Butterflies

I did the Big Butterfly Count today, which is an ‘event’ if you like across the UK where you of your own accord go out to a place/sit in your garden and record the number and type of butterflies you see..some are declining in numbers and becoming close to extinction so it’s a way of helping the Butterfly Conservation track the UK’s number of butterflies..here are the ones I spied today and took pics of with my newly-purchased zoom lens!

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Sea bass fillet with rosemary and lemon

(Serves 1) I served it with couscous (with onions and peppers) and salad.

Ingredients

• 1 sea bass fillet
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary
• olive oil
• sea salt
• 1 lemon, sliced

Method:

• Slash the skin side of the sea bass diagonally so that the flesh is exposed.
• Put a generous amount of the rosemary into the pockets.
• Rub the rest of the fish with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
• Sear in a pan skin side down, and transfer into a hot oven for five minutes.
• Serve with a drizzle of fresh lemon and good olive oil.

New Sensation

I have recently re-discovered this song.  It makes me dance around (usually the kitchen, at the moment, where I seem to be frequently, eating, or making stuff!) like a nutcase.  Love it.

She-Ra Princess of Power

I have wanted this T-shirt for ages and finally managed to get it now I’m in the UK!  I used to catch this show back in the 80’s (when I was in the UK) and early 90’s I seem to remember..much better than He-Man (her brother)!

Coconut-lime muffins

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Found a muffin book today that I’m totally going to take home (India) with me now I have an oven..but it’s so tiny I will have to look out for a 4-muffin tin as the standard 12 won’t fit!  Here’re some I made this evening..yum.

(Makes 12.)

Ingredients:

•  300g/10oz self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 150g/5 oz caster sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 200ml/7 fl oz coconut milk
• grated zest of 2 limes
• 100ml/3.5 fl oz sunflower oil
• 50g/1 and 3/4 desiccated coconut

To decorate:

•  150g/5 oz cream cheese
• 50g/1 and 3/4 oz icing sugar
• 2 tsp lime juice
• coconut shavings or desiccated coconut to sprinkle over
• (I also peeled some the skin of half a lime using a potato peeler and chopped it into strips to decorate too.)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200’C.  Grease or line a 12-hole muffin tin (I always buy muffin cases, saves on the washing up).

2. Combine the flour, baking powder and caster sugar and sift into a large bowl.

3. In a separate bowl or jug, combine the egg, coconut milk, lime zest, oil and desiccated coconut, then pour into the dry ingredients.  Stir together until just combined (don’t over-stir; it shouldn’t be completely smooth), then spoon big dollops of the mixture into your muffin cases (I use a tablespoon to do this).

4. Bake for about 20 mins until risen and golden.  You can test if they’re baked through by taking them out and putting a skewer or small knife through a few of them through the centre.  If it comes out clean, they’re ready.  Leave to cool in the muffin tin for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

5. To serve, beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar and lime juice until smooth and creamy.  Swirl on top of the muffins and sprinkle (as the ingredients suggest, optional).

(Note: muffins can be frozen and brought out of the freezer, zap them in the microwave or they don’t take long to thaw and taste just as good as when you first made them.  Also don’t ice muffins (or any baking) till the muffins have cooled down from the oven.)

Keralan (veggie) curry

Here in India, I’ve – perhaps unsurprisingly – started to cook more Indian-based dishes, one because a lot of them are veggie orientated which is nice and easy as fresh vegetables are easy to get here, more than meat or fish (how I miss fish though..), as South Indian food in particular is primarily vegetarian, and two, because the core ingredients that seem to make up most curries (for example, chillies, cardamom, cinnamon, garlic..) are readily available here and fresh, oh and cheap too, unlike in the UK.

So.  Here’s a recipe I found a while ago and have a tweaked a wee bit.  Add more/take away some chilli depending on your own personal preferences..

Keralan veggie curry

Serves 4 as a main or 6 as a side dish

3 tbsp sunflower/groundnut oil

2 large onions finely chopped

1 cinnamon stick

seeds from 8 cardamom pods

1 bay leaf

5cm chunk root ginger, peeled and very finely chopped

2 green chillies, halved, deseeded and finely chopped

4-5 plum tomatoes

500g potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

400ml coconut milk

salt and pepper

2 tbsp chopped coriander

1.  Heat the oil in a medium sized saucepan and saute the onions over a medium heat, until they are soft and golden.  Add the cinnamon stick, cardamom, bay leaf, ginger and chilli, and cook for another three mins or so, then add the tomatoes and cook for another 4 mins, stirring from time to time.

2.  Add the potatoes and the coconut milk, season and cook for 15 mins over a medium heat, until the potato is completely tender.  (Note: the first time I cooked this, the potatoes took AGES to soften, so since then I’ve boiled them for 10 mins beforehand, then put them into the saucepan, and then they only need another 10 mins.)

3.  Scatter with the coriander and serve.  You could have it with coconut rice or Indian bread, mango chutney….yum.

Crush

My new musical and style crush, Janelle Monae.  She is fantabulous.  If you mash up some Bowie, OutKast, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn and James Brown you might come 0.01% close to her sound..so check her album out.  Thanks to my £10-a-month subscription to Spotify, I am playing her latest album on loop 🙂  Love, love, love.

Sri Lanka

I’ve just come back from 10 days in Sri Lanka.  I started off in Kandy, almost in the centre of Sri Lanka, then travelled down to Ella and the surrounding little towns in the hill country.  Fresh air and greenery were just what I needed, and I ate pretty well too!  It’s no exaggeration to say I have eaten more since being on holiday than the last month, because I either have no time or no inclination to eat when I’m at school!  I hope to make it back to Sri Lanka at some point, this time to a national park perhaps..we shall see!  Here’s a wee slideshow of some of my favourite pics I took with my new toy, a Canon 550D.  For more details and pics, visit my travelblog at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/claire-b/

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Holidays are here!

I really had no idea whether I was going to continue this blog once I left the UK, time being a serious factor.  But here I am after a break of 4 months with a little update..

It’s holiday time!  And it really couldn’t have come quickly enough!We’ve got 3 weeks off, and I’m going to Sri Lanka (by myself, to many’s disbelief) for 10 days and then back here in time for the ‘rents to arrive on 31st for a week or so.  I wouldn’t have minded going with a friend but everyone I know here so far is going away for the holidays, back ‘home’.  Plus I don’t mind going by myself, I’m relishing the peace and quiet for a while.  I’m not sure when I’ve deserved this holiday more.  I haven’t taught full time since 2008 and even then I never taught 30 periods a week, a new curriculum, 6 grade levels, 4 of which I’ve never taught before, and 3 subjects, 2 of which were and are alien to me.  I get up at 6.30am, leave school at 4.30pm and then work some more at home..I estimate about 80-85 hours a week.  If teachers got paid for all the hours they work, they..and I..’d be millionaires.  So I’m pretty damn sure I deserve these 3 weeks off!

Lately though I’ve tried to ease off the work, mostly because as the holiday approaches, I’ve been less and less inclined to give a monkey’s.  I’m still enjoying my horse-riding twice a week and at last have progressed onto cantering, which is exhilerating to say the least.  I’ve also been on nights out with friends mostly consisting of chat and dinner rather than wild partying (though I was never part of that club) as it’s like the UK a few years ago – everything closes at 11.30pm!  There are a multitude of good restaurants here and I’m still discovering more.  Once a week some of us girls have a girly night where we go to one of our flats and watch a movie..or mostly talk about the usual.  Boys.  Work.  Boys.

In other news, I’ve lost about 10kgs (I don’t own any scales, so had to go to the nurse’s office at school to weigh myself!) which I guess is 10 big bags of sugar..no idea where it was before though, I don’t think I was thaaaat big, you know?!  Though I could easily do with losing 10 more to look even better, so goodness knows what that makes what I looked like before.  It’s the easiest weight loss I’ve ever experienced.   My appetite has shrunk since coming here mostly because when I get home it’s only me so I can’t be bothered to cook and don’t seem hungry enough.  I estimate I usually eat what fits in my hand, and nothing more.  If I am hungry, I’ll have a couple of pieces of toast and that’ll do me.  There’s no supermarket near me at all so I can’t access anything easily which is another reason.  And then lunch at school is hit and miss, and I’m always in a rush to eat because I’m often on duty or have work to do, so I don’t each much then.  I also move more around our big campus, and maybe horse-riding helps.  Who knows.  I don’t wear about half my wardrobe any more as it looks silly and too baggy, making me look bigger than I am.  So I’ll have to get some things made/adjusted, when I have the time..anyway, who knows whether this weight loss will continue, I doubt it!  I make up for it on weekends anyway!  I bought 2 items recently though that were a size 10, and I haven’t been that for a long time 🙂

Anyway, so how to sum up the past 4 months..phew.  It’s like anywhere, there are things that bug me and things that don’t.  Things that I’ve really enjoyed seeing and experiencing, and things I wish I could.  I am a list-maker, so here’s two contrasting lists reflecting my life so far here in India:

Things that make me go ‘Arrrrrgh’

-Lack of spontaneity.  I don’t have a car or a bike and there’s no public transport near where I am.  Here you have to order cabs at least an hour in advance, you can’t hail one on the road.  I live off a long dirt road filled with potholes so I have to navigate that every time I want to go into the city.  There are few rickshaws where I live either because it’s further out, and then it’s the whole haggling process, which I still find aggravating as they always try and charge me double because of the way I look.  I don’t mind paying a little more because of that fact, but not double or triple what the locals pay.  So I just order cabs all the time, but it means I can’t go ‘now’.

-There’s also nothing near where I live really.  There’s a fruit and veg stall where I can get the basics, but once you walk the 15 mins down the dirt road and arrive on the main road, all there is to see is a petrol station!  30 mins walk down the busy road is a coffee shop which is nice enough but the 30 min walk isn’t exactly pleasant with no pavement so you have to walk on the inside of the road watching out for cows, dogs, motorbikes, cars, buses etc.  Where most of my teacher friends live is a few miles down the road nearer the city, where they can walk to a mall and a main shopping street, but I can’t move there til next year, so that’s mighty frustrating.

-The traffic – when it’s bad, it’s really bad, and the fumes can be something else.

-Ants and the odd cockroach in my apartment.  A necessary evil in the tropics, but still!

-Lack of decent meat and fish.  I only eat red meat when I go out to restaurants as I can’t find it at my local supermarket – they always run out.  I used to eat fish 3-4 times a week in the UK and now I don’t at all, which I really miss.  We’re so far away from the coast it impacts on the fish that’s available, and what I have had made me ill!

-Power cuts.  There is a generator that goes on, which allows me to watch TV and have a few lights on, but you can’t iron, use the toaster, the kettle, the hair dryer or the shower (as the hot water is ignited by an electric switch).  There are power cuts every day of varying length.

-It takes so long to do anything and go anywhere.  It takes about 40 mins to get into town, and that’s just to one spot.  Lots of things are spread apart on different never-ending streets, so there’s no one central area, really.  If you want to do just a few things, it’ll take you literally hours getting from area of town to the next, pick up what you need, and repeat.  The city consists of one-way streets, so you never take the most direct route, you often have to go on one side of the road for a mile, then do a U-turn and come back just to get to the place you want.  So you end up planning your shopping route according to which side of the road shops are on.

-Teaching primary kids.  And teaching Music to primary kids.  I seriously doubt much teaching goes on at all in those classes.  I have real issues with behaviour management sometimes, and I don’t understand why they can’t sit still/do what they’re asked/not be so ‘he stole my ruler’ petty.  They get out of that by the time they’re 10 or 11 as I can see in my middle school classes, but anything younger, wow, I can’t handle it.  I really, really, really dislike teaching that age group and pretty much dread every lesson.  There are only a few individuals in each primary class that can disrupt it, but that’s enough for me to tear my hair out.  However I am assured it’s ‘unlikely’ I will teach it next year.  Please, please, please.

Things that make me smile:

-The amazing array of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices you can get here.  I can go to any supermarket, stall or market and pick up almost anything.  I saw strawberries the other day, one pounds equivalent a punnet, so I don’t know where they grow those but they’re not imported.  I love picking up massive bunches of mint to make iced tea with, coriander for my vegetable curries and packets of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves etc for my chai masala.

-The restaurants.  I haven’t even scratched the surface but not only have I discovered some yummy Indian restaurants, but Japanese, Mediterranean, French, Italian..you name it really.  All cheaper than UK prices so I eat out a couple of times a week.

-Once you’ve agreed a price for a rickshaw ride, there is something exhilerating about speeding along in one, the wind in your hair!

-The climate.  It won’t get hot and humid here for a few months I’m told, and since I’ve arrived it’s been mid to late 20s (C’) with blue skies, not much rain.  When it has rained I haven’t minded as long as I wasn’t caught in it!  I love monsoon rain.  I am so glad I don’t have to endure another British cold, damp, dark winter.

-Having met, and continuing to meet new people.  I still have only made friends with teachers at school but that’s because we are always working!  I went to a slum school opening the other weekend and met a couple of NGO workers I’m hoping to keep in contact with.  All in good time and all that.  At school though, it’s so nice not to have to explain yourself when you say ‘When I was in…’ as everyone’s in the same boat, having grown up in different places, speaking different languages (well, I don’t, I wish!), moving every few years, it’s nice to have that in common and it’s not in a show-off way.

-Horse-riding.  Something I could never afford in the UK, let alone the logistics of it.  I am lazy when it comes to exercise so I needed something that would be fun and if I got fitter as a result, that was a bonus.  I am going to miss doing it for the 10 days I’m away in Sri Lanka!

-Living on my own in a lovely apartment.  I can do what I want, when I want to with no compromises.  Not sure if I could ever share my space again!

-It can take a while to find them, but places that stock a variety of fabrics in a multitude of colours.  So, so, beautiful and colourful.  Have spent quite a bit on silk curtains, cushion covers, rugs etc already, oops!

-That I have so many (I have no doubt) amazing places to discover here in India..

Where do you call home?

The time has (almost) come for me to pick up my metaphorical hat (oh, and the new one I’ve just bought from Accessorize) and move cities, countries and continents once again from August 3rd (two days’ time!).

India will be the sixth country I’ve lived in, not to mention the eight or so cities I’ve lived in whilst I’ve boomeranged to and from the UK since I was born in Manchester nearly 28 years ago.  A few years ago a friend of mine who’s had a similar upbringing as me recommended a book called ‘Third Culture Kids’ to me, which basically talks about kids and adults like myself who either due to their parents’ choices or their own choices, live or have lived all over the place.

‘What is  TCK (Third Culture Kid)?’

“A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture.”

What the book suggests is that as a TCK, you don’t fully exist, or come from, your parents’ culture (either of your parents’ cultures).  Nor do you fully exist, or come from, the culture you are currently living in (whichever country that may be).  Instead, you come to exist in this third, ‘other’ culture.  You’re in between worlds, as it were.

The book – and subsequent Facebook sites and other sites – goes over, for better or worse, the effects of this kind of lifestyle and how it can contribute to one’s development.  Now I’m not saying this book has all the answers for people like me and after all, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and I don’t think I can just say ‘Oh I’m…because I’m a TCK’, like slapping the label of ‘TCK’ on me will answer all the questions I have about myself.

But.  Where do I come from?  Where do I lay my hat?  Well, as the name I’ve given to my blog suggests, wherever I happen to be.  I’m from nowhere and everywhere.  From the age of 4, I lived in Vanuatu (a group of islands in the South Pacific), til we moved to the UK nearly 5 years later.  We stayed there for 4.5 years, then moved to Zimbabwe for three years.  I did my A’Levels in the UK, and university.  I went to teach English in China when I was 23 for a year, then went to Bangladesh the next year, again, for a year, where my parents happened to be too.  If I add up the years, I’ve spent most of them in the UK, but in different places so there’s still no ‘home’.  In the UK, as I mentioned before, I’ve lived in eight cities and in my whole life thus far, not stayed in any one place more than 4.5 years.

 One of the most frustrating questions that can be asked of me is ‘Where are you from?’  A seemingly innocuous question.  But instantly I have to make a snap judgement:

Is the questioner type A (just asking out of politeness, making conversation, not fully engaged with me)?  If so, I will probably choose one random place I’ve lived in that doesn’t appear out of sync with how I look or my accent.

Is the questioner type B (seems interested enough, maybe their accent gives them away as to the fact they’re not native to these shores either)?  If so, I may say something like ‘Oh, I was born in the UK but I’ve lived in different places.’

This will lead on to me judging whether to elaborate on either answer, depending on their reaction.  Either I will, or they will, move onto another topic after pleasantries are exchanged, or depending, I will go into more detail if they seem they are not going to move away quickly out of sheer boredom or think I am snobby or rich because I happen to have such a life (reactions I have had before).

There’s no exact science to answering such a seemingly simple question, I just take it as it comes.  And nowadays, or maybe it’s just the circles I’ve been mixing in, it’s more common than not to meet a fellow TCK, or just people that are more open-minded.  It’s just sometimes hard to get across that on one hand, yes, compared to many people, I’ve had a privileged life.  On the other, it was just my life to me, it’s not like I looked around at the places I lived while I was there and went ‘ooh aren’t I lucky’.  It was, and is, just..life, the way it’s gone for me so far.  Neither am I ‘showing off’.  To me, that’s the truth; I don’t come from any one place.  I come from lots of different places.  I take a piece of every place I’ve lived and can’t help but take those pieces with me wherever I go.  So yes, I was born in Britain and I have a British accent.  But, for example, I’m not necessarily going to root for a British athlete competing in e.g. the Olympic Games more than I’m going to root for another athlete who’s from the country I’m now living in, or have lived in before.  I don’t think Britain is the best place to live.  Etc etc.  Some people I’ve met in the past seem to either think that attitude is either cool, or quite sad, or even unpatriotic.

Sometimes it can be annoying..oh yeah, boo hoo..no really.  Sometimes I envy people who have one group of friends, however big or small, that they have known a long time, and who they see frequently, particularly if they have a shared history of more than a few years.  Because I only spend a few years at a time in places, I can’t always relate to ‘oh, remember when’ or ‘you know that place/that person who..’ because they were in the picture before or after I was.  Sometimes my friends assume I know people they know, but I don’t because I never met them, because I didn’t live there then.  It’s like you’re part in, part out, of that friendship bubble.  Arrgh.  Occasionally, it’s annoying.  But hey, overall, it’s bearable..a sofa to crash on in almost every continent!

Anyhow, I’ve done it enough times now I have some things that remain pretty constant whenever I move.  Before, I try to say goodbye to as many of my friends who are around, because I don’t know for sure when I will see them again.  I do a clearout of anything that won’t suit the place or climate I’m moving to.  I pack my valuables in my cabin bag including a change of clothes cos you never know when your suitcase is going to go missing for a week or so (hello Shanghai four years ago, 38’C in jeans, stupid me).  I know that when I arrive, for the first 6 weeks or so I’ll do a lot of comparing in my head that ‘oh, that’s not like (insert place I’ve just left)’.  It might take up to 6 months for me to call my new home ‘home’ and to think 100% in local currency.  But when I’ve settled in, the next time someone mentions my previous country or, if I visit there, it will feel like quite a distant land.

So.  I feel lucky the way my life’s gone so far, and that now I seem to be a TCK that has grown into an adult version of that, not wanting to stay still for long.  I’m not saying my life has been any more exciting, or better, than someone else’s, whether they’ve lived in different places or not.  But it’s the way it’s gone, and I’m happy and lucky to have experienced what I have.  Travelling to somewhere is not the same; I want to live there!  So here I go again.  I’m also lucky in that I have no bloke, no kids, no mortgage to tie me down at present.  The last 2 years I’ve laid (laid? I never remember the right tense of that verb..) my hat in four different locations, but all in the UK.  I’m about to move it to India, where I’m hoping it’ll make itself a lovely new home.  Can’t wait.

Oh, and finally (well done if you’ve made it this far, you win..er, nothing), here’s a few things on the ‘you know you’re a TCK when..’ list from http://tckid.com  website, which I can definitely empathise with.

You know you’re a TCK when …

– “Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer.
– You go into culture shock upon returning to your “home” country.- Your life story uses the phrase “Then we moved to…” three (or four, or five…) times.
– You wince when people mispronounce foreign words.
– You consider a city 500 miles away “very close.”
– You get homesick reading National Geographic.
– You’ve gotten out of school because of monsoons, bomb threats, and/or popular demonstrations.
– You speak with authority on the subject of airline travel.
– You know how to pack.
– You have the urge to move to a new country every couple of years.
– The thought of sending your (hypothetical) kids to public school scares you, while the thought of letting them fly alone doesn’t at all.
– You think that high school reunions are all but impossible.
– You have friends from 29 different countries.
– You sort your friends by continent.
– You have a time zone map next to your telephone.
– You realize what a small world it is, after all.