We have a pastor at our school, and today she took assembly. (We also have pasta in the canteen, but that is a completely different kettle of spirituality in that pasta never takes assemblies mostly because it would either a) dry out or b) go soggy before it reached 'The Moral of the Story' moment.)
Today, our Reverend wanted a staff volunteer to help her with assembly. She was brandishing a large tub of marshmallows, so we all looked decidedly afeard and stepped back as inconspicuously as possible. One of our number did not step back as quickly as the rest of us, so his forward stance was taken as his willingness to be 'The Volunteer.'
Anyway, through a series of events that I shan't go into, the poor volunteer, who goes by the name of Paul and puts himself through heroic acts like participating in triatholons for charity, ended up with a face stuffed with 20 marshmallows and the definite look on his face of a man who needed to get to the loo NOW before an accident occurred. I didn't blame him. Part of my non-volunteering stemmed from the fact that certain foods make me heave and amongst them is the marshmallow.
The students were entertained though, so that's okay.
Back chez le Manor Heather announced that she had 'plans' for my soon to be ex-writing room. Blimey, I thought, as she regaled me with ideas about the positioning of sofas, beds, TVs and shelves, give us a chance to move out first. What I didn't tell her was that I, too, have been having 'plans' about what I'm going to do when I take over her room. For ages. In fact, before she even moved back home two and a half years ago after her graduation.
Anyway, as Andy very astutely pointed out to Heather's boyfriend when they were having a manly discussion about 'The Big Move' which will take place this weekend providing my Year 11's don't finish me off first, is that it's all part of my cunning decorating -by-stealth plot.
'Because when you finally move out of the soon to be ex-writing room,' he said, 'there will be an excuse to get it revamped as a second living room.'
I didn't realise I was that transparent, but too right! I'll be ripping out cupboards, adding a fire place and laying a wood floor before the front door is even closed! And installing wallpaper with huge flowers 'pon it - that goes without saying.
But that is some time in the future and we're not counting days. Unless Heather is still in residence when she is 30, then I might have something to say about it all.
I'm already looking forward to moving upstairs. Upstairs seems a lot more cosy. Plus the room is at the back of the house and catches more morning sun, and being a morning person, that is when I want to be a-sun catching. The cupboard space is more agreeable, too. I have a hate/hate relationship with the cupboards in my current writing room, mostly in that they are a swine to open and a swine to close.
I've been thinking I ought to re-name my new creative space. I want to call it something other than 'The Writing Room' or 'Mum's Study.' I was having a discussion with some Year 10s the other day about names, and one of them asked what I'd like to be called if I could change my name. Without a moment of hesitation, I said, 'Scarlett Daisy.' Not sure where that came from; but then I also knew today that one of the Year 11s dogs is called Freddy, so I suspect my psychic ability might be reheating itself after a year of lying fairly dormant.
So, for what shall I be using this new room? I shall be writing and reading, sewing and knitting, learning Italian and meditating, sitting and staring and throwing shoes out of the window at that bloomin' ginger cat that appears every now and again in the back garden to terrorise the Misses Pumphrey and Slocombe. And I shall be bee-watching as I'll have a goodly view of the topbar hive. I suspect I shall also be dusting off my Tarot cards and restarting my absent healing journal.
I have tried to make an acronym of all these things, but the lack of vowels (one miserly 'i' for 'Italian') scuppered my plan to come up with something witty and original and the best I could manage was a very tenuous 'wormskins' and that didn't include 'b' for bee-watching or 't' for Tarot.
So for the time being I shall name the room 'Scarlett Daisy.'
May God bless her and all that is created therein!
Showing posts with label tarot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tarot. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Mrs Slocombe Makes Spanakopita
'Good morning, fellow cuisinaires! Mrs Slocombe here, speaking today from the kitchen at Much Malarkey Manor. I would be speaking from the kitchen at Cluckinghen Palace but for an unfortunate accident involving Mrs Pumphrey and the heating up of a leg-waxing kit in the Aga, resulting in a spot of emergency re-enamelling work. However, her Ladyship at the Manor has requested I blog a cookery spot today, so here I am, with my very simple-recipe-for-simple-hens called Spanakopita. (The recipe, not the hens. Spanakopita would be a silly name for a hen...or would it??? Hmmmmm....Betty Spanakopita Slocombe...it has a certain ring to it. 'Yes,' says Mrs Miggins. 'A stupid one.')'
'I didn't actually request you do a cookery blog today,' I interrupt. 'You just muscled your way in here with your pecky beak and told me you were cooking, so shift my ar...'
'Okay,' says Slocombe. 'Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn't. But I'm here now, so can I just get on with it?'
'Yes, if you must,' I say. 'But make sure you clear up after yourself.'
'Has she washed her hands?' says Mrs Miggins, who co-incidentally has come to the Manor this morning for me to practise a Tarot reading on.
'Yes,' I say. 'And I've made her put on an apron, too. Look, it's a novelty one with human beings all over it.'
'Oh yes,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Lovely!'
Mrs Slocombe is seething. She has a very short attention span and even shorter temper. She has come to share her recipe for Spanokopita, and she's getting fed up with the delay in progress.
'Carry on,' I say, for fear that her angry vibrations will penetrate my newly calm spiritual aura.
'Yes,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Don't mind us. You don't usually.'
'Firstly,' says Mrs Slocombe, 'gather together your ingredients. For spanakopita, you will need some spanners...'
'Oh woah up there,' I say. 'If you're going to do a cookery spot, there's to be no messing about. I'm not having complaints from Much Malarkey visitors about how they've suffered broken teeth and irritable bowel from eating one of your more abstract interpretations of a perfectly good recipe. Do it properly or not at all.'
'That's exactly what I said to Tango Pete last night,' sighs Mrs Pumphrey, who has popped in because she doesn't like to be at the Palace alone because of the noisy plumbing.
'I don't wish to know,' I say.
Mrs Slocombe sighs. 'You spoil all my fun,' she says. 'But if you insist...ahem, you will need 1 large onion, finely chopped, some oil for frying, 1lb of baby spinach, 12oz feta cheese, a handful of pine nuts, some grated fresh nutmeg, a couple of ozzes of melted butter and a packet of filo pastry. Oh, and some crushed garlic if you like crushed garlic, but I don't so I'm leaving it out.'
'That's better,' I say, and decide it is safe to step back and concentrate on my spiritual development for the day. Mrs Slocombe continues.
'Preheat your oven to Gas 8 after checking first for the presence of leg-waxing kits and stray lambs. Cook onion, and garlic (if you're mad) in large pan for 5 mins. Add spinach. Wilt. (The spinach, not you, although in this weather I wouldn't blame you if you did.) After about 4 mins, drain and squeeze mixture and add to bowl with feta, pine nuts, nutmeg and seasoning. Pause to nibble a few pine nuts, because they are, quite frankly, one of the THE most delicious things ever. Oh, and if you find you haven't got quite enough spinach, you could do half spinach mixed with other green veggies like finely sliced runner beans, and peas and courgettes, whatever combo tickles your trout.
Brush a 9 inch loose bottomed tart.... ('That's not a nice way to talk about Mrs Pumphrey,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Concentrate,' I say. 'The Wheel of Fortune has appeared.)...tin with butter. Lay a sheet of filo across it, draping it over the edges. Brush with butter. Add a second sheet across the first at an angle. Brush with butter again. Continue to layer the filo at different angles until 6-8 sheets have been used and the base and sides of the tin are covered. Add filling.
Now, repeat the sequence of filo 'n' butter layering across the top of the pie, then roll the edges down, tucking them in to seal the pie. Remove rim from the tin. DO NOT BE AFRAID. I thought it would collapse the first time I did this, but it didn't. HURRAH!!
Sit pie on base onto a baking tray. Brush top with butter and add sesame and or poppy seeds if you don't mind flossing after dinner.
Bake for 20 minutes until crisp and golden. Eat hot, warm or cold depending on when you've cooked it and when your family arrive home from work or whether you are taking it on a picnic or using it for lunch boxes. YUM!!
'It sounds lovely,' I say.
'It is,' says Mrs Slocombe. 'But it'd taste a lot better if it had spanners in it.'
'I didn't actually request you do a cookery blog today,' I interrupt. 'You just muscled your way in here with your pecky beak and told me you were cooking, so shift my ar...'
'Okay,' says Slocombe. 'Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn't. But I'm here now, so can I just get on with it?'
'Yes, if you must,' I say. 'But make sure you clear up after yourself.'
'Has she washed her hands?' says Mrs Miggins, who co-incidentally has come to the Manor this morning for me to practise a Tarot reading on.
'Yes,' I say. 'And I've made her put on an apron, too. Look, it's a novelty one with human beings all over it.'
'Oh yes,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Lovely!'
Mrs Slocombe is seething. She has a very short attention span and even shorter temper. She has come to share her recipe for Spanokopita, and she's getting fed up with the delay in progress.
'Carry on,' I say, for fear that her angry vibrations will penetrate my newly calm spiritual aura.
'Yes,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Don't mind us. You don't usually.'
'Firstly,' says Mrs Slocombe, 'gather together your ingredients. For spanakopita, you will need some spanners...'
'Oh woah up there,' I say. 'If you're going to do a cookery spot, there's to be no messing about. I'm not having complaints from Much Malarkey visitors about how they've suffered broken teeth and irritable bowel from eating one of your more abstract interpretations of a perfectly good recipe. Do it properly or not at all.'
'That's exactly what I said to Tango Pete last night,' sighs Mrs Pumphrey, who has popped in because she doesn't like to be at the Palace alone because of the noisy plumbing.
'I don't wish to know,' I say.
Mrs Slocombe sighs. 'You spoil all my fun,' she says. 'But if you insist...ahem, you will need 1 large onion, finely chopped, some oil for frying, 1lb of baby spinach, 12oz feta cheese, a handful of pine nuts, some grated fresh nutmeg, a couple of ozzes of melted butter and a packet of filo pastry. Oh, and some crushed garlic if you like crushed garlic, but I don't so I'm leaving it out.'
'That's better,' I say, and decide it is safe to step back and concentrate on my spiritual development for the day. Mrs Slocombe continues.
'Preheat your oven to Gas 8 after checking first for the presence of leg-waxing kits and stray lambs. Cook onion, and garlic (if you're mad) in large pan for 5 mins. Add spinach. Wilt. (The spinach, not you, although in this weather I wouldn't blame you if you did.) After about 4 mins, drain and squeeze mixture and add to bowl with feta, pine nuts, nutmeg and seasoning. Pause to nibble a few pine nuts, because they are, quite frankly, one of the THE most delicious things ever. Oh, and if you find you haven't got quite enough spinach, you could do half spinach mixed with other green veggies like finely sliced runner beans, and peas and courgettes, whatever combo tickles your trout.
Brush a 9 inch loose bottomed tart.... ('That's not a nice way to talk about Mrs Pumphrey,' says Mrs Miggins. 'Concentrate,' I say. 'The Wheel of Fortune has appeared.)...tin with butter. Lay a sheet of filo across it, draping it over the edges. Brush with butter. Add a second sheet across the first at an angle. Brush with butter again. Continue to layer the filo at different angles until 6-8 sheets have been used and the base and sides of the tin are covered. Add filling.
Now, repeat the sequence of filo 'n' butter layering across the top of the pie, then roll the edges down, tucking them in to seal the pie. Remove rim from the tin. DO NOT BE AFRAID. I thought it would collapse the first time I did this, but it didn't. HURRAH!!
Sit pie on base onto a baking tray. Brush top with butter and add sesame and or poppy seeds if you don't mind flossing after dinner.
Bake for 20 minutes until crisp and golden. Eat hot, warm or cold depending on when you've cooked it and when your family arrive home from work or whether you are taking it on a picnic or using it for lunch boxes. YUM!!
'It sounds lovely,' I say.
'It is,' says Mrs Slocombe. 'But it'd taste a lot better if it had spanners in it.'
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Universal Confusion
So I thought, I'll pull a Tarot card and see what the Universe says about me applying for this part-time teaching job. And then I thought, I'll just pop on the website and check that I still kind of vaguely want to apply for it in the first place. So I did. And the web-site wanted me to register first before I could apply on-line, so I did, even though I know it's all part of the Big Brother Is Watching You And Collecting Personal Information to Charge You More Tax Government Scam Thing.
And then it said, 'YOU HAVE ONLY 90 MINUTES TO COMPLETE THIS APPLICATION BEFORE YOU ARE TIMED OUT OF THE APPLICATION AND/OR THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT COMES TO A SUDDEN AND VIOLENT END!'
I thought, the computer is shouting at me! The computer is DEMANDING I should apply NOW! I am scared!! What if the world does end in 90 minutes? I mean, we've only just got the bees settled in. And what will the chickens say?
'I'll tell you what we'd say,' says Mrs Miggins. 'We'd say we'd be flipping annoyed, because we've got tickets to go and see Michael Buble in concert and Mrs Pumphrey wants to throw her frilly flannelettes in his direction.'
'Surely Bubble?' says Mrs Slocombe.
'Buble,' says Mrs Miggins, 'get back to your Sudoku.'
Well, no time to argue, no time to find important information. I had to go for it. Could I remember the exact dates of my employment history? Vaguely. Did I know what my OAN was? Are you mad? I didn't even know what OAN meant. Oranges and 'nanas? Ordinary And Nice? In a 90-minute-and-you're-out-panic I guessed N stood for number, because the job is with the same employer as I am currently with i.e KCC, so I looked on my last salary slip and punched in a number which looked like it might be official. The computer didn't say 'no' so I carried on.
The trickiest bit was 'explain why you are applying for this job.'
Hmmm. Well, 'because I want to earn decent money whilst working as few hours as possible because I want to get back to more writing, growing carrots and communing with bees 'n' hens' didn't sound quite like the kind of things a future employer would be want to hearing. So, because I am a creative writer, I wrote what I knew they WOULD want to hear (it's all political, this job application malarkey), and managed to mention hens and bees at the same time!!
And then, with literally minutes to spare (you can thank me later for preventing the world meeting a sudden and violent end) I sent off the application, but I did remember to check my spelling and grammar first, so that was good.
And then I went to pull a Tarot card.
I pulled 'The Dreamer.'
'Oh great,' I said, to any Ethereal Beings that might have been in the vicinity. 'Now look; if you want me to follow 'The Dreamer' then you are going to have work with me on it. I need to work, as Andy is going part-time from this month. We are going to try and manage on part-time salaries so we can spend more time growing stuff and looking after bees and hens and any other livestock we can squeeze into our available space without the neighbours getting narky. We are trying to move away from the materialistic; I, for example, am going to restrict any future clothes-buying to shoes and pants, and only when I've worn out any previous pairs. But we still have bills to pay, a mortgage to upkeep, savings to squirrel away, so it's all going to be a bit of a fine work/ life balance unless a great wodge of cash-to-buy-a-small-holding/tea-shop/B&B appears...'
I paused at this point, in case the Ethereal Beings chipped in with, 'Yes, yes! Go to the end of the road and you will find a bag of money in the post box/ under the tree in the park/ floating mid-air, just grab it,'.......
...but they didn't.
I sighed. 'Just bear with us unconfident, procrastinating human fools, will you?' I finished. And went to move the sofa from the 'conservatory' because I got Andy an armchair to replace it , as it doesn't take up quite so much room and will be better for his back when he's in slump mode.
'What's up with her?' said one Ethereal Being. Because whatever I might think, they are always listening.
'Life, I expect,' said another.
And then it said, 'YOU HAVE ONLY 90 MINUTES TO COMPLETE THIS APPLICATION BEFORE YOU ARE TIMED OUT OF THE APPLICATION AND/OR THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT COMES TO A SUDDEN AND VIOLENT END!'
I thought, the computer is shouting at me! The computer is DEMANDING I should apply NOW! I am scared!! What if the world does end in 90 minutes? I mean, we've only just got the bees settled in. And what will the chickens say?
'I'll tell you what we'd say,' says Mrs Miggins. 'We'd say we'd be flipping annoyed, because we've got tickets to go and see Michael Buble in concert and Mrs Pumphrey wants to throw her frilly flannelettes in his direction.'
'Surely Bubble?' says Mrs Slocombe.
'Buble,' says Mrs Miggins, 'get back to your Sudoku.'
Well, no time to argue, no time to find important information. I had to go for it. Could I remember the exact dates of my employment history? Vaguely. Did I know what my OAN was? Are you mad? I didn't even know what OAN meant. Oranges and 'nanas? Ordinary And Nice? In a 90-minute-and-you're-out-panic I guessed N stood for number, because the job is with the same employer as I am currently with i.e KCC, so I looked on my last salary slip and punched in a number which looked like it might be official. The computer didn't say 'no' so I carried on.
The trickiest bit was 'explain why you are applying for this job.'
Hmmm. Well, 'because I want to earn decent money whilst working as few hours as possible because I want to get back to more writing, growing carrots and communing with bees 'n' hens' didn't sound quite like the kind of things a future employer would be want to hearing. So, because I am a creative writer, I wrote what I knew they WOULD want to hear (it's all political, this job application malarkey), and managed to mention hens and bees at the same time!!
And then, with literally minutes to spare (you can thank me later for preventing the world meeting a sudden and violent end) I sent off the application, but I did remember to check my spelling and grammar first, so that was good.
And then I went to pull a Tarot card.
I pulled 'The Dreamer.'
'Oh great,' I said, to any Ethereal Beings that might have been in the vicinity. 'Now look; if you want me to follow 'The Dreamer' then you are going to have work with me on it. I need to work, as Andy is going part-time from this month. We are going to try and manage on part-time salaries so we can spend more time growing stuff and looking after bees and hens and any other livestock we can squeeze into our available space without the neighbours getting narky. We are trying to move away from the materialistic; I, for example, am going to restrict any future clothes-buying to shoes and pants, and only when I've worn out any previous pairs. But we still have bills to pay, a mortgage to upkeep, savings to squirrel away, so it's all going to be a bit of a fine work/ life balance unless a great wodge of cash-to-buy-a-small-holding/tea-shop/B&B appears...'
I paused at this point, in case the Ethereal Beings chipped in with, 'Yes, yes! Go to the end of the road and you will find a bag of money in the post box/ under the tree in the park/ floating mid-air, just grab it,'.......
...but they didn't.
I sighed. 'Just bear with us unconfident, procrastinating human fools, will you?' I finished. And went to move the sofa from the 'conservatory' because I got Andy an armchair to replace it , as it doesn't take up quite so much room and will be better for his back when he's in slump mode.
'What's up with her?' said one Ethereal Being. Because whatever I might think, they are always listening.
'Life, I expect,' said another.
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