Don't call me Dear, Darling

As the only Julia in a school full of Julie's I've never been precious about my name.  At work I am called by my mother-in-law's name, or more likely a mis-pronounciation of it.  I can be Miss or Mrs and none of that worries me.  I wouldn't mind if people just said, "Oi, you!"

However, when someone calls me Dear, my hackles rise.  

I can't tell you why it makes me so cross.  It just feels so patronising.

Maybe, it's because I'm not dear.  In fact, I'm really cheap.  I don't have expensive habits. I don't drink, smoke, take drugs, buy loads of clothes.  I get my books from the library, grow my own vegetables, paint my own fingernails.  My ideal holiday is a week walking in West Wales with the dog. 

Three days ago, the Long Suffering Husband, uttered the immortal phrase

They have been a very quiet three days for him.  I might start speaking to him again later today.

Must Try Harder

Explaining to one of the year 6 flute players why she had to learn to play Lord of the Dance by tomorrow I said, "It's because the Bishop is coming.  I don't know why but the thought of the Bishop being there scares me and I'm not sure I'll be able to play the piano.

She said, "I'm not surprised.  Anyone with the first name The is scary!"

We tried a few.

The Queen

The Pope

The President

The Boogeyman

Yes, we agreed having the first name 'The' makes you scary.

"The music teacher?", I suggested.

"Oh, Mrs All Trades! You made me laugh so much I just wet my knickers a little bit!"

Have I mentioned that the piano is a stupid instrument?

There comes a moment in every blogger's life when the danger of repetition looms. My daughter is forever rolling her eyes and saying, "No mum, it's interesting, honest, it's just that I've heard this story before.", as I launch into a moral tale about the time I drank too much, threw up in her fathers car and how he has never let me forget it, even though it was 28 years ago and I haven't consumed a single alcoholic drink in the last 20 years.  So forgive me if I've had this rant before.

Today has been a difficult one, filled with hours of tortuous piano practice.  It was torture for me and anyone who happened to listen, who luckily was only the dog.  There has been an advert for a program on radio 2 about Dudley Moore, where he is asked what he does to relax away from the piano.  He says, "Relax?! You've got to be kidding!  All I do is play this blasted thing!"  I know how he feels.

 

I'm not a natural pianist.  My fingers tie up in knots and my hands ache and no matter how hard I try I just can't make it sound how I know it should. I don't even really like the sound of the piano.  I don't really enjoy listening to piano sonatas, unless they are by Chopin and played by Lang Lang.

Some really great people play the piano.  Jamie Cullum was on Desert Island Discs at the weekend and I might have fallen a little bit in love with him, as he seemed so lovely and funny.  Jamie and I have a lot in common.  He failed grade 4 piano because he couldn't read music and I failed grade 5 piano because I can't play the piano!

Jamie can even play with his feet.

Can anyone tell me why Lord of the Dance in the Come and Praise book is all in legato 3rds?  No I thought not.  I can feel a flute trio accompaniment coming on.  It would take far less time to write one than actually learn how to play legato 3rds without it sounding like an elephant has stamped on the keyboard.

I was determined that I wasn't going to take Les Dawson to the Church with me this Easter but he is refusing to leave me.  It's such a shame as the Bishop is leading the service and as I've never met him before I was hoping not to torture him.

 

The piano in the church has seen better days and there are several notes that just don't work even if you thump them and so I would like the church to know that when they want to get rid of it I would like to volunteer.

 

Charity Cakes and Swearing

Cake sales are a brilliant way of raising money.  Everyone loves cake but it is possible to get to a saturation point.  Yesterday I was forced to eat cake three times in the name of charity.  At school the children ran a cake sale in aid of Sport Relief.  It took a while to persuade the children that I really did want to pay £2 for a banana muffin and that I really didn't want 10 cakes (which I could have for £2).  As we also had to wear sports wear for the day I really couldn't risk 10 cakes while wearing Lycra.  The children raised £88!

 

Then at Orchestra practice one of the children was holding a cake sale and raffle in aid of CAFOD.  Older, wiser children were easier to persuade that I wanted to pay £2 for a small chocolate crispy cake.

 

The raffle was pure joy.  My Dad had bought loads of raffle tickets but was determined not to win any prizes so every time his number was called he gave his ticket to someone in the orchestra.  I'm not saying he has favourites but the brass section did particularly well in the raffle.  The flutes missed out because although I bought lots of tickets I have never won a raffle prize in my life.  Once I thought I was the winner, got very excited, jumped up started to walk up to collect my prize only to find I wasn't the only person and realised I had mis-heard the number.  Oh, the humiliation!  The members of the orchestra were so lovely and kind that people who won for a second time gave their ticket to someone else.  This wasn't because the prizes were terrible - they were great.  My son won a cocktail kit, which he was very excited about.  They raised just over £60.

 

Then it was the PAMs concert in aid of Farleigh Hospice and I was forced into another cake.  Embarrassingly, I only had 50p in my purse when it was time to buy a raffle ticket.  They did have a genius way of raising funds though.  Although, the concert was free to attend, everyone had to pay to get out (including the performers, who were encouraged to pay more for every wrong note they had played that evening)  Obviously, I didn't play a single wrong note but did manage to find a screwed up £5 note in the pocket of my dog walking jacket, so I was allowed out.

Another good way to raise money would be to have a swear box in the staff room.  I would say more but I was told not to blog about it so I won't, except to say that it isn't the worst I've heard.  In the late 80's I was at the BBC, sitting in the canteen on a table next to two children's TV presenters.  I was surprised because they still spoke with the patronising voices they used on television but was even more surprised to learn that "that Basil Brush is a f**ing c**!"

 

Beetroot

Beetroot is one of those foods that inspires marmite-like love or hate.  Every year I plant a row of beetroot but I think it tastes like earth.

 

Sometimes I consider not planting it but it is a reliable crop.  It's easy and if you thin it properly you get great big pink beets.  Beetroot thinnings are a favourite of our friend's guinea pigs.

 

The first year I grew it because a friend's son asked me to.  He was sick of me leaving courgettes on their doorstep and thought that he'd rather have beetroot presents instead. Faced with more beetroot than I could give away I had to try and find ways of eating them. (The beetroot not the guinea pigs!)

The long suffering husband has an aversion to beetroot from his days as a Saturday boy in the greengrocers.  It was his job to boil the beetroot and at the end of the day with pink fingers and the smell permantly burnt into his nostrils he vowed never to eat another vegetable again.  This was a resolve he stuck with until I started hiding my home grown veg in otherwise brown dishes.

I made Beetroot soup, thinking a pink soup would be a hit with my pink-loving daughter.  But she took one sip and said, "Eugh, it tastes like mud!"  

 

Then I discovered it was quite nice if you left it raw and grated it into salads but one beetroot would last a family of 4 a whole week.

 

And then I found it was OK if you put it into chocolate cake but yet again it didn't use enough beetroot.

 

So I pickled it.  I have 3 large jars of pickled beetroot.  This is great but as I don't like pickled beetroot either it is just sitting in the cupboard looking pink and pretty.

 

But there is good news.  Sitting at the staff room table at lunchtime, a colleague pulled out her sandwiches and said, "I've had beetroot sandwiches every day this week, they make me so happy!"

I'm sure a few jars of pickled beetroot would make her even happier.  And my family will be ecstatic.

When original is just weird.

Jeremy Kyle is the perfect show to do the ironing too.  When he starts to shout, "It's called the Jeremy Kyle show!" you can pretend you are ironing his face.  The only downside is that if you have a huge pile to get through the program slips into This Morning.  When Phillip Schofield had his hand up the backside of a small stuffed puppet he was quite cute but now watching the silver fox discuss pornography and cakes at half past ten in the morning is disturbing.

Phillip Schofield and Gordon the Gopher

This week Clare from Steps launched a cake competition.  She was looking quite large but said she didn't understand why she was getting so much stick in the press for doing a cake competition because obviously she wouldn't eat them all.  She followed this up by saying, "let's face it, everyone loves cake!"  

Cake is one of my favourite things and I started to seriously enter the competition, even though I don't want a new kitchen (which is the prize).  If the prize was someone to clean said kitchen and wash up after me I would be baking now.

They said that you had to send in your favourite cake recipe but it had to be your recipe.  Is it possible to have a truly original cake recipe?  Cake is simple, butter, eggs, sugar, flour and some flavouring.  Any flavours that are any good must have already been tried.  Claire baked an apple cake that I'm sure I've seen the recipe for in the Good Food Magazine.  It had a sort of crumble topping that supposedly made it crunchy.  My favourite cake is probably Nigella Lawson's Coca Cola Cake but that is in a book.

 

Or maybe it's a lemon drizzle cake, or a carrot cake, or a light fruit cake or a Dutch apple cake.  

Summer always brings a variety of courgette cakes and I make an interesting carrot cake with beetroot in, but none of these are original ideas.  

What could I try to win the competition?  Banana and Marmite? Peanut Butter and Mint? Jaffa cake and Iron Bru?  Baileys and Lavender?  Ketchup Cupcakes?  Parsnip Brownies? Suddenly I'm reminding myself of a sitcom character.

Letitia Cropley - Queen of Cordon Bleugh!