A Magical Time!

With all the snow around from last weekend, we came in today through all the slush wondering about any timetabling issues.  The only course cancelled was the Witchcraft course run by the Humanities department.  A tweet went out to notify students and we had some interesting responses – enjoy ...we certainly did in the office!

 UniofGreenwich: Witchcraft at 9am in QA239 has been cancelled today..Otherwise all other classes are running fine!

Sarah_Cunnane 9:10am via Twitterrific
Oh ok. Wait, hang on, WHAT?! RT @UniofGreenwich Witchcraft at 9am in QA239 has been cancelled today.. (HT @smitajamdar)

mikecurryphotos 9:32am via Twitter for iPhone
@UniofGreenwich witchcraft cancelled? would have thought broomsticks would have been the one thing not affected by snow!

SurrealAnarchy 9:58am via Twitter for iPhone
“@UniofGreenwich: Witchcraft at 9am in QA239 has been called off today, all other classes are running fine!" The dark arts off due to snow!

SurrealAnarchy 10:00am via Twitter for iPhone
BA Hons in Witchcraft or is it a vocational course? @UniofGreenwich

SurrealAnarchy 10:03am via Twitter for iPhone
You would think that witches could just get on their brooms to get to UniofGreenwich or does that comes tee on in the course!?

SurrealAnarchy 10:04am via Twitter for iPhone
Perhaps you should look at making being able to fly a broom part of the entrance criteria?

Explanation tweet, sent later

UniofGreenwich: There have been some funny tweets about our witchcraft course being cancelled..Witchcraft in the Early Modern World is the exact title :)

bigsocietyis 10:33am via Web
@UniofGreenwich - Is the early modern world the same as the late old world ? Does witchcraft worry about time ?

andreasESC 11:54am via Twitter for iPhone
Are we collaborating with Hogwarts?

jillmcph 12:51pm via Web
@UniofGreenwich 9 am on Monday is always a curse-d slot!

calamityjane65 9:18am via Web
@UniofGreenwich if the witchcraft class works, surely you can expelliamus all hindrances?

What happened to January?

Wow – this month has whizzed past- a blink and you've missed it experience.  I am really happy that the days are getting longer.  There are two events of note this month

Firstly  - the Chinese New Year! 

 This is meant to be very auspicious one as it is the year of the Dragon and I have read that  is expected that the population of China will dramatically increase as couples strive to give birth to a baby during this year - I hope they all have lots of have fun trying! I was born in the year of the horse and of course that is a wonderfully auspicious year as well!

Now not many of you may know that this week is it also Australia Day.  I have very mixed feelings about this day.  I grew up innocently celebrating it to mark the foundation of the modern state of Australia.  People are on their summer hols or coming back from them and preparing for the new school year starting in February.  No it is not weird! I find starting a school year in September weird!

It was only much later I discovered another very different view – a much darker side. Many in Australia now refer to January 26^th  as Invasion Day – the day when persecution of the indigenous people really got under. As an Australian, I think it is as important to acknowledge this part of our history as it is to mark the Holocaust in Europe

That dreaded essay is finally grinding to completion.  My poor supervisor was subjected to my angst about it and she suggested that I think of it like a stained glass project – that I put all my ideas down on different bits of paper and lay them all out on the floor and move them around to form patterns of groups of similar ideas.  That quite appeals to me because I have all sorts of wonderful sentences and phrases in my head and I sit at the computer and they seem to just fly out the window, no matter how hard I shut it.  She suggested that I quickly get those ideas down somewhere else away from the computer so I capture them all.

Sometimes I really do despair though.  You would think that having got this far I would feel confident writing my coursework but every time I struggle, give myself a really hard time and end up feeling like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards.  Funnily though, I have never missed a deadline although as the deadline draws near I fear something will happen so that  I wont be able to pull out of the bag this time.  I think I need some serious therapy!

There is a brilliant book I have discovered called ‘The Worry Cure Stop Worrying and Start Living ’ by Robert L Leahy. After prescribing it to one of my clients on the advice of my supervisor, I decided I really should read it myself and I found it so useful and I have been working on distinguishing between productive and unproductive worry. 

In his introduction, the author says (p.35) the worst ways to handle worry are:

1. Seeking reassurance
2. Trying to stop your thoughts
3. Collecting information
4. Checking over and over
5. Avoiding discomfort
6. Numbing yourself with alcohol, drugs, and food
7. Over preparing
8. Using safety behaviours
9. Always trying to make a good impression
10. Ruminating- chewing it over and over
11. Demanding certainty
12. Refusing to accept the fact that you have crazy thoughts

So if you would like to know more – you’ll have to read the book. If you are a worrier it is well worth it.  Two of my clients said that before they read the book, they thought they were the only ones who thought so weirdly and it was very reassuring to find out that lots of people thought similar things and there was something they could do about it. So on that note:

  – back to the essay fuelled by my newly acquired productive worry techniques!

NB: No , I am not on commission to any book publishers!

January writing blues and a lot of hooptedoodle!

Our course is rather unique in that we have our first major hand for the third year at the end of January. Although I have presented four times in the first term, I always struggle with the first piece of electronic hand in requiring full references, critiques and proper writing!

I was in full procrastination mode on the weekend. You know  all those really dodgy jobs that just seem extra important when you have a deadline looming? These include:

•   Attacking the lime-scale behind the kitchen tap that is almost invisible to the naked eye
•   Cleaning out the bathroom cupboards
•   Colour coding the sock drawer
•   Sorting out the plastic container drawer        
•   Checking out the very latest You Tube crazy animal antics 
•  Touching up the paintwork on the skirting boards that can only be seen if you lie flat and get out a magnifying glass

What is about writing that puts me in such a flat spin?  This list is attributed to Petruska Clarkson who wrote one of our core texts The Therapeutic Relationship - a really dense academic tome. During her amazing lifetime she wrote loads of stuff and distilled her experience into this tongue in cheek list.

Ten Secret Rules for Good Writing

1.       It will always take at least twice as long as you anticipated

2.       70% of your efforts and resources will be wasted

3.       Cultural and personal demons in your head will attack it

4.       As soon as you really get going you will be interrupted

5.       You will think it is the worst thing you ever did

6.       You will reach a stuck point where you feel despair

7.       You will feel misunderstood

8.       You will be judged and criticised

9.       There will always be people who do better and worse than you for no clear reason

10    If only for a moment you will think it the best thing you ever did

I’m still trying to decide just how applicable this is to me.  Maybe that’s another suitable procrastination task to keep me thoroughly busy! Then I found information on Amazon about a book called Elmore Leonard’s10 Rules of Writing. In the prologue, the author quotes from John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday where his character describes so well the horrors of text with over fancy embellishments

“ I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like.  I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks…figure out what the guy’s thinking about from what he says.  …Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle… Spin up some pretty works maybe or sing a little song with language.  That’s nice.  But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story”

When I work in the Enquiry Unit on Wednesdays, I sit next to Cherie, a fellow blogger (www.gre-cherie.blogspot.com) .  She is doing a creative writing course and thinks nothing of knocking out 3000 words before brekkie.  When she gets going on the keyboard she types so fast I am surprised there is no smoke billowing out of it.  I asked her about her rules for writing and she replied “I have no rules – just write- anything – just write!!”

So there you are! It’s time for me to stop mucking around and just get stuck into it while enjoying using my new favourite word hooptedoodle in whatever context I can manage!

Happy New Year!

The decorations are all down, packed away, most of the pine needles and glitter hovered up ( that task will take at least 6 months to complete fully!) and the Christmas tree taken off to the recycling point in the local park. I hope that packing everything away before Twelfth Night doesn’t give us a year of bad luck!  I am now ready to settle down and get stuck into my neglected course work.  I had meant to do lots of reading and sorting out of my notes over the break but, instead, had a lovely social family time so I feel rested and refreshed as though I’ve been on holiday!  

...actually, I can hardly believe I just wrote that.  We had eight people and two dogs over for Christmas Day, 12 people with six overnight guests on the 28^th, and cooked for friends on New Year’s Eve.  We did an awful lot of cooking, washing up, and cleaning but it was interspersed with catching up with friends and family, lovely wintry walks, long phone calls to my Oz rellies, and blobbing out with Christmas movies. When the house was full of people they all mucked in to help so we never felt overwhelmed and had lots of fun.  On Christmas night we got out the games and I introduced my English rellies to the joys of Squatter – the Australian Sheep station game first invented in 1961.  It has become rather a vintage classic now and after initially wondering what from planet I had descended, they all became thoroughly hooked.

According to  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ it is an

Australian sheep farming game. Each player starts with a sheep station, consisting of 5 Natural Pasture paddocks, fully stocked with 3,000 sheep. The player must improve the Station, in order to stock more sheep, first by paying the cost of Improved Pasture, and then Irrigated Pasture. The first player to have 6,000 sheep on a completely irrigated farm is the winner. The money needed to improve the Station, to buy the extra sheep and cover other expenses occurred when moving round the board is earned mainly from shrewd buying and selling of sheep, and from the sale of wool from sheep owned by the player at the time he reaches the 'Wool Sale'.

There are dreadful catastrophes awaiting the poor unsuspecting payer who can be hit by natural drought, bushfires and flooding or lose sheep to such diseases as blow fly infestation, foot rot, and pulpy kidney.  Until she began to thrash us all, my sister in law was beginning to get horribly depressed with all the disasters affecting her poor sheep!

We then had to cheer ourselves up with a few rounds of dominoes, rumicub and backgammon – far less stressful!

You will notice up to now I have avoided the dreaded topic of New Year resolutions.  As  those regular readers will know I do not believe in setting these until the new year closer to early spring.   I believe that now is the worst time to start getting exhausted in the gym and starving oneself living on rabbit food. When the days are longer, the daffodils wake up, the Easter bunny visits and the sun starts to shine I will come out of hibernation!!  For now I am just going to hunker down, get on with my work, wrap up warm and get through the winter.

 

For those unhappy at Christmas...

The Christmas season is such a joyful time - families gathering together sharing food, memories and good cheer...

...or is it?

For many it is a time of tension, hurt and pain – those expectations, hopes and dreams lying in tatters.  There are families with members who don’t really get along during the rest of the year who come together determined that it will be different but, fuelled by too much alcohol and food things go totally pear shaped as the cabin fever hits.

The streets are full of people hurrying about their tasks; shopping for presents, the special Christmas outfit, festival food and drink.  This is the image the advertisers want to promote - buy this, buy that and all your dreams will be realised with everyone happy and smiley.

...but there are those who struggle to  drag themselves out of bed,  those who wonder where their next meal will come from, those whose families are far away, whose friends have all left for the holidays. Most cultures and religions have festivals and rituals in the middle of winter for a reason – to bring light and hope to the darkest and bleakest time of the year. For those unable to participate it can be hard to see that as we have just passed the Winter solstice on 21^st December, the days will begin to lengthen, as the darkness gradually retreats.

For many, this is a time of despair, loneliness and sadness.  It is important to recognise the danger signs of dark winter days, cold nights, and dashed expectations. There is less opportunity to get out and about into the fresh air, to meet with friends who may be busy with their own families, to take part in the usual activities that keep us healthy and focussed and in touch with people to help and support us.

If you know someone who is suffering, alone or vulnerable, keep an eye on them.  Call them up, invite them over and remember to listen to the thoughts behind the words – I’m fine.

Remind them that you care for them, they are not alone and there is hope.

Here are some resources both for you when you want to help or for you needing it.

www.mind.org.uk  Lots of help and advice for coping at this time of year.  Blogs from people who have been there

www.samaritans.org  Someone to talk to when you are feeling low

NHS Direct 08454647 This is a 24 hour helpline

Happy Christmas!!

It’s Christmas week and I am so looking forward to a lovely sociable time and a good break.  I finally finished my stained glass windows and installed them on Friday morning before my last client sessions.  It is such fun to finally see them in place.  When working with stained glass panels you only know what they will look like when they are up and the light can shine through.  It feels like such an unveiling and then I have to keep looking at them at different times of the day because the light changes depending on the time and weather.

Blue window

Pink window

This was my first peek at the windows all finished

Here they are installed.  What you can’t see are all the black fingermarks everywhere from the lead blacking stuff!

Then it was time to do a major mucking out of the house ready for the Open House we hold every year.  We serve mulled wine and mince pies and the alternative of spicey apple juice and satsuma cake / fairy cakes / bread and cheese.

Mince pies :)

I brought a satsuma cake into the Enquiry Unit last week and everyone loved it so much and demanded the recipe en masse, as did those who attended the Open House ... so here you are!  It is one of my favourite cakes for this time of year when satsumas are so plentiful.  My friend Carey wrote it out for me and maintains that it so healthy you can eat it for breakfast without feeling guilty!

Satsuma Cake
Ingredients For the cake: 5-6 satsumas  (weight about 375gm) 250g ground almonds 225g caster sugar 6 eggs 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder For the topping: Crème fraiche with lemon or orange zest stirred in
Method 1.     Place satsumas in a saucepan of water with lid on.  Boil then turn heat down to gently simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours until soft and pulpy. Check every so often and top up water as necessary so they don’t boil dry. Don’t heat them or boil them too rapidly or they will burst.   2.     Drain the water off and leave them to cool.  You can leave them overnight if you haven’t got time to make the cake immediately. 3.     Either mash with a potato masher or blitz them in a food processor - skin, pith and all - until pureed. (There will be some bits of skin left but I find these just add to the flavour.) 4.     Beat the eggs then add them and the other ingredients. Blitz or stir until smooth. 5.     Cook in pre-heated oven at 190oC for about an hour, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. For a fan oven use temp of 175oC 6.     Leave to cool on a rack. 7.     Apply topping.   It tastes even better the next day! You need to store it in the fridge but it is nicer at room temperature or just cut off a piece and zap in the microwave for 30 seconds.  I made this for my friend Melody’s birthday and decorated it with bright pink crème fraiche and holographic edible glitter.

My other achievement this week is that I have finally mastered making WI standard fairy cakes.  After much internet research I found that the trick is in the mixing in of the eggs after creaming the butter and sugar together.  Although it is so much easier and cheaper, I really hate using margarine in baking as it is so processed and never tastes as lovely as buttery ones.  It has taken me so long to achieve this miracle that i am going to share it with you!

Fairy cakes:

Ingredients:

4 oz butter

4oz caster sugar

4 oz self raising flour

2 large eggs

A little milk and a few drops of vanilla

Method

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. 

Heat the oven to 180^oC (175^oC for fan ovens)

Prepare your cake tins – either lay out the little paper cases on a tray or wipe some butter paper around your fairy cake tins.

Beat the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until creamy and soft.

Beat the eggs just until, no more.

Now for the tricky part.  Add the egg to the sugar/butter mix a teaspoon full at a time and beat it in alternating with the flour.  It is crucial not to add the egg too fast or the mix will curdle. That’s the bit that is missing from so many recipes! You should end up with a lovely creamy mixture if you are patient and mix the egg in small enough quantities.  Add a few drops of vanilla and a dash of milk and put a spoonful into the centre of each fairy cake paper or holder.  Don’t bother smoothing it out – it will do that itself in the oven.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.  Place on an airing tray (or just a spare oven slide) and cover with a tea towel to cool.

When the cakes have cooled – go mad and creative with your icing, decorations and glitter!

So you probably think I am fairly food obsessed!! Well this time of year food and ritual is so important and symbolic of family, relationships and culture. I love watching my children creating their own rituals, incorporating those from their childhood with new ones they develop with their partners.

We have been enjoying the online Advent calendar my Oz big sister Jackey sent me.  Jacquie Lawson does the most amazing London one and each day I click on a new number to open a wonderful little scene accompanied by different Christmas music.  I was quite amused that it was sent to me from 12,000 miles away but it originated in Jacquie’s studio in Lurgashall about 2 miles away from my daughter Kate’s house! If you want some wonderful Christmas cheer, download it!

http://www.jacquielawson.com/cards_christmas.asp

The calendar is all snowy with all our familiar London sights.  First thing in the morning I have to rush in, stick on my headset and click on the snow globe icon to see today’s scene.  You can’t cheat and look at the next day as the whole thing is connected to the computer clock.

The Enquiry Unit is looking very Christmassy with far too much food and treats to keep us going answering all those last pre-Christmas enquiries.

EU Christmas tree

Sam's Christmas tree

I am working the last Friday before the university is shut down until the New Year and luckily I have the next few days off as I really need to get out and do my Christmas shopping! I also need to have a few days off to keep me away from all the food here in the office! I hope the weather does something more interesting than the dreary drizzling happening just now.  At least last year we had the drama of snow.  The temperature in Melbourne is expected to be 30^oC on Christmas Day so I would like it to be lovely and snowy here – but only after my daughter gets to us from West Sussex.

Santa must get very hot by the time he has finished in Oz!  It must be quite a relief to get back to the Northern hemisphere!

Surfing Santas 

So all that there is left to do is to wish you a Very Happy Christmas and see you in the New Year when I will continue to regale you with my epistolary** account of my student life at Greenwich.

**this is my new favourite word as explained to me by Cherie – my fellow blogger.  I had to keep writing this blog until I could figure out how to get it in!

My Diamond Blog!

People can have diamond anniversaries for 60 years of marriage so I’ve decided that as this is my 60^th blog to make it a diamond one!

Yesterday was our second last week in college and the last day of hand-ins before Christmas.  I had a particularly busy week writing two case studies; one for presentation in my Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Option and one for my Integrative Option.  I have also had to obtain reports from both placements and submit them by the 4pm deadline.  Now I can relax and get ready for Christmas.  I still have to send off cards and start shopping. I have put myself under slightly more pressure by deciding that I must complete my stained glass windows and install them ready for Christmas Day.  It has taken me three months to come up with my design and I have been doing samples of fusing glass with fern leaves between.  They have come out so well that I am able to use them in my design.  Last Friday, after a particularly challenging session at my placement, I needed to give my brain a rest from anything to do with counselling.  I got out my window design and started cutting glass pieces. I only meant to do an hour or so but before I knew it midnight had come and gone!  I probably should have put it aside on the weekend to focus on this week’s readings but I had been having so much fun that I carried on until I had finished all the glass cutting by Saturday afternoon.  It is a good thing that I have to wait to go to my class on Thursday to get lead or I would have kept going doing all the leading up!

14^th December

My diamond blog has become a two parter.  I have been so busy working on my stained glass that everything else has taken a back seat but I am nearly finished and am looking forward to installing it this weekend.

This pic shows all the glass cut and I have started ‘leading up’  we use a special lead knife with a flat end which is used to hammer in the horse shoe nails to hold it all in place ready for soldering.  The red thing is called a fid and is really handy for opening up the lead channels, and pushing the glass into place.

The leading up is completed all the joints are then soldered on both sides. It is always a bit hairy turning the panel over to solder the second side.  I have visions of all the glass falling out and having to start all over again

I love making a mess and this is one of my favourite stages>  The  soldering is done and black cement pushed into all the gaps between the glass and lead to stabilise and weather proof the panel.  Whiting is then sprinkled all over to set the cement.  It feels really soft and silky to smooth in.

I am now waiting for it to dry ready for the final stage of blacking the lead and polishing the glass. I should be able to install it by the end of the week so my next blog will be pics of the unveiling.  I wonder if the queen would agree to do it for me?

My Kate came up on Sunday to have a mummy -daughter session of Christmas baking.  When she was younger it was impossible to keep her in the house.  She spent every spare moment out with horses; mucking out, cleaning their tack, grooming and riding.  I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with the agro, so cooking lessons pretty much went out the window until just a couple of years ago when she started getting bored with takeaways and realised how expensive ready meals are.

She phoned me two days before with her wish list.  It included crackle cakes, gingerbread, shortbread and, to my horror, fairy cakes and chocolate truffles. 

I have never made perfect fairy cakes, always heavily disguising my rather solid offerings with ‘extreme’ icing, attempting to dazzle people with lairy colours so they ignore the dodgy cake beneath! This session was no exception.  Although not meeting the exacting standards of the WI, once covered in girly pink icing and holographic edible glitter our fairy cakes looked very pretty and Kate was delighted.

Our gingerbread people came out very squidgy because the kitchen got too hot but the chocolate crackle cakes were perfect and sparkled with bronze glitter!  I was very nervous attempting truffles for the first time but thanks to Jamie Oliver’s online recipe they came out perfectly. We had a lovely girly time together while him –at- home escaped to his manly, glitter- free office and submerged himself in techy stuff.  We were ably assisted by Kate’s Murphy who arrived in his country style Sherlock Holmes tweed jacket, and kept the floor sparkling clean by licking up any of our dropped crumbs.  Murphy has acquired quite a reputation for his ability to sniff out food and devour it in record time.  Memorable occasions included Christmas two years ago when he scoffed the remains of our three bird roast and a camping trip where he stole a one pound block of cheese and  all our ham sandwiches while we were pitching the tent. We managed to keep everything safe this time and rewarded him with his second favourite meal – sardine porridge.  His no 1 favourite is dried pigs ears – yum!