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Blogger Shout Outs!
I had a bit of time on my hands a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to post a tweet declaring that I would comment and share all blog links that were published on the thread. I thought I’d get around 30. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that in the next 24 hours I had received 190 or thereabouts. I’d made a promise, and I fulfilled it. I thought it would take me quite a while to visit that amount of blogs. It took around 2 weeks, which I think was good going. It served many great purposes too. I have accumulated a wealth of new ideas and…
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Skills to Aid a Successful Relationship
I’ve not had good experiences in my life over the years to be frank when it comes to relationships. I was in a marriage that was incredibly painful and mentally cruel. A few relationships that were, what I’d call plodding, not really getting anywhere. It could be me, it may be, or I probably have just never clicked with the right person. I’m in a good place now. I live alone. I enjoy making decisions based on my own choices and values, and I no longer feel guilty for it. That I feel will always be me , but then again if I met someone that inspired me , I…
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Lockdown Poem
I was sitting reflecting on my Lockdown (Yes, I’m in it! My town is still in it!) and the stuff I’ve been up to since the 3rd week of March, 2020. I have now reached the point of no return I think. I must have walked my dog about 13,000 miles, baked enough cakes to fatten me up for the next 50 years and sanded enough wood to cover me in a haze of dust 1 metre thick. And now I’ve become irritated to the extreme and have begun to swear at the most trivial things. And what makes it extremely challenging, is that the rest of the country are…
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Pip’s Beef Cannelloni
My children have never been particularly forthcoming with praise in regard to anything that requires cooking on a hob or in the oven. This Cannelloni, (I never knew how hard it was to spell this pesky word, 3 n’s and 2 l’s) brings out utterances of pure pleasure from them. Which is saying something, because they are usually monosyllabic until around 5 pm. Drum roll….. Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of oil 400g beef mince 1 large onion 2 garlic cloves 2, 500g cartons or jars of passata 1 dessert spoon of sugar dried cannelloni tubes to line your dish Topping: 50g butter or margarine 50 g plain flour 600ml milk 140g…
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Learning Resources for Children
I’ve worked in primary schools for many years; in mainstream classroom settings and supporting children with various special educational needs. Here’s a list of great resources that you can use to aid and educate your children. Snip http://www.snip-newsletter.co.uk/downloads.php.. Look down the list for the ‘Snip Literacy programme part 1’. You can start with this one 🙂 If literacy is your choice, if not, try another. This was developed by two dyslexic tutors, who saw the need to help and address the problems to learning faced by children with learning disabilities and needs. They have developed a range of different techniques to help children to become competent and confident readers. I…
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Madeira Cake
After we’d chowed down this Madeira Cake, I had a urge to reaffirm in my middle-aged brain that in fact all of my reasonings on the origin of Madeira Cake were true. That it did originate in Madeira, and I was always correct in my answers to pub quizzes, (oh, the pub! it’s been 18 weeks since I stepped inside one), anyway, I was wrong all along. The cake was named after the Madeira wine from Portugal, which from the 18th century onward, was drank alongside the cake in the afternoon for tea. Hence, the name. So now I know! I love plain things like rich tea biscuits, scones, shortbread…
