The next step

The first term's teaching is finished, and we have covered what the undergraduates cover in their first year in just seven weeks.  Yes, really.

Caroline Bowen in Nurse's Uniform by Roy L. Parsons

I am reeling, tired, thrilled, motivated, emotional and overwhelmed all at the same time.  I'm also in the middle of another essay.

Joan Saxton, by Frank Cadogan Cowper

I now have my uniform and am about to embark on a four month placement of actual nursing.  The first little bit in mock wards at the University, and then on real wards, with real people, in a real hospital.

Nurse at work, unknown artist

My uniform is not as elegant as the ones in these paintings.  I don't think any of the uniforms in these paintings are made from nylon.

Portrait of a Nurse, by Eric Meadus

Nor do I feel as serene as these nurses appear to be.  I flip between being incredibly excited and incredibly nervous, several times a minute.

Nurse Ellis, by Beryl Trist Newman

But I have already made some wonderful friends on the course, and I know that they all have the same jumble of feelings that I do.  Once we're wearing those uniforms, and walking through those hospitals, we're going to start to feel like nurses.  That's going to be quite something.

Nurse giving an injection of penicilin, by Henry Marvell Carr

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All these pictures are from the wonderful Your Paintings website.

Three blue tops - one of which is red

I'm making new tops for the summer - because I fancied doing some sewing over the weekend and also because I yearned to see something different in my wardrobe.

Pattern adapted from Trapeze sundress in Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross

This red spotty top should have been navy blue and floral.  The fabric which I used as the trim, should have been the main fabric and the red spots should have been the trim.  But as I pinned and cut the beautiful blue fabric so enthusiastically, I failed to notice that I had pinned the front piece with the wrong edge against the fold.  When I unfolded it I realised what I'd done and that I had wrecked the whole metre of fabric.

I stared at what I'd done, willing the fabric to knit itself back together as if by magic and present me with a whole, uncut piece again.  But I don't have those sort of powers, and the blue fabric remained ruined.

Fortunately I had plenty of the red spotty fabric, so I switched things around and it became red with blue trim rather than blue with red.  I like it, and I've cheered up now.  I will wear this all summer - it looks great with jeans and I have cardigans and long sleeved tops which match it.

But...it still should have been blue.

I'm taking MUCH more care over the cutting out of my other blue tops-in-progress.

The pastel, scalloped fabric in the picture above is going to become a summery sundress with nice big pockets.

This very precious, and strokably lovely, Anna Maria Horner voile is going to become a floaty, raglan-sleeved top.  I will check about ninety-five times before I cut it out that the pieces are on the right way round. 

I will also remember to add seam allowances before I start cutting, because I will be using an Ottobre pattern where the seam allowances are not included.

I WILL remember.  I will.  Definitely.

The pleasure of lemon and cardamom

I had a restless night.  I was too hot, and flung my quilt onto the floor.  I heard the milkman leave our three bottles at the door at 4:05am, when it was dark and still outside.  Just before 6am, I heard a taxi drop off someone for the house over the road - they were very quiet but struggled to get their key into their door the right way up.  I listened to a few podcasts and tried to doze, but couldn't. 

And then just before 7am, when it was beginning to get light, I realised what had been keeping me awake.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Very faint, but persistant.  I could definitely hear dripping.  I went to the bathroom, and it got louder.  I hoped it was next door's problem, but when I looked out of the window, I realised it was ours.  We were on the phone to the plumber before breakfast, and he said he could come by in the afternoon.

I couldn't settle to anything all day.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Then the plumber came.  He dismantled the toilet, he muttered about valves and asked us where the hot water tank was.  He put in new washers, replaced worn pipes, mopped up the mess and checked everything was dry and fixed.  I smiled and was relieved.  We laughed and chatted about his toddlers and our neighbours, and then he went home.

Just as earlier in the week, I was revelling in the beauty of cherry blossom once I knew that a car emergency was resolved, now that there was no more dripping to worry about I could settle down to something peaceful and absorbing.

I made some lemon and cardamom biscuits.  These biscuits are delicious, and I was delighted to be able to use the edelweiss biscuit stamp I bought when I was in Brienz in Switzerland two years ago.  I mixed, rolled, stamped and baked with great satisfaction.  I wished the plumber had still been around because I would have offered him one with a cup of tea.

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The recipe is from the new Hairy Bikers series - Bakeation.  C and I have loved the first three episodes, which have taken in Norway, Benelux and Germany, and with the accompanying book on sale at Amazon for an insanely cheap £8.86 I bought it without hesitation.  It is fabulous.

Emotionally charged sewing

I'm not someone who has always had a dream of what her wedding day would be like.  I never drew pictures of wedding dresses when I was a child (unlike my own daughter...) and I've never hankered after the fuss and attention of a wedding.

Our plans for this summer are to have a marriage without a wedding.  So there will be no fancy car, no wedding cake, no official photographer, no honeymoon, no disco, no hen party and no floral arrangements.  Just G and me at the local 'mairie' for a 5 minute civil ceremony, with our parents and our children, and then out for a long lunch and a few kir royales.

And yet...despite this much wished for simplicity and minimalism, there is still The Dress.  I am making my own and I've come to realise over the past few weeks that I have been avoiding starting it.  I've done plenty of knitting, read several books, been baking up a storm and was diverted for several weeks by an Important Sewing Project for my sister-in-law's birthday.  All this to avoid embarking on an item of clothing so loaded with emotion and meaning as to almost have a personality of its own.

Everybody remembers The Dress.  I can remember all the dresses from pretty much every wedding I've ever been to.  I can picture my Mum's dress so clearly just from years of seeing the black and white photo, sitting on top of the piano, of her and Dad's wedding day.  The Dress is charged with sentiment and emotion.  I will remember this dress for the rest of my life, and people might see pictures of me wearing it long after I am gone.

So yes.  Denial has suited me just fine for the last couple of months.

But we leave for France in a matter of weeks, so I'm running out of time.  I have calmed myself down and decided that it is just like making any other item of clothing.  I cut, pin, sew seams, iron on interfacing, embroider and hem.  I've done all this before and if I stop being so dramatic and emotional I can do it again.

So it is underway.  I tell myself I am making a simple Colette wrap dress from embroidered cotton and silk, that will be worn to a wedding this summer.  If I don't like how it turns out I've still got time to call this a practise version and make myself another one.  I'm not sure my nerves would cope well with that though so I'm being as careful and precise as I can without getting too overwrought.

You probably heard the screams in England

I was going to tell you about the charming medieval city of St Antonin Noble-Val, and its madly busy Sunday market.

And I thought I might share with you how delicious the mid morning espresso and chocolatine, drunk on the terrace at the local cafe, were.

After the market, I walked the seven miles home along the Aveyron gorge, and I could describe in great detail how heartbreakingly beautiful the walk along the river is.

But actually, the only thing I can think of is this MASSIVE snake, which was sunbathing across a farm track, and which I nearly stepped on as I admired some nearby buttercups.

But you might have guessed that I saw a snake because I imagine you would have heard the screams back in England.  It was the length of my arm span, from fingertip to fingertip, and despite being a perfectly harmless grass snake, it still made my heart pound and my blood race.  I am not a fan of snakes.

I'm in a sock funk

I'm in a sock funk.  I'm heading down the foot to the toe of the first sock in the pair, and that familiar, urgent thought has begin to creep into my head:

"Do I have enough yarn left to finish both socks? Do I really?"

This is the sock funk.  That doubt, that nagging voice in your head that asks again and again if you're sure you're going to have enough yarn left when you get to the toe of the second sock.

I squidge the ball of yarn.

Should it really be that squishy? I should have cut a centimetre off the ankle; I know I should.  Or done a few rows less on the ribbing.

Common sense says I will be fine.  I've knitted socks before and never run out of yarn.  I'm following the pattern precisely and the pattern says a 100g ball will be enough yarn. I have lots of these little balls of leftover sock yarn in my knitting basket to illustrate that there is always some yarn to spare.

And yet...and yet...that sock funk is still there.  And I know it will be until I'm grafting off the toe on the second sock.  The solution is to knit as fast as I can and prove that sock funk wrong. 

Again.  As I always do.

How a fig seed made me eat miso soup

There I was, eating the last piece of my favourite orange and fig chocolate, and one of the teeny, tiny fig seeds got stuck in a tooth. I poked my tooth with a fingernail and out popped the seed, but also a filling.
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"Oh!" I shrieked, and started scrabbling around on the floor to find the filling. As if the dentist might be able to re-attach it like a lost limb.

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As I searched through the dust and lint on the floor, it slowly dawned on me that this was not good news. I was going to have to go to the dentist.

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I am very, very frightened of dentists. When I was a child, our family dentist had a great big alsatian that used to sit in the corner of the surgery, growling mennacingly at the patients. I've never liked dogs. Then when I was at University, the dentist there took one of my teeth out without anaesthetic and managed to accidently remove part of my jaw bone along with it. How do you accidentally remove a piece of someone's jaw??

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After that butchering it was ten years before I visited a dentist again, and it is now nearly nine years since that last visit. Two visits in nearly twenty years. The dentist's Receptionist was appalled when I confessed this over the phone to her earlier in the week.

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"Nine years is a VERY long time!" she scolded.

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"But I bring my children for ALL their appointments," I said, with middle-class parenting angst. "They have ALWAYS been to the dentist. Very regularly."

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The receptionist could not have cared less. "We'll see you on Friday at 11:30," she said flatly.

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So this is how a fig seed is responsible for me eating lots of miso soup this week, as I try not to damage my tooth any more than it already is. Miso soup is basically Japanese bovril, but none the worse for that. I like it. It is comfort food that also feels healthy. And with a visit to the dentist looming over me, I need some comfort food.

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My favourite way to eat miso soup is with noodles and green vegetables. With broad beans in season I thought some of those would be a good addition. I kept them raw, which probably isn't the best thing for a broken tooth, but they taste greener and fresher than cooked beans in a way that very much suits the soup.

And when I don't need to be brave any more, and my tooth is all fixed later today, I have a more luxurious treat waiting for me...

...these honey buns, made from a recipe in Rachel Allen's Bake.