Tuesday

Another milder morning today with a clear sky and a lovely waning moon to wake to.  I haven't watched the weather forecast so I have no idea what's going to happen today but what does it matter?  The view from my window was lovely!  I consider I am very fortunate to live right on the edge of town with one house beyond me and then countryside.  One of these days, that will go as they build, but for now I am making the most of it and am grateful for it every single day.

Yesterday I coughed and spluttered my way through the morning.  I didn't need to talk so much in the afternoon as it was a more practical session but the after school meeting was a bit difficult at times.  Things are 'breaking up' though so I should feel a lot better and the Piriteze is keeping the itchy eyes, ears and throat at bay well enough!

On my walk home from school, I saw so many lovely things gently calling to me that spring was no longer peeping round the corner, she was here and prepared to stay for a while.  Lovely!  Here's a few reminders.

I particularly love this one.

Today is an odd day.  I have my class until play, then it's my key stage coordinator time, then, after lunch, there's an important meeting so I have supply cover.  And that's the day done.

I hope your day goes well.

Monday

After such a cold day yesterday (or so it felt to me), today has started off mild but dull.  It might have felt colder than it really was because I was a bit shivery with this cold anyway.  It was also a day of incidents.  Firstly, I was making some tomato soup and decided to shut the kitchen door to avoid the cooking smells travelling around.  That was fine; the problem was when I tried to open it again.  It wouldn't open.  The handle went down, the latch stayed firmly closed.  Ho hum!  Fortunately I'd not long been to the loo (sorry but that can be a pressing concern in situations like this) and more fortunately, Beth and Alex were doe to arrive for lunch at some point.  With that reassurance I set to and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . doesn't time go slowly sometimes?  I did some washing up, sorted out stuff, got lunch ready . . . and waited . . .
I had no idea of the time and it seemed very late so in the end I called Jenni next door over to the window (they were outside greeting a guest), her husband came to the back door which, fortunately, I had left unlocked, tried the kitchen door from the other side and hey presto, it opened easily.  Phew!  Soon after that Beth and Alex arrived so I didn't need to have bothered my lovely neighbours but never mind, it was nice to be free again.  If I could have climbed out of the kitchen window I would have, but the gap was too small (or no, to be quite honest, I am too big).

So we set to and had lunch and, in a careless moment, my fork slid across my plate and deposited half my cheg and salad in my lap.  Honestly, it really wasn't my day, was it?

Today is back to school, of course and we will be planting runner beans.  I can imagine the excitement!  I wonder if the cress seeds will have lasted the weekend out or whether they will have dried out and died.  We will see.

I've posted a recipe in TsRs for butterbean crumble.

Just to say . . .

I've posted a couple of entries in TsRs:  a recipe and more meandering thoughts.

Sunday

Brrrr - it's cold this morning.  There's a frost about, the cars look pretty with swirly, ferny ice patterns over their roofs and I am reminded (golden oldie moment alert) of when I was young and used to wake every day, or so it seemed, to similar frost patterns on the inside of my bedroom window.  Mum would go round the upstairs windows after we'd gone to school, wiping off the moisture on the window ledges.
No upstairs heating in the Olden Days, you see!
It makes me, like Diane, very glad I haven't planted out anything tender yet.

Yesterday was an interesting day.  As my regular readers will have seen, I had a big ponder regarding cutting how much I spend on food - cutting it pretty dramatically too - and have decided that I'm going to give it a go, although in a modified way.

'Modified' means that I am being chicken and making it between £1.25 and £1.50 a day - ideally the former, never above the latter.  I am being flexible too, so it's £8-75 to £10.50 for the week, so I can borrow and pay back, so to speak.  That's still a huge amount less than I spend at the moment so fingers crossed.  Maybe later on, if I get into the way of it, I can see how to reduce it more.  And if I crash and burn, no harm done.

I've discovered that my favourite drizzle of maple syrup on my breakfast porridge is more expensive that I would like (blame my choice of maple syrup here) so today I used home made strawberry jam.  Now, to be fair, I have no idea what it costs because I made it last year and just cannot remember what I paid at the PYO, but it cannot be anything like as expensive as the maple syrup.  Once I get onto the blackberry jam, it'll be even better as the fruit was free (Streele Farm foraging!)

I've hit the wall in other ways too.  For example, I have a whole load of dried pulses in packets but no idea how much they cost and My Supermarket is strangely silent on the subject of pulses unless they are tinned.  This means a visit to Morrisons to 'research' and I'm trying to avoid Morrisons!  Never mind, I can make an educated guess and hope.  It cannot be anything as bad as the tinned versions.  So at this moment I have 100g of dried butter beans in soak and these will be the basis for two or three meals over the week.  A soup, a bake and something else, maybe a sauce for pasta . . .

Butter beans soaking make some very attractive patterns, don't they?

I can see I am going to get boring about this.  Apologies in advance!

As almost every Sunday, today I look forward to Beth and Alex coming over for lunch.  Given that I have copious piles of eggs at the moment (no complaints),  cheg and salad is on the menu today, followed by stewed apple and plum with either custard (proper custard!!!) or natural yogurt (yum).  I will have to come off the challenge for this as the cheese makes it more expensive, as do many of the salad ingredients, but it's still a pretty frugal main meal.

Oh, well, better stop rambling and get on with some planning for tomorrow.  It won't do by itself, unfortunately!

Recipe in Teacher's Recipes

Just to let any readers who are interested know, I have posted a recipe for celery soup in TsRs, here.

Saturday ponderings - a pound a day

Suddenly, while I was trawling around the internet this morning, there were loads of things relating to feeding yourself for a pound a day.  Have you noticed that too - maybe you have and I've been blind to it..  It seems that there is a 'live below the line' challenge out (follow the link).  It's an initiative of the Global Poverty Project which is (and I quote from the site):

'an education and campaigning organisation whose mission is to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action against extreme poverty'

As far as I can tell, the idea is to spend just a pound a day on food and to get sponsors.  Now, I'm not keen on the idea of sponsors as I've never liked asking people for money, but I am keen on the idea of rising to the challenge and donating to a hunger charity, that one or another of my own choice, the money I don't spend over the week.

I am also keen on the idea of significantly reducing my food costs.  I spend far too much on food and with retirement looming at some point in the next five or ten years, it seems merely sensible to start being a bit more frugal, without considering the wider and more significant issues.

In a way I already have some very frugal habits.  I buy frugal veg when they look good (onions can be particularly great value).  Home made bread is cheaper than chips, as the saying goes, home made soup is ditto.  This morning I used the outer ribs from the celery I used for the investigation  at school on Tuesday with some onion, potato, home made stock and seasonings to make a very tasty smooth celery soup which only needs a bit of milk added to make a delicious lunch for a matter of pennies as I'd likely have thrown those outer ribs away.  I have also boiled up a chicken carcass and now have some excellent stock cooling, ready to go in the freezer.

But I also have very, very bad shopping habits.  I'm far too 'spontaneous' and often put things in my trolley that are really just rubbish and nothing more.  And rubbish, unfortunately, is usually expensive.  And not so healthy.  Woe is me.

However, I do have a lot going for me, one of the most important of which is that, thanks largely to an upbringing with a wonderful mum and dad, I can cook and I do have a lot of good, old fashioned cooking skills which I often don't use nearly enough.

If I did accept the challenge, I'd immediately hit complications.  I have a store cupboard full of pulses, herbs, spices, seasonings, etc, some of which would be extremely difficult to cost in.  Anything I bought 'new' could be costed per 100g or whatever, that's not a problem: all it would take is some simple maths and the calculator on the computer.  Ditto for dried pulses as I could use supermarket sites to cost.  Stuff in the freezer would be impossible - the strawberries, raspberries and blackberries from last years picking, for example, or the ready mades (home made and frozen).

Another complication is that I live by myself.  It's a lot easier to manage cooking for four on £4 than it is for one using £1 unless you want the same meal four days running.  Not impossible, just harder.
On the other hand, in a way, it is easier because all I have to satisfy is me.  No conflicting demands from others to get in the way, no 'I'm still hungry' complaints when the £1 has run out - not from anyone else, anyway!

Time and energy are factors too.  I could only do this by preparing meals from scratch.  I can do that, given energy.  When I come home at six, having worked since seven thirty in the morning, more or less, I have little energy to start cooking from scratch.  Hmmm - it's going to take some planning.

So it wouldn't be entirely fair or simple, I know, but I really am tempted by the challenge.  I shall have to go away and ponder on this while I use some of my large store of surplus eggs and almost going over lemons and oranges to make some St Clements curd in Thermione.

Please excuse my long winded ponderings.  It helps to write it down - thank you for listening.

Saturday

Another weekend!  It's going to be a very busy one too, with plenty of stuff to get on with.  I'm hoping tomorrow will be easier though.

Yesterday started off very dull and dismal but by playtime it had brightened up and by lunch time it was bright and sunny.  Not so warm though, despite the sun, and when I went out for playtime duty in the afternoon, it was so chilly that I wished I had put on my coat.  I suppose it didn't help that I seem to be going down with a cold, although it might be hay fever.  I've bought some piriteze and will see if that makes any difference.  I'm feeling rough this morning but nothing that a bit of meds won't sort out, whether it be the hay fever stuff or the aches and pains stuff!

Going back to Thursday afternoon again, we all went out to hug a tree!!!  I have to explain that our school environment is lovely.  A field bordered by trees and a youthful hedge on three sides plus two small-ish playgrounds and plenty of tree-d slopes and some walled beds.  I was going through a sheet for labelling parts of a tree and realised that few children knew what 'bark' was so, as the field was empty, out we went to 'hug a tree' - in other words, get up close and observe carefully.  The hugging was to test which trunks they could get their arms round and which were too big.  It was lovely to watch them running from tree to tree, hugging and comparing.  I saw two children comparing arm length in an effort to work out why one could get his arms round and touch fingers and one couldn't!

Five minutes later they all ran happily back to me to line up and walk back in to get on with their labelling sheet.  The pay back came yesterday as I marked their work and saw how beautifully many children had coloured in their tree trunks.  No plain brown for them, dear me, no, not after seeing the reds, yellows, greens, beiges, maroons and purples of the barks of trees around the playground.  I'll try and remember to take a photo of one or two, because they really were beautiful.

This is something I love about my class.  Send them off with a task or challenge and they do what they have been asked to do.  They don't divert into their own interests.  It's brilliant

I'm sure you will be thrilled to know that the cress seeds with water are managing to grow beautifully.  Funnily enough, the ones in the dark are growing faster but are a very strange colour.  This observation will lead us on very neatly on to Food For Plants, a brief intro to photosyntheses, etc . . .  We're also going to put them under a box with a hole on one side and see what happens!

You can tell I am enjoying this theme, can't you?  :-)