Miss sis

Obviously, there are many things I miss about living with my sister: her cooking and marvellous company to name just six. One thing that I miss particularly, however, is editing her shopping list so that by the time she gets to the supermarket she has no idea what she's supposed to be buying. Recently, we went on a girly weekend to Wales and she wrote a shopping list for us to take to Tesco. I had the chance to sneakily edit it, reminding me of all the fun I use to have. My favourite edit to date was changing 'broccoli' to 'Colin Firth'. Sadly, we did not find him in Tesco Llandudno. The search continues ...

Why, Flying Spaghetti Monster? Why?

Why have I got a spot on my little finger?

Why did the shop, despite being dead all morning, fill up as soon as I sat down to eat my lovely hot soupy lunch?

Why have you not tried this before?

Why do birds suddenly appearevery time you shout 'ninja' and punch me in the face?

I found god...

...he was pasta all along.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=flying+spaghetti+monster&i=1

He touched me with His Noodly Appendage. It was not good.

Is it bad....

....that this paragraph of 'The Machine Gunners' really made me laugh?

Chas cheered up. Two whole slices of fried bread and a roll of pale pink sausage meat. It tasted queer. But he was starting to like the queerness.

How will I keep a straight face when I read it to my new class? Let's just hope there's no talk of semis.

Sleep blame

Mary sleep blamed me today. I never thought it would happen. I feel betrayed.

She fell asleep on the armchair after lunch. Whilst asleep, she said in a loud voice,

"Catherine did it." Cheers.

He he x

3 is a magic number

3 stupid things I have done in the last fortnight:
-Went to a school play on the wrong day
-Put Persil in the dishwasher
-Broke the mop by mopping too hard

3 things that are currently annoying me:
-Victoria Beckham's overuse of the word 'major'
-Rain, rain, rain and more rain
-Lack of Diagnosis Murder in the afternoons

Number of school plays I have seen in the past fortnight: 3
The year group I will be teaching in September: 3
Glasses of Pimms I will drink tonight: 3

Three ya later x

Cakey cakey cake cake

This week I have been mainly obsessed with cake. In particular, one I made at the weekend. It was so pretty. I am sad it has all gone. So sad I may have to make another one.

The coffee cake was made from:

6oz self raising flour
Half a teaspoon of baking powder
Half a teaspoon of salt
5oz caster sugar
4oz margarine
Egg replacer made up to the equivalent of 2 eggs)
1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 3 tablespoons of soya milk
2oz crushed walnuts

Mix all the ingredients together and bake for 30 mins in a greased cake tin at gas mark 7.

I actually made two cakes of this size and sandwiched them together. I also made twice this chocolate mocha icing:

1 and a half cups of icing sugar
A third of a cup of cocoa
A quarter of a cup of margarine
Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of instant coffee
2 or 3 tablespoons of soya milk
I know it's strange it being in different measures but it is because the recipes are from different places!

Yum. Make it now and post it to me. Do it.

Tripping heck

Hey doooods,

I took a school trip today. It was quite amusant. The things that the kids got most excited about were; the clock on the bus; the tv on the bus and the bus seat arm rests.

The trip, however, was not as funny as my dance class tonight. I was the most rubbish I have ever been! We started a new routine and it's based on Lindyhop moves. Damn that Lindyhopping. It has defeated me once again!

I do not not not like being defeated! *sound of hooves stomping*

P.S. I woke up with "Grandma's key" written all over my neck yesterday. Just another normal day.

Grandma's key

Ni hao!

The Giant African Landsnails are even more exciting than expected. Last week I cleaned out the tank and put some new moss in for them. They all went crazy and hung upside down from the lid. I spoke to the guy who lent them to us and he said they were being stroppy because they were cross with me. I took a firm 'like it or lump it' attitude with them and it turned out that they actually liked the moss. In fact, they liked it so much that they had a very busy weekend laying lots of eggs. There was me thinking that the science lesson on snail mating was a wasted hour!

I know it's a little evil, but I also enjoy how much the snails freak some people out. It makes me chuckle to myself when people get the heebie jeebies over them. Ok, so it's a lot evil. Frigging funny though.

10 more sleeps until I'm done x

P.S. I read an article in the paper at the weekned about a family who bought a zoo. It made me want a zoo.

From Clementines to Mandarin

Hiya,

Sorry I haven't written in ages. I'm such a spoon. Lots of stuff is going on at the mo. I am 17 working days off being a qualified teacher and loving my current placement. Our topic this half term is minibeasts, which means we can spend loads of time outside looking under rocks and pretending to be butterflies. It also means I get to have some giant African landsnails in my classroom. It is so so so exciting!

I am trying to teach the kids to do the register in Mandarin Chinese but I'm really stuck. I have got as far as teaching them 'hello' but I can't find an accurate translation for 'sandwiches please' or 'hot dinner please'. Can any one help? I really hope so.

Love and ladybirds xxx

I got the freaking job.

Yes I did. School phoned at 10.45 tonight. I start my first teaching job in September. Hip hip hopraaaaaaay. The interview was scary and there was a board of 8 people facing me and questioning me. I can't seem to stop jumping up and down. How the be-jesus will I sleep tonight?

Hot hot hot

Conscience smoncience, global warming rocks!

Roll on Summer holidays and crispy brown skin!

Maths + Year 1 = yuk

Me: Which number is 10 more than 13?
6 year old: 14
Me: That's 1 more than 13. What yould 10 more than 13 be?
6 year old: 12

Give me back my Year 6 class!

Everybody's going to love today

Last night I came skipping up the stairs singing Mika's 'Love Today', which Matt hates. He pulled a face.

"Go on, admit you love me," I said.
"Yes, for some strage reason," he replied
"How rude. I think you'll find you love me for lots of strange reasons!"

On the war path!

I went to a really interesting meeting at the Gregson Centre. There are plans for a huge new development in Lancaster which we don't need and most of the residents don't want. Lancaster is a beautiful historic city with gorgeous buildings and a market tradition. The best thing about Lancaster is how unique it is. There are loads of little independent shops and cute little streets. Now, Centros Miller want to build a huge shopping centre that will look the same as all the other ugly 'malls' that they are putting up in other towns and cities. All this so they can stick a huge Debenhams here! There are quite a few empty shops already in Lancaster that could be easily used without knocking things down and building a whole new complex.

Worse still, Centros Miller are planning on only submitting hybrid plans, meaning they can still change some things without warning after planning permission has been given. Planning permission has not yet been given. So, if you think that it is a shame to knock down lovely historic buildings, increase traffic in the area and risk having a concrete monstrosity ruin lovely Lancaster, please have a look here to see how you can help and to find out more info.

Frozen Bagel Finger

It's a sad day today. It's the anniversary of the day I drunkenly sliced into my finger whilst trying to cut a frozen bagel. I still have a big scar on my finger and no feeling in part of it.

In happier news, that means I've now not smoked for 1 year and 5 months. Hoooray. Hence, I'm quite looking forward to the smoking ban. It should also mean that I have more money, however, I'm still waiting for my student loan to come through so I'm poorer than the flea that lives on the church mouse's bedding. To make matters worse, I'm not drunk. Maybe I could sell my share of 'the brain' to fund a night on the town. Any takers?

Dragon ahoy!

I'm in week three of my four weeks of holiday and I am love love loving it! It's so sunny. I just wish I didn't have so much work to do.

I've been doing all kinds of exciting things. Last week I went out with my sister and her two lovely kiddies. I joke about spending time with them saving me saying my Hail Marys, but I had an ace time. Our hot topics of conversation were whose hands look older, whose knuckles are fatter and the price of dishwasher tablets, yet I still had lots of fun!

I tried dragon fruit yesterday. The texture was a bit like kiwi fruit but it didn't really taste of much. It was kind of what I imagine your puke would taste like if you'd eaten nothing but melon and kiwi fruits for a year. I don't think I'd buy one again as, at £1.99 a pop, I'd rather have some kettle chips.

Long time no see

Lose weight or get your miaowy back!

I asked for snow

So, I asked for snow. I got it. I was driving home from my Mum's house the Sunday before last and had to drive through asnow blizzard. It was really hard because I just wanted to look at the snow but I had to concentrate on the road. Driving sucks.

However, Matt and I got the train to Manchester on Saturday. It was nice. We went round town and to the imax to see 300. The screen was much bigger than my arse, and that's saying something. After going for a yummy Chinese, we set off home on the train. Three trains, a bus and an hour later we arrived home grumpy and cold. Public transport sucks. More than driving. Definitely more than driving. Also, the train tickets cost us £24 and not one person checked them the entire time! Ho hum.

I have been reading 'The Naked Jape' by Jimmy Carr the last few weeks. It's sooo funny! I have had many embarrasing laughing out loud in public moments and told far too many jokes. Hey, what the hell. Here's one more:

What do you call a man with no shins?

Tony!

Bring on the snow

Happy (very late) birthday to the lovely Mary! We had an ace time last weekend with plenty of eating and laughing, as always. You'll be surprised to hear that we had a tapas night. You'll be even more surprised that we're having a tapas meal for Mothers' Day. Ok, so you're probably not surprised. You could at least pretend though.

About this time last year, I was doing some work experience in a fab little school nearby. I loved it there. They had a school cat. Could it have been any more perfect? This week I found out that my final 8 week placement is going to be at that same school. Yipee! I'm also going to visit some other schools this week that I'm applying for jobs at. It's scary stuff!

At the moment I'm mainly obsessed with hot chocolate, tapas food and dancing. I'm still doing street dancing. I thought I was getting better, but then we started a new routine and it got twelvety-eight times harder! Oh goody.

It had better snow this week or there's going to be some serious hoof stomping ahead!

Toodles x

Just say no

Horses shouldn't use the cross trainer. Fact.

Hoorah!

The daffodils are out. Daffodils are happy flowers. If the daffodils are happy, I'm happy.

Mmmmmmmmm, olives.......

We had a tapas night at Mary's with Sarah and Jen. However, what happens on tapas night stays on tapas night. The photos pretty much speak for themselves though!

This week I have mainly been very over-excited!

Penguins chewed my coat, a giraffe licked me, I hand fed some wallabies and I stroked some lemurs! Does half term get any better?

You don't think so? Well it did! I have had such an ace week! We went to South Lakes Wild Animal Park near Barrow-in-Furness on Tuesday. It has earned a place in my list of top 3 favourite zoos. There were also meerkats, otters, tapirs, cheetahs, baboons, bats, monkeys, hippos, lions, tigers and bears, oh my. The only way it could have got higher on the list was by having a capybara or some guinea pigs.

The lemurs run wild in the zoo. I want a pet lemur! Or a zoo.

We got completely lost on the way there and ended up doing a 40 mile detour. If a man ever tells you that his sense of direction is amazing, bear in mind he may be exaggerating. I let Matt drive home and I navigated! However, he redeemed himself by being the best boyfriend in the world in every other possible way! He wanted an iPod shuffle like mine for Valentine's Day. We got to the shop to find that they have just started selling pink ones. I got the new pink one and he got the silver one. He rocks! I love him more than lemurs. Even more than meerkats.

Rocking!

Last Saturday I went out with the girls. It got so raucus that I had to take my cardigan off. Woah!

I was disappointed by the lack of snow here this week. We had a few flakes but nothing stuck. My friend Jenny, who is a teacher, got time off school because the snow was so bed. Booooo!

I have been longing after a guitar that I pass every day in the music shop in town. It is pink and has a horse on it. It's only a half size guitar, so it is perfect for me and my tiny carni hands. Well, guess what? Matt bought it for me for an early Valentine's present. He rocks! It rocks! I learnt at primary school but have forgotten it all since then. I've relearnt 6 chords so far and once I've learnt a few more I'll get some lessons. It's so pretty!

Put your hands up in the air

Hands up: who fell flat on their face in street dancing class last night? Just me? Dammit. I'm not getting any better at dancing but at least now I mostly remember what I should be doing! I have a blue knee thanks to the aforementioned spectacular floor dive. Boooo!

I went to the Lake District today to do the safety checks for the school trip I'm taking up there. Hannah (my teaching partner) and I got totally lost and just spent most of the morning driving around trying to find the place we were meant to be going to. They really shouldn't let two blondes be in charge of a vehicle! Also, there was a really loud roaring noise at one noise at one point and I was pretty sure we were going to die in a terrible Lost style incident. It was a plane!

Oh dear!

Things that are true but that I am not proud of:

1) I like it when there are girls in the gym who are fatter than me
2) I really quite enjoy slamming things around
3) I keep a packet of crisps on my bedside table - just in case!
4) I think some old ladies look really cool

Spectacular

Is it just me, or are there just not that many chavs with glasses out there?

Save it up for Sunday

I have two cats: one you can't shut up and one who hardly ever makes a sound. Rascal, the quiet one, probably miaows about three times a week. Even then, it's only to tell you that she is wasting away (the quiet one is also the fat one!). However, recently she has given up miaowing on week days. Instead, she has a crazy 10 minutes long miaowing session on a Sunday morning. She likes to do it nice and early so as she can interrupt my lie in as much as possible. She's thoughtful like that! I'm wondering if maybe it's something religious. Sunday morning prayers, or whatever the cat equivalent might be. Possibly she's just saying her Hail Miaowys. It's always the quiet ones you've got to watch!