* Choir practice yesterday was brilliant: after a few rehearsals of feeling like a complete and utter idiot due to be forcibly ejected from the hall any moment for ruining the music, finally things have begun to click. Admittedly I had done a bit of practicing (three times in 2 weeks. And two of those three were supervised by my mum: I am such a grownup), but I found that even the (two) pieces I hadn't worked on now...well, worked. The 'natural ear' that all of my music teachers raved about me having came into its own and I suddenly and unexpectedly I realized that ooh; I could DO this! Wow!
Fun.
Maybe I won't be forcibly ejected from the rehearsal hall and banned from coming back after all.
* The dog ran into my legs again on Wednesday evening. This time I saw it coming but it happened so quickly that I only had time to partially dive out of the way. Still, at least I only had one dead leg this time rather than two.
* Is it just me, or do the majority of male teenagers today closely resemble zombies?
Not the fast moving un-dead runners of modern Hollywood (I'm sorry, but come on! Zombies running? How wrong is that??), but the slow, lumbering gait of the Night Of The Living Dead-esque originals.
Honestly! Don't you think? I do. Maybe its just here...?
Anyway, it occurred to me when a group of them plodded their way past me; their clothes similar, their walk identical and their faces fixed with a gormless blank stare. Truly; it is eerily uncanny. They meander around, mostly silent bar the odd grunt or groan (how is it that they understand each other), facing forward and never diverting their gaze to anything around them or even one another, their eyes glassy and sightless... Disconcerting. Very. Every time they drag themselves past me I find myself wondering 'is this it? Is today the day that they actually turn out to be real zombies and I get eaten?'
Melodramatic and stupid and scientifically impossible, I hear you say? That could only be because you've never seen them. Creepy doesn't even begin to describe it.
=shudders=
To make things worse; if they are not feet dragging zombies, they are drunken and hyperactive overgrown chipmunks on speed, weaving about over the pavement (and the road) fighting with each other and innocent members of the public and shouting nonsensical abuse at passersby.
In Kidderminster, at least, there doesn't appear to be an in-between.
And I am not certain which I prefer...
* Things are warming up here. This is good news for all of the "where is summer?" people, and the nice bright sunshine everywhere is pretty lovely and everything, but it is terribly bad news for hayfever ridden people, i.e; me.
I'd take something stronger to ease the symptoms, but the problem is that there isn't anything. I am taking as much as I can and then am doubling it (against doctors advice, but with respect to their vast professional experience, they can kiss my arse. Without the 'unsafe' 20mg of Loratadine I am assaulting my system with per day, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed, let alone go outside), but I still feel one small step off from having the flu the majority of the time.
Add that to the Special Time Of The Month and all those members of the great British public that I have encountered that are not suffering from hayfever and are not currently experiencing the delights of That Special Time Of The Month are lucky that I let them live this week.
* As the poorly teacher that mother has been covering for is still poorly, she has been sentenced - er, I mean 'recruited', of course - to work another two weeks at the school until the poorly teacher has another medical review to see if she can come back. If not, mother will carry on. Which is great, finance wise, but at the same time the school that mother usually subs at is getting a bit sniffy that their supply teacher is being stolen from them (don't ask) and mother is being mentally crippled and driven to the limit of complete exhaustion and beyond by the pressure of the paperwork (another rant for another day).
To be honest I'm not sure how much more of this she can take.
And to be even more honest, I don't know how much more of her not being able to take anymore that I can take.
* I made my second beef hotpot yesterday. Go me.
Don't laugh: I know that hotpots aren't that different from casseroles, which I've made plenty of times, but I've only been cooking for the past year or so and every foray into anything new is a big step, ok?
Anyway; twice, so far. I had split the 500g wedge of stewing beef up, you see, into two portions, because it looked like there would be too much to fit in our modest sized casserole dish once the vegetables and stock and so forth were added. It turned out I had been mistaken and it would have fitted quite well, but at the same time I think it allowed everything in the crock-pot room to breathe a bit which couldn't be bad. And in any case; what was done was done and I froze the other part of the meat ready to use the following week. Cue yesterday.
After defrosting the beef slowly over Wednesday night I had another crack at it, and boy; was I thrilled with the results. Mother had eaten both portions last time (using the smaller amount of ingredients it made two generous sized portions) because I was eating out two days in a row and I wanted her to eat something filling and good, so I hadn't tried it until now. It was really tasty. There wasn't that much to it, just the beef and a few roots; parsnip, onions and carrots and the potatoes to top it, but as I ate it and enjoyed it I felt really proud (possibly childishly) that I had cooked something that tasted that nice. Admittedly I used a packet of stock mix rather than making one from scratch (God bless Tesco. Their own version is much nicer than the ones created by Knorr or Oxo or any of the other big brands like that), but still. I think I did well.
Plus there's the added bonus that as meals go it isn't all that expensive. I get the meat relatively cheaply as part of a deal at either Tesco or Iceland; three packets for £10 (this time it was from Tesco and I purchased the 500g stewing beef, a pack of 2 nice sized chicken breasts and a packet containing 6 pork loin steaks) and when you add that to the price of the vegetables and the stock it works out at around £2.50 per (two portioned) meal. Which, considering rising prices on all food stuffs, isn't bad, not at all.
* There's a tennis championship going on at the moment: the French Open. With the added channels that the digital television we in Britain have been forced to switch to mother has found that all of a sudden she is able to watch things like that (when she is in and has the chance of course) and right now is in heaven because she is back early from work and two of her favourite players are competing in the semi-final and are half way through into their fifth set, which in tennis terms is apparently very exciting. She is a happy woman indeed.
* It is The Grandmama's birthday on Monday. She had previously ordered the cooking of six cakes (six!) by mother as her birthday present, so that she could have a little coffee morning type party with the few residents of the complex that she can actually stand. Mother, who hates cooking (which is a shame because she is terribly good at it) but agrees to make cakes for people's birthdays because they are so good as to be in demand, looked dismayed at the prospect of three rounds - as she makes two per sitting - of cake making. But she agreed with calm grace to her beloved if batty mother's request and brought all of the ingredients including a hell of a lot of eggs, only to be told that whoops; not only does The Grandmama not need the cakes until a week after her birthday, but also as it turns out she only needs three.
Whoops indeed. So mother has a massive load of eggs that are only just in date long enough to last another week and are also twice as many as she will actually be using. Great.
We have a very egg orientated week coming up, me-thinks.
* Had another letter from our sponsored child in Niger*: Zourera. She was delighted by our last letter (it always says that) and her family is doing well, with her husband having returned from a successful and "happy" trip to a neighbouring village to acquire temporary work as a farm hand (and he came home with a bike, as well! Working bikes are a rare commodity in that part of the world) and her baby boy - Abdoulage Zakari - thriving. The rainy season was coming to an end at the time the letter was sent (six months ago; it takes so long for the letters to be written, then translated, then posted) ready for the start of the cold season, so all hands were on deck to gather the harvest.
Good good.
...Anyway, that's it for me for now. I've got to go now and get dinner ready.
Guess what we're having?
Alice xxx
* it's a project run by a group called Plan. You pay a monthly amount and it goes toward helping a particular impoverished village, in this case, Niger, with letters and gifts etc being directed at a particular child; in our case Zourera. After all this time, she isn't a child anymore of course - nineteen and married with a child - but the money still helps the village and by proxy, her and her family. It's a good system and seems to work well; the money seems to actually go where it is needed. It doesn't solve every problem in Africa, of course it doesn't, but at least it helps a little. That's better than nothing. Right?
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