Mrs Birks Blogs

At the moment I'm on maternity leave so I've got more time then most to get stuck into making stuff.  That said, I always find myself in a making mood at Christmas time and baking in particular gets me feeling festive.  This year I tried a range of new stuff although I didn't take pictures of everything. Firstly, I made mince pies using  this recipe .  I'm not a great lover of mince pies usually but this recipe by Nigella is fantastic.  Rather than being too traditionally "fruity" this recipe is heavy on the cranberries and gives a different flavour.  I loved the fact that they weren't too sweet, just deliciously tangy.  The pastry is a bit of a faff (in and out of the fridge and the freezer) but it's worth it.  Overall these were a big hit - perhaps too much of a hit with me - I couldn't stop eating them! I also made my very first gingerbread house.  In fact, I made three small ones, so that myself, my hubby and my daughter could all have a g

Now, before you read this post, I have to confess it wasn't written specifically for my blog.  It's something I wrote for  Media Magazine  in June 2011 but was never published.  It's a little bit dated - I believe series 8 has already been shown - but it might still prove useful for media students studying TV drama.  For everyone else, it might just be a good way to appreciate this fab show.  Incidentially, I still haven't watched series 7 or 8 - anyone want to lend me the box set??? Back in September, a student, after hearing my confession that I was a House fan, lent me the first six seasons on box set.   Now (the following June) I have almost finished watching the lot.   That’s 34 discs and 133 episodes.   Approximately 5320 minutes of my time or about 3.5 days.   It may not sound much to you ( I remember the days of watching box sets in bed when I was younger) but it’s hard to fit in such committed viewing along with a full time job! House is a TV drama p

In December 2011, my daughter became fixated with the CBeebies programme Mike the Knight announcing, just before Christmas Eve, that she wanted her very own Galahad (Mike's horse).  It was too late by that point for "Santa" to find a nice one, so taking the advice of a friend we decided to make one ourselves.  My friend had recommended using an old sock and a broom handle but after checking out some blogs, I decided to use some off cuts of material and bits of wool. To begin with I followed the advice on this blog and cut out the pieces I needed.  I used a purple gingham for the head and a pink spotted fabric for the inside of the ears. One of the most important stages was wrapping the top of the stick with a little stuffing and a little fabric to make sure the stick didn't end up poking out the top of the horse.  Sewing the blue hair took quite a long time, mainly because I didn't want it to fall out at the first tug Probably the most difficult part was hid

I'm guessing that the first blog post is probably the hardest to write.  I say this because, I've already written and rejected the first sentence three times - mostly because the tone was too formal, I think.  But I do want to introduce myself and tell you about my reasons for starting a blog. I'll try to be brief for fear of scaring you away...I'm a Media Studies teacher and I've been teaching about blogging for at least 6 years.  During that time I've seen students past and present start their own blogs but I've never been tempted to write one myself.  That's not entirely true, I have been tempted but have never done anything about it.  I wasn 't sure I had anything useful or interesting to say or that I'd be able to keep it up and devote enough time to it.  However, I've just had a baby and being on maternity leave has given me more time to think, breathe and consider what it is I'd like to contribute to the world wide web.  So here it