Fuddle - food with a cuddle

Whenever we have a fuddle at school one member of our department always brings homemade smoked mackerel pate. We love it! So much so we've taken the recipe home to make it ourselves. I've just given it a go and it's so easy I highly recommend trying it.

You need:
a pack of smoked mackerel - 3/4 fillets
a pack of cream cheese
3/4 ramps
black pepper
smoked paprika

Grill the mackerel to warm through and remove the skins. Slice and fry off the ramps then blend the mackerel, ramps and cream cheese together. Add black pepper for seasoning and a pinch of smoked paprika then ensure you chill before serving. Simple as that really but tastes delicious.

Oh if anyone is wondering what a fuddle is - food with a cuddle! Buffet style lunch where everyone brings something different to share. Yummy.

Earth cake!!!

For my Year 11s last lesson I made them a geographical cake! One of them suggested that I should make them an Earth cake and as they have worked so hard and are a fab class I'd thought I'd give it a go. The result was awesome!!! Not to blow my own trumpet too much, it was a lot of work and I was very pleased with the final cake. The cake itself was chocolate Victoria sponge with chocolate butter cream. The 'earth' icing was originally white, I had to dye it blue and green, kneading the food colouring in was not easy I tell you! But the end result was worth it. The countries were cut free hand too. The kids were very grateful and gave me a round of applause, bless, they also said the cake was yummy - I don't think they would have said even if it was awful! Here is the completed cake - I hope Cake Boss would be proud!

The Very Wet Lake District

Yesterday was a very long day, to the Lake District and back in one day! I'm not doing that again it was killer! Don't get me wrong the kids were fine - though very inappropriately dressed considering they were walking 6 miles in the Lakes and had no shelter for the day - and the day was good but you end up so tired it throws you out for the rest of the week. The features we saw support the glaciation topic well - though at times i think the student teacher thought i was confused, i said it was my permanent look!

It also chucked it down constantly for several hours. Sitting outside eating your soggy packed lunch in the peeing rain was not fun!

There was little hanging around which we were thankful of as i think the kids were which meanrt we were back an hour and half early - so home, tea and bed for me it was!

DoE

Back from DoE - a little wet but very early! Awesome. The kids were fab and walked so quickly that we were back to school by 2 - normally they don't get there til at least 5! To be honest we didn't really do much, sit around in the vans waiting for them to walk through the checkpoints. My group were very slow - arriving two hours after everyone else at the camp site but to their credit they refused all lifts as they didn't think they would be worthy of the award if they accepted it - awww bless them.

There was a little complaint though from another camper on the same site as we were, he moaned that they were making too much noise...between 4 and 8 in the afternoon! All they were doing were playing football and doing magic tricks, you can't moan at them for that! Turns out he was on his honey moon - hmmm you could say get a life!

The tent talk in the evening was hilarious, listening to what they were saying - far to inappropriate to post here! But gave us and the sixth formers a giggle!

Though it was good it was quite tiring purely for the early starts and then you are back to a working day again. I think i might pass up taking a group next year as i don't know how much work the assistant head of year post will involve and maybe do it again the year after, we'll see.

Rain, rain go away...

It's raining...still. It needs to stop by the weekend as I'm out in the field in the White Peak all weekend on DoE so really don't want it to be raining heavily! A little drizzle will be fine, it should make them walk quicker!!

Two weeks in...

So being back at school isn't too bad. I'm soooo tired day to day but i'm sure i'll get back into the swing of it soon. Classes aren't too bad and being the assistant head of year is so far going ok. I'm getting used to having a desk in an office - i know it sounds wierd but in a school only a few select people have that! What is not great is that we had the draw for the Iceland trip in the October half term, i didn't get picked out, boooooo, and the person who did also got asked to go on a two week trek to Morocco with the sixth form. Some say it's not fair but what can you do :( At least i get a full half term i guess.

On a positive i've almost moved all of my stuff into Daniel's house. All we need now is someone to buy it so we can move!!!

Here we go again...

Back to school tomorrow, booooooo. Though i hear so many people cry "you've had long enough off"! It will be good to go back and not be the newbie anymore though it will be interesting to see what it will be like being assistant head of year. The night before going back is always a bit bleugh, i don't really know why as you don't mind going back, 6 weeks is plenty really!

The last supper is going to be jambalaya which we love and is really easy to do. Then back to packed lunch making! Last night we had pasta with seared scallops and a Swahili sauce - it worked really well. Back to a little less interesting dinners for a bit while i get back into the routine - 6am get ups are not great :(

2012...will we make it?

Today i was lucky enough to go on our trip to the 2012 olympic site. It was a very long day having met at school at 6.45, meaning i had to leave home before 6 just in case there was a problem on the motorway, and not returning to school til 7.30. We visited Stratford, the Excel centre and then got a guided tour of the site and visted the view tube just by the main stadium. It was a good day, the kids were fab but we did leave wondering if we'll ever get it all finished by the opening ceremony. Yes we are ahead of schedule accoring to the guide but there still seems so much left to do.











The viewing platform they are building in the middle of the site doesn't look brilliant, bright red industrial looking thing - i understand its meant to be kind of like the Eiffel Tower but that looks a lot better than this will! What they are doing is great and the legacy will benefit a lot of people but i don't think it has as much of an impact architecturally than Beijing did. Wehn we visited there you were in awe of its style and our stadium just feels like an other we have here. Wembley is so much better. I don't know, maybe i'm just bitter as we didn't get any tickets but you have to ask the question...will we make it?

Fruit friends

Secret Santa can be a nightmare but i got lucky this year and got Simon who loves Miranda so i made some fruit friends! They were awesome and well received, in fact everyone wanted some!

2010 update...

OK hasn't time flown! Now in April and what can i say has happened? Not a lot really! Lets start with school, as per usual the same crazy day to day goings on are happening, though now people aren't happy. As well as dealing with post Ofsted stuff we now have the problem of too many staff to the number of children coming to the school in future years, solution...making people redundant, nice! So the process has been happening and it is not fun, except for the bit where the union reps went hell for leather at the head and governors, it was like watching Prime Minister's question time! So rather than being pushed, i jumped! Without meaning to i saw a job advertised, Daniel drove me down to check it out as it is in Derby and i ended up applying for it. Well turns out my luck has changed with interviews as i ended up getting the job! Yay. I have escaped finally to an outstanding school with excellent results and a completely different atmosphere to where i am at the moment. It will be a shock to the system when i start in September but i am looking forward to it!

Holiday's are also booked for this year, China in the summer and back to Vegas for mine and Sarah's 30th birthday! How exciting. Lots to sort for the summer, visa's, if we need jabs, currency and all the other normal holiday related tasks like making lists of things to take and do! Should be an amazing holiday though.

On the subject of holiday's Daniel took me out in the pimped up converted AA van during Easter camper vanning! We had an amazing time and the weather was so nice. We went to North Wales, Conwy and went to the Welsh Mountain Zoo. That was fun especially the big brown bears who were entertaining the crowd. We also saw a bird display as well as an array of other animals.

The next day we went into Conwy, took a walk round the city walls and i can tell you i was not best pleased with how high they were! We also went into the castle where even Daniel was not the most comfortable with the height of the towers! We also spent a large portion of the day walking around the town looking for a betting shop as it was the Grand National. After seeking out a Betfred, bets were made but unfortunately our horses did not come in, boooo. There was a statue that Daniel was calling Conwy's Nelson, however after seeking it out it turns out it was no bigger than two foot tall! Which was similar to the world's smallest house that they have in Conwy, it was tiny even by my standards!

We decided to spend out last day in Llandudno at the seaside. It turns out that Snowdonia was not open to the peak so rather than going half way up we thought we'd save it til another time you can get to the top so rather than up a mountain, we went up the Great Orme! We were not best pleased when we got all the way up the hill to the cable car station to find out that they only take cash! We were further displeased when the lady said there was a cash point at the top of the Orme! Helpful! So we trekked all the way back down into the town and then back up again! The cable car was not the easier journey to make, dangling in mid air over virtually nothing, again you could probably imagine i was not best pleased! But once at the top it was a geographers haven! I obviously went rock collecting! When we came down we took a walk on the pier only to see a giant evil seagull hover above a guy eating an ice cream, who when he turned away pecked it out of his hand, cone as well! He looked like he papped himself and everyone around him couldn't help but laugh! Needless to say when we got our fish and chips we sat with the lid on sneaking out a chip when no seagull was looking!

During out little camper vanning trip we became awesome camping chefs! Our food was amazing, aside from the running out of camping gas mid sausage cooking, it was smooth sailing on the one camping stove we had. Because of the foodies we are we took many a picture of our camping cuisines, next time we're going to try some recipes from the camping cook book! I'm looking forward to it. The van itself is amazing, not your normal camping experience i can tell you. A futon style bed, fridge, microwave, sink and DVD player all installed in the back and it is currently getting a heater put in too! Once you've experienced the van you won't want to go back to a tent!

























I will keep you posted on the next camper vanning adventure!

Another case of bad luck!

Well i definitely have the world's worst luck!!! Yesterday wasn't going too bad until a Y11 failed to turn up for her mock exam, found her wandering at 2pm and ushered her in the finish it! Didn't think no more about the day until i got home and realised i had no key! Drove back to school to look for it, which i couldn't, which is when mild panic set in! Ringing and ringing the flatmates, no one was answering, tried to break in again no luck there so gave up and went to Meadowhall for some retail therapy! Wandering round the shops got a call from one of the flatmates to say that he's got home but can't get in...his key won't turn in the lock! We tried again to break in but it wasn't happening so i rang the landlord, needless to say he wasn't best pleased but there was no need to make it sound like we'd done this on purpose!!!

Whilst he was thinking what to do, i rang a locksmith who said the pin had probably dropped in the lock, quite common as it seems, though the landlord was not willing to pay £118 + VAT for them to gain entry so we had to resort to waiting for him to turn up and have a look at the situation. The lads downstairs were very accommodating and looked after us well, fed and watered!

As the landlord is such a lovely man (sense the sarcasm!) he realised what we were trying to explain to him on the phone and had a genius idea (hmmm!!) of getting up to the patio door and seeing if it was open. So in the piddling down rain he lays a rung on the roof of his car, stands on it and with a mop tries to open the door...it was locked. So his next genius idea was to drive back to Derby to collect the spare keys (yes he is that stupid he didn't think to bring them) and try entering via the flat downstairs.

Almost two hours later he returns, after we had tried to remove the wood he had used to block the door, which turns out was not coming off (clearly the landlord himself did not do that job, it was far too professional), he again tries to get up to the patio door with the idea to try and unlock it, this time with a chair on top of the roof of his car, i honestly thought i was going to have to ring an ambulance, but we did find it very funny! Now if he had listened to me earlier he would have agreed that it wouldn't work as there was a key in the other side of the door! He wasn't amused with the idea of breaking the glass panel in the door but instead at 11.20pm decided the best idea was to kick the door in!!! As i say a lovely man!!! At least we were now in!!!

Now that was all last night...onto today! After no sleep due to the original situation of which the landlord made into an epic...my key that i originally lost was found, the laptop completely died, the science experiment took forever to wait for the results of, we were getting so impatient!!! The kids did everything else they could possibly do and their homework whilst waiting for the damn experiment to give us results!!!! And then had a delightful meeting for two hours after school.

I honestly think i have the worst luck in the world...surely by now I've paid my dues and deserve a dose of good luck...please........

Two weeks from hell...

Well a lot has happened in the last month! After a very hectic, but very cultural, half term in London being back at school has been mental. So where to begin...myself and Sarah spent half term grabbing bites to eat and seeing shows. Now when Sarah suggested going to see John Barrowman's show i thought it was a stand up one man band style show, bit of singing, few jokes...but no, La Cage aux Folle turned out to be about a transvestite club! Having said that it was very funny and the guys had amazing legs!

Thursday of half term was day of doom, my birthday! It wasn't too bad i suppose, went to the National Gallery, then for some food, we do love Wagamama's, then on to see the Jersey Boys. It was again awesome and we had a good view, however the boys themselves are no where near as hot as the Vegas lads!

The week wasn't going too bad till the end when a not very nice blast from the past rings out of the blue with some horrific information, which, like he always manages to do, screws everything up that was going well now!! Boooooooo, consequently i was not a happy bunny and things needless to say turned sour! Oh well, all men are arseholes! I knew that so technically i shouldn't be too surprised that things went belly up!

This did mean that i had plenty of time to do work...which was lucky as our school had the dreaded phone call from the big O...Ofsted! Ahhhh, after spending two days preparing beyond all belief they arrived. I was starting to feel a little cheated having not been observed the last time they visited and it was looking the same this time, until my last lesson they could have potentially turned up in and low and behold in they walk. Thankfully the kids were perfect, the lesson went really well and the feedback was good, so obviously i was extremely pleased! We are still waiting now though to find out the results for the school, so fingers crossed...

Where does time go?

I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since we started the new year at school, time has flown, mainly because it has been so busy. Well people have been counting down to the next holiday since the first day back so needless to say we'd all rather be somewhere else! It seems like a lifetime ago when we were travelling around the US, oh how I'd wish to be back there again! For the weather as well as everything else!

Been down to London to visit and my what a traumatic journey that was! Typical the one weekend i have to go down, there was a crash between 3 lorries on the section of the M25 i have to go on, so they shut the whole motorway! Hours and hours later i eventually got home at 11pm after leaving at 3.30pm! I honestly thought i was going to have to sleep on the motorway in the car surrounded by foreign lorries and the thought of that, coupled with a lady saying she thinks we're here for the night, almost made me roar! Hopefully my next journey down at half term will be a lot smoother!

What am i doing in London during half term i hear you cry! Well Sarah and I have tickets to see the Jersey Boys, yay, on my birthday, yay!!! Beats trying to come up with something inventive to do for the day or sitting dressed in black mourning it!! I'm sure I'll fit in time for a few drinkies too!

Anyway back to the week in hand, the weather better hold out for our Alton Towers field trip on Friday, keep forgetting we are going it's come round so quick! As long as the kids behave it should be a good day, and anyway we go for free so can't complain!! Wonder if Hazel will get pooped on by a bird again, haha.

Anyway back to the Sunday night dread feeling before work Monday morning, and i don't even have any Las Vegas' to watch as waiting for season 4 and 5 to arrive! Hurry up Amazon!!!

The Last Supper

So it's the last day of the holiday's today before going back to school, booooo. I really don't want to go back, but i think no one does! I did today though try to recreate my delicious dinner from Bahama Breeze in Vegas - chicken with Jamaican jerk seasoning and mango glaze, mango and pineapple salsa, cinnamon sweet potato mash and seasonal veg which was green beans. So i couldn't completely recreate it as have no mango but it was a twist on this meal. Cajun chicken on a bed of spinach with cinnamon sweet potato mash and seasonal veg, green beans. It was yummy, am very pleased with myself! Awesome!!!

San Diego Delight!

After being glared at for being last on the coach we headed off down the coast to San Diego. First stop, San Diago old town which was very quaint...it was like stepping back in time! Saloons lined to square with old candy stores and a flag pole inthe centre - was very pretty and havily influenced by Mexico. We also found some Tequila flavoured cookies!!!

We had a wander around to see what they had to offer, like a Saints and Sinners tour, which sounded awesome if we were there at night - i would have been a sinner lady of the night definately!















We then headed to Balboa Park, no not relatred to Rocky! A lovely place which had all thier museums in it, could easily spend a day there.











Our journey continued through the down town area, which is really modern being only about 30 years old to Seaport Village on San Diago Bay. Surrounded by navel bases and military bases - ahhhh perfect - or would have been if we actually saw some sailors not just a statue of one! Oh well better than nout!













Final stop of the day was to the harbour for a boat tour of the bay. People here are so nice too - guy on the boat having a chat taking our photo, very friendly. Being up close and personal with teh military ships was cool. San Diago is definately a place to come back to - people are friendly, it is clean and each part has its own character. Even the suburbs round Mission Hills was definately a place i could live - an San Diego High School looks nice from the outside, hmmmm, an avenue to explore me thinks! And - very importantly - all those military and naval guys at your disposal - sounds good to me!!!

Months of being silent...so unlike me...

So it has been a long time since i have written on here. The end of term at school was sooooo busy it was unreal. What with sports day, PSHE day and applying for a temporary promotion there was very little time to do much else!! Well the secondment was successfully achieved so there will be lots of work from September - boooooo, my form didn't do too well at sports day but they worked brilliantly on the world of work PSHE day building our doctor and presenting to the year group what doctors do. I think you'd agree that Dr Jones is awesome and is now a resident member of our classroom!!! Though he does scare the living daylights out of anyone who walks in, haha!!



So now school is finished what else has happened over the past couple of months? Well, the highlight of July has to be Take That at Wembley. They were brilliant, felt like we were back in our teens singing louder than the music! Despite what some thing they are clearly better off without Robbie, their career has completely taken off and they certainly put on a great show. Just got to wait now for the DVD to be released as it was filmed the night we were there!




It is now the holidays, yay, and I'm in full swing watching day time TV - loose women, daily cooks challenge, the hills, not to be missed TV, lol. But not for much longer!!! Down to the big smoke later on today to visit the family before flying out to LA, woohoo. Sooo excited, LA for 3 days then on tour round Western America. Obviously looking forward to revisiting Vegas, who wouldn't be and we have Alcatraz booked for San Francisco but the places we stop in between look amazing on the Internet. Definitely a very geography-fied holiday! Perfect for rock collecting! Yes a very sad hobby of mine, lol. Can definitely tick come more things off my places to visit and things to do list after this holiday! Definately going to be one to remember...

A relaxing weekend...

Just as I settled down to update you all here a strange knock at our door sent us into confusion. Upon opening the door a very strange person indeed was asking for Mr Rich?? Trying to get information out of someone who can barely speak the same language as yourself was proving too much work for a Sunday evening and eventually it turns out he'd come to see the room - what room? Odd ball...he was sent packing!!!

It has been a relaxing weekend - partly because I now can not move due to my over enthusiasm on my new Wii Fit. I do think though the Wii Fit is awesome especially my jogging buddy who turns around and waves at me every now and again to check i haven't collapsed into a heap!! I also made a lovely dinner this evening - roasted peppers stuffed with Moroccan spicy cous cous on a bed of wilted spinach with salad, mmmmm. Maybe I'll do some baking soon as i haven't done some for a while.

It is going to be a crazy week this week. School is busy as usual, with a few exciting additions this week - rare to say that when it involves school work but I'm quite looking forward to observing one of the deputy head candidates teaching on Tuesday, followed by a day in Leeds on a course Wednesday, where they always give you a good lunch, behaviour policy meeting Thursday and the quiz in the evening and then get to the weekend and I'm off white water rafting. Busy busy...can't complain i have nothing to do this week!!

Another weird dream this week, i went to play bingo with a Friend and when we got there to a very glamorous bingo hall we walked into someone we wanted to avoid, unsuccessfully as they came and joined us playing bingo, our bingo cards were made up of the alphabet, not numbers, of which i remember highlight the O's and the guy sitting next to us had three mouths!!! I am definitely looking up the meaning to this!

So time to now chill before the alarm goes off tomorrow morning at 6.30am and the madness begins...

What a week...

Well what a week...who says teachers do nothing and get too many holidays, all I've done this week is mark coursework!!! Thankfully it has all now been posted off and time to chill a bit! So pub quiz it was and what a disappointment - again, one day we will win (only really if no one else turns up!!!) During our conversations though it transpires that a blast from my past has reared his french head as it turns out he did his teaching practice with one of my recent friends - sometimes our world is just a little too small for my liking!!!

First day back...

So the first day back fills everyone with dread - you know you have to be there but no one really wants to be at school! Surprisingly though it was not actually that bad a day and the weather was fab! Classic question of the day - which to be honest you'd only find interesting if you were a geographer, or knew the pupil in mention - What ecosystem is the desert?? Hmmm...let me think! Though the meeting on redundancies we could have done without!!!

Thinking randomly earlier - if you were to be an animal what would you be? People were surprised to hear I'd be a camel - you have good endurance, look a little cheeky, get to spit at people you don't like AND you get away with it!!! Awesome.

Sad to hear Stephen Hawking was admitted to hospital - to be a little geeky he's done a lot for science - though is a little scary! Bet the guys on The Big Bang love him! If you google Stephen Hawking and electric dreams the music video you find is (albeit wrong) very funny!

Newsletter trauma

Ok so it's now the end of the Easter holidays, monday morning at school is looming!! Grrrrr, oh well 5 weeks til the next holiday!!

I have been trying to write an entertaining/interesting article for the school newsletter - oh my life how difficult is that. It has to be informative and funny but at the same time remain clean!!! After 3 days of dilly dallying I finally have the finished article, jazzed up with lyrics from London Calling by The Clash - which will obviously mean nothing to the tiddlypeeps. Wonder what they have in store for us tomorrow?? Ideas on a postcard please!!

Oh and another couple of weird dreams - learning to ski doesn't seem that bad but what about drinking coffee in the staffroom where all the tables had been taken away and the free cakes that were being given out, you suddenly have to pay for! Along with people acting and dressing slightly strange ie 1980s jackets made of a mix of suede and leather made it a very odd dream indeed...