Weeknote: 20/1

Knitting:
I spent much of the week steadfastly ignoring Westbourne. The sleeves were just so fiddly and I was being sulky about the very tiny job of rewinding all the colours so I had two mini balls of each. Thankfully I managed to get over myself and put four new colour stripes on over the weekend; Mr Z is now chipping in and rewinding the balls for me so I have no excuse. Ten colours left. I am making it my aim to do at least one per day, because I really want to finish this before the end of the month. One stripe a day - 8 rows - is just on the edge of achievable; I also find myself in the delightful position of having no plans for next Saturday though, so I should be able to make some serious progress if I can find myself a good boxset to watch.

Going to:
I went to see The Favourite on Monday. It had a gratifying amount of very bad language in it (very of the time) and I much appreciated the extremely heavy make up on the men vs no make up on the women (unless they were off to a ball) - surely a deliberate choice on the part of the costumers. All three lead actresses were very watchable. I was slightly distracted by trying to guess which stately homes provided which parts of the set: the gallery where Queen Anne shouts at the musicians to leave is in Hampton Court and I walked down it with students last month, and stood in the fire place, so I was a bit over-excited about that.

I can recommend. I am hoping to make a Monday movie a regular fixture in my week, since the cinema offers cheap Monday tickets.

On Tuesday we had the ski trip meeting at school. I am way too overexcited about the impending ski trip - under four weeks to go. I'm mostly checking the webcams daily and stalking the long-range weather forecast. I was excited to discover that the region we're going to is close to where Zoe and I went and had our Austrian spa experience. I think we'll take the students over there - not to the clothing optional side, though, obvs.

On Wednesday I went to an interesting evening training on Curriculum. There were some interesting speakers and I ended up randomly sitting by someone who I have spoken to often on Twitter but never met IRL. The longer I teach, the more I recognise what people are saying in their lectures, but it's nice to be reminded of these things.

Entertained by:
ITV2 has been showing all the Harry Potter films, so I've been watching them. Very enjoyable, though it makes me want to read the books again.

I've continued to watch Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. I like the fact that her American customers are so utterly uncynical. In general, the series makes me sad about two things - one, I would like to declutter but feel hamstrung by (a) a lack of time and (b) a lack of storage; and two, I wish they had made more seasons of Life Laundry, which had a bit more substance to it than Tidying Up.

On Friday night I tried a Netflix movie, Dumpling, mainly because I like things with Jennifer Aniston in them. It was a pretty light and gentle film. I enjoyed the accents. I should try to browse more Netflix things.

Baking:
Monday is meant to be the most depressing day of the year (though apparently this is a marketing device of Sky Travel) so I have roped in the other Humanities teachers to bake cakes for everyone and make it BREW Monday instead. I had a humbling experience, baking two tried and tested recipes and messing them both up.

Firstly, the brownies - I heated the sugar and butter too rapidly and ended up with large sugar crystals throughout, but because I had run out of butter and didn't want to go out again, I just bunged the whole lot in the batter anyway and hoped for the best. Luckily, they seem to have largely baked out, thankfully.

Secondly, the caramel slices - I attempted the coffee version I tried before Christmas, only this time, I stirred in instant coffee at the end of the caramel cooking process. The granules did not disssolve. Indeed, they went crunchy. Utter fail. I think I will take them along anyway but add a little sign to explain that I can do better. I'll have another go: third time will be the charm, I'm sure.

Feeling:
Much less tired this week. More productive, though still not productive enough. I got all my dates through from the exam board so I am planning the rest of my year now and looking at summer holidays so I have something concrete to look forward to. I'm excited that I might have got a place to go on a free teacher trip to America at Easter, but more on that next week, when it will hopefully have been confirmed.

This week is going to be a solid week of Doing The Work!