Moaning Lisa

I think I`ve been moaning a bit lately and I`m sorry. Last week I had no car for a week as it needed lots doing to it, to pass it`s MOT. Everyday I caught the bus and  whilst waiting for the bus sitting on the wall I saw loads of people I know and friends who offered me lifts. People I hardly knew were rattling their car keys at me willing to go out of their way to help me.I was flabberghasted by the kindness that matched the downpours of Lakeland rain. Downpours of kindness are irresistible.

I chatted to the same bus driver who talked about how his life was a struggle and how hard it was for him to spend time with his little boy. I made a mental note to be more grateful for all the holiday time I get with my adorables even if they are stinky teenagers who think they live at The Ritz!

 Then on Friday the sun was shining and I was full of energy, maybe as a result of having no traffic jams in my way for a week.At lunchtime I was really drawn to some beautiful yellow tulips in the newsagents."You can have them for two pounds" the shop girl said.I didn`t need them but I really wanted them. Sometimes I buy flowers , then let the Universe deliver them to someone who needs them more than me.Sitting at the bus stop later a lovely lady offered me a lift which set me down at my front gate an hour earlier than expected. Who was walking past at that very moment?The Mummy of our beautiful Sam who we lost to the big C in November.I knew straightaway who the flowers were for and said a little prayer to the beautiful spirit who had sent them. 

We`re all on a journey everyday and sometimes we travel not in the style we are accustomed to! All of our lives are full of metaphorical road works or red lights, but sometimes if we just buy a ticket and go along for the ride and allow ourselves to be taken where we need to go, it`s less of a bumpy ride than we expected.

I am a pain in the neck and have one too Lasagne.

This week`s moan has been about a trapped nerve in my neck which has prevented me from driving very well(ha ha),being smiley(boo hoo) and doing the YMCA dance with my class! So I made this and it made me happy and several glasses of Cava and handfuls of cocodomol later,I am pleased to report it is Friday and I can do my own bra up!

6 sheets green lasagne

2 courgettes chopped

1 red onion chopped 

4 fat cloves of garlic crushed

4 large mushrooms chopped

1 pack of bacon cubed

2 leeks chopped

butter

flour

milk

2tsps English mustard

grated mature cheddar

grated mozzarella

grated parmesan

I am amazed I had all this in my fridge and larder , but as poorly as I was feeling cooking has a healing effect and poured balm on my hurt mind and neck!

First make a big pan of bechamel sauce, 1tbs butter, 1 tbs flour, 1 pint milk, stir over a low heat until a creamy sauce is made , add mature cheese and mustard to make a lovely cheesy sauce add a tsp of dried rosemary if you have it. Fry the red onion,garlic,butter,mushrooms and courgettes in one pan and the bacon and leeks,more garlic and butter in another.Then layer it up, courgettes and mushrooms,cheeses sauce,green lasagne,then bacon and leeks,more cheese sauce and green lasagne and so on until you`ve got to the top of your dish.Finish with cheese sauce and grated mozzarella and parmesan for a dreamy delicious cheesy top!

So the Universe delivered on many levels last week. My neck is healed and the car is better too, so I have had the pleasure of chauffeuring my brood to school and embarrassing them by peeping my horn and singing like Taylor Swift "I don`t know about you, but I`m feeling 42!!"  Team Neal keeps on winning!

What`s for dinner Clarey?: The end of the holidays...It has been a wonderfu...

What`s for dinner Clarey?: The end of the holidays...

It has been a wonderfu...: The end of the holidays... It has been a wonderfully long holiday full of good times and PJ days. I love my children more than life itsel...

The end of the holidays...

It has been a wonderfully long holiday full of good times and PJ days. I love my children more than life itself but holding the sick bucket , constant " open" sign up at Clarey`s cafe, washing and cleaning all day everyday is HARD work. I had forgotten . I usually ,after one week that flies by, wish I was still at home lounging around, but this end of the holidays has been  different. I need a little time on my own, even if that is just my drive to work and back with The Foo Fighters blaring out soaking up all my worries.

We all need a focus in our lives and my children fill every corner of my waking hours and sometimes break into my sleeping ones too. Both weeks of the holidays have been shadowed by a sickness bug which has played havoc with our fun. No sooner had I got one well, the over affectionate lot had licked each other or shared the same milkshake straw and so I have not been on playground duty this fortnight but sick bucket duty which  is so much worse. Even so these dioralyte days are coming to an end and everyone seems a little perkier today just in time for the return to school. I would rather be ill myself than have them pale faced and listless clogging up my sofas and calling out for flat coca cola to cure all ills. I have tried to be a honey Mummy and have waited on them hand and foot, neglecting my own wants. You only get one chance to give them a lovely childhood and if you mess that up , it doesn`t matter how accomplished you are in other areas of your life, that doesn`t really count. So I`ll hold the sick bucket, keep the Clarey cafe open and look forward to going back to work next week!!

Make it better biscuits

My Mum used to put these in our packed lunches , she was no master baker, but she was the loveliest Mum. I used to long to see her face outside the classroom window and she always had a little treat for us , for going to school without a fuss. We all hated school, which is why it is so funny that I have spent 20years in the classroom. My Mum taught me all you really need to learn and that is to always be kind. "You catch more flies with honey, Clarey, than you do with vinegar." She would say and she was right.

Makes 4
8 digestive biscuits
honey
butter cream icing
smarties

Sandwich the biscuits together with honey, top with buttercream and smarties. Heaven!

Fruit salad Sangria

BC (before children) The Easter hols consisted of Matty whisking me off to somewhere dusky and sunny and we would pop Cava for breakfast into the orange groves and loll around all day just being in love, me usually sneaking a st.Moritz menthol on the balcony whilst sipping a lovely big glass of rose.
It is a little different now, we still go to fabulous places but we are a party of five,no lolling allowed!
Today we have been to the beach at Arnside and I have turned into my Mother crying "get down, don`t come running to me if you break your leg!"as they scaled rock faces many times in their wellies, kings and Queens of the castle all.
When we got home I needed a drink, but thought I`d better get the supper sorted before wine 0`clock chimed. So we had the time to make a fruit salad, wow what a lovely pudding, of course in term time I don`t seem to have the time, but from now on I`m getting home earlier to make the time. I am not advocating turning children into gin drinking lushes but this fruit salad was a marvel, as delicious as my husband (who has just come home winner of the Kendal and District league div 2 Ping Pong winning promotion to Div 1!)and is asking for another bowlful. Ping Pong widow that I am no wonder I need to fortify fruit salads!!!!!

Fruit salad
1 punnet of strawberries
4 ripe plums
4 ripe Kiwis
3 bananas
4 small red apples
3 oranges
Juice of three oranges
So fruit salad is simples- chop up and put in a big glass dish and feel magnificent that you are offering your family 5 of their 5 aday all in one go.
Next top up (to avoid colouration and ping pong induced insanity)with half a bottle of chilled Mateus rose and put in the fridge for a few hours to mingle.
I then drained all the pink fruit flavoured liquid into a jug and topped up with ice cold pear cider- ping and the pong of TT socks are gone! OMG divine- you must try this drink.
The fruit salad was yummy too with a big slosh of cream ( I just drank the cocktail!!)

Happy holidays.

You know you are relaxed when you have no aches and pains, no thumping stress headaches. I am so grateful for this back to front holiday. Easter is everything Christmas is not. Relatively stress free, nothing but chocolate to buy, no cards to write, no crazy present haul via Amazon!!Last Sunday was Easter day and we woke up super early and drove over to the Wirral and went to church where we got married. it was a sunny joyful day and I love that special church as everyone I have ever loved had been there for our marriage 15 years ago.So the weekend was glorious and now we have oodles of time to just be. Be lazy, be a proper Mummy baking, be able to go for days out without having to be somewhere at a certain time.
So we ventured out today to Sedbergh, Hawes and Dent. I felt really energised and calm , that`s when Matty said "it`s probably because you`re in Yorkshire." We had veered over the Cumbrian border and that is maybe why I felt so "at home". We went barefoot into the meditation centre where we had said goodbye to our beautiful friend Sam in November. This time though it was warm in there and sunny and all the harshness of Winter had melted away and hope was springing up everywhere in the countryside. We stopped for cider and pork scratchings in the pub there which was rammed with rosey faced walkers all huddling round the real fire. The day just felt "real" and I was with who I really wanted to be with. We went to hawdraw falls and just marvelled at the sheer force of nature and ran underneath the thundering waterfall , like loonies. Then it was hometime, I think of Yorkshire as my spiritual home but wherever Matty, James,Lily and Jemima are is my true home. They were all starving and were threatening to break into the pot noodles,so I promised I could make them something more delicious quicker.This is what I came up with and they all are snoozing now with full tummies, dreaming of sheep and waterfalls and happy days...

No pot noodle supper

1 pack of spaghetti
salt
1 pack smoked salmon
1 garlic cheese roule
single cream
lemon juice
black pepper
1 pack sugar snap peas


Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water for ten minutes, add a nob of butter to make glossy. Stir in the salmon, cheese, cream , pepper and squeeze of lemon. Microwave the peas for 1 minute and add to the pot. reheat til the creamy sauce is warmed through and the salmon is pink. Yum. Eat greedily in 5 big bowls, better than a pot noodle anyday.

Spring has sprung!

I woke up to three magpies cawing at my window- I think that`s lucky. Three for a girl, which sounds like a lot of hocum but they were accompanied by the sun and the bluest of skies so I`m a happy girl. After an unconventional breakfast of flatbreads  with chicken tikka  we bounced down to a bustling Kendal to put that all important bet on the National. No luck this year but I made a lovely log fire and we pretended we were there eating cucumber sandwiches me drinking pink fizz and the girls were on the lemonade. A great result for Yorkshire , what a magnificent race.
Then a hike up Kendal Fell to watch the sun go down. A bottle of Mateus rose in my back pack made the walk a little kinder and a run down the hill avoiding all the golfers and dog walkers made us hungry.We filled my bag with sticks to rekindle the fire on our return and shortly we will be having a yummy lamb curry. If Spring has sprung I am relieved, happiness rests on little things- emptying the shopping from the car when there is no rain, hanging school uniforms on the line to be air dried by the sweet kendal sun, walks after work helps you reclaim your day for you and makes you sleep more soundly. Little flowers and buds and blossom just dress our world appropriately for the season, snow is pretty when it`s snowing but the slush is so tiresome when it`s going. I for one prefer the gentle rays of Springtime, and all the new life that springs up out of nowhere like a dream.
I just want to be outside drinking gorgeous wine , drinking in the sun and feeling peaceful and optimistic that we have made it through another finger stinging Winter and a new season of wild swimming and wild times await. I love Winter too but onesies are so unnattractive, bring on the sunshine. I  have also bought a disco ball for my kitchen , parties are in order. my birthday next hoorah. Cinderella was a schmuck let`s all have a ball!

Lamb curry (let`s turn on the disco ball)

The remainders of a leg of lamb, garlic and rosemary studded
Leeks and onions sliced
4 cloves garlic
1 tbs butter
1/2 tbs king naga chilli paste
1 carton of passata
1 carton single cream
1 tbs hot curry powder
1tbs peanut butter
1 bunch coriander chopped
2 potatoes diced
2tbs red lentils

Fry the lentils and garlic in the butter and add the potatoes and curry powder. Add the onions and leek and chilli paste and then stir in the lamb, passata and cream, then add the peanut butter and simmer until heated through and the potatoes are cooked and the lentils are dhaal like. Top with the chopped coriander and serve with a peshwari naan and a side dish of creamed spinach (1 bag of spinach wilted in a tbs of butter with small pot of cream, nutmeg and black pepper twist) and a glass slipper of something fizzy(Stella will do this cinders isn`t fussy!)

Maple chicken macaroni (not  a Mc crappy meal)

I had such a silly day yesterday, I felt really cross which is so not me, born with boring happy genes. Mr N on the other hand he`s up and down like a bride`s nightie. Happily I take full responsibility for being a dumb Mum for a short while! Well, I got a card through the door from the postie who said I had a "parcel" to collect with some excess to pay. Maybe Mr N had made up for the lack of an Easter egg by sending me something lovely...so I skipped down to town with the kiddiwinkles in tow asking for icecreams all the way. The "parcel" was infact a letter from Eva my 4 yr old niece who had scrumpled her scribblings up a bit so although it was a small piece of paper Royal Mail clearly defined it as a parcel and fleeced me for another one pound twenty! I queued patiently like yummy mummies do , then Postzilla refused my 20 quid and said "correct change only "in his best Kendalian/not been to charm school ,or possibly any school patter! So this is when I really was stupido! I sent three children into the unchartered waters of the Golden arches to get me some change...they raced off and perhaps didn`t hear my "get yourself a Mc icecream" request. I was still trying not to explode at Postman prat.Ten minutes later I realised they weren`t coming back with my twenty quid in change, they had been seduced by Ronald and yes I found them gobbling up 18 chicken nuggets , monster fries and real coke!! They were really sorry and knew by my extra quiet non smiley demeanour that they had perhaps been a bit greedy.So we caught the bus home with them glumly slurping on their cola and all developed hiccups and dodgey tummies within minutes of returning home- must have been all the lard and sugar coarsing through their veins. I really should take them to Mcd`s more often, so they don`t see it as forbidden fruit. Any way I inwardly thought it was rather funny when I suggested they might not be requiring dinner and they all rioted. So I made them some proper food and all was well again for Team Neal.I wasn`t cross for very long especially when they washed up and even offered to hoover later on! Never underestimate the power of a homecooked meal and a Mummy`s cuddle when you feel unwell. I`m 41 and when I`ve overdone it all I want is my Mum!

So the antidote to an"Unhappy"meal was...

Maple chicken macaroni

Marinate 5 chicken breasts(diced) in maple syrup,soya sauce, olive oil for a couple of hours

Meanwhile cook up enough macaroni for 5 in salted water, drain and add a spoon of butter and seasalt to finish.

Fry the chicken in the marinade the maple syrup will begin to bubble and boil so add a good slosh of sherry and half a pint of milkand a chicken stock cube to make a lovely gravy, add plenty of dried rosemary and then mix with the macaroni. It sounds bizarre but they loved it!

I never go to bed on an argument with anyone, we had a big team hug before bedtime and tonight they all asked for beans on toast. happiness rests on such simple pleasures.

Easter egg mousse

Easter day was so sunny this year , the snow and wind seemed to stay away if only for a day and we felt the warm sunshine on our faces. My childhood Easter memories are of the Lakes , usually Keswick with daffodils, chicks, lakes and sunshine. Fast forward 35 years and these will be my children`s memories too.You are never too old to receive an Easter egg with delight. We should be more child like more often, demolishing chocolate eggs without guilt.Going for windy day walks , all wrapped up in search of eggs or new life in whatever shape or form it takes. The weather has been disappointing and harsh- so is life , most of the time.When you are given a little space and time with the right people in your lives , mix it together with hope for a new season of discovery stretching out before you then life is a sweet confection indeed. Easter to me signifies hope for warmer times ahead growth and change if we need it , growth and change more importantly when we think we don`t need it! Magic and dreams are there for the taking. I once walked past Betty`s in York and saw the most beautiful white chocolate egg in the window , decorated with bluebells. It was beyond my dreams and market stall wages! Some kind wonderful person bought it for me, it took a month to eat and a lifetime to forget that sometimes you get just what you wished for and life can be fantastic.I feel like that these days  when I have precious time to cook with my adorables at home. There was a huge belgian chocolate egg sitting on the side this lunchtime so we melted it down and made something beautiful. That`s what our lives are like , sweet like chocolate and always full of surprises if we make it so.

Chocolate egg mousse

1 large thick chocolate Easter egg

3 eggs separated

Melt the chocolate and stir in the egg yolks until glossy. Whip the whites till stiff and fold into the chocolate mixture to make a luxurious chocolate mousse for a family. Pour into ramekins and pop into fridge. Tonight I shall be "YayYummy Mummy we have pud" instead of my usual "slummy fulltime teacher Mummy no pudding...sorree".

I love school holidays.xxx