Waffle and happy things

 Today, I wore my Cath Kidston train dress for school because I am teaching Year 1 some activities connected to trains. (I taught the other two classes on Tuesday and sadly missed thinking of this!). I didn't say anything but wondered if any child would notice. Lo and behold, a cute boy put his hand up and pointed out we were doing train rhythms and I was wearing a train dress.  He was rewarded with a Dojo point for that!

For aforementioned train lesson, I usually use a tub of whistles for one of the rhythms. I originally got them when I worked at the Royal Academy of Music.  We had our Christmas party in 2006 and we had those crackers with musical tuned whistles in them (imagine some of the finest music professors in this country playing tunes on them- it was brilliant!).  At the end, when everyone left, they just left their whistles on the tables so naturally, me thinking I was going to be a teacher, I grabbed them- about 38 of them.  Every year subsequently, I used them for this train lesson.  Unfortunately, in the whole big music room becoming a classroom, they have completely gone AWOL. I strongly suspect they are in the cupboard in the hall and are stuck behind the partition as they don't seem to be anywhere else.  I wandered over to Home Bargains opposite school on Monday night to see if I could find any alternative whistles. What I found was packs of 6 Party horns for £1. I bought 3 packs and took them back.  They worked REALLY well, the kids loved them and they were easy to dip in a tub of Dettol so that I could clean them between groups of 7 kids using them.

I've been harvesting SO much Rocket from my Raised Bed. I've been sharing it with colleagues and friends and everyone has been raving about it. I've been eating it for about 7 weeks now.  It's massive!!!

Last week, I picked the first of the Strawberries. A week later, I've already picked over 150 strawberries. Today, I picked the first blueberries.

Sunday, I took CBC for a walk around the field behind our house (it's a nice circular mile (and a bit) walk. Happily, I noticed a cherry tree in the boundary between the field and railway line and managed to pick about 45 cherries.  Then, as we walked along the street adjoining ours, I noticed a cherry tree in the flats carpark that it is clear no one gives a stuff about picking cherries from (they were all over the ground). I picked a load here too.

15 sticks of Rhubarb on Sunday too.

My perpetual spinach seems to have bolted and gone to seed but I just keep cutting the stalks and eating them and it keeps growing.

More COOP bargains this week. On Saturday night, I ended up having to go to the COOP at 9.45pm again as we were making Dhal and had no coconut milk. Again, was a fridge full of bargains. I got a litre carton of Hemp and Oat milk for 15p, a bag of chillis for 17p, 2 bags of Tender Steam broccoli for 56p each, a Large Chocolate Trifle for 68p (at least 4 large servings), a large tub of tomato soup for 48p. Then, Monday night, when I went to Home Bargains, I walked past the fridge and got a Chicken, bacon and pasta layered salad for 10p, a Ginster's Beef pasty for 10p, a Ham and Cheese roll for 10p and a bag of mixed salad for 10p! Bargains!

Because of the train strikes, I had to come home early and I had a lovely sit down on my swing seat in the garden with a pot of tea and some crisps. It was a delight. Also, because I JUST missed the connection train at my interchange and had to wait 25minutes, had a nice little mooch round the posh charity shop by the station. It was lovely! Came home with a lovely &Other Stories dress and a Monsoon top and a solid pair of Maracas for school! Didn't need them but it made a grumpy wait pleasant.

I appointed some kids as Logistics Managers for choir. Their job is to move all the tables and set up the chairs as it was becoming a real bind me trying to do it alone.  The funny thing is, they take their job very seriously, and when I was getting cross with children chatting in choir, they came up with a seating plan for the kids and a strike system for bad behaviour and are totally bossing it with making me not the big bad wolf.  They literally don't care what the other kids think of them and it is really funny!

We didn't end up going to Somerset at the weekend as CBC got Covid last week but luckily, he's been pretty ok with it and I have remained free of it! I was thankful for a weekend at home.

Last week, we had been to see Jacob Collier at Brixton Academy (I DO NOT LIKE BIG CROWDED CONCERTS). It was actually brilliant though and we even got to see Stormzy who came on as a guest and duetted on a wonderful song about faith.

After I went to see Newen Afrobeats a few weeks ago, I played Seun Kuti and some Afrobeats music to the kids and all the teachers were really enthused by it! 

Here endeth the waffle.

xx

Recent doings

Watching: Doctor Who series 6 on DVD in the background whilst packing or working. Loving re-watching the series where we waited for the Doctor to die and finding out who River Song really is!!!!  Also watched Celebrity Sports relief Bakeoff this week and to my delight, our lovely wedding venue, Valentines Mansion, is the backdrop again! I kept squealing "Valentines!" as it appeared in the background!

Reading: a Biography of Queen Mary, the Queen's grandmother. Really interesting!!!

Planning: For moving next week. I abhor packing. I abhor packing by myself even more.

Also planning for next Christmas trip to South Africa to visit our friend. Well, I should be. Have booked a cleaner for the house as we go- I cannot be doing with scrubbing surfaces and vigorous hoovering. Now trying to find man with van.  Would you trust someone you found in an ad in the paper whose price seems really low?

Cooking: Delicious chickpea dish (post to come) and aubergines, also Butternut squash risotto. That was during the week though. This weekend, to be fair though, I've been eating left over Chinese takeaway (tofu, chicken and vermicelli) and chocolate eclairs from Friday night eked over 3 days- not eaten much else! That happens at the weekend.

Eating: The above. And a bag of Wotsits, some lentil crisps and not enough veg. Unusual for me.

Visiting: Pah,no where!!! Visited the post office to post my giveaway prize after finding where I buried it, dragged a suitcase of books a mile and a half to the charity shop (hoping air would help me get rid of headache) where the shop assistant didn't smile once! Seriously.  Was supposed to be visiting a lovely blogger evening at Lush with Gem, but my headache has been so awful, I couldn't feel up to it- the thought of walking the mile to the station, then getting a bus for 40 mins, then having to be cheerful and enthusiastic for an hour or so and then do the same in reverse.

Going: To school for work during the week and church for practice at 8.30am. Possibly going to my friend's garage to store some stuff that CBC will try and make me get rid of if we have no room for it in our smaller new house.

Celebrating: My birthday in 3 weeks. Other than that, diddly squat except it being the weekend!

*Idea for this post totally stolen from Bevchen at Confuzzledom. Apparently, I am quite obvious and honest about stealing. I danced into our business manager's office (which is next to the photocopy room) and sang outloud that I was stealing her scissors to open a box (thinking I was alone). As I went into the photocopy room, one of the deputy heads had appeared in there who laughed at my flagrant honesty at stealing. I then proceeded to cut open paper boxes with aforementioned stolen scissors and take out all the reams of paper and laid them neatly boxless so I could steal the boxes for transporting all my sheet music. I then travelled home on the train carrying home an enormous pile of boxes of varying size. Have been doing this all week. It is rather tiring.

Indigo then

I know, I know, it's not indigo but as I pondered a post title, I remembered a terrible, terrible joke that my friend Steve told me at university. It involved a long and protracted tale of the purple princess in the purple kingdom and the purple roads and the purple everything and the punchline of the joke was something about some characters being ushered into the palace by being told: "Indigo then". It was told at about 12am whilst walking back to my friend's Islington student halls! Hence why I remember it sort of, but not quite! Though I did drink a little bit of alcohol then, it was never too much (except at Steve's 2 parties embarrassingly!)



I spent most of December and half of January being happy at my lack of sales-shopping and then it all went wrong.  I found this purple skirt in the sale and worn it loads since.  I was debating whether to applique a telephone onto it (with a ricrac wire alla Tuppeny-Happeny vintage) or just leave it purple?! What do you think?

This outfit is one I want to wear again and again for school- not too hot, not too cold. Like Goldilocks, I seek the perfect equilibrium of heat and cold! (except for the white/cream items in the outfit, the whole thing is Primarni!)
Shame that the skirt was doing a weird 'I am pretending to be an elephant' thing in these pictures- it usually hangs very nicely!


I've had a really quite nice day!  It started well with CBC giving me a lift to the station, thus avoiding the rain! It meant I got the early, all stations train (means I don't have to change).  At school, I took the choir to a rehearsal for our borough's choral festival at a local school.  My Mum is one of my extra adults for this, so I got to see her (and get birthday present!).  We arrived nice and early at the school which meant I had the opportunity to catch up with the 3 ladies running the rehearsal- one was my recorder teacher whose recorder ensemble I played in for about 10 years of my life- I absolutely adore her and admire her skill (she's the AST for music for our borough) and it was funny as I realised it today, in some ways, she is my sort of style inspiration- she always wore funky earrings and what she wears, I love-we have similar taste.  Her comment on seeing me was, "Oh another lovely outfit K, I always love your style!".  It made me smile to hear this as I think the same of her!  The other one was the lady whose choir I sang in for about 8 years of my life.  She is SUCH an inspiring choir leader and it's her retirement this year.  The third was a University friend (fellow recorder player) who is actually the coordinator of the whole festival.  It was lovely to catch up with her. Also, the piano accompanist was the man who accompanied me for SO many of my music exams through my childhood.  I love the nostalgia of seeing so many beloved teachers from my childhood.  Several are retiring this year and I feel really sad, like it's the end of an era and things will never quite be the same again.  Still, there's still several who are remaining.

In this choral festival, the number of places offered to each school is limited, since the Royal Albert Hall has only a certain number of seats for performers and I was quite sad that I got to take all my choir except 3 of them.  Despite the fact that they weren't going to the main concert, I still got them to come along to this pre-rehearsal and learn everything.  Well, their hard work paid off because wonderfully, serendipitously, the school in the seats next to us in the Albert Hall didn't want 3 of their seats SO, my Uni friend/coordinator asked if we'd like them?  WOULD WE???!!! Yessssss, of course!! SO their hard work reaped a reward.

A full lunchtime- in which I had lunch and chatted to my Mum and teachers and then the afternoon spent with year 5 who I like very much.  The lesson was a listening lesson and thus, I got to listen to Vlatava from Ma Vlast by Smetana, which depicts the course of the river Vlatava in Czech.  It is such a beautiful piece of music and due to the activities I planned for them, I got to listen to all glorious 14 minutes of it- twice!!! The children were drawing their own maps of the river- including the places they felt the music suggested the river was passing and inclusion of any descriptive words or musical points they recognised or identified. It's a lovely activity and they were so enthusiastic over it!  Drumming club after school was a great success and we started learning Samba this week!

I went via the shops to see if I could seek some alternative ankle boots for the Clarks ones I featured on Monday. I've decided not to keep them.  They were just too tight so I am going to send them back sadly.  I went to T K Maxx and was really excited to find some Kurt Geiger black ankle boots reduced to £19 in my size but when I tried them on, they were far too tight!!! Tried some others but didn't really love them.  Sad.  Somehow, instead of buying ankle boots, I ended up with a pair of knee high black but almost petrol blue or grey leather boots by Ralph Lauren!  I can't quite fathom the colour! They're so comfy!!!

I came home and after eating left over Chinese, I sat and finished a DIY crafty project (to be shared soon!) whilst watching back-to-back episodes of The Good Life on YouTube.  The BBC has released all the episodes onto there!! It's been a lovely evening.  Now, as I sit drinking cocoa with squirt cream on top, I am just waiting for the final piece of this happy days jigsaw- CBC to come back from his teaching evening!

How's your day been?!xx