Stressed Mum

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Well, Manchester City finally got their first ever Champion’s League campaign going last night with a home game against Napoli. The stadium was buzzing with anticipation, many fans had brought their flags and inflatable bananas and the stadium itself was looking good.
Both teams were making their Champion’s League debut and City got off to a great start. They enjoyed most of the possession and many shots but the Napoli defence looked strong and they looked dangerous on the break and that is where there their eventual goal came from. City fought back and well deserved the point gained by Kolarov’s goal. They kept battling but the elusive second goal was not to be.
I am sure lessons will be learnt and Mancini is confident we will win in Munich. The match was a great one to watch, fast paced and entertaining. The start of what will hopefully be a long and successful spell of European football for Manchester City. Meanwhile I also hope Kolarov thinks scoring City’s first Champion’s League goal was worth the broken nose!

The summer was very long without any football although I watched as much of City’s pre-season as I could on TV and made the trip to Wembley for The Community Shield. Despite losing to Utd I had a great day out and met up with some City Tweeters at The Green Man in Wembley before the match.

The season seemed to have only just begun with a 4-0 home victory over Swansea and two away victories, 3-2 against Bolton and 5-1 against Spurs, before we got an International break. City had made a great start to the season; Dzeko scored 4 goals against Spurs, 1 against Bolton and 1 against Swansea, Aguero gave us 2 against Swansea and 1 against Spurs. Added to Silva’s against Swansea and Bolton and Gareth Barry’s at Bolton we had 12 goals in 3 games with 3 conceded.

On Saturday we had a home match against Wigan and an opportunity to take another look at our summer signings and hopefully add to our goals tally. We were not disappointed. A hat trick from Aguero gave us three Poznan opportunities and we witnessed some beautiful football, not least from the amazing David Silva who seems to be everywhere on the pitch and linked up with Tevez and Aguero for the first goal and again with Nasri and Aguero for the second before setting up Aguero for the third. Despite Tevez failing to score from the penalty spot and Micah Richards and Vinnie Kompany being frustrated by the woodwork City demolished Wigan in style and if they can keep up this beautiful football and keep some clean sheets this is going to be a season to remember, for all the right reasons.

This really is a good time to be a City supporter.

Today is the day it feels as though summer is over. Back to school for my teenage son, back to routine for me. In a few days the first day of the final year of my degree course.

It has been a busy and enjoyable summer. I spent a week in North Wales with my son and we enjoyed beautiful weather to go with the beautiful scenery.

My son and I also went to Ibiza for a few days to see my youngest daughter who was working there over the summer. It was very hot, pretty noisy and generally suited to a younger age group than mine! It was lovely though and old Ibiza Town was beautiful. The flight out was the noisiest I have ever encountered and I think plenty of alcohol was consumed! The flight back was much quieter with mainly families on the plane. Much pleasanter, and a reminder that I don’t really want to revisit my twenties!

A final trip to Dublin completed our travels this summer. A couple of days with friends celebrating a 50th birthday and then a couple of days in the centre of Dublin in a nice hotel. My husband finally got to visit The Guinness Storehouse and we checked the quality in a pub too!

It’s been a lovely summer but I’m glad to have my daughters back from working in Ibiza and Sardinia and I’m ready to get on with my course.

I have been working so hard recently both at work and on my course that reading has taken a back seat. I am now getting into my stockpile of books and thoroughly enjoying myself!

I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember and still have several dog-eared Enid Blyton’s as a reminder of my early reading habits. From there I progressed to Agatha Christie, mainly because that was what my Mum was reading at the time. As I went through secondary school I devoured the books we read in school as well as many out of school. I remember bringing Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time and Jane Eyre home to read in the summer holidays before we read it in class. I gained mediocre exam results in English and didn’t carry my study on into the sixth form. I never stopped reading though. By that stage I was ploughing my way through many classics. My favourite authors include the Bronte sisters, Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell.

I recently read Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, this book was unfinished when she died yet that doesn’t really matter when you read it, the ending is fairly clear when the book finishes anyway, even if you didn’t work it out from near the beginning! I was introduced to Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (you have to love that name!) by my Mum who bought me a copy of Cranford when I started my first job in Knutsford at the age of 18. Knutsford is the setting for both Cranford and Wives and Daughters  and Elizabeth Gaskell’s sharp observation of the class system in operation is what really makes her books stand out for me. Another of her novels, Mary Barton, set among the factories of Victorian Manchester, is among my all time favourites and I reread it often. If you havent read any of her books and are interested in novels which explore the various strata of Victorian society in an entertaining and easy to read way then give Elizabeth Gaskell a try, you won’t be disappointed.

My lovely raised beds

I recently had some help in the garden. I now have six lovely raised beds in which to grow my vegetables. So thanks to my friend Mike.

I have planted lots of different vegetables. Potatoes, onions, cabbages, calabrese, beetroot and sprouts look to provide crops for many months. Courgettes and tomatoes are growing well. I have a herb bed with mint, coriander, chives, lemon balm, basil and parsley. I’ve got fruit and salad crops such as radish, spring onions, watercress, rocket and lettuce.

I was fairly late getting my seeds going but today I was finally able to harvest some leaves, herbs and radish for lunch.

Fresh salad tastes great straight from the garden

It may not be much but it is great to be able to pick fresh salad for lunch and it’s just the start of my adventures in the vegetable garden. I can’t wait to be eating all my vegetables and lots of fruit within minutes of picking them.

My son went to France last week on an exchange trip with school and has returned a complete Francophile.

He now requires French bread for his school lunch so I thought I’d have a go at making my own. I used the French bread dough programme on my bread machine to make the dough.

500g White bread flour
1 teaspoon quick yeast
2 teaspoons salt
320ml warm water

The dough took over 3 hours to make. It would have been quicker to use the Kenwood but I wanted to just leave it as I was busy.

The dough was split into 4 portions. Each was flattened then rolled out to about 4cm x 30cm with plenty of flour.
Each piece was then rolled into a cylinder shape and the join pinched together. The loaves were left to rise covered with a damp teatowel for half an hour.

They were put into a hot oven, 200C for 15 minutes. A bowl of hot water was placed on a lower shelf to provide steam.

The result? Four delicious, crusty loaves to be proud of! They didn’t last long though!

I’m still trying to eat healthily most of the time.

Needing a quick healthy lunch I decided to make a quick butter bean dip to have with pitta bread and carrot sticks. I used a 400g tin of butter beans but if you have more time you can soak and cook your own. I added the juice of half a lemon, 2 generous tablespoons of low fat creme fraiche, a crushed clove of garlic and a heaped teaspoon of curry powder. I whizzed mine in the food processor attachment of my Kenwood Chef but it can easily be mixed by hand. Make it smooth or chunky depending on your preference. A generous handful of chopped coriander finished it off and it made a delicious lunch with toasted pitta bread, carrot sticks and baby plum tomatoes. Low fat, healthy and delicious, perfect.

It’s time to think about getting some vegetables going for this year. My vegetable plot is very wet and weedy and will need some serious work this year.

I’ve made a start by putting some Maris Piper seed potatoes into an egg box to chit. I’m going to grow them in potato bags as I’ve found this very successful in previous years. It’s especially good for my very wet and hard to dig plot.

I have one chilli plant doing very well at the moment and plan to start a few more off very soon. They are easy to grow on a windowsill and you can pick the chillies green or leave them on the plant until they ripen to a lovely red. Delicious!

I have lots of seeds ready to sow and am looking forward to having loads of fresh veggies this summer. My favourite is courgettes, they are so easy to grow in a grow bag and even 3 or 4 plants give a continual supply over several months. I’ll be growing tomatoes too and lots of salad to keep us going over summer. Carrots are another popular one here as they can be picked when they are small and sweet and delicious raw or left to get bigger for cooking. I will be looking out for one or two more unusual crops to try too so watch this space for updates!

I have made a start on my healthy eating plan. I know I
have to improve the diet of my family so I decided to incorporate
lots more vegetables into some of their favourite meals. This is
not a new idea but I have let it slip recently.

Today I have made a large pan of bolognese sauce. Not terribly exciting, you may think,
but at least everyone (except veggie me!) will eat it. As well as
the usual minced beef, tomatoes and herbs this one contains onion,
carrot, celery, yellow pepper and mushrooms. Of course my son is
not keen on any of those so I gave them a good whizz in my Kenwood
food processor attachment first until they were all a similar size
to the mince. Cunning, yes? In the finished sauce most of the
vegetables really cannot be seen and what cannot be identified is
much more likely to be eaten. I used up a glug of red wine hanging
around since Christmas too.

As part of my plan to eat more
economically I have made more than I need and will get a few single
portions stashed in the freezer for those days where I need a quick
meal for someone, hopefully this will save on requests for fast
food as there will be something ready in just the ten minutes it
takes to boil the pasta.

This year I have decided to break with tradition and actually make some New Year’s resolutions. This is not something I have done in the past as I never felt the need, I don’t smoke, gamble or drink too much so I didn’t have anything major to ‘give up’. This year, though, I have begun to feel there are positive changes I could make to improve my life and those of my family. Obviously I don’t really need to make those resolutions public but putting them here on my blog will, I hope, make me more likely to stick to them!

Here goes then. The resolutions are in the form of instructions to myself, reminders to keep me on track, I want them all to be positive so there is nothing to give up. (I couldn’t give up my two main obsessions – Manchester City and Twitter – anyway!)

Don’t do anything for the family they could easily do for themselves. I know it sounds negative but it isn’t really. Having three adult children living in the house as well as a teenager and a husband creates a lot of work. They all need to be independent so I am going to encourage them to take greater responsibility for clearing up after themselves, getting themselves to where they need to be and doing a share of the household chores. It will be good for them as well as me!

Eat more healthily. As a vegetarian I consider myself to have a fairly healthy diet, although it could be improved, but I cook for the family and don’t think they eat as healthily as they should. So I am going to make an effort to plan and cook cheap, healthy meals which suit everyone. This is something which I have let slip recently so family beware, I am going to be working on this one. More veg, less meat, proper home-made meals. If they don’t like it they can always buy and cook their own, so long as they clear up after themselves!

Get more exercise. Since having some problems with my foot I have walked much less and I can tell! So the plan is to take a walk every day for thirty minutes. This is no problem on match days as there is a long walk to the stadium from the car park, no problem in the summer when it is lovely to get out in the fresh air but will be more of an effort in rain, snow and wind. I have a new camera so I will take that with me and hopefully persuade someone to come along for company but I will still go whatever the weather.

That’s all. Nothing too difficult but it will take some effort on my part. All of these things will have benefits for myself and those I love and I hope to be seeing those benefits sooner rather than later. It will not be a great failure if I slip sometimes, I will be able to get back on track and hope the benefits I see will spur me on.

Happy New Year to you all and do share your resolutions.