A cloud of grannies

Quoting Arthur C. Clarke, "If children are interested then education will happen",  Professor Sugata Mitra has repeatedly shown that this happens.  He is Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University, and has demonstrated that children will learn with minimal help using computers.

Have you seen "Slumdog Millionaire" or read the book?  That was inspired by Sugata Mitra's first experiment in this direction, when he installed Hole in the Wall computers in Delhi.  There, without any instruction, children learned to use computers.  You could call this minimally invasive education.

To take this a stage further, mediators can guide the children using the grandmother method.  What is the grandmother method?   Standing behind them and admiring  them all the time, little more than that.  So now they have 200 volunteers admiring students around the world (India, Africa, Columbia) using Skype, a webcam, and a microphone.

There are many places where for various reasons teachers don't want to go and they aren't all in developing countries.  They are often the places where teachers are needed most.  It could be that minimally invasive education could be part of the answer.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
~William Butler Yeats

Blackthorn - something for everyone

Blackthorn hedge

Blackthorn hedges are just about in full bloom now, with their distinctive white flowers appearing before the leaves come out.  Normally I'd expect to see them in full bloom in March so it seems a little late.

Blackthorn grows in dense bushes with vicious black thorns and is traditionally used for hedges to keep livestock in the fields.

Blackthorn buds

In Ireland the wood is made into shillelaghs, or walking sticks.  The wood also makes excellent firewood, and the thorns can be used as fishing bait or as awls by leather workers, they say, but best of all are the fruits: sloes.

Sloes are small black fruits, looking rather like tiny plums.  They taste pretty awful straight from the bush but they can be used to make sloe gin.  They are sweeter if harvested after the first frosts.  Sloe gin is simplicity itself to make though a little tedious.  In fact sloe gin requires patience in the making, and more patience while waiting for it to mature.

And this is what you do, roughly.

Half a bottle of gin, cheap stuff is fine.  What you do with the other half is up to you.
Enough sloes to fill the bottle about two thirds full, roughly 450g/1lb sloes
About 225g/8oz sugar.

Take the sloes and prick them all over with a needle, or more traditionally with one of the thorns from the bush.
Put the sloes into the gin which is easier to do if you've decanted it into a wide-necked container.
Add the sugar.

Put the top on the jar/bottle and give it a good shake.  Shake it every other day for a week or so, then every week for two months.  The longer you leave it, the better.

Eventually the gin will take on the flavour of the sloes and make a lovely liqueur.  It can also be added to gravies or sauces,  or add to fruits puddings such as plum or apple and blackberry crumble.

I haven't made sloe gin for years but seeing the blossom this spring has given me a push in that direction.  It looks as though there will be plenty of fruit around.

And finally, the sloes can be used as chicken food for Elsie the Inebriate Hen:

It was good in school today.
Miss Kay wrote "It is Autumn" on the board.
"Guess what I'm thinking of," she said.
"It begins with L; It's brown,
And in autumn, it falls down."

Then Sammy Smith jumped up and said
"Elsie, my pet hen!"
Miss Kay went red.
"See, she pecks the fallen sloes
When the frost has turned 'em rotten," Sammy said.
That makes her tipsy, Miss.
She goes round backwards,
And she sings a funny song.
Then she tumbles down.
I seen her, Miss!
My Uncle Bob, he laughed. He said
"Look at that beggar there!
Her eyes are crossed,
Her beak is crossed,
Her legs are crossed, an' all!
Look at that beggar fall!"
"So is it Elsie, Miss?"

But Miss had put her head inside her desk.
She stayed like that for ages,
Then she said "Go out and play."
It was great in school today!

This was written  by Sandra Horn, of Tattybogle fame,  who once had the dubious pleasure of teaching me psychology.  She had a great sense of humour, and needed it.

Blackthorn blossom

Sturdy houses, their doors and gates

I have a fascination for doorways and gates and as they are generally fairly sturdy and often lead into homes, I thought I could use some of the many photos I have taken over the years today.

This very sturdy gateway was once the entrance to the home of Maréchal Foch in 1913, from January until August.  Not long but long enough for a claim to fame.

This has seen better days, I think, and it's a shame about all the cables leading in and around the doorway.  It was once home to a lawyer, judging by the plaque by the door.

Still sturdy though definitely it has seen better days, this gate will soon lead to 12 new homes, apartments in the original building.  In fact, given that this picture was taken a couple of years ago, the homes are almost certainly already complete.

In some cases, the door looks sturdier than the home but in this case the building had been there a long time and is presumably propped up by its next door neighbours.

A two-in-one post for the Photo Hunts. 

Memories were made of this

On 19 June 1994, I remember the day exactly, I went out with an American friend of mine to do some shopping, the same friend who sent me off on a cookery course.  We both lived very near Paris and both of us were coming to the end of our three years' stay in France.

Almost everyone I knew seemed to be leaving Paris that summer but although we had been there three years, we had been offered another couple of years.  Maybe.  I wasn't too happy about staying on because I loved it.  It may sound contradictory, but I thought if I stayed longer I'd never want to leave.

So all in all I wasn't on top of the world that day, and a shopping expedition sounded just the thing to take my mind off things, especially as I wasn't doing the shopping, just observing.  We went to the rue de Rivoli, one of the famous roads in the centre, famous names, famously expensive.  Some of it, it has to be said, is just expensive tourist tat.  It runs past the Louvre and the Tuileries gardens.  Its main advantage to me was that it had the English bookshop, WH Smith, many times rescuing me from certain boredom.

Sue, my friend, asked my advice on a coffee cup she was planning to buy for a mutual friend.  I said I thought she'd love it, that whenever she drank from it, she would be reminded of our times in Paris.

Of course, I was slow on the uptake, and the coffee cup and saucer were bought for me.  Every time I saw them, I did remember Paris, but now they are in several pieces - the cup and saucer not the memories - and about to be consigned to the bin. 

I did consider trying to find a similar set but I can't find any and it wouldn't be the same anyway.  Unfortunately then, it seems as though the memories will eventually follow the same fate, unless of course I record them somewhere.....

Wild flowers in the woods

I do enjoy walking but it does take a special effort to go "for a walk" rather than just walking somewhere I need to go.  I am easily put off by a poor weather forecast.  So I decided to join a walking group to spur me on. 

My first walk with them turned out to be the last of the winter walks so it was longer than usual, a good half hour longer than the 1 to 1.5 hours they advertised.  They went through the rhubarb fields.  I have never seen a rhubarb field before, but there it was.  Full of rhubarb.  I hadn't thought to carry my camera along but decided I would for the next walk.

It was a beautifully warm and sunny day, unseasonally warm.  I waved goodbye to my companions and assured them I'd be there the following week as long as it didn't snow.  Guess what?  Fortunately the 6 inches of snow that fell in Scotland didn't get too far south but rain was in the forecast.

My second walk turned out to coincide with the appearance of the windflowers in one of the local woods.  So it was longer than usual, a good half hour longer.  But this time I did have the camera.

In spite of the dry weather we've had all winter, the woods were full of wild flowers and greenery. 

Wood anemones, also known as windflowers or thimbleweed have half inch diameter flowers and form spreading carpets of growth in suitable shady conditions.  They die back completely in the summer.  They are nothing like their brightly coloured cultivated cousins, but have their own special charm. 

 Of course there were primroses too, one of my favourites.

And violets.

I was surprised that the leader of the walk happily pointed out the celandine.  When I had a garden I spent years attempting to get rid of it as it attempted a take over.  I eventually came to terms with it when I heard a radio programme suggest that the best way of dealing with it was to "learn to love your celandine".   I kept muttering that to myself every spring as I pulled it up by the handful.

There was quite a bit more to see in the woods, including some evidence of World War II, surprising in what seemed like an out of the way place.  I'll be back again though, to check that out along with the bluebells which should be in full bloom before the end of the month.