lettuce and radishes from the garden
Home-made kefir cream cheese spread on sour-dough toast
We had bought some chocolates over the weekend, and they got left on their side in a bag in the sun all of Sunday. So today, when I lifted them out, they had completely melted. I put them in the fridge for an hour to set; Mess completely describes the appearance.
So we prised them out of the tray, and balanced bits of strawberry topping, rescued from the bottom of the packet, on top of what was left of the chocolates, and ate them. Delicious. Eton completely describes them now.
It has been a blisteringly hot day.
The cats move from one place to another, trying to find a cool place to sleep.
Luckily we had enough left over for coffee and milk.
I watched a video tutorial on how to paint some leaves. "That looks possible" I thought. And it was surprisingly simple. You get the blotchy effect by sprinkling salt onto the wet leaves and leaving it to dry.
I had a home-grown, home-made lunch; lettuce and radishes from the garden
Home-made kefir cream cheese spread on sour-dough toast
We had bought some chocolates over the weekend, and they got left on their side in a bag in the sun all of Sunday. So today, when I lifted them out, they had completely melted. I put them in the fridge for an hour to set; Mess completely describes the appearance.
So we prised them out of the tray, and balanced bits of strawberry topping, rescued from the bottom of the packet, on top of what was left of the chocolates, and ate them. Delicious. Eton completely describes them now.
It has been a blisteringly hot day.
Sunday, 24 June 2018
Sunday 24th June - It's been a while since I wrote...
Looks like the last post was a long week ago...
I'm in that phase of the term where Summer concerts loom and schedules disarrange themselves. Which is what has been happening over the last ten days. I shall be S-O-O-O GLAD when I have reduced my school teaching next term. Most of the lost income from giving up those three afternoons a week has been reclaimed in piano teaching. Already. That's great, except I haven't actually given up the school teaching yet. Slight mis-match in timing? I should say so!
Which means I am currently teaching 59 assorted lessons a week, and instead of getting irritated when some of the piano pupils cancel, I'm relieved...
Assorted lessons?
46 x Piano, 2 x Recorder, 1 x Samba, 1 x Ocarina, 2 x Ukulele, 4 x Teaching songs for school shows, 1 x Teaching soloists for school shows, 1 x Theory, 1 x Drumming and 1 x Guitar. I think that's the lot.
On Monday last week I had the second of three annual osteoporosis treatments; an intravenous infusion of zolendronic acid. With a name like that it sounds as though it should cure everything. The actual treatment was a bit of a non-event, and I happily taught all the morning and evening piano lessons. Then, at seven-thirty pm, I just completely ran out of awake-ness, and had to go to bed. Just like that. Extraordinary. But I was fine again the next day, and the rest of the week. So far so good!
Today, the sour dough starter that I have been nurturing for nearly 2 weeks was ready for turning into a loaf of bread. Ta-da!
That worked ok! I've tasted a bit, and it seems to be a sour-dough loaf. I used the make-it-in-a-bread-machine process, as doing it by hand would have occupied most of the day, off and on. The remaining starter is in the fridge, where it is supposed to hibernate, not try and climb out of the jar. I shall have to find a larger container.
I'm still brewing up batches of kefir, so the fridge tends to be full of weird-looking substances, fermenting, or separating, or just in a jar.
The kimchi has gone though. I tried my version, and wasn't that enthusiastic. Then I had a brainwave - let's go to Wagamama and try theirs! We went last Saturday. Now, you can't just go in and buy a single side order of kimchi, so we had lollipop prawns, bang-bang chilli cauliflower, and a main meal each as well. I have to say I didn't like their kimchi either, so I've lobbed the lot into the compost bin. Let's hope the worms like the taste, otherwise I shall find a load of foul fermented sludge in there when I come to extract the compost! I was rather embarrassed when I came to pay the bill - I had intended to give a £4 tip, but unfortunately pressed the wrong button so they only got 4p. at the wrong time. That's a bit of an Oops.
What else to report? Ah Yes. Reports; I've been grumping over the amount of unpaid admin that seeps into my life, courtesy of "the office". Like music reports. Well, I've done them now, only three or four hours time. It's a rubbish system, getting the reports written, countersigned, separated out into individual pupils and emails to the parents and the school, especially for someone like me who is not gifted in the areas of accuracy. I've spent a good deal of the time double checking that the correct report is going to the correct person with the correct email address and the correct parent name... klaxon KLAXON DATA BREACH DATA BREACH but no, I think I've avoided that catastrophe... fingers crossed...
So, another week (or thereabouts) has passed, and I have just four more weeks and two days of this term left. And counting...
I'm in that phase of the term where Summer concerts loom and schedules disarrange themselves. Which is what has been happening over the last ten days. I shall be S-O-O-O GLAD when I have reduced my school teaching next term. Most of the lost income from giving up those three afternoons a week has been reclaimed in piano teaching. Already. That's great, except I haven't actually given up the school teaching yet. Slight mis-match in timing? I should say so!
Which means I am currently teaching 59 assorted lessons a week, and instead of getting irritated when some of the piano pupils cancel, I'm relieved...
Assorted lessons?
46 x Piano, 2 x Recorder, 1 x Samba, 1 x Ocarina, 2 x Ukulele, 4 x Teaching songs for school shows, 1 x Teaching soloists for school shows, 1 x Theory, 1 x Drumming and 1 x Guitar. I think that's the lot.
On Monday last week I had the second of three annual osteoporosis treatments; an intravenous infusion of zolendronic acid. With a name like that it sounds as though it should cure everything. The actual treatment was a bit of a non-event, and I happily taught all the morning and evening piano lessons. Then, at seven-thirty pm, I just completely ran out of awake-ness, and had to go to bed. Just like that. Extraordinary. But I was fine again the next day, and the rest of the week. So far so good!
Today, the sour dough starter that I have been nurturing for nearly 2 weeks was ready for turning into a loaf of bread. Ta-da!
That worked ok! I've tasted a bit, and it seems to be a sour-dough loaf. I used the make-it-in-a-bread-machine process, as doing it by hand would have occupied most of the day, off and on. The remaining starter is in the fridge, where it is supposed to hibernate, not try and climb out of the jar. I shall have to find a larger container.
I'm still brewing up batches of kefir, so the fridge tends to be full of weird-looking substances, fermenting, or separating, or just in a jar.
The kimchi has gone though. I tried my version, and wasn't that enthusiastic. Then I had a brainwave - let's go to Wagamama and try theirs! We went last Saturday. Now, you can't just go in and buy a single side order of kimchi, so we had lollipop prawns, bang-bang chilli cauliflower, and a main meal each as well. I have to say I didn't like their kimchi either, so I've lobbed the lot into the compost bin. Let's hope the worms like the taste, otherwise I shall find a load of foul fermented sludge in there when I come to extract the compost! I was rather embarrassed when I came to pay the bill - I had intended to give a £4 tip, but unfortunately pressed the wrong button so they only got 4p. at the wrong time. That's a bit of an Oops.
What else to report? Ah Yes. Reports; I've been grumping over the amount of unpaid admin that seeps into my life, courtesy of "the office". Like music reports. Well, I've done them now, only three or four hours time. It's a rubbish system, getting the reports written, countersigned, separated out into individual pupils and emails to the parents and the school, especially for someone like me who is not gifted in the areas of accuracy. I've spent a good deal of the time double checking that the correct report is going to the correct person with the correct email address and the correct parent name... klaxon KLAXON DATA BREACH DATA BREACH but no, I think I've avoided that catastrophe... fingers crossed...
So, another week (or thereabouts) has passed, and I have just four more weeks and two days of this term left. And counting...
Monday, 11 June 2018
Mad Website
I don't want to lose this link either
http://www.spoonbill.org/n+7
I didn't try my own text; I'm still deeply, deeply filled with joy at what happened to the Book of Common Prayer....
http://www.spoonbill.org/n+7
I didn't try my own text; I'm still deeply, deeply filled with joy at what happened to the Book of Common Prayer....
Monday 11th June - Sourdough loaves, Breadmakers, Haikus
This is just a random hurdy-gurdy of what's filling my brain at the moment;
Working backwards... (why not!)
Last night, before I went to bed, I did some work on the "Making Poetry" free online course from www.futurelearn.com that I'm part way through.
So far I've dabbled with sestinas and villanelles, and now it was the turn of Haiku. They hadn't been heard of when I did English Lit at school (I don't remember that we did much in the way of poetry anyway!)
The current poetry task is to take two words to use are "prompts" and make a poem. The haiku is a terrible, terrible thing!
Haiku (or hokku) A Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/haiku-or-hokku
Terrible, in that when you are lying awake at night, trying to get to sleep, to have your mind invaded by haiku-mania is a sure-fire way of staying awake for ever.
I find a haiku
is rather more difficult
than I thought at first.
"You'll be surprised",
they said in the instructions
"at what you'll achieve".
My head's full of words
in never-ending circles
that create nonsense.
Please, please, make it stop!
I'm desperate to be sleeping!
not counting the words.
and so forth.
At one point I started a villanelle
I'm lying awake
Turning words round in my head
Constructing haikus
words filling my mind
do not encourage slumber
I'm lying awake..
It's quite a puzzle
to choose the perfect phrase when
Constructing haikus
And a villanelle!
It's no wonder that I find
I'm lying awake.
The words I should use,
'Hope' and 'loom', won't flow when
constructing haikus.
criss cross threads of day, warp, weft
hope in my story's loom while
I'm lying awake
Constructing haikus
It's not great, but it will have to do!
http://blog.rachelcotterill.com/2014/04/making-sourdough-in-bread-machine.html
The first one comes from a book all about "healthy fermented foods". It (the starter, not the book) is made with rye flour and will take 14 days to be ready. It involves an awful lot of discarding most of what you have brewed up every couple of days while you are growing it.
The second one uses "all-purpose" flour - I'm hoping that white bread flour will do the trick, and came from here This should be ready in five days and doesn't involve chucking most of it away, which is probably why they stipulate a 2 quart (? of, four pints. why didn't you say so) bowl.
I've hidden it at the back of the counter so maybe he won't notice it...
But then I read the recipe for making the actual bread. What a faff! Making puff pastry from scratch would be less tie consuming! The whole process takes several days of kneading and proving and shaping and proving and turning and rising...
which is why I started wondering about bread machine recipes. I'm not bothered about healthy or authentic - just let me have some home-made sour-dough bread!
All these sour-dough loaves
are needy, demanding and,
attention-seeking.
Working backwards... (why not!)
Haikus
Last night, before I went to bed, I did some work on the "Making Poetry" free online course from www.futurelearn.com that I'm part way through.
So far I've dabbled with sestinas and villanelles, and now it was the turn of Haiku. They hadn't been heard of when I did English Lit at school (I don't remember that we did much in the way of poetry anyway!)
The current poetry task is to take two words to use are "prompts" and make a poem. The haiku is a terrible, terrible thing!
Haiku (or hokku) A Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/haiku-or-hokku
Terrible, in that when you are lying awake at night, trying to get to sleep, to have your mind invaded by haiku-mania is a sure-fire way of staying awake for ever.
I find a haiku
is rather more difficult
than I thought at first.
"You'll be surprised",
they said in the instructions
"at what you'll achieve".
My head's full of words
in never-ending circles
that create nonsense.
Please, please, make it stop!
I'm desperate to be sleeping!
not counting the words.
and so forth.
At one point I started a villanelle
I'm lying awake
Turning words round in my head
Constructing haikus
words filling my mind
do not encourage slumber
I'm lying awake..
It's quite a puzzle
to choose the perfect phrase when
Constructing haikus
And a villanelle!
It's no wonder that I find
I'm lying awake.
The words I should use,
'Hope' and 'loom', won't flow when
constructing haikus.
criss cross threads of day, warp, weft
hope in my story's loom while
I'm lying awake
Constructing haikus
It's not great, but it will have to do!
Breadmaking Machines
I've just put this into today's blog as this is a link to making sourdough bread in the bread machine which looks promising. I thought if I posted it here there was a chance I might not lose it.http://blog.rachelcotterill.com/2014/04/making-sourdough-in-bread-machine.html
Sour-Dough Loaves
I've rashly begun a second starter.The first one comes from a book all about "healthy fermented foods". It (the starter, not the book) is made with rye flour and will take 14 days to be ready. It involves an awful lot of discarding most of what you have brewed up every couple of days while you are growing it.
The second one uses "all-purpose" flour - I'm hoping that white bread flour will do the trick, and came from here This should be ready in five days and doesn't involve chucking most of it away, which is probably why they stipulate a 2 quart (? of, four pints. why didn't you say so) bowl.
I've hidden it at the back of the counter so maybe he won't notice it...
But then I read the recipe for making the actual bread. What a faff! Making puff pastry from scratch would be less tie consuming! The whole process takes several days of kneading and proving and shaping and proving and turning and rising...
which is why I started wondering about bread machine recipes. I'm not bothered about healthy or authentic - just let me have some home-made sour-dough bread!
All these sour-dough loaves
are needy, demanding and,
attention-seeking.
Sunday, 10 June 2018
Sunday 10th June - Hubble, Bubble, Toil, Trouble
But in what order?
The week trundled through its usual procession of tightly-scheduled days reduced to chaos by lunchtime, or even before breakfast. However, we arrived at the weekend more or less intact...
Once I had finished teaching on Saturday morning, we decided to see the sea. As we zoomed south on the A23, the sun disappeared behind clouds and the Met prophesied 70% chance of rain by 2pm... clouds . So as we hit the roundabout at the beginning of Brighton we took a right instead of straight on, and headed homewards via Devil's Dyke and the A281.
Aha! At Henfield we discovered that it was their Arts and Gardens weekend - something that we've missed every year. It was only a few minutes to find a space in the Village Hall car park. Following the sound of clinking cups we found a hatch from whence came refreshments. A bacon and fried egg roll and cup of tea (Sweet Rhubarb, by Twinings - pleasant enough but not worth buying a boxful) and a few minutes studying the village map and we had a route planned.
A scale on the map might, nay, would have been useful, but on reflection the way out to the furthest edge seemed a lot shorter than the way back - maybe there was a percentage of spandex in the paper?
I didn't take pictures of the gardens, or of the Steam Mill (beside one of the gardens) but they were varied and interesting, ranging from substantial to generous to tiny, from paved to well stocked to tidy.
On the way back I was pleased to see the roof notorious/well-known Cat and Canary House;
recognisable by the metal cat on the roof line. I hadn't expected to see the actual cottage, but a little further on, we found the lane leading past it, so took some more photographs.
The cottage must be tiny - barely one room deep and maybe two or three long? YOU can read about it and also find a town train around Henfield here. I think we must go back and do the train sometime.
(The Britain Express website is a mine of interesting places...)
The sun came out while we were wandering round - it was hot and still and muggy. It was probably a mistake having wine (himself) and cider (myself) with our evening meal - we both felt most uneasy on Saturday night. For a while we wondered if he was going to have a return of labyrinthitus... oh no oh no oh no horrible thought.
But by Sunday morning, after rather a disturbed night - several trips to get another glass of water, and then someone kept driving round and round our road very slowly in a 4 x 4, and then the helicopter came along - I hope they found whoever they were looking for - we both woke up feeling Much Better.
He was taking a friend to visit another friend in hospital all afternoon.
Now for the Hubble Bubble bit;
I amused myself making yoghurt cake this afternoon. (OH MY WORD! That link will take you back to 2012! Have I been blogging that long!)
and yoghurt oh, I told you this last month
and starting off a sour dough starter (I love sour dough bread).
I had kimchi with my lunch, and I've set the next batch of kefir fermenting. Dee-licious!
Sunday has happened now, and soon, all too soon it will be Monday again...
The week trundled through its usual procession of tightly-scheduled days reduced to chaos by lunchtime, or even before breakfast. However, we arrived at the weekend more or less intact...
Once I had finished teaching on Saturday morning, we decided to see the sea. As we zoomed south on the A23, the sun disappeared behind clouds and the Met prophesied 70% chance of rain by 2pm... clouds . So as we hit the roundabout at the beginning of Brighton we took a right instead of straight on, and headed homewards via Devil's Dyke and the A281.
Aha! At Henfield we discovered that it was their Arts and Gardens weekend - something that we've missed every year. It was only a few minutes to find a space in the Village Hall car park. Following the sound of clinking cups we found a hatch from whence came refreshments. A bacon and fried egg roll and cup of tea (Sweet Rhubarb, by Twinings - pleasant enough but not worth buying a boxful) and a few minutes studying the village map and we had a route planned.
A scale on the map might, nay, would have been useful, but on reflection the way out to the furthest edge seemed a lot shorter than the way back - maybe there was a percentage of spandex in the paper?
I didn't take pictures of the gardens, or of the Steam Mill (beside one of the gardens) but they were varied and interesting, ranging from substantial to generous to tiny, from paved to well stocked to tidy.
On the way back I was pleased to see the roof notorious/well-known Cat and Canary House;
recognisable by the metal cat on the roof line. I hadn't expected to see the actual cottage, but a little further on, we found the lane leading past it, so took some more photographs.
(The Britain Express website is a mine of interesting places...)
The sun came out while we were wandering round - it was hot and still and muggy. It was probably a mistake having wine (himself) and cider (myself) with our evening meal - we both felt most uneasy on Saturday night. For a while we wondered if he was going to have a return of labyrinthitus... oh no oh no oh no horrible thought.
But by Sunday morning, after rather a disturbed night - several trips to get another glass of water, and then someone kept driving round and round our road very slowly in a 4 x 4, and then the helicopter came along - I hope they found whoever they were looking for - we both woke up feeling Much Better.
He was taking a friend to visit another friend in hospital all afternoon.
Now for the Hubble Bubble bit;
I amused myself making yoghurt cake this afternoon. (OH MY WORD! That link will take you back to 2012! Have I been blogging that long!)
and yoghurt oh, I told you this last month
and starting off a sour dough starter (I love sour dough bread).
I had kimchi with my lunch, and I've set the next batch of kefir fermenting. Dee-licious!
Sunday has happened now, and soon, all too soon it will be Monday again...
Friday, 1 June 2018
Friday 1st June - Sorting out the book page
I've just spent a happy hour re-doing the "Books I am Reading" page. (One the right of the screen, if you are looking at this in the desktop version. Invisible if you are in the mobile version)
It's the sort of task one takes on, enjoys, even, when the alternative is writing school reports, preparing next halfterm's invoices and all those other enticing little jobs.
I've shifted the order, so that after the "In Progress" and "Pending" and "Waiting to be bought" lists, the most recently read books come first, and to cheer up the dull appearance of scrolls and scrolls of print, I've copied in book covers from Amazon.
I've just read a review of "Five Children on the Western Front" by Kate Saunders in the Guardian, which I came across in some idle moments on twitter. It appears to be a very well thought of sequel to the classic "Five children and It" by E Nesbit. So I have downloaded it (no more expensive than a latte, and fewer calories) and then, of course, I had to get hold of "Five children and It" which cost less than a Mars bar. I LOVE Kindle.
When we were in London last week, I passed some time in the lovely lovely Daunt Bookshop, and bought a book called "The Bookshop" by Penelope Fitzgerald. For some reason I have also acquired "A View of the Harbour" by Elizabeth Taylor, in response to some review somewhere. Then I discovered that both the latter books are "sad" stories.... so hopefully the E Nesbit will be a bit of light relief.
The books page is now so long that I'll have to start another one next tie I write up the books I have read.
It's the sort of task one takes on, enjoys, even, when the alternative is writing school reports, preparing next halfterm's invoices and all those other enticing little jobs.
I've shifted the order, so that after the "In Progress" and "Pending" and "Waiting to be bought" lists, the most recently read books come first, and to cheer up the dull appearance of scrolls and scrolls of print, I've copied in book covers from Amazon.
I've just read a review of "Five Children on the Western Front" by Kate Saunders in the Guardian, which I came across in some idle moments on twitter. It appears to be a very well thought of sequel to the classic "Five children and It" by E Nesbit. So I have downloaded it (no more expensive than a latte, and fewer calories) and then, of course, I had to get hold of "Five children and It" which cost less than a Mars bar. I LOVE Kindle.
When we were in London last week, I passed some time in the lovely lovely Daunt Bookshop, and bought a book called "The Bookshop" by Penelope Fitzgerald. For some reason I have also acquired "A View of the Harbour" by Elizabeth Taylor, in response to some review somewhere. Then I discovered that both the latter books are "sad" stories.... so hopefully the E Nesbit will be a bit of light relief.
The books page is now so long that I'll have to start another one next tie I write up the books I have read.
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