This is partly because of the christmas spirit, and partly because Asha has had a snuffly cold for a while, so were still not onto “written work”

However she now has full command of the following three works of literature :

Little Women – Louise Alcott.. to the extent that yesterday, when I asked her which was her favourite book, she informed me that ” little women is, because Joe is like you and me mummy” Slightly abashed I asked her what she meant by this” she has a tempor which rises up and we both try and control it.. but fail misserably” Well there you go…

She also asked why daddies cant always be around, and what the war was in the story. She seems to empathise a lot with the girls when they are sad..

The secret Garden – Frances Hodges Burnett. She has loved this title for some time now, and I am seriously starting to tire of it. But her games have gone from Colin;s nautyness to being an Animal Charmer.. She is no longer wanting to be like Mary Lennox, recognising that Mary has a terrible temper, which Asha says isnt like a princess… It has also encouraged a great amount of interest in india, and if anyone has any recommendations for indian literature suitable for a 5 year old i would like to hear them!!

The Little Princess, also Frances Hodges Burnett.
This is interesting as it is encouraging her good behaviour and her love of literature and her sympathetic nature. Its also bought up questions about mineing, death, quarrying.. and slavery / maids… Wonderful stuff!

She also has some command of the following works.

The Hobbit. – daddy is currently re-reading it to her.
Winnie the poo.
Hiawatha.. All these have developed a lot since November and I am pleased with these outcomes.

In December we went to a violin concert in liverpool held by the Liverpool Suzuki group, it was wonderful. Asha had a lovely evening, though she was fidgetty, after a long day in birkenhead and liverpool, visiting such wonderful places as Woodside, Birkehead, etc..

Her violin practice has been slow this month, but hopefully we will get back on track once her snuffle has gone.

Currently Asha is not interested in reading or writing. Were encouraging these skills by ensuring she always has access to pens, paper and reading fodder… I am not worried about these skills, as last time I worked on them with her, she was well within her age group needs… and well.. there is more to education!

Her fascination with local birds is continuing.. we feed them every day, and she watches them every day.. often for hours at a time.. I plan on doing more work with bird life, once I have found some more resources on it.. We certainly seem to enjoy talking about there shapes, feet, wings etc….

Crafts, before Christmas we made loads of decorations.. snowmen, candles for on the wall, birds to hang up.. all sorts, since christmas we have done some painting, some drawing and talked about the chemical reaction needed to make a crystal snow tree.

Asha has contined to spend much time doing skateboarding, walking and enjoying time outside. We have also enjoyed a trip to portmerion…

I am generally more than happy with Asha’s level of education. She is a sociable, happy child.. what else can I want?

Todays theme was Ray Mears. We played a selection of his programmes in the background on the tv all day, and asha has been making her own variations on his meals in the lounge all day.

Just before tea tonight she measured out exactly 730 grms of sugar, to go with 730 grams of plums and 125 ml of water, to make some FANTASTIC Plum Jam. – with daddies help!

Pudding tonight was jam and rice pudding.. yummy!

Anyway, what have we been doing for the last two weeks?  Ummmm.

Works backwards – Today is shove tuesday. We had a great pancake party, and ate far too many pancakes. P came round, and we all enjoyed ourselves.

We did shopping in bangor today, and asha bought herself a new set of plastic kitchen toys.

Monday – Naomi and 4 kids came round, and we had a lovely evening playing. In day time, Asha and i did assorted things with paper, and made sample musical instruments up out of junk for clas project on Wednesday.

Sunday – recovered from trip to grannys, and had T, and his parents round to play / eat. Went well. Made some mars bar covered fudge!

Saturday – played at grannys.

Friday – travelled down to grannys.

Thursday – recovered from wed, made some bread.Met new social worker.. Went well.

Wednesday – CLAS and Gwerin meeting, new record, home before 7.30

Tuesday – wrapped some vanilla fudge up for J and A at clas. Spoke to A, and J on telephone today.  Friend came round to play, after i had done shopping.

Monday. I did some shopping, and collasped in heap i think.

Sunday -

Saturday – was it snowdrop weekend at penrhyn? If it was we went there is Gwerin, and had a great time!…….

So what did she do today then? This morning she and I read a few dozen books in my bed. Whilst eating Stollen, and drinking coffee..

After lunch.. cold meats and cheese, I did a bit of nothing, whilst she played with her toys in the lounge, and generally used up her energy. If only I had 1/20th of her energy, I would feel human..

After a while, Steve and I finally agreed to help her make her gingerbread house, which Granny had bought for her. It is now sitting proudly in the corner of the “living” room – we must decide on a name for this room!

After she had completed this mammoth task, which I was really impressed with her concentration throught, off she then did a bit of jumping around untill eventually she asked me for something interesting to do again. I supplied her with christmas cards to decorate.

So far she has done 6, she has about another 5 to do I think!

This evening, Asha asked me if every week after Wednesday she could have two days at home, as she enjoys it. I would like to myself.. I wonder if we can do it?

I “should” get some pics up of her creation soon.

The English created ginger sweets. Typical english use hey!!!

The first gingerbread is thought to have been made by Catholic monks in Europe for special holidays and festivals. England, France, and especially Germany were known to eat and celebrate with gingerbreadtreats. Ginger was called “zingebar” in Latin,
“gingerbras” in Old French and “gingerbread” in Medieval England.
“Lebkuchen” is the German word for gingerbread.

Gingerbread also became a popular treat at European fairs and was added to meat to preserve it and help cover up the strong odor of aging meat.

Two hundred years later, bread crumbs were added to the mixture and gingerbread almost as we know it was born.

Gingerbread has been baked in Europe for centuries. In some places, it was a soft, delicately spiced cake; in others, a crisp, flat cookie, and in others, warm, thick, steamy-dark squares of “bread,” sometimes served with a pitcher of lemon sauce or whipped cream. It was sometimes light, sometimes dark, sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, but it was almost always cut into shapes such as men, women, stars or animals, and colorfully decorated or stamped with a mold and dusted with white sugar to make the impression visible.

It was only in the fifteenth century that the term came to be applied to a kind of cake made with treacle and flavored with ginger.

Ginger was also discovered to have a preservative effect when added to pastries and bread, and this probably led to the development of recipes for ginger cakes, cookies, Australian gingernuts and flavored breads.

The manufacture of gingerbread appears to have spread throughout Western Europe at the end of the eleventh century, possibly introduced by crusaders returning from wars in the Eastern Mediterranean. From its very beginning gingerbread has been a fairground delicacy. Many fairs became known as “gingerbread fairs” and gingerbread items took on the alternative name in England of “fairings” which had the generic meaning of a gift given at, or brought from, a fair.

Certain shapes were associated with different seasons: buttons and flowers were found at Easter fairs, and animals and birds were a feature in Autumn. There is also more than one village tradition in England requiring unmarried women to eat gingerbread “husbands” at the fair if they are to stand a good chance of meeting a real husband. Of course, you could always visit Elizabeth Botham & Sons, a family-run craft bakery on the North Yorkshire coast of England, and sample some authentic pastries.

If you lived in London in 1614, your family would have gone to the Bartholomew Fair on August 24. Of the special cakes prepared for holidays and feasts in England, many were gingerbread. If a fair honored a town’s patron saint, e.g., St. Bartholomew, the saint’s image might have been stamped (and even gilded) into the gingerbread you would buy. If the fair were on a special market day, the cakes would probably be decorated with an edible icing to look like men, animals, valentine hearts or flowers. Sometimes the dough was simply cut into round “snaps.”

Gingerbread-making was eventually recognized as a profession in itself. In the seventeenth century, gingerbread bakers had the exclusive right to make it, except at Christmas and Easter. Their street cries could be heard well into the nineteenth century, but in 1951, writer Henry Mayhew sadly recorded that “there are only two men in London who make their own gingerbread nuts for sale in the streets.”

Of all the countries in Europe, Germany is the one with the longest and strongest tradition of flat, shaped gingerbreads. At every autumn fair in Germany, and in the surrounding lands where the Germanic influence is strong, there are rows of stalls filled with hundreds of gingerbread hearts, decorated with white and colored icing and tied with ribbons.

If you lived in Nuremberg in 1614, your family would have gone to the Christkindlmarkt in December. You would have bought carved Christmas decorations, special sausages, and the famous Nuremberg Lebkuchen flavored with ginger, which you probably would have thought was the best in the world. Nuremberg gingerbread was not baked in the home, but was the preserve of an exclusive Guild of master bakers, the Lebkuchler.

Nuremberg became known as the “gingerbread capital” of the world and as with any major trading center, many fine craftsmen were attracted to the town. Sculptors, painters, woodcarvers and goldsmiths all contributed to the most beautiful gingerbread cakes in Europe. Gifted craftsmen carved intricate wooden molds, artists assisted with decoration in frosting or gold paint. Incredibly fancy hearts, angels, wreaths and other festive shapes were sold at fairs, carnivals and markets.

Lebkuchen are made throughout Germany and large pieces of lebkuchen are used to build Hexenhaeusle (“witches’ houses,” from the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, also called Lebkuchenhaeusel and Knusperhaeuschen ‹ “houses for nibbling at”).

Nuremberg merchants, in fact, were so well known for their spices that they had the nickname “pepper sacks.” From early on, Nuremberg’s Lebkuchen packed into one recipe all the variety of flavorings available to its bakers‹cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, white pepper, anise and ginger.

The traditions in France were closer to the German than the English ones, with noteworthy recipes for pain d’epices coming from Dijon, Reims and Paris. In 1571, French bakers of pain d’epices even won the right to their own guild, or professional organization, separate from the other pastry cooks and bakers. In Paris a gingerbread fair was held from the eleventh century until the nineteenth century at an abbey on the site of the present St. Antoine Hospital, where monks sold gingerbread cut into the shape of pigs.

During the nineteenth century, gingerbread was both modernized and romanticized. When the Grimm brothers collected volumes of German fairy tales they found one about Hansel and Gretel, two children who, abandoned in the woods by destitute parents, discovered a house made of bread, cake and candies. By the end of the century the composer Englebert Humperdink wrote an opera about the boy and the girl and the gingerbread house.

At Christmas, gingerbread makes its most impressive appearance. The German practice of making lebkuchen houses never caught on in Britain in the same way as it did in North America, and it is here still that the most extraordinary creations are found. Elaborate Victorian houses, heavy with candies and sugar icicles, vie in competition with the Hansel and Gretel houses, more richly decorated and ornamented than most children could imagine in their wildest dreams.

Gingerbread making in North America has its origins in the traditions of the many settlers from all parts of Northern Europe who brought with them family recipes and customs. By the nineteenth century, America had been baking gingerbread for decades.

American recipes usually called for fewer spices than their European counterparts, but often made use of ingredients that were only available regionally. Maple syrup gingerbreads were made in New England, and in the South sorghum molasses was used.

Regional variations began occurring as more people arrived. In Pennsylvania, the influence of German cooking was great and many traditional Germany gingerbreads reappeared in this area, especially at Christmas time.

The North and Midwest of America welcomed the Northern and Middle Europeans. At Christmas it is still very common in the midwest to have Scandinavian cookies like Pepparkaker or Lebkuchen. Often one can find wives holding “coffee kolaches” (coffee mornings) at which European ginger cakes still reign.

source : http://www.geocities.com/GinnysGingerbreadHouse/ghistory.html
source :http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-history-of-gingerbread.htm

Anyway some fun things she has done:

Fungal forrage with friends at Moleci.

Swimming with friends at Portmadog.

A day at the beach – yes the second week in October! at Dinas.

Dutch Pancakes at a Tea Room near Snowdon.

A go on go-carts at parc Glasfryn.

Ride on her bike and on scooters in the road.

A trip to the play ground with J from CLAS.

A play date with R and A. – water bombs made, cutting out of words done.

A play date with T and R.G fed the ducks, and played with their dog.

Watched the Steam Train in Caernarfon.

Made bread rolls, very successfull they were as well!

Done more glass painting.

Completed a painting by numbers she started in August.

Plus so many other things, like swimming lessons, gymnastics, learning welsh, and being able to write her own name. Asha also drew a lovely picture of her daddy helping her to roller skate. She started wth the boots, drew her legs, then her body and arms and head, then she drew daddy.

Book wise, she has completed Toms Midnight Garden, and has been loveing the Medici Chidrens books lately. Not really wanting any other books to be read to her. I cant blame her really the stories are so gentle, and the illustrations so peacefull, they are a great bedtime story!

5 Min Chocolate Mug Cake

1. coffee mug

4 tbsp plain flour.  (it works fine with gluten free)

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp baking cocoa (i think we used less in the group)

1 egg

3 tbsp milk  (I used soya with Asha)

3 tbsp oil

3 tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

small splash of vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well.

Add egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in milk and oil and mix again

Add chocolate chips if using and vanilla, and mix again

put mug in microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but dont be alarmed.

Allow to cool a little and tip out onto a plate.

Eat.

I reckon it would be great cut into slices, then turned into a yule log or caterpillar.. It certainly tastes o.k. and the home edd kids LOVED making it today!

She rolled around, jumped around, followed the line around, played tick, and went on the horse thingy. She smiles, and lands with her hands together and has a great time.

I just hope she keeps on loving it!

The rest of the day wasnt as sucessfull, we think Asha is stuggling with milk and gluten in her diet, and as such is being a number one cling on. Which is tireing and hard work. Though she did play outside for a while with daddy, and she did have a small rest when we went for a drive, as she was so tired.

Education done today. Not loads, but we have talked, we have read a few stories and we did look at a big plan of a human body, and talk about teeth, blood cells and veins. We also looked at where our hearts were… My child is 4, and knows more biology than I knew at 16!

Its actually very hard for Asha not to get an education in our house, as we have SO many books of all kinds lieing around.. and with her toys as well!!!!

Oh we also melted some chocolate and added corn flakes to it. We then made some pepermint iceing up, and dropped it into the chocolate crispy cakes. Its really interesting what then happens.. you have after eight choclate crisp cakes!

Oh and before bath, Asha also played with ff.
Vicki xx

4 oz butter

4 oz sugar

1 egg beaten

8 oz G.F Self Raising Flour.

Pinch of salt.

4 oz currants

4 oz sultanas

Milk (i used long life soya milk, sweetened)

( I also use what ever dried fruit i have in)

Set oven to gas mark 4 / 350 F.

Cream butter and sugar together, once fluffy beat in egg.

Sift in flour and salt, fold in.

Stir in dried fruit,

add sufficient milk to give a dropping consistency.

Turn into a greased cake tin. The recipie states a 6″ cake tin, but I tend to double up the recipie and cook in a few small loaf tins :d

The instructions also say bake for 45 mins to an hour, but I find with LPG and gluten free it takes slightly longer, but well keep an eye on it!

Enjoy!