Today I've mostly bin...

[gill216]

Don't get me started on chef endorsed products. I'm going to name and shame. I have an Anthony Worrall Thompson food processor. All singing and dancing with every attachment you can think of. I've had it for about 3 years- little used because I then had the cooker saga. New cooker, new kitchen,get the food processor out again. On its first outing the small piece of plastic that locks the lid (and it wont go without the lid being locked)into place snapped off the lid. Replacement parts aren't available- obviously because there is a newer AWT model now on sale. I've poked a wooden peg into the relevant slot to hold down the locking part. So far so good. I'm told Kenwood are the best????

[giraffe]

I have a Kenwood food processor. Admittedly it doesn't get used very often, (usually only for making cheesecake bases) but my grandfather bought it for my mother, and he died in 1988, so it must be nearly 30 years old. I have a little hand blender thing that gets used every time I make soup, and I think that's Kenwood too. I've had it since K was a baby, so it's not very young either.

[Bunnylump]

I have the most ridiculously huge Magimix food processor. It is absolutely brilliant, but it is so massive it takes up about half the kitchen.

... Today I've mostly bin...

Chopping down loads of lower branches on next door's humungous leylandii, then realising I had nowhere to put all the branches. Namely because the eucalyptus is still there, waiting to be burned from last year. So...another amazing bonfire. This time I was more prepared and didn't set light to the shed or the compost bin. However, I did still set light to the tree above the bonfire, and my hair. I came in TOTALLY black. My daughter, her boyfriend and their friend Mark, who were making spider and meatball cupcakes in the kitchen, just burst out laughing when I walked in. I must admit I did look ridiculous.

[Laura]

Surely the answer would have been to put the branches in the enormous food processor, and make mulch???

[Bunnylump]

Should've thought of that!!

[LAT]

That sounds a very energetic day. All I have done is to go up to Cambridge to take my daughter out for lunch as it is her birthday today.
I might have done so gardening when we got back but it was raining quite hard so I didn't bother.

[thomas_017]

Sounds nice L. Take her anywhere nice?

[LAT]

We went to Cafe Rouge and it was very good thanks!

[thomas_017]

Haven't been there yet. Is it good?

[giraffe]

Was it a Cafe Rouge we ate at in MK?

[LAT]

It could well have been where we went in MK.

We like it Thomas as all four of us can get something we like. And we had a voucher for 2 for 1 on main courses which helped too

[Bunnylump]

You can eat there using Tesco tokens. We've done it quite a lot. Nice jubbly.

[giraffe]

There aren't any near here. The closest is Birmingham!

[tricia]

there's none in Glasgow
Tricia

[Wulfruna]

Dresden is a fantastically beautiful city (well, not quite Venice or Prague - but still pretty high up the list). It is incredible that it was almost 80% destroyed (by us...) in 1945 and has now been almost completely rebuilt in its original baroque style. Amazing. Yesterday we went to the famous Old Masters Art Gallery and actually got to see the original of those two ghastly little cherubs that you see all over the place. They are much more appropriate in the context of peeping in at the bottom of Raphael's gorgeous Sistine Madonna painting. It's not well known that this is to be found in Dresden and is nothing to do with the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, but is so-called simply because it was painted for a monastery of Saint Sixtus (or Sistus) and he appears on the left of the picture. There are loads of other super paintings in there, so was well worth the visit.
We also had a musical treat in the "Kreuzkirche"with a Vespers service led by the splendid (and world famous) "Kreuzchor", consisting of around 100 boys with the most beautiful voices. They were singing choral works in eight parts (Bach, Mendelssohn amongst others) and it was a glorious sound.

However, very little of the week has actuallybeen on sight-seeing, as I have been here to work for the German "Kirchentag" (gigantic church festival with 100,000 visitors!) helping out with the international visitors Centre - and am now absolutely exhausted from tramping round from location to location - very sore feet........

We are now moving on to Berlin for a few days relaxation and 'holiday' to unwind. - and have at last got a free internet connection to use

[Bunnylump]

Wow, Wulfruna - I don't know how you keep it all up!! Sounds like quite an experience, though!

[clvrlad]

there's none in Glasgow
Tricia

20 Royal Exchange Square
Glasgow
G1 2AB

[Laura]

Well, I shall be spending today on the phone to the exam board. There are 6 weeks of music exams, and they've sent me the one day that my pupil is playing the lead in the school production. And of the whole of that day, they've picked the time of the play. It's time for some serious negotiating. Not that it's likely to do much good - they're famously inflexible about these things. I HATE exam time.

[Bunnylump]

I'm wondering if that's a regional thing. My daughter managed to shift some of her pupils' piano exams without major trouble here (that was ABRSM). But I'm totally with you on hating the exam period. Yesterday I had a stupid cow of a teacher (the one I've had several run ins with) stomping into the exam room I was in, (despite the SILENCE EXAM sign on the door), complaining loudly why I was there, stropping on about how she was supposed to be teaching a year 7 group in there, why would one pupil need that room (she needed a scribe so has to say her answers out loud!!). I tried to get her out by saying "this room has been booked, and your room has been changed, there is a notice on the staff room notice board, which has been there for the past month" but she continued the tirade for a further 5 minutes. The girl totally lost the thread of a complicated sum she was doing. Apparently, if you are a member of the senior leadership team this means you don't need the ability to be able to READ. (SORRY should have been on the whinge thread!!)

[giraffe]

Well, I shall be spending today on the phone to the exam board. There are 6 weeks of music exams, and they've sent me the one day that my pupil is playing the lead in the school production. And of the whole of that day, they've picked the time of the play. It's time for some serious negotiating. Not that it's likely to do much good - they're famously inflexible about these things. I HATE exam time.

If you phone the local rep they are usually really helpful about changing the time of an exam. I once had to cahnge one of K's piano exams and phoned the rep. She was in year 6 and it was speech day, so didn't want to miss it. Once the rep had got over the " But this is the week you requested" (I didn't request it, the teacher did without consulting me) she offered me a couple of alternate times. That was ABRSM. TG and LCM tend to be even friendlier from my experience. The ABRSM does seem to employ dragons, (particularly as stewards) but if you are firm but polite it is usually possible to tame them.