157. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows…
Or, at least, I know a girl who does. 
Rebecca also shows us Stone Pines – the source of pine-nuts, for the making of the besto pesto; a strawberry tree whose fruits are allegedly so disgusting that the Italian name translates as ‘eat once’; and a herb which smells intriguingly of curry.
156. We’re going to hunt focaccia …
We’re going to hunt focaccia
Continue reading →
145. It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears…
Most people don’t feel nauseous until part way round the Small World ride at EuroDisney. InfantPhenomenon proved what an exceptionally advanced child she was by throwing up the minute we sat in the float; embarrassing but classy, in its own way. So off we went to the Poste de Premiers Secours, and she rested while I read her “The Bed and Breakfast Star”. It was rather peaceful, as I recall.
127. Lemons under the sun…
The situation was ripe 
for murder. A dozen or so disparate individuals, randomly drawn together in a foreign hotel, under the cover of being on a Walking Holiday around the Sorrento peninsular. There seemed little chance that we would all survive the week.
126. Nervous? Yes. First time? No, I’ve been nervous lots of times…
To begin at the end.
We landed at Stansted in the early hours and finally tottered through our front door at about two thirty this morning.
I’m a very poor flier, as you know, and was in a horrible panic all the way out to Naples, despite my valiant attempts to ‘man up’. Coming home was much better, partly due to the application of a large glass of red wine just before embarkation, but mostly because, by keeping my eyes fixed on a book, I managed to fool myself into believing that I was actually on a train.
119. Ssshh!
And on the subject of Family Planning, did you know that Marie Stopes disinherited her son because he married someone whom she considered to have ‘inferior traits’, namely poor eyesight? You did? I only heard the other day, whilst listening to an old In Our Time. It had passed me by completely, Marie Stopes being a eugenicist. Another hero bites the dust.
118. The Final Countdown…
I’ve got it cornered.
The In-tray
The Still-to-do List is down to one sheet of paper; the accumulated detritus of my years at Thrush Woods has been herded into a corner of the ICT room and sits tamely waiting to be sorted. I’ve found no untaught children stacked away in boxes, so it looks like I’ve got away with it again.
110. The Prologue
Don’t expect any sense from me: I barely know which way up I am.
Replacing Wordsworth’s poems last night – don’t be overly impressed, we were looking up a crossword clue – I chanced upon my copy of The Waste Land. It made no sense at A-Level – all those disjointed fragments and random voices – hurry up please, it’s time. However, light has now dawned. Clearly Eliot was also in the process of – or poetically anticipating, if you want to be fussy about the chronology – a jolly eventful retirement do. He, too, was clearly having problems putting one thought in front of another.
102. But when they seldom come, they wished for come…
“Hoorah! The start of the hols! What shall we do?”
“We could ask Aunty Fanny for a tuck box; then row to Kirrin Island and camp there for the week living on wild berries and lashings of ginger beer. Knowing our luck, there’ll probably be smugglers and we’ll get in a frightful scrape but end up having tea with the Chief Inspector!”
97 Repentance…
Whan that Aprill with his showers sweet
Is watering the sod aronde my feet,
And weedes do sprout and gentile seedlings harden
Thanne longen I to go and dig the garden
And pick the hyacinths and prune the pentas
And wander lustilly round garden centas.
And this is why my blogging’s gone to pot
And furthermore hath schoolwork been forgot.
But now, alack, I reape what I have sown
And over empty planning folders groane
The thought of class tomorrow mack me shiver
With so few arrowes ready in my quiver.
“It serves you rite,” my inner Ofsted’s chanting,
“For Easter spente in planning not, but planting.”
The Jelly Chronicles 