Sea Monkeys

For christmas I got a sea monkey set. I put the eggs into the tank with some water on Christmas day and was confused when I saw that the sea monkeys weren't hatching before my eyes like everyone said they would. Instead the water just looked cloudy and I could see little white things floating around in it. A few days ago I checked the tank and to my surprise, I saw a baby sea monkey swimming around. When I looked more closely, I saw some more of them.


On the packet, it said that you mustn't feed the sea monkeys until five days after they hatch, so I'm looking forward to five days passing because I'll be able to see if they all swim to the food and fight over eating it, or just carry on swimming and nibble on the bits of food whenever they feel slightly peckish.


Before I got them, I'd been wanting sea monkeys for a very long time. The descriptions on the Hawkins Bazaar catalogue made sea monkeys sound really fascinating, and they are.


 I'll do another post on sea monkeys soon.

New Year

It feels like the last day of 2011 has come so soon. I'm not sad about it, just surprised. Sometimes on new year's eve' we stay up till midnight and wait for the next year to come. I don't know if we'll do that this year, but I won't be disappointed if we don't because it will be exciting waking up and thinking "It's 2012. Finally!" A few years ago we celebrated by sitting in front of the TV watching fireworks displays and drinking fizzy drinks.


I just remembered that I'm going to start a new diary soon. I'll have to try and remember every day to do a new entry. It's hard enough having to remember to do this blog!

Christmas day food

The day before yesterday was Christmas. (Obviously). We decided not to just have the traditional roast turkey, but to have a few other special dishes as well. First had prawn with arak and olives. We got the recipe out of an Ottolenghi cook book that I'd got my mum for her birthday a few years ago. After that we had mozarella and tomato salad. We got that out of an Italian recipe book called The Silver Spoon For Children. Mozarella is one of my favorite cheeses. Our next meal was roast turkey with cranberry sauce, parsnips, potatoes, and two types of gravy. For dessert we had amaretti stuffed nectarines. The recipe actually said peaches, but there weren't any in the shop we went to. The dessert still tasted delicious, though. I liked all the food we had that day.

Delia's spiced cranberry sauce

Yesterday we did some last minute shopping at Westfield. We bought a kit for a cranberry sauce. The kit contained one orange, some cranberries and a mix of sugar and spices. I chopped the cranberries in a Kenwood mixer. If I was in a cooking programme, this is what I'd while I was scraping out the chopped cranberries from the mixer: "The smell of fresh chopped cranberries is one that I will always remember. Perhaps it is the sweet sharp notes that earn these berries a good place in my memory, or maybe just the pure freshness of them. What ever is that makes the smell of cranberries so beautiful, I will always marvel at these wonderful fruits."

I loved making the sauce. 

Sweet potato falafels

Today I helped my mum make sweet potato falafels. We used boiled sweet potatoes, cooked couscous, cooked chickpeas, coriander, onion and spices. After we'd mixed all the ingredients together in the right way, we shaped the mixture into lots of little balls and coated them in flour. Then, we flattened the balls and fried them in vegetable oil. I tried some raw and found it really tasty. Because we had made a big mixture, my mother let me try some for lunch, even though we were supposed to have them for dinner. Luckily, After I had had some, there was still enough to have later.

Pineapple mousse

I helped our new Couchsurfers make a pineapple dessert. The jelly in it went a bit wrong because it set before we were ready, but I discovered that a little stirring and heating was all that was necessary to bring it back to it's liquid form. We mixed the liquid jelly with some egg and pineapple and a few other ingredients. After that we put it into the fridge to set and the Couchsurfers went out to spend some time in central London. When they got back, we had the dessert. It was very sweet because we'd added condensed milk. I had three bowls of it. (the dessert, not the condensed milk). I thought I was being greedy but I looked around and saw that everyone else was also having a lot and that made me feel better.

Making Cards

Me and mum started making Chritmas cards. We've kinda taken over the table and made it into a card factory even though we've only done about 13 of them. This year they are more unusual and creative and don't follow that boring rule of having to have snowflakes, snowmen or Santa. We're making the cards from old Graze boxes, newspapers, yogi tea boxes, coloured paper and pretty much whatever is  in the recycling bin.

I've just photocopied the patterns from the tea box onto a green card and I'm going to stick bits of torn newspaper onto the card. Then I'll tear the edges of the card to make it look rustic. After that I'll paint and add deco-patch glue to make extra shine. When it's all dry I'll fold it.

Ballet

Sometime in early December, my parents took me to a ballet called "The Nutcracker" at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Before the show started, we did dressing-up. I expeced it to be really boring but it was actually fun because there was a wider selection of clothes than I thought and they were actual ones that were once used during the performances there. I tried on a dress and crown that would have been worn by the person who acted as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" and I also put on a forest fairy dress. There was also a really big turban and a weird sparkly top that was quite modern compared to the other things there.

There were so many people watching that day, nearly 2000! It was the first performance of the season.

We'd read the story of the Nutcracker before so we could follow the story more easily. The special effects were amazing and I covered my eyes in the intermission because that was when they showed how the effects were done and I didn't want to spoil it for myself.  The music that played was beautiful because there were children too in some parts. I saw the orchestra playing on level below the stage.

The highlight of the show were the characters that looked like snow fairies dancing in the woods. When they came onto the stage there was stuff floating on the ground that looked like clouds and they made the scene look even more magical.

After the play we went to a cafe called the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden and my mum said she used to go there a lot before I was born. We then went to a place called Maoz that mum and dad used to go to a lot before Mum boycotted Israeli goods. She broke her rules that night and let us eat there.

When we got home we went straight to bed because it was really late and we were all tired.

Pendarren House

A few nights ago I came back from Pendarren house which is an outdoor activity cenre that everyone in my school goes to when they are in year six. I stayed there for four nights with my class. A few days before we left, we were told to write down a list of three people who we wanted to be in a cabin with and three people who we want to be in an activity group with. On the day that we left we were told our groups. Then, everyday after that each group was given a separate activity to do. Once or twice, we even got two. The activities we were given were: bushcraft, high ropes, adventure journey, river study and canoeing. My favorite was canoeing because we were allowed to go off in the boats on our own.

While we were at Pendarren, the people there opened a tuck shop and we all bought lots of sweets. There was also a disco on one of the days, but I didn't want to join in with it so me and a few others went to another room to play games.

The day after I got back, I watched lots of TV to catch up with the four days I'd spent at Pendarren ;-)

Then I had to catch up with the maths and other work :-(

Yesterday a Couchsurfer  taught me and my sister how to make cornflour goo. We just had to mix water and cornflour together and mix them until they got to a consistency where if you jab it, it becomes hard like a normal solid, but if you handle it gently, it will become like liquid. Our Couchsurfer also told us that the scientific name for this kind of fluid is non-newtonian fluid I hope I spelt that right. 


Our Couchsurfer also taught us how to make pavlovas. Pavlovas are a kind of meringue with whipped cream and fruit on top. They  are delicious and I think I ate about 5 today!

I'm going on a school trip to a place called Pendarren, in Wales. I need to wake up before seven in the morning on Monday because I need to get to school by seven o'clock. When I get there, I'll have to look  through my bag to check if I've left anything. Then we will get on a coach, and voila!, We're off to Wales.
 We're going to stay for four nights, but I wish it was longer. I can't wait!