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    Rab's World!

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    "A you grow up, you realise it's less important to have more friends, but more important to have real ones!"
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    Cooking Exploit One!

    Cooking penelope-wren School
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    It one were to say that I was renowned for my cooking skills, it would be an understatement.  I am the queen of cooking flops.  Even my children still laugh at the memory of pork chops setting off the smoke alarms, not just once but several times.  
     
    Being the first year through Fareham Park Comprehensive School, we attended school as it was being built around us.  We didn’t have the home economic facilities until we were third year seniors (aged about thirteen) so, before that time, our cooking classes were outsourced to Fareham Park Technical School. 
     
    The school employed a seven day time table so our class schedules had a nice long rotation.   Some things like music lessons, embroidery club, after school sports and so forth practiced the usual five day week schedule.  
     
    We walked to school.  Every day we had our satchels ladened with our books, homework, folders, paper, pencils, rulers, slide rules, pens and our lunch. Some days we had to carry more: freshly laundered PE kits, musical instruments and music, embroidery projects, and there were those days, when we also had cooking class and had to take to school all the fresh ingredients for the recipe and the dish to bring it home in.  How the heck did we do it?
     
    Cooking did not start off well.  One of my first cooking lessons was making a fruit crumble.
     
    I was feeling so grown up on the day that we went to Fareham Park Technical College for a cooking lesson.  Ladened with plastic bags containing a Pyrex dish, a large tin of rhubarb, a bag of flour, a bag of sugar and some margarine. I followed the others into a large room with ovens, cupboards and white, horizontal tables arranged in groups of three.  I was assigned to sit with two boys, Robert and Fritz.  Both boys assumed that because I was a girl, I knew how to cook.  This lady cooked toast and cereal and that was about it.  They sought my advice from the get go.  It was kind of nice to be looked up to.  So I winged it.
     
    The first thing that we did was to get all our ingredients out on the table and our recipe.  Some people had tins of peaches, others tins of pears, My mum had given me a tin of rhubarb.  We were shown where we could find a bowl to mix the crumble, spoons, tin openers, colanders, and how to preheat the oven. 
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    The second item of business was to undo the tin of fruit that we had bought and strain off the juices.  Tough stuff this cooking!  Not wanting to waste anything; I commented to the boys that it was a shame to waste the rhubarb juice.  Their eyes lit up.  “We’ll have it!” They exclaimed.  “Are you sure?” I asked.  “Oh yes!”  They said.  So I shared the juice out between them in some cups.  They doused it down and I put the rhubarb into my mum’s Pyrex dish.
     
    We got on with our crumble, weighing out the flour, sugar and margarine.  We began rubbing in the marg into the flour.  The boys started washing their hands with some urgency.  ‘Are you finished already?’ I asked them.  They looked at me quickly and rushed out of the room.  I felt a little abandoned.
     
    I continued to rub in the margarine.  It wasn’t very fun as I got my hands dirty.  I added the sugar, stirred it in, and put the crumble mixture on top of the rhubarb.  About ten minutes after they had left, the boys ambled back into the room.  My crumble was ready to go into the oven.  By the time I got back from the oven a few yards away, the boys were running towards the door again.
     
    “What were they doing?”  I started cleaning up the table and getting the bowls and other utensils that I had used, washed up whilst I waited for the crumble to cook.  It would take just over half an hour.
     
    The boys sauntered back in again looking a little ashamed.  The teacher told them to hurry up and get their crumble done; they got back to their bowls.  When I had finished washing up, I sat down at the table.  With nothing to do, I watched the activity of the boys.  They looked up and whispered ‘Rhubarb juice’.  ‘Rhubarb juice?” I questioned.  “Yes, we will NEVER drink rhubarb juice again!”  Suddenly the penny dropped and I suppressed a giggle.
     
    So first lesson in cooking:  
     
    1.  Know the properties of your ingredients; 
    2.  Don’t share your rhubarb juice if you are trying to impress male friends;  
    3.  Only give your rhubarb juice to your enemies.
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    Rhubarb Crumble
     
    Ingredients:
    One tin of Rhubarb;
    4oz butter or margarine;
    6oz plain flour;
    2oz caster sugar
     
    Method:
    1.  Heat the oven (Gas Mark 6, 400 degrees F 200 degrees C);
    2.  Drain juice of rhubarb (and be cautious who you give the juice to);
    3.  Put rhubarb in the bottom of a pie dish;
    4. Rub the butter or margarine lightly into the flour until I resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
    5.  Stir in the sugar.
    6.  Sprinkle evenly over the fruit and press down lightly.
    7.  Sprinkle the top with sugar and bake in the centre of the oven for 45-50 minutes.
    8.  Service with hot custard!

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    More Goodbyes!

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    More goodbyes over the weekend, after we met Lorraine and David at Rogers for a farewell drink or two. I'm going to miss these two terribly. They have both been a
    great source of inspiration since I met them, while working at LoungeD. As with most people here, I will be keeping in touch. The reality is, I am going to miss many of those I have met over the last two and a half years. Gran Alacant is first and foremost a neighbourhood, mainly consisting of British Expats, yes, but it's more than that. The people who have moved and come here to change their lives, normally for the better, as I did all those months ago, are a part of a vibrant community, striving for a better life in the sun. Lorraine and David, have without question been a pleasure to speak with, always offering a word of advice and without a doubt, stimulating enjoyable company.

    I also bumped into Gavin, the owner of Molly Malones, spending the rest of the evening putting the World to rights and sharing our experiences of GA. Gavin has been here a long time, about fourteen years in total and has always been on hand for a chat and a vodka or two. We both ended up at the Pub in Masa Square, rounding the night off perfectly.

    There will inevitably be more farewells in the last three weeks we have left in Spain, as we continue to prepare for our arrival back home in the UK. I have said many goodbyes in recent times; all this emotion tends to take its toll. Once again in our life, we are walking into unchartered waters, the outcome of which, we have no idea...Story of our life!
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    Rab's World!

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    "If you don't see something magic everyday, you aren't looking!"
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    My Life In Boxes!

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    Three boxes. that's it, all we have left now everything else has been sold. given away or thrown in a skip. Not a lot to show for twenty three years together is it. In reality however, how much 'stuff' does one realistically need in this World.

    Looking back to our days living in Southampton, the house in which we lived was crammed to the rafters with 'things,' none of which we really needed to survive, just an accumulation of items that cluttered up our lives. In many respects material possessions only ground us, preventing us from doing many things we would have otherwise done. Both of us are travellers at heart and can now see more of the places we wanted to visit, twenty or so years ago.
    We arrive in the UK on 25 May; I am trying to organise seeing as many people as I can. On Friday 25th May, we will be going to my old local pub the 'Giddy Bridge;' I used to work just over the road from it and have many happy memories there. It's fitting to spend a few hours there, before moving on to Portsmouth to stay with my Aunty for a short while. If you are about on that day, do feel free to pop along, it will be good to see you!

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    I've got a tonne of rubbish to get to the bins, after a lifetime of collecting. In the early 2000s, I used to build computers and have boxes and boxes of wires and hard drives; all of these items have to be disposed of. To be honest I should have thrown them away before I came to Spain, but as a professional hoarder, preferred to take them with me.
    Darrell has been sorting out the last  of the clothes this afternoon, bagging up jackets and jeans to go to the charity shop; in  four days by the end of the month everything should be complete and we can finally enjoy our last few weeks living in Spain, before we return to the UK.
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