Mud, mud, glorious mud, there's nothing like Nelson for heating the blood!!!
- I am Cooking: Mud Cake for the Vet
At last it has rained and so I won’t have to water the broad beans!!! It has cooled everything down, it was 16 C at 7 am , no wonder we were hot. Peri has an appointment at the Vet at 4-30 pm so I am cooking them a mud cake. She has had sore little eyes before and just needs ointment.
Mud Cake
250 g butter
150 g dark chocolate
1 1/3 cups hot water
1 tablespoon instant coffee
440 g sugar.
Melt all this, stir till smooth and cool.
260 g plain flour
½ tspn baking powder
¼ cup cocoa
2 eggs
Whisk in rest of ingredients. Pour into 20 cm square lined tin.
Bake at 160 C ( 140 fan-forced) for 1 ½ hours.
I have caught up on last week’s Alias and only have this week’s to go . I have not done any WW or DS9 taping though. The cricket has been played and won. I think we won by a whole innings really. We had a walk this morning, and then I went to pick up my printer cartridges. It only cost $23 to refill both the colour and black cartridges. It is a very cheap printer to run. I have printed out the sewing Christmas Cards and put a gold bow with green sequins and a gold Merry Christmas on the front. They are drying and ready to be put in an envelope.
Brendan Nelson has instigated his inquiry into the teaching of reading. What a waste of time. The general population of schools is as , or more, able than previous ones. It is a small hard core of non-readers who pose problems. These are most likely children who never will, or would have, learned to read. In fact many of them may never have progressed past primary school 50 years ago. Now the system demands children stay ay school till they are 18. Only a small percentage of these children will go onto tertiary education. The rest are just marking time and keeping the unemployment figures looking good. If Nelson gave schools, especially primary schools, the proper amount of money, staff and resources, then schools would be happier places. This is not to say that sounding out words would help all non-readers read. Some people will never read to what is considered a high level. It is necessary for politicians to recognise individual differences. Everyone is not expected to qualify for the Olympics, or sing at the Opera House or paint like Rembrandt – although that is now in question ( see yesterday’s post!!!) so why do they expect some ideal and unobtainable high standard for everyone to reach in Maths and English. I am the first to have high and achievable expectation for children in relation to learning, but all Nelson and his cronies are doing is teacher bashing. Let them manage a classroom for a year and see how hard it really is to provide a great learning environment, maintain discipline and cater for all areas of the child’s development with little funding and fewer and fewer resources. They would not last 5 minutes.
I have surprising little to say today. I am still suffering the after effects of the heat. This doesn’t mean that I will not have twice as much to say later, but I am feeling a trifle weary and I might lie down and listen to the language talkback.