Experiments and Suprises

I am sure I have had tongues wagging recently in my village.  I realise it is rather conceited of me to believe that people have been talking about me behind closed doors but I am good at giving them ammunition.  I am the quirky woman who does things rather differently which will always set me apart from the long term inhabitants of the village where being different is not the norm.  We are feeling our way through the maze, not entirely successfully, of children being more independent which I am all for, but I couldn't be making a bigger bosh of if I tried.  I managed to lose a child between my house and the village hall, a walk in a straight line along the same road, turning up at a meeting, late, interrupting it because I couldn't see Cameron and then walking back out again.  You see, great fodder!  So as I stumble around not doing a very good job of it, I realise I need to take a leaf from my mothers' book, arrange a return time and ring me if you are going to be late.  We always had a pocket full of 10p's which probably wouldn't get you far these days, even if you could find a working phone box.  But first things first a watch with a battery that makes the time right, one step at a time eh?

I have joined Facebook.  I haven't joined in the party just crept in the back door and am watching slightly bewildered from the kitchen.  My local home ed groups use it, a lot, I was missing out on stuff going on relying on friends texting me which wasn't really fair on them or to be honest terribly reliable.  I may make it my mission to be the person who has been a member the longest and has no friends.

Talking of kitchens my benign neglect in my own has led to some interesting suprises recently.  I have started making my own yogurt again, I have found a way to make it just how I want it, bits of lots of recipes.  I have come to realise that some recipes are a bit like fairy tales once they are written down they become static and sometimes redundant as they only really work for the author. Take sourdough starters, something else I have been dabbling with, the state of your starter can depend on so many variables that become more intuitive over time, it would be better to talk to your neighbour about it than someone blogging thousands of miles away, but when you don't have a sourdough baking neighbour the blog will have to do.  The recipe is then a starting point rather than an end in itself, seeing it like this takes you on a much more productive and enjoyable journey.

Today is the day that we didn't meet the deadline to apply for a place at secondary school for Cameron.  I have been mulling this over for some time now, as regular readers here will know.   I had thought I had made my decision but a chance conversation with someone at orchestra got me thinking again.  As the head of a very small localish secondary school I can't say I wasn't, initially, tempted by what she had to say about her school.  But aside from the practicalities of having to drive him there and back everyday it is the curriculum that I have issues with and that won't change with the size of the school.  So for now we are committing to the home, it doesn't feel any different for now and probably won't for a while, when his peers make that big step I know that it will mark another different step in our journey.  Six years ago this day felt like a long way off, now it is has come and gone and life continues, rolling slowly onwards.

Autumn is a good time of year for foraging, if you are a dab hand at it all year round is good but I am not so tend to do more at this time of year.  We picked rosehips way before the first frost, which is supposed to improve the flavour, and made syrup with them, well strictly I didn't because it didn't have any sugar in it.  I used it on my breakfast it was a little tart but the fresh fruit helped that.  A few days after it ran out I started to feel the beginnings of a cold, a garlic syrup was recommended to me.  The four days it takes to brew were full of aching fever that wrapped me up completely in its grip, the first day after my first dose I was so glad to be free of it.  The recipe calls for a lot of garlic so I was glad to be able to use my own, once the cloves have steeped they can be frozen and used in cooking, a ready supply of peeled garlic.  Now I am feeling a little better I will be on the look out for more rosehips...........