happy birthday, Dad!

It's my Dad's birthday today. Yay! It's nice to have a chance to celebrate him. (In his job he usually focuses on everyone else.) He's been such a great father-type figure over the years. I love talking to him and sharing ideas with him. He and Mum are so supportive and now great friends also.


Happy birthday, Dad!

Christmas cake

Last week I spent an afternoon after school in the cooking classroom with some other teachers making my first Christmas cake. Today I was feeding it a couple of tablespoons of brandy, as I am meant to do a few times a week, apparently. Here it is in all its glory! Actually, I realise it is quite ugly looking. Ah well. They say it will taste good.


PS. I realise my posts have been miniscule lately. Sigh. I will try to make time in the next few days. My days seem so squished full of stuff to do!

British Airways debate

As I blogged earlier, British Airways was involved in a publicity scandal about an employee who refused to remove her cross from her necklace while working at the check-in counter. She lost her appeal against the airline, but now they have announced that they will be reviewing their religious clothing policy in light of public debate.

weekend away

Ant and I are in Liverpool visiting his family for the weekend. Both sisters are having birthdays this weekend, and we are also celebrating his Nan's seventieth birthday which happens in a couple of weeks. We've brought up our Christmas and birthday gifts (actually we ordered some of them from Amazon to arrive here today). We'll go out to dinner to celebrate Etta's birthday tonight. I'll return home on Sunday and he might stay until Monday.

casino royale

On Saturday Ant and I went out to see the new Bond film with Rob, Emma, and Mark. We went out first to eat at a little Italian place in Chelsea. Our pizzas all came on the same platter. The food was delicious and Rob picked out a lovely bottle of wine (actually we drank two bottles between us). It was brilliant to be out with friends.



The movie had all the requisite Bond components: lots of action, gadgets, fast cars, beautiful people. In addition, there were some great poker scenes and some gruesome torturing (not a plus!). Ant and I both enjoyed it; it was the kind of mindless fun that Bond is great for, with slightly more plot than usual.

lovely Ant

I have been extremely busy this week at work with some extra burdens. Fortunately Ant has stepped up to the task of running things at home. He has done oodles of washing up, laundry, and cleaning. He cooked two delicious meals yesterday and today: chicken tikka masala with rice and sausages with mustard and green onion mashed potatoes. How sweet! And today we had slices of a little cheesecake he picked out for me with fresh strawberries on top. Mmm! At least one area of my life is running smoothly.

capital punishment

Yesterday we spent the evening with Chris and Tamra. We watched Pierrepoint, a movie about a man who was one of Britain's hangmen. What a difficult job he had to exact justice on condemned criminals. The movie was really thought-provoking. He carried out his duties with great dignity, caring for the bodies after the hanging especially tenderly. He said that the executed had paid their price and so they were now innocent and so their bodies deserved proper treatment. He did his job effectively by detaching himself from the people he met. Mr Pierrepoint had difficulties in his marriage since his wife banned him from talking about his work at home. When an execution of someone he knew started to cause him to become emotionally battered he had no one to turn to.

Mr Pierrepoint was involved in executing Nazis after the Neuremburg trials and for this he was hailed as a hero by the people in his town. On the other hand, he was hated at another time because an innocent man was executed. He found that as the years went on it was more and more difficult to do his job as public opinion turned and his emotions became more caught up in the people he executed.

At the end of his life he finally made his opinions about capital punishment known. In his autobiography he wrote: "I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people.... The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."

staying healthy

I had a lot of sick days last year and I decided that wouldn't happen any more. One thing that has been keeping me healthy lately has been greater job satisfaction. I have also been keeping a closer eye on what I eat. And to ensure it goes well I have started taking multivitamins and omega 3, 6, 9 tablets for about three weeks. Oh, yes, cycling probably helps too! I can really say that I have been feeling a lot better. Today I was reading all about fish oil as I've heard before about how children's concentration is upped dramatically by taking it regularly. I think that my concentration has really increased. Or maybe it's a placebo effect. I've got a 60 day supply of vitamins so I'm hoping that I won't have more than one sick day this half term. Here's hoping.

hot and cold

Today I am shivering. But Sunday was a glorious day, and after church we went to Matt and Bree's for a barbeque. You can see that it was lovely and sunny and we all stood out on the roof while Matt cooked up some hamburgers, sausages, corn on the cob, and portabella mushrooms. Alexis and Sandra were there, and Justin, who was visiting for part of the weekend, and Matt's friend Ben.




Today has been such a cold day. Just on Monday I was saying to myself how nice it is that the school is in several buildings since I get some sun and air when I go to the staff room or to the photocopier. But today I wasn't too keen about the fresh air lark. it was frigid. Welcome to November, eh.

website of the day

What is your website of the day? Tell me what you are reading at the moment. I am looking at the Real Simple website. Who can resist (err, Paul, maybe?) a website that advertises meals that almost cook themselves, at home beauty products, and the best upright vacuum cleaners? Heehee.

shape magazine recipes

I love Shape magazine. You may have already realised this from the links bar. It's their 25th anniversary and they've published a list of their twenty-five best recipes. I may try the yogurt mint marinated chicken this weekend since I have a pot of plain yogurt in the fridge at the moment. And also the roasted herb salmon sounds within my ability range as well.

round-up of my week

I had a lovely week off. It was so relaxed I didn't even blog. Shocking! I went to work on Monday. On Tuesday it was my birthday and Ant and I went to the Formula One exhibition at the Design Museum--my choice! It was really neat to read about the history of the cars and how their design has evolved. Designing an F1 car now is a huge business with a big team of engineers.



This is Michael Schumacher's 2004 Ferarri car.

To get to the Design Museum we walked along by Tower Bridge and through some quaint back streets.




I stayed Tuesday night with Naomi and Rhona, which was fantastic. We made a delicious dinner (well, the girls made it and I watched) and chatted most of the night about weddings and the like.

On Wednesday Justin and I took ourselves off to Oxford.



Unfortunately it was wet and cold there, but we did see some lovely buildings. Justin had not been before, so it was well worth it.

We visited Christ Church College, which was stunning. The quad is huge and the buildings are gorgeous. The cathedral was open and a service was just starting as we went in. So we were two of four congregants for a short communion service from the Book of Common Prayer. It was lovely to sit and hear the words in a beautiful building.



In Oxford we made sure to stop and see the Einstein blackboard at the Museum of the History of Science.


I believe this says something about the rate of expansion of the universe (D) and the density of the universe (rho). It's from a lecture he gave at Oxford.

After my day of wet and cold walking I was exhausted. On Thursday I lay about the house and relaxed. I surfed the web and watched TV and general loafed around while Ant was away. I cooked myself a prawn pasta sauce since Ant wasn't around to pretend gag at me.

I met up with Owen, a colleague from last year for coffee and then lunch. We chatted about maths and our situations. I got lots of good ideas from him, as usual.

And yesterday Ant and I went out to see April's band, The Fly By Nights. They were brilliant and the other two bands that played were good as well, most notably a Blondie tribute band called The Parallel Lines. The gig was in a studio in Hackney (North London). We were typical London partiers: a drink at the smoky club around the corner first, practically stuck together in the tiny studio, a tube ride home, and a kebab picked up on the way at a little shop by the bus stop.

answers to some questions

I've been a bit confused about the violence in Budapest lately. it's been only partly covered by our news media, so I never seem to get the full picture sorted out. Here's a BBC FAQ about the whole thing that helped a bit.

news to me

Apparently one internet user in ten has a blog now. Are you one? Or do you enjoy your surfing time by reading others' writings? Why not leave me a comment to say you have been? I see from the map on the sidebar that I have quite a few more visitors than make their voices known. So even a little peep would be a pleasure to hear. :)

Click on the comments link (at the end of this post on the right) and let me know you're here. You don't have to be a Blogger member. When you get to the comments page, click on "Other" if you'd like to leave me your name, or "Anonymous" if you'd prefer not to. Let me ask some questions to get you started. (Thanks to Sonya for the idea.) Please choose one or more to answer.

1. What's a good film (or TV show) you've seen recently?

2. What's your favourite fruit and why? If you could describe yourself as a fruit which one would it be? :)

3. What are you reading at the moment?

4. Do you think that a messy desk/room means a tidy mind? Or would you prefer to leave me an anti-clutter tip?

"it's not immediately clear"

NewScientist reports that a working cloaking device has been produced in the US. It cloaks an object from microwaves, and so far only in 2D. It's the size of a movie reel and it cloaks a copper ring from one specific frequency of microwaves. Scientists say that building a cloaking device for visible light frequencies is currenly beyond nanotechnology possiblilties.

"It's not yet clear that you're going to get the invisibility that everyone thinks about with Harry Potter's cloak or the Star Trek cloaking device," says David Smith of Duke University.

religious clothing debate

Recently in the news we have been hearing about a British Airways employee who has been asked to hide her cross necklace under her uniform. She is threatening to sue the company. They allow hijab and turbans, and they are discriminating against Christians in their request. Have a look at the debate on the BBC website. Many people have commented, including Muslims showing support for her. One has pointed out that many Christians think it is Muslims who are against their religious expression, but the commenter believes it is the atheists that are driving the anti-religious feeling. The employee has stated that she feels a particularly anti-Christian sentiment at work, not simply anti-religious.

modern conveniences

I wanted to dry my hair today. I think because it is a bit colder now and having wet hair gives me the chills. But our flat is converted from an old house and there are not plugs everywhere you want them, particularly near the mirror. But that wouldn't stop me, oh no! Being a modern woman, I turned on my web cam and dried my hair at my desk!

congratulations!

Jayme and Donald were married last weekend in Miramichi, NB. What a beautiful wedding it was, at least it looks it in the pictures. I wish them so much happiness as they start out together in Canada.

thanksgiving

Ant and I managed to pull off a little Thanksgiving dinner last night. Ant was the impetus for it, buying us a little roasting chicken with sage stuffing. We made roast potatoes, roast parsnips, boiled potatoes, honey glazed carrots, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, and gravy. With the help of a store-bought pastry I made a pumpkin pie. We were so pleased about having pulled it all off! This was the first Thanksgiving that I have managed to celebrate away from home. It was well worth the trouble. And I took leftovers and pie to school today. Everyone in the staffroom who tried some pie liked it.

baking muffins

My dad is a famous muffin maker. He has so many muffin cookbooks that he has an index book to help him find the muffin recipe he wants. I, however, have only one muffin recipe. I use it for everything. I like it because (a) it has hardly any sugar, (b) it has hardly any oil, (c) it contains lots of oats--and I make it even healthier by putting in oats and bran, (d) it only requires one mixing bowl, speeding up both the preparation and the washing up. Here it is. It's from the More with Less cookbook.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Mix together in large bowl:
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c sugar
1 T baking powder

Stir in:
1 c oats
1 c chocolate chips (or 1/2 c raisins or anything else that you fancy)

Add:
3 T oil
1 egg, beaten
1 c milk

Stir only until combined. Fill muffin cups and bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes.