Wedding Cake Class: Faircake and Hello Naomi

Wow what a hectic weekend.  This weekend was the ultimate treat to myself that I booked in the summer, essentially a working weekend, but doing something I really enjoy.  For 4 years I developed my cupcakes in Switzerland, I learnt everything from scratch from tinkering with the recipes, to getting the best results with the sugarpaste that I had to source from London.  I had no or very little opportunity to attend classes, so I taught myself.  Towards the end of my time living in Switzerland, I saw ‘Hello Naomi’s’ advert on Flickr, an online contact of mine from virtually the beginning of my time with the Flickr community starting in about 2006.  There was core of bakers who started cupcakes all at the same time, and many of those members now have flourishing businesses.  Coming back to the UK, I start anew, however it gives me the chance to learn new and exciting techniques as there are so many sugarcraft experts here.  Seeing that Naomi was coming all the way from Australia to share her work with others in a class 8/9 October at the Vanilla Workshop, I seized the chance and booked a place on her Extended Tier Wedding Cake course.  Large cakes are something I really want to develop, but have been afraid to get into, mainly as I went down the cupcake line.  In my experience, it seems difficult to be good at both large and small.  I like working on small scale, and find the blank canvas of a large cake a little daunting.  However, I have always admired Naomi’s work for being so elegant, classic, but deceivingly simple in the design.  I now know that naked cakes are the most difficult, there is literally nowhere to hide, the final finish has to be flawless.

I got up early, after spending since last Wednesday cooking cake until Friday.  We had to take 5 cakes with us to class, and only having one of each tin size, I had to dissect the recipe down in terms of volume to get the right split for the tins.  I also decided that as this was to be a large cake, I would take advantage of multiple batch cooking and cook 3 different flavours.  This decision was pretty risky, as I was not only working with an unfamiliar oven, but also with unfamiliar ingredients, new flour and butter.  I learnt in Switzerland which were the favoured products and which gave me unreliable results.  Here, I had the potential to really stuff up.  I did worry ahead of cooking all the cake, worried that I may create really bad end result.  The first mudcake I made was to be a white chocolate and raspberry cake.  I used Lindt Excellence white (which strangely is cheaper in France than in Switzerland) as I know it melts fairly uniformly. It smelt wonderful, if a little sweet smelling, from the amount of white chocolate and sugar that had gone into it.  Then after 15 minutes beyond the cooking time, 3 ¾ hours later, the cake was cooked. Next I tried a chocolate mud cake, buoyed by the fact that the white one was looking good.  The chocolate one had a drastically shorter cooking time, and by the time I was checking my smaller of the 2 cakes, it had already overcooked, and my larger one was perfectly done.  Eeek, had to recook another small chocolate one, the small cake was too dry and cracked ontop for my perfectionist liking.  The final caramel cake smelt amazing, using brown sugar and white chocolate, I really thought that this would taste as sweet as it smelt, but oddly not, just an amazing caramel flavour, and one of my favourites (surprisingly).  Now I had all three flavours of cake and they were packaged up ready to go. I cooked them in dribs and drabs between Wednesday and Friday.

Saturday arrived, and I boxed the cakes in my cupcake carrier boxes (thanks Ponsi) and they went on my old ladies Swiss shopping trolley wheels into London.  Got into Waterloo, connected with the Jubilee line, then changing at Canary Wharf to get the DLR to the Cutty Sark, a five minute walk down uneven pavements, and my cakes arrived in one piece at the Fair Cake Vanilla workshop in Greenwich.

We were introduced to the attentive team at Fair Cake workshop, and of course the unmistakable Naomi.  It is often strange to meet people who you seem to know so well online, you are missing that personal element often, you can see some of it reflected in their work, but you never get the full picture until you see someone face to face.  The first day was pretty full-on, there was a lot to accomplish by the end of the day, and many of us stayed on an extra hour to complete making the petals for our flower that was to go on our cake.  We torted our cakes into beautiful even layers, ganached and smoothed, and before too long, a whole day had whizzed by.  Naomi had demoed a cake upfront, and then we set to work attempting to create something similar!  It did show me that it does not matter quite how your cake had turned out, after the cakes were ganached, they all looked amazingly uniformly smooth.  I did find that I was the only one who had done different flavoured cakes though, everyone else had made plain chocolate ones.  It was a revelation working with ganache, and not something that I had attempted before, probably because of my rather rocky relationship with it in the past.  Swiss chocolate is great to work with though, and even the most inexpensive own brand chocolate from COOP is really well tempered, and about 1/3 of the price of what I was using at the weekend!

Sunday was another early start, but my mind had been buzzing with all the new ideas that the previous day had brought with it. Slightly less to do on the second day, but mainly working with sugarpaste and covering the large extended tier.  We were shown one of the 2 methods explained by Naomi.  It is a tricky job, one where you really could do with growing an extra pair of hands!  It is a lot of sugarpaste to handle all in one go!  The last part of the session was spent putting together the wired petals (first time for me) and the stamens on the open peony flower, and then working on the piping.  Naomi allowed us to use some of her classic pipework designs for practice, and I look forward to creating something (hopefully as inspiring) in the future, but I need way more repetition before its really clean.  I was pretty pleased with how my first try turned out.  Fighting gravity on the top parts of the petals was really hard! The design looks easy, but believe me it’s far from it, I had to remove my pipework several times before I had to settle on what it is now on my cake.  Not perfect, but not altogether bad.

Naomi kindly helped me with the finishing touches, not quite enough time to do my board at the end, as I had a taxi all the way back to Wokingham, and could not delay my pickup.  But it was ribboned, adorned with my pretty flower, photographed and boxed by the Faircake team.  My cake made the journey all the way home with no damage, I actually broke a petal and dinted the sugarpaste when walking out the studio, and the extended box top blew off the top, and I used my chin to keep it from flying away!  Other than that, the cake travelled perfectly, did not move an inch in the boot, despite going over numerous speed bumps and going round roundabouts at good taxi speed!

Thanks to all the participants, organisers and to Naomi once more, I had a truly great weekend, and learnt heaps!

....now we have alot of cake to eat :-)

Naomi, thanks for featuring me on your blog too! http://hello-naomi.blogspot.com/

Great class: highly recommended if Naomi visits the UK again!

Food bills escalating...

When I was living in Switzerland, I always regarded the UK as the cheap food mecca, and rued the fact that 100CHF did not get me that many bags of shopping.  I must admit that I was looking forward to the huge roasts every day and the mountains of cheap fruit and vegetables.  This last 2 months here have been far from that.  Yesterday hit home that despite my best efforts at saving money on the food bills, I just have not managed significant enough savings.  I spent a total on groceries that was almost double the average food bill for a family of four, and that is just not good enough.  With our rental absorbing a large chunk of income, and high food bills, this is not a long term option for us..

Food prices have really escalated here, to the point I look at some of the basics and wince.  Some things are really surprising, and we pay way over the odds even compared with Swiss prices.  We could cope in Switzerland, as we had the salary to match.  Now we have a lower income, after Steve’s job move in line with UK salary, and we are still finding it a squeeze.  For example. I looked at the cost of a bag of plain flour.  In Switzerland you can expect to pay typically, 1.60 CHF a kilo which equates to 1.13 GBP.  Today, I bought a bag of plain flour for 99p a kilo.    Sugar I bought for 1.28 GBP a kilo, the Swiss equivalent, about 1.88 GBP a kilo in COOP.  Tinned tomatoes at 79p and Swiss tins 99p.  Unsalted butter, Swiss price 2 pounds a block, today in Morissons the cheapest unsalted was 1.39 GBP.  The food price gap between Switzerland and the UK has definitely closed, but salaries have not risen in line with the cost of living, so I think we will need some real lateral thinking to get the food bills down further.  I felt justified in querying a price this morning that had not gone through the till as half price....

It is a little depressing, considering I have already:

·         Made packed lunches for the girls instead of out-laying 17 GBP a week on school dinners
·         Used Morissons and Tesco in favour of Waitrose in town
·         Bought reduced items like sliced bread, whole chickens for freezing that day
·         Bought chickens for roasting and squeeze at least 2 or maybe 3 extra meals out of it
·         Buy using offers that are useful for products that I would be buying anyway
·         Planned the weeks meals ahead, to reduce impulse buying whilst in the supermarket
·         Padded out smaller amounts of meat with vegetables or pulses to make it go further
·         Not been tempted to buy any ready meals

·         Buy own brand products wherever possible and even stooping as low as
       buying Value Tesco ham and cheese in place of normal mid brand equivalents

Without going as far as really low price food, not sure where to go next really.  Increase vegetarian food? Buy even more Value stuff?  It seems to me that it is pretty cheap to live on unhealthy food if I wanted to, but the cost of basics being so high really affects the bill if you want to cook from scratch.  It’s no longer really inexpensive to do so.  This is when you start looking at the 1 pound pizzas……  It is quite understandable why people opt for the rubbish food on mega cheap deals, but nutritionally there must be so much salt and fat in that stuff, it is really not going to benefit my kids to feed them a diet of Value fish fingers for the next 5 years, is it?

According to an article by the Guardian in June of this year, average retail food prices in the UK jumped by 4.9% in the year to May – a 23-month high – driven by a surge in basic foodstuffs such as corn, wheat and sugar, which respectively jumped by 112%, 72% and 51% over the period. How an earth do you combat that?   In a BBC News article just today, the Prime Minister David Cameron was quoted as saying that:

‘’ economic pressures such as higher food and fuel prices had "probably had an impact on families and on many women".

He told Andrew Marr: "Britain faces a very difficult time right now as countries right across the world do.  "Families in Britain see petrol prices going up, food prices going up, electricity increasing.  "Many people who work in the public sector have had a pay freeze, and at the heart of many families are women who are worrying desperately about the family budget."

He said he "profoundly believed" he was taking the right decisions to secure a brighter future for Britain, but added: "I think that's probably had an impact on families and on many women and that causes great concern and I understand that."

I am glad that the P.M. feels good about the future, because right now, I am not sure that despite my best efforts we can feel comfy at our current level of outgoings.  

Autumn is well on its way…

One of Mums’ pumpkins she gave me grown on her allotment, it has since been turned into soup J

The mornings are certainly starting to feel distinctly more autumnal, but in contrast to the Swiss autumn, it remains decidedly damp and misty.  The leaves have fallen off my 4 trees in the front garden.  I am electing to delay clearing it up, as I think it will probably be one of those demoralizing never ending jobs, so perhaps waiting until they have all fallen off and then clearing them in one go may be better for my morale J.  At this time of year in Switzerland, it is  normally sunny and dry if a little cooler, and at exactly this time of the year, I always enjoyed the Kuerbisfest at the local farm at the top of the hill, Braendliliestalhof.  The children climbed up beercrates on climbing ropes, had pillow fights whist sitting on a suspended log, hay bale mountains and corn baths.  Really good fun, but health and safety would never allow that to happen in a million years in the UK now!  We always went at midday for their wonderful pumpkin soup.  They grew over a 250 different sorts, and the colours on the wheeled canopied carts were the essence of autumn.  It is my favourite time of year.

 http://www.mathis-hof.ch/kuerbisse.php

If you are good at German, here are some of the recipes from the farm, but their wonderful pumpkin cake alson on the link sticks in my mind too, they always sold slices of that on the day too, but reckon they added some spice into it at some point..

http://www.mathis-hof.ch/rezept/Rezeptvorschlaege.pdf

If you are not so good at German, the recipe for their pumpkin soup translated:

Ingredients:

1 orange Knirps (these are like Japanese Hokkaido pumpkins)

1 onion

1 clove garlic

Bouillon/stock

Salt and pepper

Curry powder

Double cream

And the thing that makes it taste great: Vermouth.

Take the stalk off the pumpkin.  Split into 4 and deseed, no need to peel, skin stays on.

Onion and garlic peel and chop, put into pan with pumpkin and a little water and cook til soft.

Puree, Season with salt, pepper and curry powder.  Cook for a little longer.  At the end , add double cream and Vermouth.

No amounts are given in this recipe, so it’s a bit of a guess, but soup making does not really require a lot of accuracy anyway! I always remember them making a huge vat of this soup and had a giant stick blender over 2 metres long and sloshing in a whole bottle of Martini at the end, it was great stuff, and very warming!

Butternut squash cake:

Whilst on recipes connected with pumpkin and squash, this tea loaf I made last year for a trip to the Schwarzwald in October.  We had an amazing dry and sunny week there, and this recipe bring back memories of eating slabs of this cake spread with a little butter in our wooden house with the wood pellet fire on.  It was so cosy.  I love the taste of the ginger in this cake.  It freezes really well, and it matures, so its best the next day after making.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1018/pumpkin-and-ginger-teabread

Baked Butternut squash gnocchi, which we had last night.  Rather high cholesterol, but a great, easy to prep Autumnal dish from Novelli. 

serves 4.

Half large squash or 2 small ones about 500g of butternut.  Peeled, deseeded and cut into chunks.

3 garlic cloves

2 fresh thyme sprigs

95g semolina or polenta

40g Parmesan (reggiano)

65g butter

3 medium eggs

125ml double cream (I used single and milk)

1) Oven 180 degs C or Gas 4

2) Put squash, thyme and garlic into roasting tin and cover with foil and roast for 45 mins (can drizzle with a little oil here, not mentioned in recipe).

3) Transfer contents of tin into food processor and whizz to puree.

4) Add polenta/semolina, parmesan and butter and whizz again.

5) Whisk together eggs and cream, season.  Add to food proc. bowl and whizz.

6) Line 18cm x 28 cm roasting tin with baking parchment.  Spread evenly into tin. Cover with foil.

7) Can bake straight away or place in fridge til needed.  Bake 30 mins.

8) Cool slightly after baking and cut into slices.  Sprinkle over a little extra melting cheese ontop like cheddar/gruyere/brie or tallegio and grill til melted.

 serve with salad, baby potatoes/sweetcorn, and/or spicy tomato sauce ontop of the gnocchi.

Piles of endless washing......

Perhaps it’s the fact that I don’t want to knacker the new machine that we have been given, but washing these days seems to take forever. It may be that I underestimated the school uniform factor!  I was dreading the fact what the domestic appliances were going to be like in our rental property prior to arrival, as they really are a personal thing.  Some people spend lots on them, some do not see the point, and endlessly reinvest in cheaper ones.  The old Bosch machine I was left to use in my rental property was just not fit for purpose.  The drum and the whole casing of the machine was loose, and the engineer said basically it would shake itself to bits before too long!

Back in the UK, I suppose I do now take advantage of the lax rules on noise on ‘The day of rest’ to get my washing done. In Switzerland, I was not supposed to be washing at all on Sunday, as they had rules on this.  I do admit to doing the occasional load on a Sunday with the windows shut, but this was real clandestine washing at its height.  I always felt a little guilty that I was breaking the rules.  When we first arrived in Switzerland in our company temporary appartment, the washing arrangement was a little bit of a shock to the system.  I remember being shown by the rather scary caretaker lady that this was my designated wash day on the table pinned to the wall in the basement laundry.  This was fine, I had 1 spot a week to get the entire weeks washing done.....  This was OK, as there were only 3 of us at the time, and Laura was only 2.  However, I really do not know how families cope with this longterm, as many families live in appartments with a washing rota.  I had issues with my neighbour who seemed to think my wash day was also fine to use for her own.  I can remember summoning up enough courage to tell her in my then rather ropey German, that this is my washday, not yours.  I delighted in leaving her grey (sorry, White) washing in a damp pile ontop of the machine :-).  Rules are OK, but only if people collectively abide by them.....  I must admit,  I spent most of the day last Sunday, putting endless loads into the washing machine, in the vain hope that I would have less to do at the beginning of this week, but alas, the girls have different ideas.  I can now truly empathize with how my mum felt, I only have 2 children plus 2 adults, she had an extra childs’ worth of clothing, so the volumes must have been silly.  I do remember hanging out a lot of washing for her whilst she slept in the morning after doing night duty at the local hospital.  Now I know why she got fed up when we had worn something for 2 hours after changing and without a thought flung it into the dirty linen basket.  Today, I returned Alice’s 2 hour worn skirt from yesterday back to her room J.

It is good to be in the UK from that perspective, it’s up to you how you spend your Sunday.  Swiss shops except for the service stations and those in the vicinity of rail stations close on Sunday.  They did referendum on this issue a couple of years ago, to bring in Sunday trading, but the consensus was ‘NO!’.  We did say when we moved back (idealistically) that we would try and keep Sunday as a family day as far as possible.  I suppose buying all the supplies I need on Saturday for the weekend and a little bit beyond has now become habit.  I have not felt the need to waste my Sunday time in the supermarket just yet, and I do hope that I can keep it that way too.  See what my blog says in a years’ time, that will be the acid test I bet!  Instead, we used our weekend (Saturday) doing some PYO.  We have a fantastic local farm on the edge of Wokingham called Gray’s.  They do the full range of Pick Your Own, not just Strawberries and the usual fayre, but you can pull your own carrots, pick your own corn, beetroot, cabbages, cauliflowers, courgettes and more all fresh from the field.  Both girls enjoyed picking all of the fruit and vegetables, but particularly the corn, when they disappeared into the maize patch to find the biggest cobs! The runner beans tasted very slightly sweet, just how I remember them from my mums vegetable patch. I am wondering whether it’s really worth investing in my own vegetable patches again now I have been to this farm!

http://www.graysfarm.co.uk/

We did enjoy our runner beans and corn with our roast spuds and parsnips and 2kg chicken J.  Something I have really enjoyed being back in the UK, being able to do an inexpensive roast every weekend.  Meat was not cheap in Switzerland, and with few or little opportunities to roast meat (as the best bits were always minced into sausages) I really missed roasting meat joints.  Now I have to relearn this skill! I used to make the chicken stretch as far as possible when I was in Switzerland, as I could only usually get chickens that were about 1 to 1.3kg in weight.  These were equivalent to about 10GBP each sometimes more.  Once the meat was eaten, there was only about 100g meat left on the carcass, and I used to squeeze some cream of chicken soup and or a pie (padded with rather a lot of vegetables) out of this.  This made some savings squeezing an extra meal out of a rather, let’s face it, measly bird!

Fresh fish

Fresh fish was something I really did miss when I lived in landlocked Switzerland.  Being so far from the sea, I not only missed the fresh fish, but the smell of the salty ozone.  The Swiss tend to favour all things lake and river, so Perch and Carp with a little Sole and Salmon here and there. The Swiss also seemed to consume large amounts of Pangasius, or Vietnamese River Cobbler.  It lives eating rubbish off the muddy river beds, and I really did not like the taste of it.  Swiss like to coat it in batter, and no amount of coating made it taste any better either!  I don't mind Sole or Salmon, but after a while, I did pine for smoked fish.  Today, as I write, I can sit smugly on this lovely sunny day knowing that I have already cooked 2 smoked fish pies, 1 for now and 1 for later.  When I saw line caught Grimsby natural smoked haddock on sale in Waitrose, just had to snap some up.  OK, maybe it does not look that appetising like this:

....but once cooked, is the height of comfort food in the form of fish pie or in smoked fish chowder.  I would have made the former, but Steve thinks that soup does not constitute a meal.  Chunky soup with a cheese topped roll does in my opinion, and was a favourite when mum used to make it at home.  We were brought up on the freshest of fish when I lived in East Anglia.  The fish came to us in the shape of a small van driven by a man who passed the business to his son (I think he was called Colin) and the whole family including the wife, used to deliver fish all the way from Lowestoft to our estate in Martlesham Heath.  The little van used to stop in every street after constantly blowing the horn, so you could tell how far away he was from the noise! The white fish van never used to smell, as the fish was so fresh.  The haddock was not dyed a lurid yellow, and instead properly oak smoked themselves.  I used to love the smell of that before it was packaged and wrapped.  I remember seeing mussels, and huge chunks of cod, haddock and crabs all nestling in the ice in the back of the van, and of course, it varied according to the time of year.  He had knowledge of what was best for the season which you just would not get from a supermarket these days.  I was very excited to see the sight of a trailervan in our local Wokingham market, with 'Fresh fish from Lowestoft' written on the side.  I hope one Friday that I am free, I will get to sample some of that fish, and once more bring back memories!  My sister, Emma always taunted me in Switzerland, as she new that I could not get the fish I loved.  She works in and around Aldeburgh and they land some of the freshest fish, including large cod, it tastes amazing.  The flesh is almost meatlike and pure white in colour.

I can, however, see that the British love affair with cod is not waning despite the dwindling stocks of cod in the North Sea.  In some ways, I could remain quite pious in Switzerland, as COOP sourced quite a lot of Sustainable MSC fish.  I used to buy alot of Coley.  Thinking that my local Morrisons is a store for the cost conscious, I reckoned on maybe finding some there.  No, the shelves were packed only with Cod.  I do feel that there is still work to be done here in the UK with regards to sourcing sustainably, otherwise we may end up eating Salmon and Chips instead of Cod and Chips.....

However pious I have been in the past, Fish and Chips was one of the first things I had to try on returning back to the UK.  They may be a little more expensive these days, but they still taste as good as ever (with a little English beer of course)....!

The Audi Bubble and the New Highway code

Steve was intent on getting another Audi as soon as the previous company Audi A6 was returned in Switzerland.  He hated our other car, and even though he denies it, made sure everyone knew it when he adjusted the driving position.  The seat eventually crunching along the sliding rail and reluctantly locking into position for Steves shorter legs.  The 10 year old Ford Focus was a car I always felt I had an understanding with, we had been through thick and thin together, refusing to give it up when it had two problems with the Camshaft position sensor and the Fuelpump (both sorted out with the aid of my dad and his German internet surfing…) I felt genuinely sad when I had to sell it in July.  It had a good turning circle and more importantly for Swiss underground car parks, I could fit it into a space without its bottom overhanging the white lines (when you are in Switzerland, you can identify the foreigners by the fact they park sensibly facing nose out from the space, the Swiss always drive forwards into the space, and in some car parks we parked in they actually insist on this!).  In addition to this, the car was also narrow, and I had no problem getting it to fit.  When Steve was given a company Audi A6 last year, he was over the moon, loved the car with its’ amazing fairy light effect of the interior equipment lights as they glowed around the front seats, something akin to an aircraft cockpit.  It took me a while to get used to the sheer width and length increase.   The only reason I drove it in Switzerland was because the fuel was paid for by the company, and that the seats were admittedly really comfortable, however I resolutely refused to take it into underground car parks, particularly into Gartenstadt, Muechenstein, which had very tight turns indeed. 

Now back in the UK, Steve went on the search for a new car.  He tried convincing himself that he could buy a VW Passat (which is what we had before we left for Switzerland in 2003) and put all the extras on it.  He made up his virtual car to find the cost was the same as a second hand 1 year old Audi.  He bought the A6.  Don’t get me wrong, I find the car fine, but for school pick up and drop off, and driving down narrow lanes, I don’t always feel confident about the width of the car.  Sometimes, I feel, if I could, I would drive with the parking sensors on all the time.  That situation arose on a number of occasions on the way to school yesterday.  Imagine a minimal width B Class road and 2 school buses meeting coming in opposite directions, they barely scrape past each other, let alone cars standing in the road behind them.   The traffic grinds to a holt.  Stress levels increase.  I do find that if I imagine the Audi as a stress- free bubble in which I drive, I tend to be less irritated, pressured or aggravated by other peoples driving, however reckless they may be.  As a result, I am publishing the Wokingham and Finchampstead area amended version of the Highway Code which many of my fellow road users seem to abide by:

• 1)       When approaching a waiting queue of traffic due to railway barriers being down, always overtake the waiting queue of traffic on the wrong side of the road to turn right.  Don’t worry about the oncoming traffic which may have right of way as published in the official Highway code.

• 2)      When the orange warning lights on rail crossings show, squeeze across the crossing, and sit across the rail tracks, even if the traffic is stationary at the roundabout on the other side.  It’s only a little dangerous if the barriers are descending onto the roof of your vehicle and the train is visible on the track coming towards you at speed.

• 3)      White lines in the middle of a road and Junction markings only serve as the roughest of guidelines as to your road position.  Feel free to drive across these at any time you so wish, even in the event of meeting oncoming traffic or cars waiting to emerge from a junction.

• 4)      The speed limits are again only an indicator of what speed should be safe to drive.  Feel free to exceed the limit wherever you suspect there are no traffic camera or speed traps.  This includes 20 mph Zones around schools.  Try to accelerate as fast as possible try to exceed the limit by at least 10mph if you can, and weave around parked cars without due regard for school children or other oncoming traffic.

• 5)      At school pickup time, always park your car on double yellows or within about 10cm of a junction.  Don’t worry about the obstruction for other road users, after all, you’re only going to be a couple of minutes.  Also, ensure that if you are parking a large 4x4, park as quickly as possible, preferably at an angle, so that you use 1.5 spaces.

• 6)      Special ruling for drivers of Mercedes cars: If an Audi driver choses the outside lane of 2 possible lanes to continue straight over at traffic lights and this lane merges after the lights, drive as close as possible to the car in front of you. DO NOT YIELD.  Only yield if the Audi driver resorts to a barging technique, and you are genuinely worried you may lose the Mercedes logo off the bonnet of your car or your paintwork may be affected.

• 7)      Speed bumps: where streets have had traffic calming measures inconveniently installed, and the car in front is driving too slowly, ensure you overtake them on the speed bumps, and drive at at least 30mph plus.  Time is money.  Do not worry that you will be paying for a new set of shock absorbers and/or suspension work to be done later on your trashed car. 

Well, here’s hoping I can get used to these new rules, and to the new car…..

First Day at School

After leaving Switzerland, we have had a really long extended Summer break.  In some ways I am grateful we have had the time to move, sort out the rented house, sort school uniform and shores, had a few visits from parents, in-laws, friends and time together as a family before the whirlwind of the school term starts.  But without a real holiday break away for anyone, it has been a tiring time too.

This year I have had it fairly easy.  My girls were so excited about their school uniform, it is the first time they have ever had to wear it.  I wonder how long it will take before the novelty wears off!.....  I ordered it online back on the 10^th August.  It said, ‘Order online before 13^th August, and you will receive your uniform in time for school start.’  So that was fine, I had made the deadline.  My mind was at rest that the top half had been sorted, polo shirts and sweatshirts with the school embroidered logo.  Now to sort the school skirts and trousers.  I naively went to Asda hoping that I would get something for both girls, however, Laura is already too big for standard size primary school uniform.  The secondary schools in Reading all wear black.  Damn, needed dark grey box pleated skirts.  I managed to get the biggest size for Alice, which fitted, and some black tracksuit bottoms for Lauras PE.  Next year will not be going to Asda for either of the girls as they will both be too big by then!  Asda in Lower Earley is a big supermarket,  it used to be my local store when we lived in the area before the girls.  I stupidly went on a Friday.  It was bedlam.  It was full of people with small children having meltdowns over the fact that they did not like the look of the school skirts.  My girls were probably a little mystified as to why they felt that way.  We tried on some skirts for Alice, and got 3 box pleat skirts and some trousers.   We managed to sort some outdoor shoes and indoor shoes and plimsoles at Clarks in Wokingham.  It is certainly nice to get proper width fitting back, that is something we just had to guess in Switzerland.  Another load ticked off the list.  Thankfully a visit to Malvern M&S with my Mother-in-Law, Mary, meant we could fit Laura out in 14 Year old grey skirts (they are a bit short in my opinion, but Secondary School girls like wearing them that way….nothing has changed!).  Mary waited patiently whilst Laura tried on different styles of trousers, and probably relived the days of fitting out Steve and my Sister-in-Law, Janines Uniform too J.

Last Friday arrived, and I became distinctly twitchy about the remaining uniform I had ordered online.  It had not been delivered. Several times I phoned them over 3 days, they were not answering the phone.  This was not good.  It was getting late in the day, and I ended up journeying out the megatropolis that is Camberley M&S and Tesco stores.  They are so huge you can lose your car very easily in the car park.  It was brimming full of mobile car wash trolleys all plying their trade for a fiver a throw.  With a big migraine, got round the stores to get a discount set of bottle green tights, a cardigan for both girls and some yellow polo shirts from Tesco.  I felt his was a little unfair to go in with all the other people who had left getting uniform right til the end, as I had been organized and ordered in time.  Instead, I had my mum running around Suffolk trying to find suitable tops, and me running around Surrey trying to find bottle green sweaters in time for today, 6^th September.  There were mums in a fenzy, scrabbling through Sale racks to get the last minute things they needed.  I got back to have lunch, sat down with relief that I now had everything.  The doorbell went.  ‘I don’t believe it’.  A large pack of school uniform gets delivered.  OK, now each of my girls have a polo shirt for every single day of the week!  The cardigans will do for next year if they have not grown much :-/…..  The girls excitedly put everything on and did fashion shows, walking up and down in their uniform and their shiny new shoes.

Now the house lies eerily quiet and empty for the first time in weeks, and I have the day to myself and some time to start sorting a new home for us all.  Both girls were excited about starting their new school, perhaps I am more nervous than they were this morning.  We arrived very early, but it enabled me to see what the parking frenzy would be like.  As 8.30am neared the carpark got worse.  We arrived 15 minutes earlier and it was relatively peaceful.  I now know my window of opportunity.  I would still love to have the girls walk to school, and in Switzerland its great, the children have the freedom, the independence and the expectation that they walk.  With each community well served with schools, it works.  Here, I am grateful the girls are in a lovely school 10 minutes away by car. There is such pressure on school places, some parents this year who have had late applications (like us) have had to go for private schooling.  It’s not ideal to have a journey to school like that, but the staff have already been so supportive helping us before term started.  I will feel better when we have the rhythm of the day sorted out I am sure….