This week I have:
- Eaten far too much Ricotta Cheese !
- Drunk far too much red wine.
- Recycled far too many magazines.
- Used far too much glue
- Got drenched with rain far too often.
- Spent too much money at Marino fa Mercato
- Become weepy far too often!
So, to explain!
The Ricotta Cheese. For some reason Ricotta is a new taste discovery for me. I know this is very strange since I’ve been visiting here for yonks and have owned a house here for fourteen years. But it IS a new discovery and it has turned into a kind of love affair! I can’t leave the stuff alone! I have all these amazing recipes for cannelloni and ice-cream and cheesecake but never get round to making anything. I buy it. Put it in the fridge. Then the next day it’s gone!
Guilty!
Recycling magazines? A while ago I produced a Sunday Challenge programme for children demonstrating how to make pencil pots and picture frames from rolled magazine pages. (If you would like to catch up with this just click on the link below)
Making a Picture Frame from Recycled Magazines
Its a very relaxing craft and fun for adults too. I enjoy using the technique to make clocks and yesterday I produced the biggest, craziest one yet! Designed to drive people who love order and symmetry mad and made entirely from the pages of small shiny magazines plus lots and lots of glue which brings me on to the next excess. Making clocks this way is easier than it looks. I will post some instructions over the next week.
I use ordinary white glue to make the tubes but stronger stuff is needed to stick them onto the board. Where do they make the tubes these days? I know what my husband would say. Somewhere beginning with Ch!! Once upon a time a tube could be carefully rolled up from the bottom to extract the last, tiniest droplet cleanly and precisely. Now? The tube itself gives up the ghost before I’ve even used two thirds splurting glue from a zillion tiny holes all over me and the floor.
Marino fa Mercato! Fellow Trasimenians (is there such a word??) will now have that irritating little jingle going through their heads! ‘Merino …. Fa ….Mer ..Car …tow!
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Marino fa Mercato is our local big store, tin-shed, ‘magazine’ that sells everything and anything. Cheaply!
I love it and so must thousands of others since the car park is always full. Once nicknamed ‘the fridge’ because it used to resemble one during the winter months, it is like an Aladdins cave. I depend on it for art and craft materials and plants and stationery and cat food and cleaning materials and pots and pans and bedding and gardening things and, and, and …..!
Unfortunately last Monday they were just unpacking all their Christmas stock and there in font of me stood the cuddliest, jolliest, cutest Father Christmas! He is the reason I spent far too much money at Marino Fa Mercato!
Become weepy far too often? This is probably the fault of Marino fa Mercato too! Seeing all though Christmassey things brought this song into my head.
Watch video track of song here.
Its my favourite Christmas song and it always makes me weepy. Why? It’s the nostalgia. I love Christmas. But Christmas is about families and, as the the years go by we lose the people who made those days so special and there’s nothing like a song to bring back the memories. When I listen to Nat King Cole I feel my cheeks hot from sitting too close to the fire. I smell roasted chestnuts and see my dad raking glowing red coals.
Getting wet far too often? Well this is partly because of Lizzie Witch . I’m always having to mop up spills and water is the easiest! But this week its the rain, whatever has happened to the weather? These grey, wet, cold days are more reminiscent the North West of England.
The red wine probably doesn’t need any explanation!
Creative Learning for Young Children 