The Prime of Mrs Helen McGougan

Well, girls (and boys), this month the student has become the master and I have been let loose on the general public to share my love of all things breadlike & yogic. 

On 17th February I held the first Hels' Bakehouse bread course and taught 4 willing victims how to make their own Real Bread in the very chilly but lovely and brilliantly equipped kitchen at Killearn Village Hall.  I'm so used to baking from my sweltering home kitchen that it never occurred to me that a proper commercial kitchen might actually be cold! The next course will be at the end of March and focuses on Sourdough, a logistical exercise that will test my lesson planning skills to the max but it's going to be fun.

I was also invited to share my knowledge of running a micro bakery as a co-host on this months BreadChat on Twitter which was an hour of riotous fun with bread lovers across the world. Then, last but most definitely not least, I started my first official yoga classes as a qualified teacher with a new joint weekly class in the village as The Strathblane Yoga Club, an afternoon seasonal flow class at YogaJo's in Milngavie, and weekend workshops scheduled at Halo Pathways in Kirkintilloch.

This all fills me with a great deal of pride and an equal amount of fear as I try to fight down my very British sense of self-doubt at the absurdity of teaching others when I still have so much to learn myself.  Instead I am choosing to focus on the fact that actually I do know quite a lot, and that it is my passion for what I do and my love of sharing that with others which is most important and will hopefully shine through.

I remember I once had a conversation with a friend where they laughed at the idea of me ever becoming a teacher of anything. Not because I don't know my onions, but because in the past (and often in the present) I have not been known for displaying a massive amount of patience with others. Still, I have surprised myself over the last year with how much we can change if we really want to, and I'm hoping these new ventures will prove that point. After all I am, of course, a woman in my prime.