This is becoming a very bad habit of mine. I should really post more regularly, rather than giving you an overwhelmingly huge account of the events of my life once in a blue moon. My apologies once more. Perhaps I should consider posting more regularly to be my new year's resolution.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. I have just completed my first term of 6th form. It has been hard work, but a lot of fun. Now, I am only doing subjects I enjoy, which makes motivating myself to do the work a lot easier. I never have to face another English lesson again. I spend half my timetabled lessons doing Maths, because I am taking Maths and Further Maths. I am often referred to, by anyone who knows me at all, as a maths geek (a name a pride myself to be associated with). Of course (particularly at Kendrick) you can quite safely say that when you leave every maths lesson, you will have homework to do. However, maths homework is of a defined length. It's right or wrong. Once you've answered the specified questions, and checked your answers, and made any corrections needed, you're done. Unlike any other subject, where you can always add more to your essay or notes, or revise your notes in preparation for a test that you may face in the dim and distant future.

Of course, my other two subjects require a little more effort than maths. Fortunately I love them both. Chemistry has always been one of my favourite subjects and still is, although I have developed a very strong hatred towards titrations, which will most definitely be the death of me. Fortunately, I will never have to do titrations again, apart from possibly for my EMPA, but let's not dwell on that too much now.

German has produced no immediate problems. I have been thoroughly enjoying many relatively basic german books. I find it quite comforting that I can read for several pages, maybe even chapters, without having to look up anything in the dictionary.

This brings me to half term. I am very excited to announce  that, last Friday, I went to see Mark Watson perform in Basingstoke with two friends, Martha and Clo. I had never seen him live before (although I had seen him many a time on TV, particularly on Live at the Apollo), nor had I been to Basingstoke before. Despite this, we managed to find our way to the theatre. I can't put into words how AMAZING he was. I love him. I really do. He is neck on neck with Russell Howard. Unfortunately he is already married, as he kept reminding me throughout that evening. After his performance, I couldn't resist, I just had to buy his book and get it signed. He claims he saw me at the station. I think I would remember if Mark Watson had been talking to me at Basingstoke Station. All I can say is...he wishes. Still laughing at his jokes, we all got the train back to mine, and we were still laughing well into the night.

The following day I went to my friend Anna's costume party. I felt I would very much suit the character the Mad Hatter, and so I borrowed a friend's top hat, bought a bright orange suit for a reasonable price in H&M (I do love my bargains) and hunted round Reading for bright purple tights. The party was so good. It was really nice to meet some Anna's friends from her previous school, and to catch up with Rhianna, who did Silver DofE with me last year, but has't continued to Gold. However, I did struggle making eye contact with her, as she was wearing some very scary halloween contacts that made me cower away from her. The food was great, and Anna is an amazing hostess. Such a good evening and I met some lovely people.

Sunday was relatively quiet, so I took the opportunity to sit around all day (although in fairness, I did do some work). On Monday I went to Lozzie's birthday sleepover. We had huge Cosco pizzas, and watched The History Boys, Four Weddings and Funeral and Johnny English. Although I admit, I did fall asleep after the first film, and woke up in time to hear the gossip.

I a fellow Rachel and her brother, Andrew. Andrew was in the middle of a huge movie marathon when I arrived, so we gate crashed. After 4 hours of watching the end of Star Wards 6 (they had already watched 1-5) and the beginning of Lord of the Rings (which was their next project) I left blurry eyed and with a nice long list of films I really need to watch again in the near future.

I also visited my friend Clo. I hadn't yet seen her kittens, and so now I've finally met them. They are adorable. Merlin is the cutest thing I have ever seen. And Isis is the best behaved kitten I've ever known. She let ME hold her. And I left Clo's without a scratch, except not before we looked at videos on youtube and took photos with Clo's amazingly flattering webcam.

Unfortunately, my Dad had is hernia operation this week, which didn't go too badly, although he has had very low blood pressure and I fear he might take a lot longer to recover than planned. So I am without my taxi driver at present :P.

I have left the best and most significant thing until last - the arrival of my laptop. She is beautiful and I love her to pieces. That's all I will say right now.

2 months in 2 minutes

It's been a  hectic summer - not that that's any excuse not to post in so long. In the past two months I have managed to travel up to London a grand total of 5 times - 4 times with friends (the first of which occurred a matter of days after my last post) and once with the family, to see The Wizard of Oz, starring Michael Crawford, at the London Palladium.

I have also now completed my Silver DofE, having gone on my final expedition in the Isle of Purbeck at the beginning of the summer holidays. With only a few days to recover from the ordeal before I was heading off to Fuerteventura with the family, I decided to take full advantage of the fact that I am an Orange customer and went to see the finally Harry Potter film with fellow expeditioner, Louisa. In fact, every Wednesday I have spent in England I have been making good use of Orange Wednesdays: Harry Potter, Bridesmaids, Horrible Bosses, The Inbetweeners Movie.

Very early on the Saturday morning, we set off heavily laden with 4 suitcases (trust me to have the heaviest!) to Fuerteventura. It is one of the Canary Islands, twinned with Lanzarote, and is the setting for many films (including Pirates of the Caribbean!). There we lived the life of luxury, indulging ourselves on lavish food, rich ice cream and (in my case at least) cocktails. Staying just a 10 minute bus ride from Corralejo, we were in a prime location for shopping! Yet we were still far enough away from the town that we could enjoy a peaceful holiday on the beach looking out upon miles of uninterrupted (apart from by our hotel) coastline. We rode camels, went to the uninhabited island Los Lobos to swim in the lagoons, took at day trip to Lanzarote to see the evidence of volcanic activity in Timanfaya National Park and went to water park which was unusually situated in the centre of Corralejo. The food was amazing, and I almost enjoyed dressing up each evening (as many people know, I am not ordinarily a girly girl). The weather was good, and I met loads of lovely people and I met a few single guys but unfortunately I didn't get any mobile numbers off them. But the best thing was, I got a tan! And, although it has faded a little, I still have it! My life is complete!

We arrived home, completely exhausted after a night flight with a crying baby, at 4am. After a few hours of sleep, I unpacked and repacked and was on my way to Portsmouth to spend a few days with my sister, Gem, helping her with childcare whilst she worked. I had a lot of fun with the boys. We went to the park, decorated cakes (twice because they loved it so much the first time), went to football training, went to Paultons Park, painted and cooked. Fortunately, Joey, 6, and Ashley, 4, were actually a help rather than a hindrance in the kitchen. Ashley helped me prepare all the vegetables for the stir fry on my first night with them, Joey helped mummy make the lasagne on the second night and both boys helpled me make a pasta dish on the 4th night. The experience of them cooking, and seeing exactly what is going into their dinner encouraged them to eat foods they wouldn't ordinarily eat. Ashley had 4 helpings of stir fry!

When I returned to Reading, I only had two days to recover from my exhausting but wonderful day with the boys (in which time I met with Clo to see the Inbetweeners and have lunch at Yo Sushi), before I was off to work in Winchester with my neighbour. She is a home economist, and was helping Rachel Allen film her new cooking programme. It was exhausting work, but I really enjoyed myself and I learned a lot (including the fact that I am not cut out to be a home economist!). But if you are ever watching Rachel Allen's knew cooking show, if you see any ginger at all on screen, I peeled that! I did other things besides peeling ginger, such as a lot of fetching and carrying, and I made a fair few cups of tea. It was such an experience.

I then had a few days to do some homework - Kendrick couldn't stand us not having any work to do over our summer holidays, so they set us bridgework. On Tuesday night, after a lot of last minute organisation (because my phone failed me), my friends and I went out for a meal at the Peking Palace in Caversham. You may remember from a previous post, that I went there with friends to celebrate my 15th birthday. Because we enjoyed ourselves so much, and I felt so bad that Becca had missed out because she was unavailable before, I decided it was about time that we visited the restaurant again. 

The following evening I set off with my Dad and brother to London passing many early bird campers for Reading festival on our way to the station. We met my Mum for dinner before going to the London Palladium to see The Wizard of Oz. I won't go into too much detail about it because you should all go and see it. It was amazing. And the star of the show was definitely the little dog that played Toto. He got the loudest applause by far. 

Then there was results. 

To celebrate I went to Reading Festival. I loved every minute of it. Such a wonderful experience and it was definitely the highlight of my summer. I loved it so much that I've already bought my ticket for next year, so I am a little bit strapped for cash at present. And there is most certainly such a thing as  post-festival depression. It took me several days to recover and I am still a little depressed, although the memories and the music are keeping me going :). 

Because I had not had the chance to celebrate with my family, my parents, brother and I went to Mya Lacarte Thursday evening. They serve such good food. Unfortunately I had to get up early (well...early for me) to sign up for my A-levels at Kendrick, and then I made the most of my walk into town by going shopping with friends. But, because Reading Festival has drained me of all my money, I didn't actually buy anything!

And that brings me to the weekend just gone. My sister, Michelle, drove down on the Friday night with her husband Danny and her adorable daughter Jess, who is two years old. They spent the weekend with us, and I am missing them a lot now they've gone. 

And now, as my last day of freedom is coming to a close, I must say farewell. 

2 manic months

I realised I haven't posted in absolutely ages. My apologies for that. My only defence is that the last 2 months have been very hectic.

Firstly, I had exams, which I will not deliberate over any further. They're down - over with. There's nothing I can do now, apart from wait for the results.

Secondly, I had my birthday. Unfortunately, the 2nd English language paper fell on my birthday, which did make it very hard to celebrate, particularly as I had to revise for the exam on the following day. It did not help that many people forgot about it completely, but everybody was very preoccupied with exams, so it was perfectly understandable.

Thirdly, I have been rushing around, throughout Reading, and back and forth from London, hunting everywhere for a prom dress, shoes, clutch bag and jewellery with a total that fell with in my budget (my birthday money). Luckily, I managed to find a gorgeous dress in London in half term. I actually bought three dresses (with the intention of taking two of them back, because I could neither afford to keep them all, nor could I wear them all to prom - although my friend Becca did suggest it). In the end I decided to keep the French Connection dress, and return the two Coast dresses. I left the shoes and accessories until the last minute, but I managed to complete the outfit just in time on the Thursday before prom. I managed to buy silver, heeled shoes from Dorothy Perkins for a very reasonable price in a sale (one of my favourite words) and managed to get earrings in Accessorize with glass stones that matched the gems on the straps of my shoes. My clutch bag was from Monsoon, and the sequins matched the silver beaded and sequined pattern on the shoulder of my dress, and I managed to buy a bracelet in a sale in Coast. Overall, it wasn't too expensive at all.

Fourthly, I had to prepare for a dinner party - my birthday celebration. Having already done a dinner party (described in a previous post) I knew that I needed to set aside plenty of time to prepare for it, particularly as I had even more people to feed this time. However, I decided to make a much more simple starter than last time, and chose a main course which I could prepare beforehand (last time, the Fajita filling needed to be cooked once my guests had finished the starter). After a lot of deliberation, and after checking what ingredients my guests liked, I decided on the following menu:

rice noodle, beansprout and soy sauce spring rolls served with a soy and wasabi sauce

spiced chili prawns

*

spaghetti tetrazzini

(chicken and mushroom pasta bake)

vegetarian spaghetti tetrazzini

(with French shiitake mushrooms to replace the chicken)

*

homemade lemon sherbet jelly

summer salad

(strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants served with a champagne granita)

*

cheese and biscuits



Thank you to Martha, Clo, Becca, Sizz and Lauren for coming and putting up with my poor culinary skills.

Finally, I come to my flute exam. I just had it today. It wasn't too bad. I am quite confident that I have passed, but like most people, I want to do more than just pass. I am not sure about a distinction, but I am hoping for a merit.

Just a quick update

Don't worry. I won't bore you with the details.

I am still very stressed about my exams coming up. 4 days left of lessons. Not good. However, on the plus side, I have a lot planned once this torture ends. There's prom. The after party ;). Many many many trips to London. A trip to the beach. Fuerteventura - I WILL tan this time. A possible second holiday. READING FESTIVAL! My first official piano student - admittedly not paying, but whom I love very very much. A trip to see my sister - hopefully I can help her look after the boys, and take a little strain off her.

Sorry for the list. But it has brightened my mood ever so sightly. I can now see the end of the tunnel  - although it is miles away. I have been doing a fair bit of revision, but I won't let it get in the way of my normal routine. I am still continuing with my extra-curricula activities and my hectic life. Any change will get me more stressed. I like things to stay the same. Fortunately, my usual routine can cater for study time - as many people know, I am meticulous about homework, and slave away for hours doing unneccesary work. Now all I do, is use the time I would have spent doing homework to revise. Clever or what? No sacrifices whatsoever.

I have now been entered for a flute exam in the summer. I haven't quite decided whether this is a good idea or not. Of course it can add more pressure, particular once the exams have started. But I am hoping that the extra flute practice will detract attention from the exams that loom ahead. It will also give me something to concentrate on when the exams have finished - because otherwise, I know I will just waste away in front of teh TV watching mindless crap.

I have just realised that I have not mentioned Easter at all. Which is disgraceful - it is a sin in the world of blogging to not mention a main holiday or key event in the year. Admittedly not much happened. I spent most of my time revising. But I did have a few breaks. I stayed over at Ruth's house one day. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself. There were 7 of us, and we all went out for a meal in Reading, at Prezzos. The food was amazing, and I felt incredibly greedy for wiping out an entire pizza and polishing off my pudding. Admittedly, I wasn't as greedy as Luce, who finished of 3 other main meals as well as her own - but in fairness, she hadn't eaten all day, and she probably burned a fair few calories whilst being lost in Reading University (shortcut my arse :P). Anyway, I would like to thank Ruth for inviting me and her mummy for putting up with me and providing a spectacular breakfast in the morning. Much thankies.

And last, but by no means least, I had great fun last weekend trekking from Wiltshire to Midgeham with 18kg on my back. It was a lot more strenuous than bronze, by far, but it was a lot more enjoyable. It certainly was a lot easier to walk in NORMAL weather, because up until now, I had only gone on expeditions in extreme weather. You may remember the terrential rain I mentioned when talking about my bronze pracitce, and also the obscur heatwave England experienced while I was on my bronze final. However, the entertainment was certainly thanks to my fellow expeditioners: Rhianna, Louisa, Andrew, Alicia and Rob. The weekend wouldn't have been the same without you guys. And for your information...I STILL HAVE TENACIOUS D STUCK IN MY HEAD!!!!!!!!

I have to admit, it has been a relief to finally get this stuff written down. It has been bothering me for a while that I haven't posted in so long. And I have to admit, that once I started typing, I found it very hard to stop. I will probably go through and do some serious editing tomorrow. But right now...back to revision.

By the way, note that I wrote this in under 10 minutes. Serious ninja typing or what?

Stress, stress and more stress

...basically a lot of stress.

I have just got off the phone to my sister. She talks sense. I have decided to take her advice.

Advice: Plough on. Revise and work hard (but not too hard). Don't think about exams. And think of the nice long holiday that is coming up. AND READING FESTIVAL!!!!!!

Today, I finished my last piece of controlled assessment for German. It was a German writing. I think it went well. I have no problems at all with German in general, and I find German writing particularly easy. Now I have done all my controlled assessment. Or at least, I have enough assessments to submit for each subject. Although I have been told I will get a decent A* grade in my music recordings, I would like to rerecord both the solo (Our Evenings, from On an Overgrown Path, by Janáček) and the duet I played with Sizz (The Capriol Suite, by Peter Warlock). But hey, if I don't get round to it, at least I have something half-decent to submit.

Now all I need to do is concentrate on exams. And of course, English coursework *shoots self*. Actually, for once, the English coursework isn't going too badly. Although, I still have a lot of work to do, it's not a depressingly endless task, with a first draft that is so dreadfully written, and with red marks all over it for corrections, that I end up wallowing in self pity rather than actually getting on with it.

And Mother's Day is coming up. I have got my mum some really nice presents. I won't tell you about them just yet, just in case a certain someone reads this. Mum, if you read this...you are going to LOVE your presents.

Auf Wiedersehen!

The Dinner Party

Ok...so this post is nearly 6 weeks late. Sorry!

In half term, to help break up all of the coursework and revision (because the exams are coming ever closer), I decided to host a dinner party. Overall it was quite successful and certainly entertaining. I don't want to say too much about my own cooking, because it probably wasn't as good as I thought it was. My guests continually tried to convince me that the food was amazing. And we had a bit of a laugh over the very toffee-y banoffee pie. The toffee had completely solidified, making it virtually impossible to cut without the use of a chainsaw (acutally I am not even sure that would have worked). Anyway, somehow, we managed to divide it up into portions, but because the toffee was just too much for our teeth, we had to resort to eating around the toffee and then sucking on the solid sugar for the entire evening until it started to soften.

However, despite the *ahem* minor catastrophe, I still received good responses. And I don't appear to have scared anybody away, with my cooking, to the extent that they never wish to step foot in my house again.

Everyone left very drunk...on laughter, Schloer and J2Os (there are ALWAYS J2Os in my house).

A really good evening!

Thanks everyone for coming!

Love you all xxx

Russell Howard

I cannot believe I have left it this long to talk about Russell Howard.

Anyone who has spoken to me in the past 6 months would know how excited I was about going to see Russell Howard.

He was amazing. Truly amazing. Words cannot describe how funny he was.

I won't go into too much detail because I won't do him justice.

I'll just say:

I LOVE HIM!

Apologies

Well, my new years resolutions are going well...

Apologies for the lack of posts. I have been very busy with food technology coursework. But it is all FINALLY over. It's such a relief to have handed it in. I am pretty pleased with what I submitted, but even if I haven't included something,  which I should have done, it is too late. Strangely, this is also a comfort because I know that, either way, I never have to write about food again.

Anyway, the following posts are about 2 months late. Sorry!

My masterpieces

I really don't see why I bother with this blog. I am just too busy. All my posts are about 2 weeks late. Rather than give you a quick run through of everything that has gone on in the past few weeks, I will post you photos of some of things I have made (unfortunately, Teegan died twice whilst I was making some of the things, and so I was unable to take photos of things). Just to explain, before you have a look at these photos, and before you think I am completely random. For various reasons, I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen - partly to take some of the strain off my dad, by sorting out the evening meals, and partly because some of the time because we have ingredients to use up, and my mother sets me the challenge of finding uses for these random ingredients. But whilst doing the latter, I have rediscovered my passion for cooking - partly because I can eat the end result! I particularly enjoy baking. I find it very therapeutic. I find that in stressful times, the only solution, is to lock myself away in the kitchen to make double chocolate chip muffins, or to experiment with different spices. I would attach my food coursework photos  to this post, because they are particularly impressive, but I don't think it is a good idea until I have submitted the coursework, and had it marked, or else I could be accused of cheating.

Anyway, here are some of my masterpieces.

The product of three different types of cooking chocolate, 4 different flours, and out of date eggs (all of which needed using up). And somehow, they tasted even better than your average cupcakes. In case you're wondering, there are two different sizes, because we only had 16 muffin cases.  

With this cake, I used up four different types of dried fruits: sultanas, raisins,  black currants and Greek currants, as well as some mixed dried fruit (don't ask me what's in that), all of which was left over from Christmas. I also used the one remaining out of date egg, and 2 different types of flour. I also found an intriguing fruitcake liner, which I used, merely to investigate - it was so much easier than cutting out greaseproof.

A cake for my Dad. It was his birthday. He deserved it. By the way, beneath all the icing, there is my famous heavenly chocolate cake.

My mum thought I was mad when I showed her my design. Instead of cutting the pentagonal and hexagonal shapes out of black and white icing, I wanted to pipe out the shape of the football using black writing icing. Then I would mix up two lots of royal icing (one white and one coloured black) and fill each shape in with the appropriate colour (just like those stained-glass windows I used to do when I was younger). The problem was there was a risk that I would misdraw the outline. Also, if I left a tiny little gap, or didn't have the outline thick enough, the royal icing would overflow into the next section, or onto the rest of the cake (just like MS Paint). And as you know, using writing icing is hard at the best of times. But that's why I wanted to do it. Where is the fun without a little bit of risk? And I am glad to say, the work paid off.

This is another cake my mother disapproved of, but once she had tasted it, she took back every discouraging  comment she had made. This is an adaptation of my famous heavenly chocolate cake. I had just survived mocks, and wanted to make a cake that I would never forgot. When you eat it, you fall in love.

The trick is when eating this cake, is to forget all about calories. My argument was that, despite the masses of chocolate, butter, chocolate fudge icing, chocolate fingers, and white chocolate buttons, it was essentially a good, healthy cake. I had used half and half - my abbreviation for half plain flour, half wholemeal (which is healthy. It's high in fibre and protein, without being too stodgy), free-range, organic eggs (that's good, right? Good for the chickens anyway), Fairtrade Bournville cocoa powder (that's good for the cocoa growers, and their local communities) and polyunsaturated margarine, aka Flora (that lowers cholesterol, and counterbalances the butter I used in the chocolate fudge icing. Also (and this justifies the eating of any chocolate cake), chocolate contains iron. And just to make it even better, it is also educational. It has links with Chemistry (polyunsaturated margarine), Geography (Fair-trade), Food technology (well that's obvious), Biology (nutrients), Maths (I used Pi to work out how many chocolate fingers I needed to buy!). Like I said, the best cake that ever existed.  Nothing can beat it!

Mocks

Ok, mocks weren't as bad as I thought. I am relatively pleased with my results. Most of them A*s with a few As. I am really pleased with my latin results - 88% overall. I got full marks in the first language paper! It just shows that if you put the work in, you can do anything. Considering it is a teachers' trick to have the mock exam being significantly harder than the final exam, I don't think I have done that badly at all. I just need to work on exam technique - the knowledge is all there, I just need to learn how to write it down to get the most marks.

Anyway, the fact that I had mocks is a pretty lame excuse for me not posting anything, but it's an excuse nonetheless.

New Year's Resolutions

My New Year's, which (just like last year's) I swore to keep:

• get more sleep
• revise for mocks as much as possible
• write more on your blog

And look what's happened.

• I think I am more tired now than I have ever been in my life. 
• If I revised so much for mocks, how come I was sitting in every exam completely unprepared.
• I have written two posts since the New Year (three including this one), and it is February 6th. I think that is the least I have ever written.

Sorry guys. I have failed you.

2010 in a nutshell

On New Years Eve my brother was staying at a friend's house for a New Years Eve party. My parents and I decided to order a Chinese takeaway from the Peking Palace, in Caversham. We would have liked to have eaten out, but I was just recovering from flu, and had kindly given it to my parents in my quest to get rid of it.

While eating we had a lengthy discussion about 2010 and the good and bad points about it, both personal, national and international events.

• the Haiti earthquake, 12th January - Haiti is still recovering
• the wettest Easter weekend on record - through which I was plodding, loaded with a tent, sleeping bag, trangia and food, through fields in monsoon conditions - see corresponding post. 
• the best sleepover epico of human existence (because of course dinosaurs had better sleepovers) - see corresponding post
• the Icelandic volcano - thousands of tourists couldn't get home from their Easter holidays abroad
• General Elections 2010 - leads to the Coalition, and thousands of jokes concerning Nick Clegg's inability to keep his word
• One of the most civilised meals I have ever had - see corresponding post
• My Aunt's Wedding
• 2010 FIFA World Cup - South Africa - yet another world cup where England didn't win
• The holiday of a lifetime ie. The Cruise - see corresponding posts
• the collapse of the San José Mine, leaving 33 Chilean miners trapped - the news feature that received the most interest worldwide, with people logging into live feeds at 3am to see their progress 
• Another very civilised meal - see corresponding post
• And last, but certainly not the least - The return of Harry Potter - see corresponding post

Christmas

I am so sorry I haven't written in so long. I have been very busy, and have had other things on my mind. I will quickly talk about what has happened over Christmas.

I baked, iced and decorated two Christmas cakes. Here are some pictures:

A Christmas Pudding Christmas cake

A Christmas wreath

I hope you like them.

Despite the snow, we nearly managed to get everyone over and all the food was eaten, so it was just as well we were a few people short - otherwise my and I would have had to wave goodbye to our third helpings of the stir fry (we are all infamously piggish at Christmas, having starved ourselves to make room for the stir fry and the roulade and chocolate gateaux).

Unfortunately, my grandfather had a heart attack three weeks before Christmas. He was discharged from hospital on Christmas Eve, and so my parents had to drive through treacherous weather conditions to Gravesend to pick him up. Although my parents had visited him in hospital, because of school, my brother and I hadn't had the opportunity. I didn't appreciate how frail he was until he came to stay with us over Christmas. We seemed to spend all our time caring for him, spoon feeding him. It was really distressing. And it was only last Christmas that my grandmother died. The Christmas weekend always has brought bad news. But I have to try and look at the bright side of things. The snow was beautiful and my sisters cheered me up during their stay just before Christmas.