F^*&ed off with Facebook

I am back to the blog in an earnest attempt to get rid of the insane habit of letting friends and family know how I am by updating my status on Facebook.  It is, however, a sad indicator of our times that a blog is tool of choice for this operation.For this week, tasks to accomplish (in no special order of importance) include: recover from OFSTED; organise Florence’s 5th birthday party; bake & ice 2 birthday cakes; sort out Christmas cards and presents; get to the end of term with all jobs done; maintain semblance of normality whilst quietly having collapse of self-esteem from taking on too much.More news soonest, if I don’t hibernate first.

If someone rants inanely in cyberspace, does it make a noise?

When you arrive at the WordPress homepage, there is a figure telling you how many blogs have been started. It’s 873,469 today. Since I started my blog, I notice that nearly 100,000 more people have started a blog too. Of course there may be people with more than one blog but this begs the question: what the £@*& are we all saying?

One of my nearest and dearest commented that my last blog posting was virtually incomprehensible. I’m sure mine wasn’t the only one like that. Hopefully if we are colonised by an alien culture they won’t use blogs as the greatest measure of our intellectual worth.

Maybe this is a bit cynical – I just write a blog cos it’s easy. It’s nice to think that some prolific literary greats would have blogged if they could have availed themselves of the facility. Pepys via blog? Woolf? Shakespeare? Is it all bloglocks?

Out with the old, in with the new.

Well it’s been a bit of a time since the last blog, and in the meantime I became a bit worried that the whole blog adventure had been a flash in the pan (no culinary pun intended). Am I like a January gym joiner, keen for 3 weeks but dismayed at the first sign of hard work? Hmm, tough question, I’ll get back to you on that. I was a bit worried after being alerted to this information on blog addiction by Tom C.

In the meanwhile, there are some changes – yes the blog looks different and I got a haircut too. This weekend’s job is to finally get some pictures on this computer and work out the uploading bit. It really can’t be rocket science. No news is good news with the sprogs: they are both in fine fettle. Oh, and I’m going to take up knitting, scarves and teacosies and cushion covers in the first instance.

The most monumental change is the purchase of a totally new clothes horse. After only 15 years of struggling with string and bungees I’m utterly fed up with the old one, which endangers digits whenever you start to manipulate it. Mundane as it may sound, it demonstrates the pervasiveness of feeling that all that is generally rubbish in my life and home must be updated and made beautiful. Spring cleaning is imminent, and could require a skip.

Maybe it’s time for a new kettle – but it’s only been a few months since we’ve had to insert a (plastic) paintbrush into the switch area to make it function.

New do’s

Half term is here at last, and despite it being only a few weeks since the last school break I really feel in need of this one. We are going away and with lots to do I’m coming down with a cold, just as everyone else has shaken theirs off, consequently the last few days has been fuelled by Lemsip and anaesthetic throat sweets. With a view to the holiday, both Flo and Theo have had haircuts. Theo finds the whole thing rather traumatic, sobbing and wailing most disconsolately throughout. Lyn the hairdresser is mostly unfazed, in much the same way as when she is clipping a stroppy horse. It was this quality in her that made me think she’d be the person to do the kids’ hair, and with this in mind I never asked her to clip Merlin’s (my old horse) winter coat – he would have squashed her against a wall or convenient hard place. Mercifully, Theo didn’t squash Lyn, merely deafening her and he recovered quickly enough to demolish half a packet of chocolate fingers in record time. While he was doing so, Flo had hopped into the chair and was busy regaling Lyn with tales of just how much ice-cream she is going to eat on holiday. So, the pair of them will at least be able to see the marvels of Barca unimpeded by excess hair.
Yesterday demanded solid food with lots of nutrition, and not much effort, hence fish stew with rice and broccoli. The fish stew can either be a great store cupboard staple meal or something rather more extravagant if the situation requires. You need to fry down some red peppers (put these in first) and leeks until starting to brown, I usually do this in the oil from the fish (2 tins of either mackerel, sild, skippers, sardines, tuna or any combination of these) but remember to open the window first. Once the veg are browning, add one or two sticks of chopped celery and the fish, plus one tin of chopped tomatoes rinsed thoroughly with red wine. At this point, finely chop 2 or 3 sundried tomatoes and stir in. This dish really benefits from a decent size bayleaf, a pinch of mixed herbs and a smidge of stock. Once it’s started to boil, grate in one carrot, stir again, put the lid on and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, stirring once again about half way through. Adjust liquid content as necessary towards the end of the cooking time, and re-season if necessary. I find the stew does not need much extra salt, especially if you use the fish oil and/or smoked fish. Serve with basmati rice, steamed broccoli and a smug glow of satisfaction for a well balanced meal that everyone loves. Ice cream and fruit for pudding, anyone?
A heartfelt thanks to all of you reading this – also for the comments, keep them coming and get blogging yourselves. I am nearly able to post a photo, but have to master the technical wizardry of getting the pics small enough on the apple mac thing so that you can see the whole image at once instead of just the top left corner. Chris is going to give me a tutorial if I can’t work it out.