Digging for Victory

15.04.20 – Jessica Laughton

In recent weeks (as so often for me at this time of year), my attention has ventured into the garden. For me, spring time ignites my passion for gardening. I enjoy the warmer weather, being outside in the fresh air and hearing the birds sing.

I come from a family of green fingered individuals. My Grandfather grew his own vegetables, my Great Uncle won several gardening competitions, my uncle grows some of the hottest chillies known to man (which he uses in his cooking) and my Great Grandmother could eat an apple, plant the pip straight into the soil and a tree would grow. Regrettably, my gardening skills don’t extend that far and whilst gardening has always been a keen interest of mine, it has become a personal goal that I grow some of my own food.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I made a decision to grow our own vegetables. We have a reasonably sized garden though the space for growing is limited. After much deliberation, we decided to relocate our patio furniture to elsewhere in the garden and boldly created two new vegetable beds and a herb garden where we once had a patio. This past week we have planted potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots and lettuce. Our three year old son has thoroughly enjoyed helping to prepare the vegetable beds, sow the seeds, plant the potatoes and water the plots.

For now, it’s still early days, so maybe slightly too soon to expect the first shoots to show. But, the sense of anticipation is quite wonderful, and really uplifting. Soon, the seed leaves will be popping their heads above the surface. Should this spring develop anything like last years did, there will soon be a need to water the garden on three or four times per week, but you can keep up with that sort of thing very easily when you spend nearly all your time at home.

If planting vegetables together has given us a useful degree of focus, it has also given us a sense of pride and determination as we ‘dig for victory’ to help us get through these somewhat challenging times. Already it’s given us something to do together with our small family. And to think, in less than two months time we may all be munching on the first lettuce of the summer. From garden to fork in the time it takes to wash a few leaves – now, you can’t get much tastier than that!

Homeschooling in lock down

13.04.20 – Jessica Laughton, Early Years Teaching Specialist

Homeschooling: a thought that on occasion has passed my mind, but certainly not something that I felt prepared to be doing now. I have two children, my son is three and my daughter is rapidly approaching eight months. I am fortunate enough to be a school teacher with much experience teaching the Early Years Curriculum  (from birth to five years). You could be forgiven for thinking that this puts me in good stead for homeschooling my children. In actual fact, I find it presents a mixture of emotions and perhaps the biggest question going through my mind is, will this be enough?  

Like so many children, my son is passionate about his interests and enjoys being at school with his friends. He has an exceptional imagination which is a real delight to see through his play. I recall his first day at nursery, he was so excited to go and play with the other children that he turned to me, smiled and kissed my cheek before going to investigate his new surroundings. As is the case with many parents, I find myself asking, how do I bridge the gap for him that has been left, now that we must all stay at home?  

Such questions became somewhat of a dilemma for me. I began to reflect on my own childhood and education.  I recall my fondest memories, of the adventures I had as achild with my family, and they didn’t necessarily mean leaving the house. We built dens in the back garden using the clothes horse, visited exotic destinations, and created new games to play together as a family (we even trained the dog to join in). In later years we sat around the table together to work, and this time was so very precious to me because we were together. Learning at home with the support of my family gave me the confidence I needed to go forward in life. 

Now I’ve come to see that in the challenging times we face we also have an opportunity. To stand and reflect on what we have, to support each other the best we can. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve stood back and observed my children, how they interact and what their interests are. I am allowing my children to lead their own learning by following their interests and providing provisions where ever possible to support. We have made dinosaur worlds, become explorers in our own back garden and even become butterflies hatching out of a cocoon. My son is learning to count, recognising letters, numbers and shapes. But much more than this he is still exploring and learning about the world around him and his independence and vibrant imagination continue to flourish. I hope that in the future he too will be able to look back on the homeschooling and adventures alike with fondness, just like myself.  

Baking with Eileen – Lemon Swiss Roll

12.04.20 – Eileen Priestley

I never thought that I would be so obsessed with food. It probably stems from the fact that you can’t just nip out to the shops and get what you want. From one meal to the next I find that I’m planning out it my head what we can eat next. What makes the plate look full while you’re not really using much food. In the first week of lockdown I opened the salad draw of the fridge and in there besides the usual lettuce and tomatoes there was just one lone sprout and three green beans, probably left from a Sunday dinner. Darrell went to throw them out. ‘No don’t throw them in the bin, I’ll make something with them’, I vowed. But what can you make with one sprout and three green beans you’re thinking? Well, I made a casserole and put them in. All I knew was that food was hard to get hold of and there’s no way I’m I throwing anything away.

I went searching through the cupboard and found some walnuts so decided to make a walnut cake, with a butter-cream centre and icing on the top. It was well received. We got down to the last piece, when one day I had this craving for liquorice, I don’t know why because I’m not too bothered about liquorice. Probably because I couldn’t go to the shops and buy any. I wonder how many of you have had the craving for chocolate and it doesn’t matter what you eat, nothing takes the place of chocolate? Well I had the same problem with liquorice and I knew there wasn’t any in the house, so the only thing for it, I ate the last piece of walnut cake out of desperation. When I saw my sons face when he went into the cake tin and found it empty, I felt so….. guilty. ‘Never mind I’ll make a swiss roll’. Now I really had set myself a challenge, because the last time I attempted to make a swiss roll it turned out such a mess that I decided there and then that in future I will buy all the swiss rolls I want. I think I was about fourteen at the time. So I got out my old school cookery book, and there it was, a swiss roll recipe. There wasn’t enough jam in the fridge but there was plenty of lemon curd, and quite surprisingly, this time it turned out perfectly. Thank goodness for Mrs White, she did it again and came to the rescue.

Here’s the recipe, in case you would like a go:-

Lemon Swiss Roll

Ingredients

• 2 Large eggs
  
• 3oz of sugar
• 3oz of butter
• 3oz self raising flour

Preparation

1. Line a rectangular baking try with baking paper.
2. Put the oven on at 175
3. Put butter and sugar into a bowl and cream thoroughly with a wooden spoon until light and fluffy.
4. Add egg a little at a time and beat well after each addition. If the eggs are not thoroughly beaten in, curdling may occur.
5. Gently fold in the flour DO NOT BEAT.
6. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 9-10 minutes until just firm to touch.
7. While the cake is in the oven put jam to warm in basin standing over hot water.
8. Prepare a piece of greaseproof paper approx 2” larger all round than the cake. Sprinkle with caster sugar. Turn the cake out onto the sugared paper. Remove lining paper.
9. Spread the cake with warmed jam leaving a 1” margin all round the edges with no jam.(As the cake is rolled jam spreads to the edges).
10. Using a knife, make a groove in the cake an inch in from the edges nearest to you. Tuck this grooved end in firmly to a firm start to the roll. Roll the cake up tightly with the aid of the paper.
11. Cool the cake on a wire tray. Trim ends when the cake is cold.

VOILA! – A beautiful homemade, probably never to be done again, swiss roll.

Missing Our Families

11.04.20 – Darrell Priestley

One thing that almost all of us have in common right now as we socially distance ourselves is that we are missing our families. If anything can make this separation more bearable, it is the knowledge that they are missing us just as much. Even a month ago, we did not imagine ourselves where we are right now. Eileen and I have two grown up children, luckily one of them, a hospital pharmacy manager, lives with us, so that contact continues closely. Our grown up daughter has her own family, a wonderful husband and two beautiful children, one aged 3 years, the other just 8 months. At that age, every day can bring new developments.

As recently as early March, our daughter and baby grand daughter would call in to see us at work every Wednesday morning. Our grand daughter has simply the brightest eyes and the most beautiful smile, and to see her is to want to hold her. A month ago, instead of holding her, we had started blowing her kisses from two metres away. Now of course it is Skype and the like, which for an eight month old works a lot better than the telephone, but really it is amazing how focused she is on the screen when we ‘visit’ her remotely. She recognises us, gazing intently at the screen, listens when we speak, and it’s just wonderful that we are still able to see her develop day by day.

Another aspect that can make distancing more bearable is that you can find yourself becoming ‘useful’ to others. In our family, we have at least one, and sometimes more family members who cannot go out to shop for themselves at this time, and so once or twice a week we deposit shopping or other necessities on their doorstep. This brings with it the opportunity to see loved ones in the flesh, if from a safe distance. Again, not a way any of us would have imagined living back at the beginning of March, but something that most of us are getting better at by now.

It’s good to remember, at a time like this, that the art of getting by often hinges on making the best of whatever situation you find yourself in. So while we might never have planned to stay home and distance ourselves from others to this degree, most of us will be able to find a positive, if we only look hard enough. I love teaching music, it has been a constant source of pleasure and satisfaction in my life, so when the Academy had to suspend lessons in March, not knowing when it would be possible to open again, I had a heavy heart. Fast forward a few weeks, and a lot has changed. Though it has been necessary to make big changes to the administrative part of the business, which has taken us many days to accomplish, we are now coming out the other side, and the benefit is that we are able to begin bringing students on board again with online lessons. I am so happy about this.

Another key element of happiness is having something to hope for. That’s easy for me. I am hoping for a return to seeing friends and loved ones once more, looking forward to holding my grandchildren again. It will be a little longer yet, I know, but oh, it will be worth the wait.