Romy's Christmas Picture

 

Romy loves drawing cartoons - this is her Christmas picture drawn just now - I love all the details, especially those cheeky elves!

A perfect Sunday

The sun was out and the sky blue when we got up this morning and I had just managed to drag the children away from 'Anastastia' which was on Disney channel so that we could take Darwin out for a walk all together, when some friends phoned to ask if we wanted to go out with them.

We did and we've had the most beautiful walk from Alcalá la Real to nearby Fuente del Rey. 

I had my camera with me. 

Ready to go - leaving Alcala with La Mota in the background. 

Juan Carlos took us to this quarry - and told us that it ships its stone to China...
Sierra Nevada in the distance - looking very beautiful today.

Here at 1000m above sea level, the stones are made almost entirely from creatures that once settled on the sea floor.

In memory of those killed by the Republicans during the Civil War.

La Mota, looking deceptively close by, taken from the quarry.

Might be my imagination, but the chalet and the mountains look almost Alpine to me.

Fuente del Rey is a little village close to Alcala la Real with an important history. In the 14th century, Alcala was under Moorish rule. In 1341, Alfonso XI, King of Castile, Leon and Galicia (there was no 'Spain' at this time) put the castle under siege and had his base here in Fuente del Rey. He had a busy and successful year in 1341 so I'm not sure if he spent all the eight months of siege it took to force a surrender, but Alfonso is credited with taking the castle from the Moors and at this point, Alcalá Benzaide changed its name Alcalá 'la Real' - or the Royal. This little hermitage was built to house the statue of the Virgin that travelled with Alfonso XI and his army at the time. It was opened for us today by a lovely old lady who lives nearby and who has the key - she of the turquoise dressing gown and cotton flowery hat. Bless.

Caquis - soft orange globes against the blue.
We managed to liberate a couple but I've eaten one from the tree once before and will not be tempted to do it ever again. 

An atalaya - or watch tower. There are many in this area, both Arab and Roman design. This one has crenellations which I believe makes it Roman. The Arab ones are unadorned simple towers.

On our way back, the Sierra Nevada behind us. 

Another little treasure to investigate on our way back to Alcala la Real.

Celia, Romy and Tere strike a pose for Mario in the sunshine.

Mario and Romy are in the same class and get on so well together. They play beautifully together - especially with Playmobil. In their school play Romy takes the part of the 'abuela' or granny and Mario is her 'grandson' - they find this highly amusing!

It was a beautiful day and we had a really lovely walk with our friends. Just how Sundays should be. Looking forward to the next one.

I love Playmobil

I downloaded some photos from the camera this morning and came across these that Romy must have taken. I love Playmobil and the stories that children tell with it.

Domestic scene 

What a lovely bedroom

Oh look - father with broom and log fire - just like real life!

Apparently the mother of the family is an ambulance driver

No accidents, just the school run.

Byeee! (Shouldn't she be sitting down and strapped in?)

Hey - flashing lights and all!

I do love Playmobil!

Grab the camera

I was just about to set off with Darwin for our morning walk - a snatched twenty minutes in between preparing for and giving an English lesson - and I was struck by the BLUE of the sky so grabbed my camera.

The leaves have either turned to yellow, brown and red or have  fallen now, as we reach December.

Strange pods hang from many of the trees 

Golden yellow leaves against the blue, blue sky

Moon over the olive groves

And frost, hiding in the shadows of the trees - it's been a chilly night!

La Lovely Mota - basking in the sun - December 2012

Isn't that gorgeous?

Must remember to take my camera with me more often - there is so much that is beautiful to share.

Mostly making

Chocolates!
It's so important to do what you enjoy in life and to enjoy what you do, isn't it?  How lucky am I that I am teaching and enjoying it - and enjoying making chocolates in the evenings when I get home?
It doesn't leave much time for blogging though, which is a shame because I also enjoy that. So many things to enjoy, so little time....

I'm not the most organised of people on the outside. On the inside, of course, I usually know exactly what has to be done, how long it will take, when I intend to do it, where it is...part of an ENFP personality though, is that if something more interesting or exciting comes along, all the best laid internal plans can be dropped without too much concern. Unless that means I can't make my chocolates.

Because I like doing things I enjoy, I have to do some things I don't. No matter how hard I try, I do not enjoy cleaning; dust can gather, clutter clumps together and my eyes glaze over and my brain refuses to fret - I don't use avoidance tactics, I often don't register things that others cannot live with. (It's a gift, I think.)
However, my kitchen must be spotless for me to make my chocolates...so it's getting more attention these days. I see specks of dust and drops of water that could spell disaster to my creations.

Not to show you my immaculate kitchen, but to share with you some of my small scale production processes, I stopped last night a couple of times during my chocolatiering to capture a bit of what it's like to make chocolates on the kitchen table.

Moulds pre-prepared with a coating of 'ruby' chocolate. Palette knife at the ready and a covered pot of cherries in liquer.

Orange centres ready for dipping - at the other side of the table. Two different chocolates from the same 'batch' of tempered dark chocolate.

No one said it wasn't messy. Moulds part-filled, ready for the centre to be added. 

Jackson Pollock eat your heart out! Edible art.

Dipped orange Belgian truffles. Turned out nice.
The two really big ones, second row in on the right ended up as 'testers'

Cherry marbles as Romy named them.

Close up of the effect of the 'ruby' coating. I love this stuff! It is a white chocolate with edible colouring which gives a slightly metallic effect. With the dark chocolate behind it, this makes an overall dark plummy, purply colour which I find stunning. Each one is different and I am always so excited to turn them out and choose my favourite.

Milk chocolate truffles with a Christmassy flavour - orange, spices, cherries, ginger and a splash of cognac.

And here they are with their little cap of saucy topping. Takes an age to do but I think they're rather sweet.

Glamour shot of my chocolate orange truffles.
Posers!

Now. What shall I make today? Coffee truffles are calling....

The things we do...

I came home from teaching yesterday and shared this anecdote with my friends on Facebook. I enjoy telling anecdotes and have a great store of them, many of which see the light of day more than once a year. Sometimes I forget to count how many times a particular anecdote has been taken out and aired in any one year.

I am very fond of my Level 9 class - they are in their final year at the academy and they are quite a chatty group, enjoying whole class discussions on impromptu subjects. Yesterday, we were 'planning a day trip' - I offered to pay - and we were having great fun deciding on which film we'd see in Granada before going for a meal. The only problem was transport. There were 9 of us and I was the only one old enough to drive, but we didn't have a car big enough. This brought us to the bus situation here in Alcala. In August, the buses to and from Granada were reduced in frequency and the latest bus from Granada to Alcala in the evening now leaves at the outrageously early hour of 6pm! FR has been doing a spot of activity, including writing lots of letters, speaking to the press and gathering signatures on a petition, so I took the opportunity to motivate my little band to register their protests too. I suspect they may choose to ask their parents for a lift when they need to go, but it proved an interesting topic for a while.

So the bus was no good. One enthusiast suggested we went on bikes but not everyone fancied the 35km ride. And this brought us onto other forms of transport and my experience of riding a moped. As a student, I mentioned that I lived in Staines which was some distance away from my college in Hampstead. I travelled on my trusty steed, Mortimer - a Yamaha moped, blue in colour and really rather sweet. Top speed was just under 30 miles an hour on the flat. Uphill was a little slower. I used to ride along the A4, which went past Heathrow airport and then joined the North Circular - a busy road even all those years ago! For years, in wind, rain, snow and fog, I pootled safely around the roads of London on Mortimer, although I remember arriving home once on a particularly freezing day, and not being able to straighten up or move my hands, so cold I was. Brrrr...

Our conversation had led me onto Mortimer (though I didn't name him to my class) and our accident. It was a bright, sunny day in April and I was riding along the quiet back streets of Mitcham, where I lived, on the way to Wimbledon, where I worked. Suddenly, a blue Metro pulled out in front of me, leaving me no time to swerve or brake hard enough to avoid a collision. I remember hitting the bonnet of the car and sailing through the air. I landed some distance away on the other side of the road, on my backside, looking up at the front grill of a black taxi cab. There wasn't a scratch on me and the taxi-driver, bless him, came running up to me and the first thing he said was 'Wow, that was fantastic; are you a stunt woman? Have you done that before?'  He was a charming man and stayed with me until the ambulance came.

I was wearing a skirt and boots and hadn't even laddered my tights, but I had a sinking feeling when I remembered that I had my 'spare' knickers on - the ones you really don't want to be wearing if you have an accident. They had a big hole in them and came up to the waist and were an unappealing shade of beige (pronounced on this occasion as 'beidge' please, to get the full effect.) And I started to giggle. And then I caught sight of Mortimer, who at first glance looked fine - but the second glance showed him to be at least a foot shorter from front to back! Poor Mortimer. He never recovered. I giggled more and the people around me told me it was shock.

I had fractured my knee cap on the handlebars on my way 'up' but executed a perfect landing on my way down - apparently turning a full somersault as I flew through the air. Hence the taxi driver's comment. I remember being surprised that it didn't hurt when I hit the car and I had time to say to myself, 'Well, you're not going to die but it will probably hurt when you land'. But I don't actually remember landing. I guess the brain doesn't record everything though for weeks afterwards, I had a full, slow-motion flashback of the accident - from lots of different angles, including watching it happening to me from a viewpoint somewhere above the action. Very strange.

Now, there is no way I would subject my English class to all this detail, but as we talked about the sensation of being on a bike as a lorry whizzes past you, I mentioned my travels in London on a moped. As I began to say I'd had an accident and damaged my knee, a voice piped up - in perfectly inflected English - 'Yeh, yeh, you've told us that one'.  I was momentarily mortified to think I'd already told them but decided instead to be pleased at the excellent intonation and pronunciation. I think this little summary version will become an anecdote in its own right...forgive me if you've heard it before!

Sharing this story on Facebook - in a much simplified version, of course - a friend asked if I had told them about the Cadbury's Creme Egg car. I suspect I haven't.

I'm not sure how, but a friend had an arrangement to drive one of only 5 Cadbury Creme Egg Cars in the weeks around Easter. These are real cars made in the shape of a creme egg - completely bizarre. This particular year, I was a bit down, having split up with my boyfriend of 20 years (he of half a house in France fame). It caused quite a stir when this friend came to my place of work and parked out at the back, where staff on all eight floors of the building could be seen hanging out of the windows - though as it was only 1995, there were no camera phones to capture the scene! He thought it would cheer me up to have a drive out in the car with him on Easter Sunday and suggested we go to Scarborough.

This probably would have attracted enough attention as it was but my sister had the brilliant idea of lending me one of her fantastic handmade fancy dress costumes. If you've made a gorgeous chicken outfit, you want it to be worn more than the once, I guess.

I went wearing a yellow hat which incorporated a large, red, padded beak; a shiny yellow tunic with yellow felt feathers; bright red tights and red shoes with huge padded, three-toed feet attached. I advise against doing anything like this unless you feel very cheerful and happy and don't have the weight of having called the emergency services to deal with your unstable ex the night before...and take a spare pair of shoes, especially if you sister has bigger feet than you. I don't advise you wear this sort of a costume or travel in this sort of a car if you are troubled or weeping - it's not what excited little children expect as they drive past, waving.

It was a bitter-sweet experience all in all and one I think I shall not share with my students. But even I regret the lack of photos for this particular journey!

I forgot to tell you that in Bridlington, where we stopped at a stately home (with the awful name of Sewerby Hall,) there was an exhibition of birds of prey. The attendant there very seriously came over to me and suggested I keep out of sight.
Birds of Prey.
Chicken costume....

Here, the Stig drives a Creme Egg car around a car park. Honestly, we went all the way to Scarborough and back in it!

Taylor Made Chocolates - nearly

Well, I have ordered chocolate. Not my usual big order but big enough. Within the next week or so, I should have just over 12kg Belgian chocolate in milk, dark and white to start making some of my favourite things.

I am getting extraordinarily excited about it.









I shall make some of these using crystallised oranges bought from Rute - a small town in Cordoba famous for  its foodstuffs, and in particular, its use of 'anis' (aniseed). It also makes the liqueur called 'Orujo' and one of the biscuit companies based there is home to the famous Christmas Nativity scene, or 'Belen' that we visited last year. I am thinking of making some orujo truffles - these will not be for the faint-hearted...

I shall also be making some of these: Christmas truffles, caramel snails and lemon and ginger truffles...

 And hope to end up with some of these: more snails (I like my snails), strawberry cream truffles in white and rich rum truffles in dark chocolate.

Rocky Road is a simple recipe using melted chocolate, crushed biscuits, marshmallows, pistachios, cherries, sultanas...and anything else you fancy throwing in. Sprinkle with icing sugar - and try not to eat it all at once!

Or try something really simple like deliciously creamy Belgian milk chocolate studded with hazelnuts.

And for Christmas, I can't resist making these Christmas trees - as lollies or as tree decorations.

And maybe I'll make a few more of these taste-blasters. Chilli and coconut. Not to everyone's taste, I agree, but if they do fancy one, you'll be back for more. They are quite addictive!

Hurry up, delivery van...let me get my hands on all that lovely chocolate!!