Monday, October 23, 2006

still tired.

...and about to get a damn sight more so. In 36 hours or so, I will be a father once more. Now, I know I should be positive about the whole thing, and in some ways I am - it won't be quite the rude shock that Angus' first appearance was - I find it difficult to work up any enthusiasm. No matter: it is one of those things that one becomes accustomed to. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know. I feel very, very uncertain.
Well, I've wrapped more or less everything up at work, including sorting out a rather complex situation involving exams for the ESOL students, and marking 40+ sets of papers today, on a variety of topics; letters to a friend, descriptions of countries, descriptions of graphs. Some good ones:
'The people og Togo are famous for their love of sport, particularly football, hanball, and athletics. Even though that most Togos are afraid to swim.'
' South Africa has wonderful views of magnificent waterfalls and spectacular mountings.'
'Mortality has been a matter of concern to many countries for some time'
'Since 1960. people have died more dramatically.'
'Many countries have joined the EU in the past twenty years. For this reason, infant mortality is under the control of Brussels.'
These are the kind of things that make my job worthwhile.

Before going to work, I drowned some tomatoes in oil - or rather, stored my dried tomatoes, the last of this year's crop. Here's the recipe, variations of which can be found all over the place:
OVEN DRIED TOMATOES
Cut tomatoes in half - if big, quarter them. place side by side in an overproof dish.add garlic, finely chopped, plus sage, thyme, oregano and basil. drizzle with olive oil and add plenty of salt and pepper. Then, put the dish in an oven set to its lowest possible setting - 50 degrees max. let the tomatoes dry out; for the small plum tomatos I used, this took something like five hours, but it can take up to 24, depending on the size of your tomatoes. They're ready when the jelly has evaporated. Let cool, then pack in a sterile jar with chnks of garlic and fresh herbs, then cover in olive oil and store in the fridge. Taste bloody delicious and last up to two months.

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