A Connecticut Yankee Day - Busy doing nothing...

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Yesterday I learnt something important.  If you want to do something interesting in London be aware that EVERYONE ELSE WILL WANT TO DO IT TOO!

Yesterday I tried to go to the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A museum.  They have been sold out of prebook tickets for months but they have 70 on the door on the day if you get there early enough.  I dragged myself out of bed at 7.30am - admittedly I mooched for a bit - and got there
 at 10.10am, just ten minutes after opening time and this was the queue....

In fact it was only half of the queue. The rest snaked behind me for another three hundred yards!

Now I love David Bowie, but I'm not so much an obsessive that I was willing to wait in a queue for two hours only to be told they'd sold out.

So instead I went to the gift shop and bought a make-your-own model Tower Bridge...

Live and learn.

But I did see some of these pretty dresses while i was there...

Dinosaurs and crazy golf

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As I sit here drinking decaff coffee and eating yet another chocolate cake for breakfast it occurs to me that by writing this blog I have in fact just given myself another thing to do this holiday.  I must like pressure and deadlines - thats the only explanation for it...  So to challenge this I will not be writing everyday now otherwise its just another thing to feel guilty for!  (Interestingly this is what always happens when I try to keep a diary.  Start writing everyday, then every few days then maybe once a week, until finally I say I'll only write if something exciting happens and it never does so the diary remains empty!)

Anyhoo, yesterday I made ankle bracelets.  This was after Sunday lunch at the pub with the Fam followed by Dinosaur crazy golf in the at times torrential rain.  

When I got home I had to put my fleece, yes fleece, pyjamas on just to avoid a cold!   The plan was to curl up and watch a crappy movie. The 'best' we could find was Jack the Giant Killer.  And indeed it was crappy.  So much in fact that I got bored 20 minute sin and while it was on in the background decided to raid my old jewellery box and dig out my crafty tools.   Sitting cross-legged on the carpet making stuff always reminds me of my old Meccano set. (Oh, how I loved that set even if the bolts always became loose and fell apart before I'd finished making the ferris wheel. . .)

Well, here's what I made.  Not sure how I'm supposed to wear the one that looks like a flip flop while I've got shoes on...

Stuck in Limbo - aka Hatfield

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Today I had a proper lie-in! Yes - this is an achievement - it means that the holidays are finally catching up with me.  Ok so I had a dream about work and woke thinking about displays but I didn't wake up until 10am!

I must admit, I didn't learn or make anything today but I did finally go into Hatfield House gardens for the first time. I drive near it most days but have never been in.  And very nice it is too!  I particularly like the art gallery shop and have decided I'd like a Raku Ceramic Polar Bear.

Other than that I had was a day of shopping, eating Burger King (something I still regret) and driving in a massive thunder storm.

Actually, I did learn one thing... how to get back to my car in Hatfield Galleria Car-park after all the the shops have shut.   After buying a lot of crap we went to see 'The World's End' - a funny movie with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who is the best thing in it, bit of a disappointing ending but worth a look - and left the car in the centre car-park. Apparently this is a mistake.  As the signs we read afterwards state, "there is no direct access to your vehicle after the shops close"...  After half an hour of climbing various dodgy back stairs,  walking down deserted corridors and speaking to a nice man on an intercom we finally got in.  I'm just pleased I hadn't been to see a Zombie movie...  So if you find yourself stuck in the same situation, just walk up the way the cars go in - its quicker.

Chocolate Cake and Chinese

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Yesterday was too busy to write up what I did so am catching up this morning.

I was in school at the beginning of the week moving classrooms and lugging furniture in 35oC heat.  I couldn't face it the next day but all that tidying doesn't do itself so I went in yesterday morning.  This time to lug filing cabinets and books around the office!  Anyhoo, that all (technically) means I don't have to go back until the last week - Wahoo!!

Combine a busy school morning with a busy family visiting afternoon and a planned Chinese with friends in the evening and I very nearly didn't stick to THE PLAN. . .

BUT, with my Granny's chocolate cake recipe and half an hour to spare I wouldn't be going round to see my friends empty handed.

WHAT I DID:

My Granny's chocolate cake recipe is infamous in our family. I can't quite do it justice but I sometimes have a shot at it. None of the women in our family are what you'd call chef quality cooks but we can bake! Sadly I'm married to a wheat intolerant so if I bake it I eat it - very dangerous for the waistline.

THE RECIPE:

THE CAKE

• 3 medium eggs (weigh them with shells on to find out weight for all other ingredients)
• same weight in flour
• Same weight in sugar
• large tablespoon of cocoa powder

My kitchen never ends as neat and tidy...

Preheat your oven to 150oC.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until fully combined.

Then beat the eggs up in another bowl and gradually add a little egg and a little flour and mix. Do this until everything is mixed up in the bowl. Add the cocoa powder and mix well.

How it should look halfway through mixing

(TOP TIP - If you want marbled cake just don't mix as well.  Looks fancy but very easy!)

How it should look when fully combined with cocoa powder and all ingredients - you are now ready to dollop in tins.

In the mean time  butter and flour your tins - sorry forgot to mention this bit! Rub butter into the sides and bottom of the tin and sprinkle flour on it.  Tap out any excess flour.  This stops the mixture sticking to the tin.

Then just dollop the mix into the tins and shove in the oven for 10-15 minutes for fairy cakes and about 20ish minutes for sandwich tinned cakes.  If in doubt stab them with a knife; if it comes out clean the cakes are done.

BUTTER ICING

• 8 oz of butter
• 3 oz of icing sugar 
• tableish spoon of cocoa powder ( use your discretion for how dark you want it)

Just moosh together the icing mix and then bung it in the fridge to firm back up again so it doesn't drip down your arm when your icing!.  I was a fancy pants this time and used a piping bag - not very successfully I might add but I was impressed with myself... And I forced my mates to eat them after a whale load of chinese so I was pleased!

The arty version but you can't see it. . .

A bit clearer. .

Mmmmmmmmmmm

THE BEST BIT - Licking the bowl.

DAY 1: Lemon Balm for the soul

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So starting the blog probably counts as something new to do. But I also wanted to make something.


My mum has a mountain of lemon balm growing in her garden. It's my fault really, I planted a tiny stringy seedling about 6 years ago (as I have no garden of my own - dagnamit!) and it has pretty much taken over.

I was at her house last week and I cut some to dry. Now  I had no real idea of what to do with fresh never mind dried lemon balm, but I thought it was a nice idea - if only to make my flat smell nice in the process!

For those that don't know lemon balm is a herb from the mint family. (I found this out with a quick google search!) and it has many medicinal uses.  Apparently it is good for stress in tea form and its used in aromatherapy for people with Alzheimer's.

A lemon balm plant- smells lovely!

Armed with this new knowledge I decided to use the newly dried herb rather than do what I usually do, which is to leave it drying for months and months and then eventually put it in the bin.

How it went:

I took the bundle of lemon balm off the clothes dryer on the radiator where it had been for sometime and pulled off all the leaves.  The aim is to mush it all down into the consistency of tea. 

It was at this point I wished I owned a mortar and pestle. 

Trying to do it with your hands is really annoying and not as easy as you'd think!   (TOP TIP: Don't bother hoovering BEFORE doing this, it goes EVERYWHERE.  I found this out the obvious way...)

What the bundle looked like before..

But then I remembered my Mother-in-Law's Christmas gift!  A gift best described as a lazy person's tool - a tool in fact perfect for me - multi bladed scissors!   

Tada!!  Genius invention!
(and if your life is also too short to spend manually chopping herbs you can pick up a pair here.)

After 10 minutes of chopping I had a jar full of sweet-smelling herby bits!

The result!

I now have a new herb that I can add to food recipes or body scrubs or pot-pourri so the internet assures me.  And the best thing is I didn't think about work even once the whole time!


Now for  cup of hot Lemon Balm tea as I get back to rearranging those lesson plan files. . .

In all the excitement I forgot the soporific effects of the stuff - I may need a bit of nap first!

And so it begins...

I am a school teacher and every year at around this time I think that I'll use my amazing summer holidays wisely.

This never happens.

I always spend the majority of the 'break' doing school work or worse still, worrying abut school work I haven't actually done yet. (For the record, right now I am feeling guilty about doing this instead of organising a computer-based filing system...)

So this year its going to be different! Yes,  I still have to do my work for class and this will take up a large chunk of holiday time, but this summer I am going to make time to do things that have nothing to do with my job!

THE PLAN:

1. Think of something fun and non-school related to do everyday.
2. Do it.
3. Take a picture of my efforts and post it on here.

Simple and should be easy to follow.  Hmmm lets see.... Wish me luck!