The things they do.......

The girls are enjoying some Wagon Wheels biscuits that I bought from Approved Food - and it has brought up an interesting thought. The EFG was reading the description on the pack, and it said that they are filled with, "raspberry flavoured plum jam". What do you make of that? We had a conversation about the concept of raspberry-flavoured plums being made into jam, or plum jam having raspberry flavouring added to it.......what is the food industry coming to? Why not just use plum jam? But what kind of plums would you use? To those of us who know, there is a wealth of difference between, say, Victoria plum jam, River plum jam and Monarch plum jam - and then there is Greengage - my favourite. It does no justice to the plums to call it "plum" jam - but then perhaps it is a mixture.....

There are downsides to buying food from AF - more processed food. BUT I am trying to balance it out by using the food in meals with "real" food so using the pasta packets as a side dish with pork chops and vegetables, for example, rather than as a meal on their own. AF is a marvel for loo roll - I have a serious stash now, and we should be set for the foreseeable future in that department!!

The chickens are on the move - 6 pens totalling 19 chooks - have been entered for the purebreed sale at Mildenhall on the 27th March. They are all rare - Gold Partridge Orps and Brown Sussex. That will reduce the amount here and we can then get started on this year's plans, which are more modest!

The weather in the Fens has been dire just lately and I am ready for spring - sunshine and showers would be a vast improvement on rain, rain and more rain.......it is getting depressing. I have to be very careful about depression at this time of year, as my mum died in February 1998, and then Mother's Day is in March, followed in quick succession by her birthday in April so I have three months of memories.......it has been a very dark time for me in years past but I am getting better at remembering the good times and thinking less about how much I miss her. There is an excellent passage in a Katie Fforde book which I would share with you if I knew where the right book was, but it goes along the lines of bereavement being like a darn in a sock: there is a gaping hole in your life at first, but then the years go by and you learn to begin to cope and you begin to fill the hole with the strands of life. Eventually, the hole is closed with all the strands but it is never as new again as there is a large darn in the sock which reminds you of the loved person all the time, but it is no longer a stonking great big hole the way it was at the beginning. My darn is no longer raw, but it is always going to be there in my sock.

I felt disrespected at the school last week - I had an email in which I felt I had been summoned to see the Head like a naughty school child, and I don't appreciate that. It has left me wondering why I bother........and then I had an email from a fellow Chair of Governors elsewhere in support of all that we do, and she reminded me that as we are both Christians, we do this in Jesus' strength, so I am going to carry on, because I strongly feel that things need to change, and I am a bit like the chap on Mastermind, "I've started, so I'll finish!" I feel that I would be letting some other people down if I don't carry through what I have started, but I would be grateful for those of you who pray to include me in your prayers on this for the rest of the school year.......5 months down and 5 more to go to July!

Half-term is upon us and the girls are enjoying some freedom from normal routine; on Monday, they had a very leisurely day! Yesterday, they painted the EFG's room and rearranged it, today they spent the morning on the YFG's room and now the FH has taken them across to Peterborough to do some visiting. We have the YFG at the optician tomorrow morning, and then the library to visit. We are hoping to go to the cinema to see "The King's Speech" if the Tesco Clubcard vouchers get here on time, but if not, we'll go to see something else at Easter. There is a local car boot sale on Saturday in aid of another Methodist chapel in our circuit on Saturday, so if the weather forecast is favourable, we may go to that. Sunday will be spent getting ready to get back into the swing of life again!!

Hope you are all well, and I am sorry that I haven't been around lately - I'll try to keep up more regularly now.........