• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to footer

Domestic Executive

Living life in the slow lane since 2006

  • Home
  • Jottings
  • Browse Posts
    • Daily Snap
    • Bassets
    • Photography
    • Domesticity
    • Backyard Pantry
    • Garden
  • Daily Snap
  • Photo Galleries
    • iPhone Photography
    • Akaroa Landscapes
    • Bassets 2012
  • iPhone Photography
  • About
    • Our house
    • Our garden
    • My Work
You are here: Home / Backyard Pantry / Spring Greens and Other New Starts

Spring Greens and Other New Starts

October 21, 2012

There is something rather elicit about a long weekend created by a public holiday.  It feels so much more of a gift of an extra day off work than those long weekends created from your holiday entitlement. Not that I get paid holidays of course, self employment doesn’t quite have that perk.  Technically speaking I have a long weekend every week but the work ethic in me maintains those days for domestic labour so weekends still have a special place in the calendar and I can still generate those luxurious feelings a weekend generates.

Like Easter weekend in the northern hemisphere, Labour Weekend in New Zealand is a watershed moment in a gardeners diary. Traditionally time to flock to the garden centre and stock up on annuals, vegetables and lug bags of compost home with dreams of what the growing season will bring.  Now I am growing much of my vegetables and annual flowers from seed I can skip the crowds and make better use of the time in the garden itself.  Or I would be if it was pounding with rain and blowing a gale again.  Still, there are plenty of seedlings to pot on under cover and hope that tomorrow I will actually be able to plant out my peas, beans and gourmet spuds.  I fear my new bed building project will be delayed for another week.

I didn’t grow broad beans through the winter this year but we still have a plethora of spring vegetables from the garden on the table.  Last night I harvested artichokes, leeks, asparagus and celery much of which were made it into a tasty bouillabaisse or if you prefer, fish stew.  I am hatching a plan to bake bread tomorrow which requires copious amounts of egg whites so naturally I shall use the egg yolks for a rich hollandaise sauce to pair with the fresh artichokes.  I may or may not also trial a no sugar ice cream to celebrate the long weekend.

2012 10 21 002

Talking of things to celebrate, I heard this week that I have been accepted for a place on the Le Cordon Bleu Master of Gastronomic Tourism.  When I say accepted, what I really mean is that they verified that my BA (Hons) and MBA weren’t fake and are now ready to take my fees.  So from mid January weekends will no doubt include lots of studying but this is one Masters Degree I am going to relish from a purely personal point of view even if I am hatching plans for the longer term to shift my own professional work into a new space.  What that means fully I’m not quite sure.  I have ideas, some a little crazy, but grounded in soul searching and long conversations with myself about how I see life panning out.  No doubt that this is all part of a seven-year itch since it was a little more that seven years ago that we made plans to shift to New Zealand and now having made that leap it’s the way of nature that I should start another cycle of life adventure.

For a while I toyed with the idea of studying at the Le Cordon Bleu here in Wellington and had fantasies about opening a bakery that specialised in vegetable cakes and breads.  And maybe one day I will when we have completed grounded our wheat free, low carb, no sugar dietery regime.  In the meantime, I am living the experience vicariously though my friend Heather who has just started and is writing about her experiences and taking lessons on making such choices from others such as the lovely Emma who writes at Poire Au Chocolate.  To some extent I am going full circle in my formal higher education since my first degree was in Leisure Studies although back in the early 1980’s I was fixated on sport instead of food.

The course I’ll be studying is delivered on-line and I’m no stranger to the lonely life of self study having completed my MBA with the Open University in the UK.  No doubt the experience will be different as the advances of technology makes collaboration and the multi-media experience so much easier through the Internet.

There is something very potent about making life changing decisions.  I see it happen all the time in my work as a leadership coach and it gives me courage to make choices that I might otherwise I’d find hard to make.  Slowly but surely my personal and professional interests are coming closer together and I’m excited about the prospects ahead.

2012 10 21 001

 

 

 

 

 

If you liked what you read, say thanks by sharing this post.

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

6 CommentsFiled Under: Backyard Pantry, Daily Snap, Domesticity, Garden

About Domestic Executive

A lover of food, gardening and basset hounds living life in the slow lane in New Zealand.

Previous Post: « The long haul
Next Post: Sweet As: Chocolate Cream Mini Cakes »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lesley

    October 21, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    Le Cordon Bleu course sounds amazing – what a wonderful way forward for you combining work and interests. Funnily enough I did my degree with the Open University too. Life has many “watershed” moments – for me it was moving to New Zealand and then moving to the country. I’m sure if I’d stayed in the UK I would never have started a food blog. It seems easier to go for things here than back home.

    Reply
  2. Sue

    October 21, 2012 at 6:10 pm

    Sounds like a wonderful opportunity — I’m sure you’ll just love it. I’m planning on doing the organic horticulture course with SIT — it’s also distance learning, but with a good focus on permaculture, which I’m really keen to explore more. Broad beans for dinner here tonight. Only enough for a garnish, but I’m excited.

    Reply
  3. Sue

    October 21, 2012 at 6:11 pm

    I meant to say “wow” about your green onions. Yikes, they are giants!

    Reply
  4. Mairi @ Toast

    October 22, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    How exciting! Happy studies 🙂

    Reply
  5. Lucy

    October 29, 2012 at 8:36 pm

    AMAZING! I saw an advert for that degree the other day and thought, ‘ooh, that sounds nice’. One day…

    Reply
    • Domestic Executive

      November 18, 2012 at 7:55 am

      May well need a writing tutor so watch out.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Lucy Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Footer

FOLLOW ALONG WITH ME

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

HER TWEETS @domesticexec

  • Garden by the back four looks a picture #dailysnap https://t.co/AxvVoClD8r November 24, 2018 10:38 pm
  • Go @greaterwgtn @LightningLab GovTECH team opening up how we can connect with planning and decision making using Ma… https://t.co/FZcwQHp0r4 November 13, 2018 3:32 am
  • Dusting off Twitter to celebrate @LightningLab GovTECH teams. Excited to see the results of the vast entrepreneurial effort. November 13, 2018 3:27 am
  • Fabulous day with friends with lots of inspiration https://t.co/zrFeXDQkKy August 19, 2018 8:34 pm
  • Off to the motherland via Melbourne and Dubai. 30+ hours continuous travel ahead. #lifeisrich August 6, 2018 4:28 am
  • Follow @domesticexec

HIS TWEETS @m_treanor

  • @davidallengreen And the old crowd pleaser “attorneys general”. November 21, 2019 5:50 pm
  • @magnusllewellin This obituary is ripped off almost word for word from a Telegraph article in 2001. Very poor. https://t.co/BX0l7o1kTE August 26, 2019 8:26 am
  • @DmitryOpines @davidallengreen To be fair, this was exacerbated significantly by the policies of Rogernomics that e… https://t.co/lNMH6JdaQz August 19, 2019 6:44 am
  • @GeorgeDobell1 England have an opener who’s longest ever f-c innings is a touch over 3 hrs, and a No5 who has score… https://t.co/cBsSCoUDGG August 6, 2019 9:14 am
  • @northumbriana Not quite, here’s Sunderland celebrating winning the football league in 2005. Trophy is a replica I… https://t.co/LV56ckET6x August 2, 2019 5:35 am
  • Follow m_treanor

Copyright © 2019 · Domestic Executive - All rights reserved.

»
«