Welsh girl in Warsaw

Examination season

welshfrenchpole — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:05:46 +0000

Warm weather and grass being cut outside can only mean one thing – examination time!
The corridors in my department have been littered with ‘Silence GCSE/IB exams’ for 3 weeks now seeing as the oral exams take place in my area of the building. Thankfully the last of this type of exam finished yesterday. I have witnessed students preparing for English, Polish, German, Italian, Arabic, Urdu and Mandarin. A truly international school it seems!

My school exams (a long time ago) seem to have been forgotten in a blur and I can’t really differentiate between my GCSE and ‘A’ level exams – the hall pretty much looked the same for both sessions.
I was fortunate enough to do my degree in a subject that did not contain finals – rather I had a public performance to face. I am not sure what is worse – endless 3 hours exams in a hall or a 35 minute performance that you get one opportunity to get right.

Today my IB student sat her music exam. I don’t teach music anymore, so I have had this pupil on a private basis for 2 years. 2 Years worth of work have culminated in this mornin’s two and a half hour exam. I am not allowed to see the paper until 1130am tomorrow morning….but I have just heard that the exam went ok and that the questions were good. Only July 5th will tell us just how good it was!

food and eating

welshfrenchpole — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:48:32 +0000

It’s 1130am and my mind has already turned to what to do for dinner tonight.

I should first explain I LOVE food. Cooking, reading, eating, watching- you name it, if it has to do with food I will do it. I have a tendency to go to restaurants, try a meal and then recreate it at home. We then the play the game of guess the origin (or rather I play and C grudgingly plays along after many cries of ‘guess’!)

BUT Houston we have a problem (or rather Warsaw we have a problem).You can’t just walk into Sainsbury’s here and get what you need off the shelf. Oh no. This is where living abroad generally sucks.

For example until a few months ago making anything with lamb was a no-no. You just couldn’t get it (unless you fancied queuing at the Synagogue!). Online shopping means that we can now get lamb but I feel a traitor to my homeland buying frozen New Zealand lamb! We also have to remember to bring mint sauce back with us from the UK. In jars. In the hold. However we have now got around this – I have the packet sauce trafficker (aka my mum). Whenever they are out and about travelling (apparently Holiday Inn’s are quite good!) she will pick up the sachets of Mince Sauce, Vinegar (proper malt vinegar), Salad Cream, English Mustard and Marmite and pack them in a Jiffy bag over here. The British certainly have got the condiments down to a T! All I need for them to do now is the Lemon and Lime marmalade in small containers….!

But I digress from the dinner dilemma. I really. really fancy scallops, on a bed of butter wilted spinach with a mango puree. Only problem is a) no scallops and b) no real mangoes either. Maybe scallops with parma ham and butter then??

I guess that craving will have to wait a while (8 weeks and counting and we go home!) But what do I do in the meantime. I know that nothing else will satisfy the craving – and so I am resorting to trailing the internet for a restaurant that does scallops. I’m struggling . I don’t want them fried in coconut milk. Or battered. I want them sauteed with spinach. Maybe I will have to go to Centrum to Marks and Spencers and see if they have any frozen ones. While I’m there I may get some scampi, salt n vinegar crisps, bitter lemon……

Someone is watching me

welshfrenchpole — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:37:09 +0000

I wake up this morning at the ungodly hour necessary to go to work and start my usual morning routine (check overnight downlads, ebay items and email!) and lo and behold I have viewers and a comment

I am back in work today after a day off sick yesterday. Most jobs, you don’t feel well, you can go in, sit at your desk and do less demanding tasks to occupy your day. Not so in this job of mine. Teaching is not something you want to do unless you are feeling 100%. However, if you take the day off it always involves setting up work for kids to do in the meantime, arranging cover for your duties and knowing full well when you return to work it’s like taking 2 steps back.

It’s a tough call at 4am in the morning when you have hardly slept thanks to a smurf banging continuously with a hammer behind your eyes – do you go in and try and face the day or give up. Yesterday I gave up -today I will see if any of the work set has been done. I’m not hoping for much……

adding things slowly

welshfrenchpole — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:43:59 +0000

I’m slowly starting to add my favourite blogs to this blog of mine. I’m not even sure I’m doing it right but it works for me
The David Lebovitz blog is a new one on me, recommended by K who has her own blog. From the quick look I have had this morning -it looks good. Anything to do with cooking looks good. I am a foodophile (is there such a word?) I devour cooking magazines with a passion, I watch more cooking TV than anything else.
Living abroad and not really speaking Polish much of what I watch has to be downloaded from the UK or the US. It’s amazing how many food programmes are out there – Hells Kitchen being the current favourite (the US version not the UK version as Marco Pierre White does nothing for me!!). Top Chef, Masterchef, Kitchen Nightmares – all current favourites. My parents joke that when we go back to visit them in the UK that all I watch is the food channel – and they are right. But I don’t see anything wrong in that! More food blogs and links to follow….

Why do people do it?

welshfrenchpole — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:24:07 +0000

I have thought about this for a while - this whole blogging thing. I think who could possibly be interested in my life – but then I think of all the blogs that I read and think that are normal. Not earth shatteringly exciting – just normal. Like mine.

I’m told I’m weird (I prefer to call myself special really and that everyone else is weird, I am the normal one). I talk to myself (a lot, albeit in my head) and am a bit of a loner really (but happily cohabiting with the Mr C so can’t be thatweird!) – but maybe putting things down on paper in a blog is more normal than wittering on to myself. I don’t know time will tell!

Not wanting to give too much away at this stage – but as the title suggests I am an expat living in Warsaw. Not content with that – I also have a home in France and in the UK – and have difficulties in deciding where exactly is home at any given point (a whole blog on that issue!).

So this is my first blog – I guess I just press publish…..

Hello world!

welshfrenchpole — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:02:26 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!