The Rain Forest Canapé

It was a real treat to have Margaret, Simon and Fiona up for the weekend - at least, it was for me! And not only because I was able to reclaim the living room for a short while, Click retiring to her room for the most part, her continuous diet of soaps and reality TV interrupted at least for a couple of days. We didn't have a lot of time, just one full day, but made the most of it by spending most of Saturday at the zoo. We also had a couple of excellent meals out. Friday night's curry was a 20 minutes walk away down Lothian Road, at a place called Oman's (which doesn't seem to feature on Google at all). Superb "home cooked" curry, and a take-your-own wine and beer policy which made it a cheap night out. Saturday was Caio Roma, on South Bridge. Again, superb food and a great atmosphere.

Photo above: a brightly coloured parrotty thing hides its head
in shame, unable to compete with Fiona's style

Photo left: mini sushi; smoked salmon with mango salsa; and duck spring roll canapés

Buzzing from last week's Thai and sushi, we looked forward to having Pip back in to demonstrate canapés in his inimitable manner. More superb presentation and technical skills were required, and I genuinely felt like we were creating food which would impress anyone, and which I could turn my hand to on a professonal basis. Although I'm not at all impressed by Pip's teaching techniques (and many other attributes for that matter), he is undoubtedly a talented and creative chef. We also got the chance to repeat some of the things we'd done the week before, sushi for example, which is important in cementing what we are learning, and something we've not had much chance to do so far, although I am trying to repeat things I've not cooked before when I get the chance, like cakes and bread, with pastry next on the list.

Photo right: due to BBC cutbacks, daleks in the next series of Doctor Who will be made from smoked salmon and cream cheese blinis topped with quail egg; also featured are venison and roasted red pepper tartlets with red cabbage jam, as used in an RTA scene in Casualty; and cheese puffs with red onion marmalade which featured as asteroids in the ever last episode of Blake's Seven

You will also be delighted to learn that I have now passed my hollandaise and poached egg badge with flying(-ish) colours, having failed it miserably on that disasterous Friday a couple of weeks ago. Lizzie was underwhelmed by my attempt after tasting it: "It's just that... yes, no, it's fine". she sighed. I take that as a big tick. The problem each time has not been the colour, texture, thickness or any other feature of the sauce other than the amount of salt and pepper added. I must admit, why I get a thumbs up or down on that count remains a complete mystery to me. Lizzie is so sick of tasting poached eggs and hollandaise she audibly groans every time one is presented to her. Well, she should just have passed us all first time round.

I did actually eat the thing. Not only that but I then helped Click repeat the same exercise, and I ate that one as well. We get through so many eggs I have a stigmatic lion quality stamp starting to appear on my buttock.

So... talking of lions I segue seamlessly back to the zoo. The new chimp house is just amazing, providing the visitor with a fantastic view of the goings on of the family, as well as a superb and varied home for the chimps. We also enjoyed the penguins, one of whom (Nils Olaf) I subsequently learned is Colonel-in-Chief of the Norwegian army and has recently been knighted by the King of Norway. However, I still shudder when I think of the catering arrangements - I won't go into detail, but my family will I'm sure provide you with a detailed account of my rantings should you be interested. Put it this way, there wasn't much evidence of any canapés.

The Mysterious Mrs. Stirrup

There is a ghostly presence in the house. It appears every two weeks or so, out of the Edinburgh mist, usually early in the morning, afore the haggis (and for that matter kilts) are rising. The lock will rattle slightly, then the door handle give a slight squeak. Faint footsteps trail down the hallway...

Afterwards, strange things will have happened: perhaps a pile of washing moved, or the kitchen floor strangely clean; cushions plumped; and tea towels disappeared.

Tea towels disappeared, yes indeed. I questioned Jill (my landlord Neil's wife) about this the other day, as our accessible supply of tea-towels has reduced consistently over the weeks I've been here, down to 1 at the last count. Jill looked around in a slightly nervous way. "Ah yes, that would be Mrs. Stirrup. She has a thing about people stealing tea towels, so she takes them all upstairs."

The other thing about Mrs. Stirrup is I can never quite make out what she is called. Both Jill and Neil speak of her in such reverential tones that their voices are barely audible as they utter her name. It may be Mrs. Stirrup, possibly Mrs. Stirrit, or Mrs. Syrup. She has been "the Auld Retainer" for so long that I'm fairly sure that once she does retire, washing and cushions will continue to move themselves of their own accord on a fortnightly basis for some time to come. Apparently this mistrust of students (that is, anyone under 55) extends to any household item belonging to Jill or Neil, so anything left out is in danger of being forcibly repatriated to the upstairs of the house.

I have made contact with the mysterious lady, using a washboard in place of the ouija. Her weight is marginally above what it would be were she really a ghost. She is around 4' 3", plus the obligatory fluffy white hair, and a clipped Scottish accent which is quite difficult (for me) to decipher. Fortunately we haven't got much past the state of the weather as yet. I'm hoping to discuss the finer points of Airdrie's away form in a week or two.

Meanwhile, Jill brought me down a fresh pile of tea towels, which I have hidden.

What Rhymes with Sushi?

If you look on t'internet when preparing to create a witty headline for a blog entry on sushi, you will find little inspiration. Jim Belushi seems to be the obvious answer to the above question, indeed the only answer according to wiki.answers.com.

Shame really, because today's dishes really were something special and I wanted a suitably stunning/cringe-worthy headline. Virtually no cooking as such, all in the careful preparation, precision, and presentation (presentation, presentation, presentation), but great results.

Photo above: preparing the nori (seaweed), salmon and vegetable strips on the sushi mat

Photo left: the rolled sushi, before cutting into pieces

Our newly discovered and practiced knife skills were to the fore. Apparently, in the real world, a trainee sushi chef has to serve two years before s/he is even allowed is even allowed to chop anything, and it takes 7 years to achieve Master Sushi Chef status. Difficult to believe, but we did manage to turn out something decent in a couple of hours, as you can see.

My partner of Monday, Kate, didn't make it yesterday due to "exhaustion". I'd like to think this had nothing to do with me, other than perhaps being in my magnetic presence for too long. Today we swapped round again, and I was paired with James.

James is a ski and snowboard instructor, English but living in Glasgow, with his wife and small child, specialising in working with the disabled. He certainly has the skills and manner to suggest he is very good at what he does. He's doing the course to add to his skills, and enable him to widen his options. Every day, when we sit down for lunch he says "This is the best meal we've cooked so far". A man who appreciates the present moment.

Photo above: sushimi (hand-shaped sushi)

Photo: sushi and "inside out" sushi (rice on outside) with salad and ginger

Having suffered from some very poor and boring sushi in the past (not exclusively, I really like Wasabi Sabi in Sheffield), I was amazed at how good our efforts tasted. Firstly we made a big pan of sushi rice, which takes quite a bit of effort, not just boiling it up for 10 minutes - there is a quite complex sauce added to it before it's used to loosen it up and give it flavour. We used the sushi mats to help form the rolls, and carefully cut vegetables into fine strips and prepared a variety of sauces and salads to go with it. Finally, laying it all out was probably the most time-consuming job of all. Worth the effort though.

By the way folks, my friend Stuart, who is 12,000 miles away in New Zealand, was on the blower tonight arranging to come and see me up here in Edinburgh for a pint of heavy and a deep fried Mars Bar. I reckon if Stuart can make the effort... There are certain exclusions: Margaret, Simon and Fiona are due up this weekend; Dave, John, Bill and Rob also have plans related to narrow boating (yes there is a canal in Edinburgh). By the way chaps, tried out a couple more pubs last night for your delectation.

And finally folks, the connection between these two things: we also tried our hand at tempura vegetables, and Pip suggested we tried producing a tempura sushi roll - clearly the Scottish slant on traditional Japanese cuisine - they will deep fry anything up here.

Photo: tempura salmon and vegetables topped with salad and rice noodles

Thai Can Do

As you will have gathered, last week was a bit of a disappointment, from the boring fish dishes in the early part of the week, to the disasterous assessment on Friday. Even Lizzie admitted she had gone home on Friday thinking "Have the last 6 weeks been a complete waste of time?". We were all demoralised, some angry, some just shocked. Two simple sauces and a couple of poached eggs, I ask you.

Photo above: chicken and prawn thai curry, with rice noodles

But this week, so far, has been the complete opposite. On Monday we had another assessment, this time in pairs. Fours hours to plan a three course menu from whatever was in the fridge, time-plan it, then execute it. This week I am paired with Katherine, or Kate as she now is, given that we have a second Kathryn on board. Noisy Kate, that is. But she is good to work with, if a little OCD/stressy at times. We planned and cooked mushroom soup, pan-fried duck breast with redcurrant reduction on a bed of cabbage with dauphinoise potatoes, and crepes suzette (originally that was going to be citrus cheesecake, until somebody else nicked our ingredients, so a last minute change of plan was required). We sailed through, apart from my crepes, which Lizzie rather harshly referred to as "a disaster". They were exactly the same as the pancakes I've been doing for years (except I set fire to them [deliberately I might add]), but apparently they were still not browned enough. Still, that aside, it gave us all a lot of confidence back.

Photo: chicken and duck spring rolls (absolutely delicious)

Today Pip was back in, and we did Thai cooking. Fantastic! We made red curry paste from scratch, and used it to make three different dishes, which not only tasted great, but presented themselves brilliantly as well. The abundance of flavours was just great, and everyone was allowed to experiment a little bit, and put their own twist to their dishes, which was a welcome change. Unfortunately the photos, taken with my iPhone, are not brilliant, but hopefully give you an idea of what we produced.

Pip is clearly a very good cook/chef (have none of you got a definition sorted yet?), but a poor teacher. His idea of getting an idea over is to repeat it at least 55 times. His favourite phrase is "Listen carefully, this is really important". An Aussie version of Allo Allo's "Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once." Except just the opposite. So taste, taste, taste, taste..., presentation, presentation, presentation, presentation... Then there is such advice as "Just copy exactly what I'm doing"; "Experiment, now is the time to get it wrong"; "Don't try to do your own thing, you're not experienced enough for that!"; "What the f&uck it that supposed to be?"; "You guys have done really well". Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Good moaning.

The First Disaster!

Last week was a bit of a disappointment all round, topped off nicely by a complete disaster on Friday afternoon.

As I said, I wasn't too impressed by the fish dishes we prepared, and have only just got the taste of the "poaching broth" out of my mouth. But worse was to come last week. On Friday morning we were treated to a couple of hours with a nutritionist, drafted in primarily to address the "breast cancer ladies", a party of around 10 women who were spending the morning cooking healthy stuff in the kitchen, so basically they wanted us out of the way, and therefore handed us to the nutritionist first. The first section she talked about was on the basic biology of the digestive system. As soon as she mentioned the word "saliva" I started drooling (this is not to be confused with the type of drooling I was doing in the Amazonian Alana's presence). Once she started to describe the initial digestive processes in the gut mine came out in sympathy, producing all sorts of interesting sounds as it kicked into gear, convinced a substantial amount of food was about to come its way. Unfortunately none did, so by the time we broke for lunch I was absolutely starving, but at the same time quite relaxed from staring at Powerpoints for a good couple of hours. We sat around waiting for the "ladies" to finish, and swap places with us. Then a rumour started going around: we were to have a surprise assessment at 1 o'clock. No other information could be gleaned, but at 1 we were ushered upstairs and given an hour to prepare what has to be described as some fairly basic stuff. Unfortunately, everyone's brain had turned to mush by this point, so we all ran around like headless chickens for an hour, failing to deliver what had been asked.

Lizzie advised us that we were all "terrible", and that "If you can't produce two simple sauces and a couple of poached eggs in an hour you want shooting". I think that's fair. All except one failed the assessment, and I don't know who that was. We have to repeat the exercise next Friday. Next time I will pass easily, I know, but it was certainly a lesson in keeping focussed, and revising and practising the basics. I sloped off back to Sheffield for the weekend, where I managed to boil an egg for Sunday breakfast to restore a smidgeon of personal pride.

Fish Week

This week we have been treated to a Top Chef, who was flown in especially to teach us all about fish. The Guy's name is Pip, he's Australian, and he's a private chef who has cooked for (he says) the Queen (or possibly just "Queen"), Princess Anne, everybody who's anybody in the House of Lords, Hugh Grant, and so on. I'm quite sure about this because he gave us this information several times, just to make sure. Name dropping of the highest order.

It was, I have to say, very different from what we had been used to. His techniques and ideas were much more innovative, not the traditional recipes we've used over the last few weeks. His approach was very different, for example his attitude to hygiene was non-existent (one chopping board fits all, dipping licking fingers in everything), and he was extremely disparaging about our chopping skills, insisting that we did 10 minutes chopping exercises every day, until the end of the course. He's probably right about that - the practice I've put in has paid dividends already. The carrot and leek population of Scotland has been substantially reduced over the last couple of days. The EU brunoise (tiny little chopped cubes of vegetable-y stuff) mountain is now the size of Belgium.

The subject of the week was fish. We learned how to fillet mackerel, trout and plaice, and then cook the resulting fillets in various ways. The most important thing, I discovered, was to have the filleting knife as sharp as possible. So my sharpening skills have improved as well!

The emphasis on presentation was also very revealing, especially on how to charge £13.95 for a dish that you might normally get for £4.95, and where the ingredients only cost £1.50. Its all about putting less of it on an enormous plate, we discovered.

Photo: the grounds at Newliston (the school) on a bright February morning

But, as far as the quality of the food that was produced at the end of all this, it was very very disappointing. None of the 5 or 6 dishes we cooked were tasty, one or two barely edible. No doubt Pip would argue this was because we were not following his advice of taste, taste, taste, but if you're starting off with 2 carrots and half a leek, there's only so much you can do to create an enticing "broth" to go with your rolled plaice stuffed with smoked trout moussillon (which sounds great, and probably would be if we had steamed it instead of submerging it in dishwater). Even that old reliable, the fish pie, was tasteless, mainly due to using a veloute (stock based) rather than a milk based white sauce.

So here is a trusty and cheap alternative I started making when I was about 22 (yes, a long, long time ago).

MACKEREL PIE (serves 2-3)

1 large filletted mackerel (skinned)
sliced potatoes (or can use mash)
sliced mushrooms
1 glass white wine oyster sauce
1 tin chopped plum tomatoes
1 thinly sliced fennel head (optional)
1/2 chopped onion
grated cheese
salt
butter
sunflower or olive oil
breadcrumbs, grated cheese

1. Fry the onions and fennel (if using) in oil or butter. Add tomatoes and wine and simmer for 10-15 minutes.
2. Sprinkle salt on potato slices and steam for 10 minutes until just tender
3. Cut fish into good-size chunks, roll in flour, fry gently in oil for 3-4 minutes
4. Place fish in oven dish. Cover with sliced mushrooms. Add 2 teaspoons (or more, its what gives it the rich flavour) oyster sauce to tomato sauce mix then pour over fish. Top with potatoes, spotted with butter.
5. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and cheese
6. Cook uncovered for 45 minutes, gas 5.

Serve with sliced green beans, and a lightish red wine.

Revelations I and II

Today we are let loose on the general public for the first time. The school has organised an Italian food and wine evening for 24 paying customers, with a guest wine speaker, and they have decided that 6 of us are to be allowed to cook and serve the guests. Another way of looking at it is they are using unpaid labour to rake in a massive profit, but that's just the cynical view.

So we are cooking a 5 course meal: canapés; ravioli (one per person, hand-made) with roast squash and hazelnut filling (shown left); braised lamb shank on a bed of beans with pressed belly pork, ratatiouille and broccoli; a plate of desserts and a cheese board (I think the cheese board is served before the desserts). The thing I'm wondering is:- when do we get to eat? We start work at 1 and finish around 11, with no apparent breaks.

Hervé is in charge, with Chris backing up on the fancy bits. According to Hervé, we are serving lomshonk wiff porbellee. He described to us the difference between cooking for a small party, and catering for a large restaurant, where he had once seen 58 pans of risotto on the go at once.
"If zerr is not spess to cook for two 'undred then - excuse ma French - you are fucked!"

On Wednesday we started the wine and spirit element of the course. We will (if we pass the exam) get a basic level qualification in wines and spirits, enought to be able to advise customers in a basic way which wines will go with their choice of food ("I'd go for the Black Tower missen love"). Gill, our admin person, is taking the course, which unfortunately so far doesn't provide us with even a whiff of wine, although we did get to peel and eat a grape. The revelation of the title though, was that we all had to fill in a form which included a column for age (presumably so that they are sure we all all over 18 when we start quaffing the stuff). I happened to notice that Janice, my partner this week, is actually older than me. That's right - even older than me! That's made me feel a whole lot better. Of course it would be rude of me to state her age, but I had her marked as at least 10 years younger than she actually is.

Janice lives in Glasgow, and has a son of 20, and twins of 15, all boys. I'm surprised she doesn't look 70. She is clearly from the posh end of Glasgow, both from her accent, and the range of large cars in which she appears, usually slightly late due to traffic, snow, school runs, etc. She is slightly obsessed with making scones, which she does any time there is a 10 minute gap in proceedings. However, the more often she does something, the worse they get. Her merigues started off quite well, but the latest batch hardly got off the ground. She is one of the quiet and reserved ones. Not sure what she is hoping to do once she's completed the course, I think she just enjoys cooking and wants to know more about it.

So, I rolled up at 1245 ready to go, slightly apprehensive. We were divided into sections, with James (working on his chocolate ravioli in the photo) and I on desserts, Graham and Alex on starters, and Big Graham (the butcher) on mains. The final member of our brigade, Katherine (now known as Kate, as another Kathryn {Irish} has just joined us) was front of house, organising (I use the term loosely) the two Polish waitresses, Anneta and Agnes.

We immediately got shown what we had to do, and got stuck in. My first task was making the tuille baskets. These are made out of an ice-cream wafer-like substance. The trick is to create rounds on a baking sheet, bake them, then as soon as they come out of the oven drape them over a small pot while they are still hot, and press another pot on top of them, pressing them into a bowl shape with a fluted edge. You can see what they look like from the photo on the left. At this point, I had little or no idea why I was actually doing this, and what the final dessert was going to look like.

The only crisis point was when Click started getting in my way by fussing about setting up additional baking sheets on my worktop. Several times I asked her to stop, and said I was fine, didn't want any more, etc, etc, but she just kept on getting in the way. Eventually she gave up and started packing her knives away. Unfortunately, she chose to do this right where I was whizzing around between my two ovens, keeping an eye on my tuille rounds. Several times ( is this getting repetitive?) I asked her to move out of the way. She then threw the cover of her knife set open, knocking over a bottle of oil, which duly fell right into the middle of the tray of tuille baskets I'd lovingly sculpted. In case you're wondering, tuille baskets are very brittle, and I can tell you they create a very impressive cracking and smashing effect which extends for several yards around when attacked by a bottle of cooking oil. As you can imagine, I briefly had visions of attempting the same effect with Click's head. I forced myself to walk away, which engendered a certain amount of respect from those who had witnessed the event. She's only a kid, I muttered to myself repeatedly under my breath.

My next task was to make sugar baskets. This the sort of fancy work you see the likes of Gordon Ramsey doing on the Jonathan Ross show just to show off. And it is great fun! Melt a panful of sugar, get yourself a ladle, grease it, then trickle the sugar thinly over it to create a basket. Again, you may admire the photo. Again, I had little idea at that point why I was doing it.

We all helped each other out as the hours quickly passed. Before we knew it the guests had arrived, and we were ready to serve starters. This is where the stressy bit briefly kicked in, as Hervé chivvied along the starter boys, and the waitresses, to get things onto the table.

Once the mains went out, it was about 8.15, and we had a few minutes to sit down and eat something ourselves. Seven hours without a break, but it didn't feel like it, and I loved every minute. Then it was our turn: the various ingredients for the desserts were taken down stairs, so we could put everything together at the last second, as the alcohol soaked sponges for the tiramisu-in-a-basket had only a couple of minutes before it destroyed my wonderful tuille baskets. The assembled result you can see in the photo - all ready to go out.

Very embarrassingly, during desserts, we were trooped into the dining room to sing happy birthday to one of the guests, for whom a special little pudding (with a candle) had been prepared. Embarrassing not only because we got a round of applause when Hervé introduced us, but also because at the crucial moment we realised none of us knew the name of the guest. "Happy birthday dear hmmm hmmm..."

Still, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and more importantly from our point of view, the food. Comments in the visitor's book were very positive. We all felt great, a real sense of achievement, and , from my point of view, we worked really well as a team. I'm almost coming round to the view that Shootin' Graham is not that bad a chappie after all (I'm sorry to disappoint you on that score). We finally got washed and tided up around 1000, and allowed ourselves a small glass of wine each before heading off home. Guess what folks - I'm a cook!

Unpleasant Pheasant Pluckers

It felt just great! No, not the pheasant plucking, which I'll come on to, but preparing lunch for paying guests (I exaggerate slightly) for the first time today. There was a small contingent of flower arrangers in the building, consisting of a teacher and two students. Nothing to do with us, although the teacher is going to be spending a day or two with us arranging flowers at some point in the future (yes, really). She comes from the SS school of flower arranging: my first encounter with her was first thing this morning when I went into the outhouse where we get changed, and she was in there, exercising her pruners. She showed no signs of leaving so I said "I'm sorry, I realise we've only just met, but I'm going to get changed now". "Once you've seen one, you've seen them all," she replied in a clipped and sturdy voice, admiring her sparking blades. Once I was down to half-mast (we are talking trousers here, although you are free to let your imagination run riot at this point), she suddenly whipped the door open, letting in a flurry of snow and an icy wind around the Trossachs, and spun to face me. "You there," she said. I stood to attention (once again, Carry On lovers may emit a gentle fnarr). "You are in charge of keeping the door shut in my absence." She swept out into the snow, leaving me mouthing "Who the hell was that?".

So later this morning, we were discussing game. Not the non-league variety, but the various birds and animals that some people see fit to fill full of lead shot and eat. Graham had brought in a big bag of pheasants, woodcock and partridge his shootin' party had bagged over the weekend, and we also had rabbit, hare, venison and various other game to hand pre-prepared. Lizzie then asked Janice (my partner for the week) and I if we would like to cook lunch for the flower arrangers. Imagining Irma Bunt (from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, for I'm sure it was she) ate her meat raw, I said yes. In the end we prepared and served pan-fried breast of partridge, marinated in orange and honey, served on a bed of shredded savoy cabbage, with dauphinoise potatoes. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a photo, but it looked damn good I have to say. Irma congratulated me on the food. "Be honest," I said, tempting fate. "There have been plenty of times I've sent it back upstairs," she replied. I bet there have, with the waiter's head on the plate.

We had an interesting lunch tasting every type of game you can imagine, then came the unpleasant plucking episode. I'm afraid I felt a bit queasy at this point, and ducked out (geddit!). I watched the others pluck, gut, skin, and joint the various beasties, and by the end the floor looked like the aftermath of a pillow fight at St. Trinians. Most of the students, of course, had been doing this sort of thing since they were in short pants, on Daddy's estate. I think it might take a while before I come round to it. For now I'll just bask in the glory of having actually served a decent lunch to three people who actually enjoyed it.

January Report

So, already its the end of my first month in Edinburgh. Time to reflect a little. What did I hope to achieve and how are things progressing? Bearing in mind its only 1 month, and a pretty disrupted one at that (with things I'm not going to talk about in this blog, but most of you will know what I mean).

Family: well, you seem to be surviving without me back in Sheffield. Surviving rather too comfortably, I think. Its strange being away from home, and contrary to popular belief, I do miss you all. I do also appreciate the extra burden you are under now I'm not there to empty the dehumidifier (I'm sure I had other uses as well...) It was difficult to predict how things would go, but so far, I think its going OK. As for wider family, on the Boddy/Crellin side there are various plans to come up and check I'm managing, and can still down a pint, and the Armstrongs are handily en route to Sheffield, and will be receiving flying visits on a regular basis - keep that kettle boiling! Pete, Lisa, Kate and Rachel win the prize for making it to Edinburgh first, even though they almost didn't call me!

Friends: I've really appreciated the messages of support, and all those of you who have kept in regular touch. I've missed the day to day contact with workmates, lunches and chats, and Tuesday nights with the boys. Those of you who promised to come up - get your fingers out! I know I don't need to sell it to you, but Edinburgh is truly a wonderful city. On the other hand, I've got a few phone numbers of friends of friends up here, and hopefully will get enough social life together to keep me busy. As for fellow students, to be honest, although they are generally friendly, they seem to be split into the noisy ultra-extroverts and the church mouse variety, neither of which clique really appeals to me. Stepan is the exception so far - great bloke.

Health and Fitness: This was a biggie for me. I needed to do something more active because my body was telling me that sitting in front of a computer all day wasn't good for me. For the first week or two, due to the amount of driving I was doing, things didn't change much, and in fact my spine seemed to be turning itself inside out trying to adjust to new bed, activities, routine, furniture, car, etc, etc. However, that's all settled down now, and I feel 100% better physically. Running 2-3 times a week, and joining the gym just up the road have helped too. Stress wise, for the first three weeks things were much the same, but over the last week that too has settled, and hopefully I'll be able to come off the beta blockers over the next month or so. That will be a big milestone for me.

Passion and Creativity: another biggie. I really want to spend my time doing something that gives me both of these. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm getting this from the course, and I wouldn't expect to yet, because we are going over the basics, and I'm just learning techniques. Once I've got those firmly embedded I'm hoping I'll be able to use them to let myself go a little (in a good way, not as in develop a massive beer gut). Its almost like taking 1 step back to take 2 forward. On the other hand, after many years of "block", I suddenly find I can write again, effortlessly. If you have read the blog this far, then presumably you agree with me. This "unblocking" happened pretty much instantly, and you can't imagine what a relief it is just to be able to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) again. Once I've got enough time, I'll get straight back into "Harry" (the novel) and get it sorted. And published. So there. I've also got right back into playing the guitar as well. Fingers hardening up nicely, except where I've sliced them with my nice new knife set. Still, it stops them slipping off the strings.

The biggest plus so far? There are two: actually making it up here, and finding out there are other people who have felt the same way and done the same thing; and the support I've had from people, especially those who've said it is inspiring them to go out and do what they really want to do. And the biggest minuses? Being away from home, family and friends, and having to learn how a washing machine works.

Home sweet home. The garden and back view of 43, Blackford Road. Our pad is the basement floor, with french windows opening on to the garden - once the Arctic blasts give way I might be able to open them.