Just made a caramelized onion tart which had perfect pastry and seasoning apparently (not my words Lynne, the words of Top Gear magazine). I got 5.5 out of 6 which is pretty good for my first day’s proper cooking.

Demo this afternoon with Rory O’Connell who is meant to be really good so I’m looking forward to it. Thought I’d sorted the internet but it kept crapping out on me so no photos as yet. Might try again tonight if I’ve got the energy. It also wouldn’t let me download the thing so any big posts will have to be done on Word still, or perhaps notepad or something. We’ll see.

I miss everyone a ton, but I think it’s going to be good fun here once I get used to it.

Mama and Papa Park are bringing me some crisps tonight – hurray!

Fact of the day: Tomatoes and potatoes are so closely related that you could graft a tomato plant onto the top of the potato plant and they’d both keep growing. That’s the best thing I’ve learned so far. Tomato potato mutant! Brilliant.

It was my first day at school today and also a very long day (from 10am until nearly 7!). We went for a tour of the gardens, then the huge greenhouse where we all planted our very own spring onion (mine is bound to die instantly) and then came back for lunch, which was awesome. We had tomato and basil soup, followed by a little tasting plate of shrimp, smoked fish, salmon, smoked oyster, chicken liver pate and some other bits and pieces. Pudding was rhubarb ice cream, chocolately meringue stuff and rhubarb in syrup. YUM.

After lunch we had our first cookery demo where we were shown how to peel and chop onions, carrots and potatoes, make stock, soup, stock syrup, flapjacks and some other things. Bread is very important here and the first one we make will be soda bread which uses bicarbonate of soda to rise instead of yeast. The bicarb is an alkali, so it needs something acidic to react with (buttermilk or sourmilk for this type of bread) and then it rises while cooking. It doesn’t need any kneading or rising so it’s really quick.

There is a lot to learn and I think I’ll be lost for a couple of weeks, but it should get easier once I get the hang of it.

The motto of the school seems to be ‘good food starts in the good earth’ so there is an obsession with organic food and good soil. Nothing is wasted here which is really great and also means that there are some very well fed chickens and a lot of compost!

Internet is not very easy to get to – I’ll have about ¾ of an hour at lunch and that’s it. It makes me feel a bit cut-off but I think the time will go quickly and I’ll just have to try to save money to put on my phone. 38p a minute to call home – not good!

It’s nearly 7.30 as I’m writing this and I have nothing to do – I am definitely not in the party house. Need to make some friends so I have something to do in the evenings! It’s early days though and I’ve been assured that I’m not too obnoxious so hopefully friends will be forthcoming.

That’s enough rambling for today. Maybe I’ll be able to upload this tomorrow!

Edit: it’s tomorrow now and I’ve uploaded it. Sorry Jonic – it’s uploaded from Word but I won’t do it again. Couldn’t be bothered faffing.

First day of school today! Just ate awesome lunch (loads of good seafood, followed by rhubarb ice cream – sexy).

My room is big and I have an ensuite which is a lot more than some people so I lucked out there. Unfortunately there is no internet in our house and not much anywhere else, so I think blogging will be sparse until I suss it out. I’m thinking maybe I will write posts in Word on a night on my laptop and then upload them when I get the chance, which means they may not be daily but hopefully I will be able to keep you updated.

It’s all very new and scary but also stunning (pics to come) and everyone seems nice so it’s all good.

Woop!