Broccoli and Broad Bean Tajine

On Saturday I tried the first of my new recipes for May.  It was another Weightwatchers recipe, adapted a little - Broccoli and Broad Bean Tajine.  It was served with couscous and apricots.  Delicious.

Ingredients:

Oil

Onion

Garlic (2 cloves)

Carrot (50g)

Broccoli (150g)

Beans (1 can)

Chopped Tomatoes (1 can)

Tomato Puree (1 tbsp)

Sweet Red Wine (50ml)

Couscous (75g)

Apricots (1can)

Olives (6)

Mint

Cumin

Cinnamon

Cardamom

Black Pepper

Brown the onion in the oil.  Add the garlic and brown for a couple of minutes.  Add the tomatoes, puree and wine and simmer for a few minutes.  Add the other ingredients and then the spices.  Meanwhile cook the couscous, adding the apricots for the last few minutes.  Serve with the olives and fresh mint.  Enjoy!

Training!

I know that there are a lot more than twelve weeks to go to my big race day but as part of my new mindset, I am starting the Race for Life 10km training plan tomorrow!  Here's the plan displayed in all its glory on the office door ready to make me get my backside into gear.

The Saturday Update

It's been a lovely week this week.  First of all, we had a late start due to the long bank holiday weekend here in Germany.  The weather was beautiful so on Tuesday we headed out to Thedinghausen on the bikes to visit Ed and Loreto for lunch.  I've already posted about the bike ride itself.  One of the nicest parts, as ever, in rural Bremen, was the wildlife.  This time, we could here the frogs singing in Park Links der Weser and saw beautiful birds everywhere.  This morning, we've even heard cuckoos in the garden.

The short work week went well.  I now have an idea which classes I'll be teaching next year and since I will only have one new one, in year five, I'm quite pleased with that.

Yesterday, I had another lovely lunch with Loreto in town and we did a spot of shopping - perfect start to the weekend.  I bought a cute little rain cover for my bike saddle as it got caught in a thunderstorm on Thursday which didn't make for a pleasant ride home.  I also invested in some new stationary for a hopefully inspirational new start on the Weightwatchers front as I knew that this week was going to be a bad one on the scales, and was proved right this morning - two pounds back on.  More on that later.

Nico and I booked to go to the salon this afternoon so that he can redeem his Christmas voucher and I can tick another item off my 28 things list, I'll let you know how that went tomorrow.

I've also been trying to get to grips with a new book this week, my classic for the month - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I have to say, the style and dialect in which it is written have made it really tough for me to get into but I am persevering and enjoying the story itself.

Next week is the last and only full week at work before another short week thanks to another bank holiday - I love May (to be fair, we don't have half term as England does, so it makes up for that).  We don't have a lot planned except getting ready for Briony and Lucas visiting the week after!  Have a good week!

Current Obsessions

source

 Lately I've been getting into long cycle tours, chess for dummies and Spring.  Here are a few other things I've been enjoying recently.

This 'where in the world' series over at Life of Something New.  (I got week 2 - being my old hometown...)

The amazing Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack, including:

(Thank you Nico - I hope you don't mind when I play it full blast on Saturday morning :-))

This fantastic bike post from Jo over at Cup of Jo.  This is one of the things that surprised me and made me love Bremen a little bit more although it seems even more crazy in the Netherlands.  One note though - here children do wear helmets, children, professionals and me!  This was something I discovered when the kids at school looked at me funny and asked why I wear a helmet (i.e. looking anything but professional on a bike)

Trying to come up with new creative and or language related jobs my Spanish friend can do here in Bremen with limited but always improving German language skills - any ideas?

Getting some lovely feedback on the blog which made me think about doing some posts interviewing other women who have made the big move from one country to another and how they found that.  What do you think?

Happy Friday people!  Have a fantastic weekend!

Road Trip!

Just one of the amazing views

We made the most of the bank holiday weekend and an invitation to lunch with friends in Thedinghausen and took a 63km (39 miles) round trip on the bikes on Tuesday. The weather was gorgeous (reminder for the rest of the Summer - don't forget to pack the sun cream - oops) and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  It took us about 2 hours 45 minutes to get there and slightly less to get back.  The down side was walking today (I took the bus for the first time in a long time) the good news is that I wasn't walking like a cowboy as expected and my knees are feeling much better already.

On the road to Thedinghausen

Thedinghausen is lovely and our friends have a beautiful new house which made us jealous and led to conversations about houses and the future...one day...  There was a classic car show in Thedinghausen on the same day too so it was interesting to see them flying by as we got closer to the village.  Of course the best bit was seeing our friends and enjoying the delicious Spanish lunch they had prepared for us - you can't beat Spanish tortilla made by a native!  Delicious.

The old mill in Thedinghausen

Dixit

Saturday saw the first of what I hope will be many games nights in our flat with Ed and Loreto.  We played Dixit.  Loreto has been telling me about this game for a while as she has been using it with some of her course friends to improve their German.

The point of the game is to use a word or phrase to describe what one of your picture cards makes you think of.  All players place down a card which could represent this word or phrase and they must then vote on which they think was the original card.  You play until all the cards are gone.  

It was great fun, we played in English and German and we all really enjoyed it.  The picture cards are especially lovely.  In fact, we enjoyed it so much, we are considering buying it ourselves.

28 things...Finish my French Course

 

Ever since my first interview to train to be a teacher, people have been advising me that to teach in England, I would need to brush up my French.  Having read all the headlines about England's shortage of language teachers, I thought they were exaggerating, after all, I had two languages already.  

Having enough to get through with the PGCE and MA, I let time go by and forgot all about my French until it lost me my first teaching job after a year, and started to really limit my opportunities for the future.  I'm still pretty bitter about the situation in England - making languages an optional subject at GCSE was what ruined my career in England before it even started.

Anyway, during the year before I came to Germany, I enrolled on a distance learning French AS-Level course.  I was working at a languages college after all, so I had the opportunity to practise my speaking with native speakers, use resources at work, and they even agreed to let me sit the exams there.

And then my life changed and I moved to Germany.  Luckily for me in some ways, the system is completely different here.  Of course you still have to have a degree in your subjects but once you have a job you can teach many subjects having never studied them since you were in school yourself.  I have one colleague who teach sport, music, history, geography and social studies.  This system means that if I really wanted to teach French and felt confident enough, it would be possible.  Even better than that is that, although it is proving a trial to get a contract to work here permanently, it's finally not because of my lack of French!  (Also, it turns out that what has meant that I can work here is my Spanish because I can't qualify as a German teacher for obvious reasons and I can't qualify as an English teacher because I have never studied English - crazy.)  

Unfortunately, although I have joined a conversation class here and worked my way to the end of the course, I can't have the time off work to go to England and take the exams.  I even looked into the possibility of taking the exams at the international school here in Bremen, but they don't teach AS or A Level.  While this is a disappointment, I really enjoyed the course anyway and am considering the A-Level in a couple of years time.  I plan to carry on with French one way or another once I have taken some time out to work on my German and Spanish a bit more, especially as my Spanish is likely to be more of a challenge with an older teaching group next year for the first time since my training.

French was my first foreign language and it will always have a place in my heart and in our office, so I will come back to it and am glad I stuck it out with this course.