One Local Summer Week 5 - meal 2

I've managed to have my favourite breakfast for the past 2 days in a row. I thought asparagus season was over, but I found some at Whiterow this week that was grown in South Petherton...or maybe it was South Molton, I can't remember and I've thrown the label away. Both of these places are somewhere down the M5 and South Molton is exactly 100 miles away, because I drove Mother Hand there a few weeks back to see her friend being ordained.

So, I lightly roast the asparagus in a little olive oil for 10-15 minutes depending on how tender it was to start with, and then sprinkle it with ground pepper and a little balsamic vinegar, and serve it with buttered toast and poached eggs. The dairy things were made at Whiterow and the bread is from a local supplier committed...etc. It was really good bread this week: sometimes it's a little bit stale.

I really love this meal and refuse to eat it with asparagus flown from overseas, because it just doesn't taste the same, so it's a very seasonal brunch for me. Because of activities week at school I don't have to be in until 9am, so I've been getting up at 6am to mark and having a leisurely breakfast in the sun before leaving around 8am. It's been very civilised and I'm getting a taste for starting work later....or maybe living closer. Today was even better - I met the kids there so I didn't have to leave until 9.45am. Result! The car came in very handy for a coffee run to Sainsbury's, at which point I realised I was even closer to home than I thought and had driven a really long way round.

The best thing about this meal over the past 2 days is that each day I've had a double-yolked egg. I can't even remember the last time I had a double-yolker - 2 in 2 days is very lucky!

Yesterday we did high ropes and I fulfilled a 10-year ambition to do the leap of faith, where you climb up a pole and jump off to catch a trapeze or ring a bell or some such thing.


I've wanted to do this since I went on a high ropes team building exercise with Camp Black Hawk on Camp America in 1998. I was really excited to finally get the chance. The instructor assured me that, even though she wasn't roped to anything on the ground, she would stop me from falling. She's the slight blonde looking up to the left of the picture.

Mmm, yes - I did have my doubts. I managed to catch the trapeze and, predictably, promptly let go, since I don't even have the upper body strength to do a press up, let alone catch my body weight and hang suspended in mid air. I began to descend to the ground....and did not stop. Luckily the ground broke my fall. The instructor was dangling 30 feet up in the air, looking absolutely horrified and breathless from the cursing she'd been doing on the way up. The other instructors were there almost immediately. The other teachers were right behind them. It must have looked a lot scarier than it felt - I actually hit the ground at very little speed at all and was not at all hurt, or winded, or anything. They were overly concerned. I suppose it's lucky I wasn't just a little heavier.

Still...it might be time to try a little harder to lose weight.

It was terrifiying to do the stunt, but felt amazing. I started to feel very sick and shake all over about halfway up the pole and it took me a little while to manage to stand up....the pole is very wobbly. Then I didn't know if I'd be able to jump off. I just kept telling myself, you could do this easily if the pole was 3 feet high, and there's no danger of falling. That works mentally, but there's no controlling the physical reaction. I felt violently sick for at least the next hour and was unable to eat my lunch. That must be the whole fight or flight thing I keep hearing about.

The kids were very sweet. "Just sit there and drink your juice, Miss, and you'll feel better." "Wow, Miss, you're so brave - I'm going to have a go now!" "Ha ha! Looking, there's a bit hole in the ground from Miss's arse!" Well...maybe they aren't all that sweet after all.

There'll be a deeply unflattering video clip coming soon.

I'VE FINISHED MARKING! Very exciting. I played the Rocky theme for the last 10 responses to get me in the mood. Now the overtime can begin - I've seen a lovely coat in the Boden autumn preview and need to find £175 from somewhere. I'm a bit pissed off with the exam board, though. They've sent some quite blunt emails, asking examiners to commit a certain number of overtime hours and reiterating that we'll need to keep accuracy high, etc etc - but at no point have they mentioned the overtime rate. It's such poor business practice, not to mention bad manners. Can you imagine it happening in another industry?

"Oh hai. Do this extra work for us. You have to tell us exactly how many hours you can do, and we will hold you to it. Do it RIGHT. We're not telling you how much you will get paid, nor will we answer any emails you send us asking, and when you call, we will fob you off with another email address to which nobody will reply....but pls do it because we're desperate plskthxbai."

What's depressing is that it's absolutely par for the course - I don't know why I'm letting it bother me. It's so predictable. And I know I'll do it, because my ego has been well-massaged by both my team leader and my old team leader who assure me that I'm very accurate this year, and it would be enormously helpful if I'd mark more. So, I'll do it for them. But srsly....it's just so disappointing.

SHP this weekend. So. excited. Whoever knew a History Teachers' Conference would be the highlight of my month?

One Local Summer Week 5 - meal 1

Determined not to mess up a third week in a row, I hit two farm shops on the way home (and tried for 3, but it was closed) and came home with a veritable plethora of locally-produced foodstuffs, so we'll be eating local all week at this rate. Tonight I finally managed to have some of the salad with the flowers in it - it was very tasty, although at the end it all got a bit stalky and I came across something that had little bristles on it which I decided not to eat.



A simple ploughman's....some local garlic and herb cheddar, plus bread baked round Radstock way and butter from Somerset.

I was so in the groove tonight that I even baked these scones, using wholemeal flour I bought on my last visit, plus milk and butter from Whiterow, and I served them with Somerset clotted cream and blueberry jam, also made in Somerset. I am feeling very pleased with myself!


Who says scones need to be round, anyway?
(I know they look a bit shrivelled, but it's the first time I've ever made scones).

Incidentally, last year my work friend Amaryah and I had a long discussion about whether it is scone to rhyme with on - as I say it - or scone to rhyme with stone - as most other people say it (I think posh people say it like that). In the end, we decided to make up our own pronunciation, and call it a scone, to rhyme with done. Ain't the English language grand?

It's enrichment week this week. I scored myself Outdoor Frenzy - sitting around on a farm near my house watching the kids do things like high ropes and archery, joining in as I choose - for the whole week. I got loads of knitting done today, but I have some wicked sunburn. After years of carefully avoiding straplines and sunburn, I fear I've totally blown it for this year. I've spent the evening draped in a wet towel and slathered in Badger Bali Balm - the ultimate aftersun. Here's hoping it's toned down by tomorrow. Thankfully the BBSeaweed mask from Lush I had in the fridge has totally dealt with the (admittedly not as serious) facial redness. I should have layered it all over my shoulders and decolletage, as well.

One final showing off picture - here is a lily I have grown.


I planted it last year and it was immediately fallen upon by a pack of ravenous slugs and left for dead. As is our wont, we left it in its pot over the winter, outside, and in the spring it started to grow again. I reckon this is because Mr Z looked at it (he's very green fingered) - but either way, I planted it originally so I do get some credit for growing something for once (I am notoriously brown-fingered....so to speak). It has had 5 very lovely red lilies blossom on it in the past fortnight. I am quite delirious about how pretty they are, and fully intend to plant more outside to be similarly noshed on and then reborn.

One Local Summer Week 4 - epic fail

I can only blame not being at home for most of the week. After saying I'd go to the farm shops on Tuesday, too, I realised that I was driving past them all before 9am, so that was useless.

I did try, yesterday, to go to the Hicks Gate Farm Shop, as signposted from the roundabout - but it is most definitely not there anymore. It's just an overgrown cracked tarmac road to nowhere. And today we were going to go and Pick Our Own at Chew Valley farm, but it was a bit overcast and I had to mark about 400 GCSE responses today so it left very little time for actually, like, having a life.

GCSE marking is over on Thursday, Hurrah! Apparently I am accurate enough to have earned consideration for team leader. I knew it would all pay off eventually...although it has been absolutely beastly this year.

Just discovered I made a serious mistake with Marianne this week. I have not had much time to work on it, due to the marking, and I was determined to put a few rows on it during the year 9 conference....this culminated in me knitting during the presentation finals in the lecture threatre, which I didn't feel guilty about because none of my kids got through (they was robbed!). Anyway, one of the groups decided to turn out the lights, as I was part way through a row, and I must have had brain freeze or something because when they came back on, I started knitting again - only on a different row of the lacework. I righted myself without even noticing my mistake by the time I got onto the back piece, but 6 repeats of the lacework on the right front are not right, and because it was partway through and not the whole of the right front, I don't even have the right number of stitches anymore. It's a mess! Thankfully, the variegation in the yarn and the fluffiness mean that it doesn't really seem to notice, though I guess I won't be able to tell until I am a few rows past it.

There's nothing to be done. It won't take ripping back, and while I considered dropping the stitches back to fix them, that way lies insanity and blindness. It really just means that the diamonds in that section are somewhat oversized, but on the whole I don't think it will be too obvious a mistake.

I bet Rachel won't even give me a look :p

"This society thinks teenagers are a mistake." Discuss!

I've spent the last 3 days on a conference for year nine gifted and talented students at Bath University. There are 6 pupils and me, so it's a nice little trip and has been a welcome break from the gruelling GCSE marking. During the conference, the kids pair up with 6 kids from another shcool to discuss whether they think education is working. They always produce an interesting set of ideas for their final presentations, usually something rude about teachers and banning homework, but also incorporating some quite innovative and exciting ideas about what schools should look like in the future.

The presentations go in heats, and the winners of yesterday's heats had a video presentation which I would describe as one long teenage tantrum. They backed it up with some great ideas, but there was a lot of "You think we're rubbish and then expect us to clean up YOURr (sic) mistakes".

That statement in the title made me think, though. Are teenagers a mistake?

(I might come back and answer this question when I'm not on a computer terminal in the 8W building of Bath Uni, after 2 nights of sleeping in a narrow halls bed with a thin halls duvet and 6 very loud night owl year 9s.)

Some yarn pictures

How mean of me, to talk about the new yarn I bought and not add pictures. This afternoon I made Mr Z take some - a job with which he did not seem as pleased as I thought he would be. I have to put up with him snapping me at all hours of the day and night as he tests out some new technique he's read about on www.I'maproperkeenerwhenitcomestophotographry.com - I imagined he'd been crying out for a new subject.

First, from my existing stash - Fleece Artist Super Kid, which is what Marianne is being made out of ....


He hadn't really got into his stride on this one, which is a pity because it is a display picture on the yarn's page on Ravelry now.

Second - a small portion of the vast quantities of Rowan Soft Tweed...



Third - the Lion and lamb. I already wound it into balls, ready for Clapotising it up at some point. I am determined not to start it until Marianne is a good deal further on, though.



And finally, a skein of the Mirasol Miski I have been hoarding. I have a pattern in mind for it now - several, in fact, and they're all clingy, low-necked sweaters with bell sleeves.



Mmmm, yarny goodness.

One Local Summer week 3

I was really rubbish this week, and couldn't get to a farm shop or even up to the green grocer, thanks to the GCSE marking and the lovely day I spent in London yesterday with some friends from uni, who I haven't seen for about 7 years. I think these excuses are good enough.

I managed to make myself a late night meal of West country chicken, from Sainsbury's - it's very handy that they sell locally produced food, though I have concerns that it is shipped to, hmm, I don't know, Aberdeen for packaging before being put in our local supermarket. I do, however, like the little Freedom Foods sticker on the packet, which assures me that, although the bok-boks are kept indoors, they have lots of room to run around, bales of straw, perches, and brightly coloured objects with which to play. I had a moment as I cooked the chicken, imagining it running around after a beach ball, trying to make it roll with its beak and popping it every time. It made me chuckle.

I combined that with some rocket which had been languishing in the salad drawer since my last farm shop visit, and some bread which was decidedly NOT local but the only thing on hand at 11pm on a Saturday night. At least the meal was slightly more local than the kebab Mr Z picked up for dinner on the way home from the bus station. But still, I think this meal gets a "Could do better" sticker.

Next week I am away from home for meals for 3 nights in a row, but on Tuesday I have a meeting in Devizes all day, which necessitates driving past a whole new range of farm shops - one of which, I noticed last week, sells its milk to Cadbury for use in Dairy Milk. Does this make Dairy Milk local for me? I had to drive around Wiltshire last week to drop off some application forms I'd forgotten to post (not for me...pupils) and was sorry I couldn't stop, thanks to being in such a hurry, at any of the half dozen places I saw advertising their wares. Mostly the signs mentioned free range eggs and potatoes, but I can definitely make a meal out of that. I think I might try making some gnocchi next week. If I am ever at home, anyway.

Also, I drive to work through a very woody bit of road, and the whole place reeks of wild garlic in the summer. I keep meaning to park and go and gather some, but I am afraid I might see an insect of some kind, get scared, run out into the road and be flattened by a tractor. Either that or misidentify the plant I pick and poison myself. I have been looking at wild garlic pictures online to help me, and have found a good recipe for wild garlic pesto. That would make a very local meal, with some gnocchi.


Oh, and just in case it wasn't really obvious - the reason I posted that picture of those cars is because of the number plates. These are a lot more clear if you click on the picture and make it nice and big.

In London today

I wonder if they would have bothered with these if they didn.t have a drive that backed onto a main road. Surely they don.t drive them around in the pair? On a side note, I am frustrated that I have to use old style texting to do these msgs, it makes my thumb ache and there is no apostrophe, bizarrely.