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W/B November 30, 2020

2020, the year that keeps on giving!

It’s turned cold this week – winter is definately here.

So, we made the decision that we can’t risk going home for Christmas. It’s a horrible decision even if it’s the right one. The 3 families rule means we couldn’t see both sides of the family so we’d have to choose and, in all practicality, it would have had to be my side since that’s where we can stay. But, in that case we still wouldn’t be able to see everyone. Add to this the fear of the virus. I’ll admit, my forced self-isolation followed by having to carry out tracing for another student in a different one of my classes means I have been exposed to at least 2 positive cases in the last 2 weeks. The girls and I travel on public transport every day so have potential exposure there. They are both at school so have that whole exposure risk too. The self-isolation has scared me a little, how easy it is to put yourself at risk even though you follow the rules. The possibility that we might carry the virus down and pass it on to either set of parents is too much to contemplate. Some may think we’re being silly but I think we’ve taken the rules seriously all year, we’ve caused ourselves difficulties and distress by not seeing anyone so it would be silly to risk harming those we love for the sake of a few days when vaccines are realistically on the horizon. That’s our decision, we’re not happy with it but we think it’s the best.

Thursday I turned 50. Not the way I’d hoped to spend my half century anniversary. It was really icy in the morning and having cycled really carefully and kept on gritted parts of the roads I got into school and came off my bike on the ice. Landed on my knee, wrist and elbow. Knocked about and quite sore but no major damage thankfully. Lots of opportunities for my colleagues to make jokes about “having a fall” and reaching that age. Anyway, not my best birthday, not even any chance to go out for a drink and a meal in the evening because we’re in level 4 restrictions. Still, gifts and cards when I got home and loads of messages on Facebook so I feel loved.

Friday morning and the ice has gone but it’s been replaced by cold hard sleet. Cold, wet and windy!

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W/B November 23rd

A few months since I last posted, I lost momentum in September and started work in the middle of the month which ate into the time. I restarted posting on my Political Loser blog a few weeks ago and will try and restart this one from now on. We’ll see how it goes.

Today is my first day back after a week or so in self-isolation. I was in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid and had to quarantine myself until 14 days had passed. The 2 weeks were up yesterday and I re-enter the world today.

I’m working in Perth and am quite pleased with myself for keeping up the cycle/train regime despite the nasty weather. It was awful this morning- really wet. This afternoon is really windy so not nice going home either. Its about 6km each way (on the bike) so not too far and cycling makes the run to/from the station about 10 minutes. Not exactly tour de France but it’s every day so its definitely doing me some good.

I’m quite enjoying being back in state schools. There’s something noble about the struggle to get the best for children with such a diverse range of needs. I’m a much better teacher having worked internationally for so long than if I’d stayed here but I’ve lost the social worker instinct and have to reskill in the motivational areas. Still, all teachers lifelong learners so it’s a good challenge.

So, Wednesday morning and chance to have a good look at the lockdown rules for Christmas. Oh! 3 households for 5 days. Possibly worse than staying in lockdown. No mixing between extended household bubbles. This means we have to choose between sharing the time with one side of the family or the other. How can we choose? How can we avoid upsetting someone? It is simply impossible.

It’s been a tiring week, at least Friday is here at last. 1 day to go then a rest.

Scotland has placed an 8 person limit on Christmas gatherings. Doesn’t really affect us as we whatever happens it’ll just be us when we’re at home. The wider UK rules are really tough though. There’s no way we will be able to spend time with both sides of the family. My thinking is that we’d be best just staying home, waiting for the hoped for vaccine in the spring and go down for Easter for a full family blowout. I’m not sure how well that will go down with everyone else though! I have become aware of the effects of the varying levels of lockdown on my mental health. I am becoming much more insular and reliant solely on my immediate family. We’ve always been a very close family unit due to our years living abroad and having to rely so closely on one another but I was expecting to settle into a more normal routine when we came home with family, wider family and local friendships forming the usual rings if support and engagement. Circumstances have meant none of that has happened and I think I’m more dependent on my immediate family than ever. I don’t think that is a bad thing really, but I worry that I don’t see anything of pleasure outside of family just now.

First dog walk for me for a while because of self-isolation, work and shopping and it was cold but lovely.

But this is what the top of the dog’s outside water bowl was like.

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Breakfast

Full Breakfast

What can I say, nothing beats a full breakfast and here’s our version:

Full Breakfast

Bacon, Links, Square Sausage, Hash Browns, Potato Scones, Black Pudding and Scrambled Eggs.

Delicious!

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Pasta Sausage

Crispy Sausage Pasta

This is an Independent recipe that we’ll certainly be making again.

https://edition.independent.co.uk/editions/uk.co.independent.issue.150820/data/9670631/index.html

As usual, we made some changes. I skinned the sausages and added the spices as shown in the recipe but then cooked team as meatballs. We added Mange-Tout as an additional veg to the meal as well. Really pleased with the final result.

Crispy Sausage Pasta
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Dessert

Eton Mess Ice Cream Cake

This was a lovely recipe from Tesco of all places. We made a couple of adaptations. I wasn’t buying strawberry sauce just for this so we supplemented raspberry jam and we made both ice-cream flavours instead of buying. The fruit ice-cream is a mixed berry flavour (made by adding a cup of mixed berries to the base mix. We use frozen berries that are defrosted as they tend to be very juicy and soft enough to break down in the ice-cream maker. We kept the other as a plain base without adding any vanilla flavouring so it is simply double-cream ice-cream. We also sliced the strawberries in the food-processor so they were nice and evenly sliced. All in all it looked and tasted fantastic. We used the egg whites left over frm the ice cream to make the meringue so it really is all home made. Possibly not what Tesco was hoping for when they published the recipe!

Ice Cream
Eton Mess Ice Cream Cake
Eton Mess Ice Cream Cake

https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/eton-mess-ice-cream-cake.html?sc_cmp=emladhocmartecMIX_CONTENTNL_20_24_06&utm_medium=email&utm_source=adhoc&utm_campaign=tec*MIX_CONTENTNL_20_24_06&mi_u=90dab3e8-0ee3-4387-879a-b31fdd8102d4&dclid=CIbCm-afnesCFZyXdwodHaEPjQ

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W/B September 7th, 2020

Another week of variable and unreliable weather, leading to a couple of days where the river had absolutely burst it banks again and had flowed over onto the footpath where we walk the dog.

September 7th, 2020
September 8th, 2020
September 8th, 2020
September 9th
September 11th, 2020
September 12th, 2020
September 12th, 2020
September 13th
September 13th
September 13th
September 13th

Had a frustrating week for getting out on the bike this week. My crank arm is wobbling again and there’s a crock in the chain guard so it really does need a full (and probvably expensive) service very soon. I have tidied “S”s bike up and am going to start using that. It was a good week for “E”, though, as we picked up her new bike from Halford’s on Wednesday. She’s very pleased with it.

New Bike Day

Overall I didn;t do too badly on my Virtual Land’s End to John O’Groats mission.

My Virtual Mission – Land’s End to John O’Groats
My Virtual Mission – Land’s End to John O’Groats

On Wednesday I received my PVG update so I am able to start work at Perth Grammar School covering for one of their Technology teachers who is off long-term. It’ll be a bit of a shock to the system being back in the classroom full-time but it will be important to be able to update myself on the new curriculum so I can start to apply for SLT positions if we want to stay here in Scotland (which at the moment we certainly do). Due to start on Monday. Working 4 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, TYhursday anf Friday). IN order to get there I’ll need to take the 6:23 train from Stirling which is going to be tiring.

On Friday we finally received the call that “I”s blazer is in. I’m still quite annoyed that they need a completely new blazer and tie uniform for their final year – espacially when they finish in March for the end of year assessments.

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W/B 31st August 2020

Another week waiting to be able to start work. Starting to get bored of this now. The weather has been all over the place as can be seen by the dog-walking photographs.

Monday August 31st
Tuesday September 1st
Wednesday September 2nd
Thursday September 3rd
Friday September 4th
Saturday September 5th
Sunday September 6th

Managed to get out on my bike 3 times this week. Doing a slightly elongated route but simpler due to the building work going on. I do our basic dog walkling route twice. It clocks me up to 8km and I’m pleased that I’m managing to improve my speed over this distance.

This is moving me on well with my Virtual Land’s End to John O’Groats challenge. I’m in Exeter now.

When I was out wioth the dog this afternoon there was a microlight flying above the river. Show’s how nice a day it was today.

Microlight

Categories
Mince Pork Soup

Meatball and Tomato Soup

Another BBC recipe.

We make our own meatballs then follow the recipe as is except we blitz the soup smooth before and serve the meatballs, hot, into the bottom of the soup bowls before spooning over the soup.

For the meatballs we finely chop half an onion, mix this with 500g pork mince and 1 cup of breadcrumbs and 1 cup of assrted grated cheese.

Use your hands to mix well and then shape into meatballs. Shallow fry each to get a nice golden colour. Place them on a baking tray and bake them on 150 celsius while the soup is cooking to ensure they are cooked through.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/meatball-tomato-soup

This time we had some leftover pasta bake which we added to the soup after we’d blitzed the mixture.

Categories
Breakfast

Bacon & Egg Tartlets

These are super easy breakfast tarts. This recipe is enough for 12 tarks, 3 each for four of us.

Cut the crusts of 12 slices of bread and lightly butter both sides. Squash each slice into a bun tin.

Place in a hot oven for 10 minutes until the break starts to crisp.

Meanwhile, fry 150g of bacon lardons until they are nicely browned.

Take the bread cases out of the oven and divide the lardons between each case. Add half a teaspoon of sweetcorn and a good sprinkling of grated cheese to each.

Whisk 8 eggs together and pur the egg into each case.

Return to the oven and cook for 20 minutes until the egg fluffs up.

Remove from the bun tin and serve straight away accompanied by fresh juice and hot coffee.

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Casserole Chicken

Chicken Chasseur

We use this BBC recipe for an absolute classic.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/one-pot-chicken-chasseur

We had it with green vegetables and Foundant Potatoes.