Some things you may or may not like to know:

-Ellis has started at a new nursery, in the mornings.  He loves it and so far we have fallen into a nice rhythm with it. The bonus is that the school actually has kids from our neighbourhood in it, so we may get to know some people.

- I have decided that while schooling goes against my 'rage against the machine' nature, I am going to view it as a cross-cultural experience to embed my family in the culture here. It feels too imperialistic to live in a country and deign that its schooling system isn't good enough for my children. I want them to be rooted in the community we live in and it seems to me that school is the best way to do it. (If you are an expat that homeschools, do tell how you get over this issue, because I am stumped.)

- On  a school-related issue, I received an email a couple of days ago expressing concern over my poor use of punctuation and grammar.  I am sorry Mr N, I was too busy being failed by the system in 8th grade when we were learning about grammar ;)

- In other news, I have got my cooking mojo back. I just decided that it would be easier to just have us all give up gluten and have been slowly finding our way into a gluten free lifestyle, except for sandwich bread.  So far the biggest hits are this GF pizza dough and GF scones with sundried tomatoes and pesto (recipe below).

- As of this week, I have also given up sugar.  I realised that I was getting into a terrible cycle of sugar in everything - starting with my morning cup of coffee and ending with an enormous crash at about 3pm. Today is the first day since monday I don't feel sick or have a headache.  I do, however, reserve the right to each chocolate Guiness cake on special occasions ;)

- I have reopened the hat shop. I have just lion, owl and viking hats in there at the minute, but I have a few more designs in the pipeline, if I can get them made.

- Have I already bored you all with how much I love this new song by Laura Marling?  What about this one by Florence?

- OK, better go.  The sun is shining and I am going to drag my grumpy children out into it, wether they want to or not.

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GF and DF Sundried Tomato and Pesto 'Scones'

2 cups GF mix plain flour (I use Dove's Farms)

5T. dairy free 'butter'

1t Bicarb of soda (baking soda)

2t baking powder

1/2 cup finely chopped sundried tomatoes (the ones in oil work best)

4 T. Pesto (I use dairy free pesto)

1/4 cup 'milk'

 

So, I know its not the 'right' way to make scones, but what I do is throw all of the ingredients except the milk into the food processor and give it a quick whizz.  Then I add the milk in splashes until the dough just comes together. I pat it out into a large circle about 3/4in thick on a baking tray and cut it into triangles.  Bake at 180C for aprox 12 minutes or until cooked. 

Like many GF baked items, these are quite crumbly, so do not (as I just did) hand one to your 18 month old and let her wander around your just hoovered lounge.