Thursday, August 13, 2009
Stew time
I had been about to buy kidneys yesterday, but seeing a sheep's neck on the display, thought it was about time we had a hot pot, something, for some reason or another, we have not had for a while. Despite it having featured regularly in the past. So I get several pounds of neck, chopped at a rate of three peices to the pound and costing about £10. So not the dirt cheap item I remember from the days of youth and breast of lamb - these last coming in at that time for a shilling a pop. Add neck to boiling water which just about covers it. Add a couple of medium sized onions, finely chopped. Add a couple of handfuls of red lentils. Simmer for an hour. Add potatoes, sliced into slices perhaps two thirds of an inch thick. Simmer for a further hour. Meanwhile, prepare cabbage. Serve. Excellent grub and very easy to prepare. Gravy spot on, white and thick enough without having turned into custard. All without the benefit of flour, gravy browning, stock cubes, mixed herbs, salt or pepper. Plus, as it turned out, I was right not to follow the instructions in the book, which I thought I had better consult not having done the thing for a while, but which advised me to add the potatoes at the beginning of operations. I think they would have disolved had I done that. The only real catch would be the amount of fat one is whacking down, given that we finished off what was left of the gravy and the potatoes for tea.
After all this excitement, off to NESCOT (http://www.nescot.ac.uk/) to investigate what they offered in the way of IT training for the retired. Quite a lot as it turns out, and FIL is now signed up for a free assessment of his IT training needs in a training facility near us and, which, as it happens, is a lot nearer our tip. So we will not have any bother finding the place. But much more fun, it turns out that NESCOT includes a serious osteopathic training operation. And, like a hairdressic training operation, they are happy to treat you at very reasonable rates. Provided, of course, you do not mind being attended to by a small herd of students. FIL, having done his time in a related trade, quite happy about that and more than quite happy about his two hour session which came in at the modest sum of £10. About a quarter of what an osteopath on the way to TB charges for a session.
By way of a bonus, while I was waiting, I was reminded of one of the reasons why I am glad to be out of the world of work. That is to say I learned from a wall board that the NESCOT senior management team is made up of a principal, a deputy principal, two vice principals and a bevy of assistant principals. Ladies well represented. Arranged in a natty little hierarchy, the job titles on which did not suggest that any of them did anything so lowly as teaching. Indeed the job titles would have done one of the many government offices which regulate the sector proud. Presumably the place is far too large to have anything like an old-style staff meeting. Perhaps each department has a fortnightly management meeting, attended by its senior management team and supported by a management consultant expert in the latest management wheezes. Rank and file get dealt with in cascade briefings after school.
Good work has continued today with the somewhat delayed delivery and fitting of a new continental rear tyre for the bicycle. Hopefully this will clear the buckled wheel problem - about which so far two people have advised me - and on which the thought was that bulging tyre was the root of the problem rather than bending rim. One person accosting me in TB and the other leaning out of a van window as the van overtook me on the roundabout by St Paul's church, Cheam. No privacy at all in the world of cycles. But refurbished back wheel seemed alright coming back from the cycle shop, and we will see how it bears up on tomorrow's fish run. Odd how irritating a throbbing seat is, and I think it is more than being irritated that a new wheel is not right. The fault irritates in itself.
# posted by Jim @ 8:17 AM 
