Spanish Tip

Even though I won't be teaching for a while now, I'm always on the look out for new tips and resources. The same colleague who put me onto Babbel for my Turkish, also put me onto this teaching resource for Spanish.

It's a series set in Barcelona about an American learning Spanish. It's very visual and the actors don't talk too fast so the pupils really had understood a lot when I questioned them after the first episode. 

It's designed for English speakers but it's simple enough for our German pupils too. Have a look!

Inspiration

source

Edible Garden Update

Following our success with the basil I have made a couple of new additions to my gardening projects.

We have started growing parsley on the balcony again following our success with this in previous years too. The box is on the floor because Pete saw the 'empty' box as a good spot to plant himself while bird watching.

As a new little project from my gardening book I have also attempted to plant a lemon tree. Fingers crossed on that one.

Recipe: Plain Madeleines

Following on from the success of the Nutella Madeleines, I wanted to try tweaking the recipe a little. I had planned to make these more lemony but the ground lemon spice didn't have the effect I wanted so I'll keep working on that.

Ingredients:

• 75g butter (melted)
• 75g sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 75g cornflour
• 2tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Mix the sugar and eggs in a mixer until light and fluffy.
2. Combine the dry ingredients, adding the butter at the end.
3. Bake at 180 degrees for ten minutes.

Tip: these were very plain for my sweet tooth so I mixed some icing sugar with a little water to top some of the cakes.

The Saturday Update

It's been a fairly slow week here with our extra long bank holiday weekend. The relaxation has been great and we still got lots done.

Monday started out with our latest scan and check up. The baby has turned and is ready now so I guess we should start getting ready too. Just six weeks to our due date now! Then it was work as normal on Monday and Tuesday. 

Tuesday was also the start of parent meetings that went late so I was exhausted and doubly glad for the short week and a delicious home cooked dinner.

Wednesday was a nice short day at work with no teaching - just more meetings in the morning.

Over the last couple of days we have done some jobs around the flat, baked, watched up to season seven of Grey's Anatomy (o addictive!), read a lot and crafted a bit. The weather has been miserable but the sun is out this morning so we can enjoy that too now. 

I finish work on Tuesday for maternity leave - that has come around scarily fast. The birthing course with the midwife starts on Monday and there are still a fair few job to get done around here so I plan on keeping busy while I still can!

May Birthdays

Mayday was a quiet but productive day around here. I got lots ticked off my lists including the birthday cards for this month. 

I used some of the new materials again and played around with layers and names. I'm planning on searching out a little more card stock before next month so that I can work on better cards for men again.

May Goals

Here are my goals for this month:

• 3 of 30 things from my list
• Update my email contacts
• Plant a lemon plant
• Visit the hospital to set up a birthing plan
• Make a quilt
• Write a baby to do/buy list
• Update my birthday calendar
• Put up the new DVD case
• April project life
• May birthdays
• Parental forms
• Finish the quilted clutch

So quite a busy month ahead but with just two days to work I hope it will be achievable! I'm off to get started.