Estoy aprendiendo espanol con OU

I have 'spoken' Spanish for many years now.  Although I can understand a fair bit and sometimes reply (more likely after a glass or two of vino!), I have never done a formal qualification in Spanish.

If you have been reading this blog you will know I recently registered to do my degree in Modern Languages (French and Spanish) through the Open University.  I have now received my course materials for the first Spanish module with the French ones winging their way to me right now, hopefully!

I have started to read through the Spanish module as I want to get through this one as quickly as possible - my next Spanish module starts in February so I would ideally like to get this one as near to finished as possible before that one comes through.  I am really looking forward to being buried in books and CDs - it's been a couple of years now since I last did any serious studying.  Looking at the materials for this module I think I should be able to get through it pretty quickly and although I think I know most of what's in this one I am going to read it word for word in case there are bits I have missed anywhere along the way - having not actually studied for a qualification in Spanish previously there are almost certainly many parts of the grammar that I don't yet know.

Keep reading this blog and if you are familiar with Spanish I may even - when I feel confident that my Spanish is good enough - post some blogs with a Spanish translation (and a French one while I'm at it!).  For now I won't subject you to my bad grammar!

The time has finally come!

Finally! 13 years after doing my first module I am finally able to get on with my Open University degree!  I have been trying for 13 years to be able to carry on with it and the time has now come.

I started in 1997 with my L120 (Intermediate French) with a view to doing my Modern Languages Degree, but due to financial circumstances I was unable to get any further.

I have now registered for Beginners Spanish and Intermediate Spanish.  The first on starts in about a month from now.  I do already speak some Spanish having spent time in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries but have no formal qualifications in it and as I have never seriously studied the grammar side it will be great to start from the absolute beginning.

So what have I been doing over the last 13 years you may ask?!  Well, other than raising my gorgeous daughter who is now 19, many things have happened in that time. I have done an accounts qualification, and interior design qualification, nails and spray tanning (including owning my own salon for a little while), I have been an analytical chemist and done my Chemistry A'level, I have been a lettings negotiator and valuer (lister) and an estate agent!  I have learnt some HTML (via my fantastic partner) and we have completed a few websites between us including our own which advertises our website design business which is based here in York, where we live.  Our website is http://www.byITsizePro.co.uk and has links to the other sites we have done.  I am now getting back to my real passion which is languages.

I am really looking forward to getting my head back into some language books and am eagerly awaiting the course materials arrival.  Once they arrive there will be more to go on here as I intend to keep my blog updated with my progress.

Pork Rissoles!

There was pork leftover from yesterdays Sunday roast and I couldn't decide what to do with it - fancied trying something different.

If I have beef leftover I like to make rissoles with it - absolutely delicious, so I wondered what they'd be like using pork instead.  Here's what I did (i am deliberately leaving out the amounts partly because I never really measure anything unless it's a cake and partly because anyone reading this will have different amounts of leftovers):

Put some potatoes on to boil, meanwhile grind up the leftover pork - ideally in a food processor - with some onion plus any leftover carrots, add an apple, once everything is finely ground add some black pepper, a bit of hot sauce (I use Jamaican hot sauce), and then mash the potatoes and mix in.

Sprinkle some flour onto a work surface and then make patties with the mixture.  Fry for a few minutes until golden on each side and serve with fresh vegetables and gravy.

Turned out really nice - so next time you have some pork leftover, give these rissoles a try, really easy to make and very tasty.  The apple really added something - I would possible put a few  more herbs in next time.

Ugly Kid Joe - Cats In The Cradle

Road Trip 2010 in a VW Camper

Anyone who has been reading this blog will know that Kevin (my partner) and I recently did a website for a VW Campervan hire company up in Northumberland, North East England . We decided we should try out the hire - I have been a lover of all thing VW for as long as I can remember (in particular, the classic beetles and campers).

The first August finally arrived - I was so excited, I couldn't wait to get out and about in Felicity (Felicity is a Brazilian T2 bay camper converted by Danbury). We left York mid morning and arrived at Felicity's home at around mid-day. Paul and Denise, (the owners) have become good friends over the time doing the website so it was lovely to see them too. There was lunch waiting for us when we got there which was a lovely start to our holiday. We had a nice relaxed lunch and catch up with Paul and Denise and then we were on our way in Felicity.

We headed up the coast road first towards Beadnell Bay. The views were fantastic - beautiful coastline and it lots of castles!  The first night we stayed in Budle Bay which is just up the coast from Beadnell Bay and near Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The next day we decided to head further north and ended up crossing the border into Scotland and up to North Berwick.  We found a lovely campsite in North Berwick overlooking the coast and just a very short walk down to the beach.  Bass Rock could be seen from the campsite too.  Here we had some German neighbours with whom we had wine and snacks the first night and then on the last morning they invited us for breakfast.  They were a really lovely family and we intend to keep in touch and hopefully visit them at some point in the future.  We are also, possibly, having the daughter to stay next summer to help her out with her English (although it's way better than my German has ever been already).

From North Berwick we had a drive into Edinburgh for the day and had a wonder around.  We saw Edinburgh Castle and many of the other sights and sounds of Edinburgh - a really lovely and lively city.

After 3 nights in North Berwick we decided to head to the Lake District for a couple of nights.  We drove down to Lake Ullswater in Cumbria and stayed at Park Foot campsite right on the lake for 2 nights.  We drove around a few of the lakes and spent a couple of hours in Keswick.  We took Felicity right up to the top of Borrowdale where the views were absolutely amazing, we spent a lot of time up in the clouds!  The climb by road was very steep and very bendy but Felicity managed it all with absolutely no problems.

After the Lakes we head over the Penines towards Alnwick and then stayed our last night back in Northumberland.

Unfortunately, the time then came for us to hand Felicity back to Paul and Denise.  We had had a fantastic time with her and will hopefully have her again sometime.  She was so much fun to drive and to spend time in. Stopping here and there to make a coffee in the back was great.  And cooking dinner was also great fun.

Thanks to Paul, Denise and Felicity for a fantastic week.  I would definitely recommend North East VW Camper Hire to anyone with a love for campers, it's a great way to see some of the country!

Cats and Rabbits!

Last night our young cat (Dizzee) brought in a baby rabbit - the biggest catch so far (he had mainly been bringing in little voles up to now). The rabbit was still alive so I did the only possible thing to get the rabbit from Dizzee - I picked him up by his tail and swung him about until he let go. I then chucked the cat out of the kitchen and chased the rabbit around until I eventually caught it.

It was very scared - of course - and so I found a pet carrier and some lettuce and put him in there. He didn't have any obvious injuries and was just in shock. We then left him overnight and I checked him this morning, he seemed okay but I decided to keep him in for the day to be sure.

When we came home this evening we found two more baby rabbits - 1 dead and the other half eaten, I wonder how many more there will be to come.

After a coffee and a piece of carrot cake (quite appropriate) we took the rabbit round to the lake behind the house where we knew there were hundreds of rabbits and released it. I opened the pet carrier and he jumped out and ran off to a little hill where there are many rabbit warrens - hopefully this is where it came from and it has now found its way home - if not, a new home.

North East VW Camper Van Hire!

Here it is the website we've been working on this week.  It's been such a great one to do and we and our client are very pleased with the end result. Because of this I wanted to put a few words on here about Felicity the VW Camper.

Ever thought of hiring a VW Camper for your holiday, I had thought about it on many many occasions (not being able to get one myself - YET! - this was the next best thing). Nearly 2 weeks ago Kevin and I went to Scarborough for the day, had a lovely day there, we went out on a cruise around the bay and on a pirate ship, had fish & chips (you can't go to the seaside and not! - same goes for ice creams of course!).  Fran and her boyfriend joined us for part of the day and came on the pirate ship with us, we were then made to go into a haunted house (which I thought would NOT be scary)....we got chased by the guy from Scream and actually ran out at the end.

The point of writing this was that walking back to the car we saw a beautiful VW Camper Van and spotted on the back that it was available for hire.  I took down the website details so I could get some more information when we got home.

Pretty much as soon as we got home I went online to get some information on the VW Camper Van hire, unfortunately the website was still under construction and there was no information on there except for a mobile telephone number.  I decided to text them and ask for some more information, in the text I thought it would be worth asking if they had someone working on the website.  Almost immediately we got a text back saying they would post out some information and asking if we do websites as they had a friend doing it and it was taking rather a long time.  Of course, I texted straight back saying that is what we do and would they like us to look at theirs the answer was yes and the rest they say is history.  Felicity's website is now online still working on the search engine optimisation side of things but it's there and - we think - looking great!

Felicity is a 2006 Brazilian T2 bay camper converted by Danbury, she is water cooled and is the height of camping luxury.  If you are interested in hiring her then please check out the website for more details including how to book. Also, more information below: 






There are seat belts front and rear for 5 people and sleeps four - there is a king size bed and a double bed above with mattress if required and for extra space you can hire a 2 or four man awning. The stereo system has MP3/iPod connection so you can take all your favourite music with you on your travels.  http://www.northeastvwcamperhire.com