It has been THAT day.

Do you get those days - the ones where you have to go to Ikea or its equivalent? Mmm, well today was the one for me.
Let me give you some background information. My spare bedroom has (had) two very comforatble stacking single beds, fine when only one was in use, but if the two were needed, then matchstick legs were a neccessity. So, bearing in mind my family are of the non-matchstick type, something had to be done.
First get rid of the beds - they are excellent, comfortable etc, but they did not have the magical fireproof label. So, no-one wanted them. The council agreed to take them and they are outside the house awaiting their call tomorrow. Getting them out was amusing. I used the window rather than carry them through the house, up the stairs (mine is an upside down house!) through the garden, down the steps, past the clematis that has covered the garage roof again and reaches out for anyone or anything that passes. Blow that for a game of soldiers I thought! So, out the window they went; isn't it a good thing I live in a remote place with little or no passing traffic?!! Can you imagine driving past a little house and a mattress squeezes out of the window into the road? As for the metal bedstead, that would put a sizeable dent in any vehicle!!

Stage one completed. The next thing is to sort out the room and make ready for the sofa bed. I calculated there were 2cm spare width between the two chest of drawers, fine!

Buying beds is fun! The last one I bought has a high platform, a couple agreed with me that any partner I found would have to be tall - this was no time for midgets! _ Yes, we had this conversation, total strangers we were, but oh we laughed and laughed!
This time a lady was looking for a similar item, we started talking, then sitting on the sofa, opening it out to a bed and then lay down on it together! Another family were also looking and listening, so we told them that we were strangers and they were welcome to join in with the sofa bed judging!! The teenaged son handled it all remarkably well, mine would have died with embarrassment at that age. We made our decisions, decided the better mattress was a 'good thing' and went on our ways.

Then I had to find the bits in the warehouse, that went well, only the new red baubles for the Christmas tree escaped, so no probs there. However, how to get it into the car? Fist of all I had to cage it all so that I could bring the car to the items, then try to fit it all in. ONLY JUST!! I could see through one wing mirror, the top of my reversing mirror and the offside wing mirror if I slid forward in my seat. Thank you police for not being around, I don't think they would have been happy bunnies.

On arrival back home, I decided that the new bed would go in the same way as the others went out. This time I was feeling rather tired, so I emptied the box and pushed things in bit by bit. Now its all put together, there is room to do the ironing in there as well as sitting on the sofa bed.

Hooray, I am at last starting to get my act together and do things. Look out little house!

I wonder who will christen the bed, should I test my 'putting together skills' before I allow anyone else to sleep on it - or let it all fall apart under them?!!!

I have taken my medicine.

The label tells you to take the complete course of drugs, some do this, others patently fail to. I have just taken my autumnal dose - a visit to my favourite clothes shop. The exciting thing is - I could buy a flat above it! How's that for convenience shopping? Or is this silly? I often find that the off the cuff things that I do in life are the best. Somehow my initial and gut reaction can be the most discerning judge of matters.
The only problem with that little flutter today is the total lack of garden, so I shall hang back on that one. Their sale starts on the 9th Dec. so I shall be there that week-end before I go off to party in Leicester.

Breaking power of a Kit Kat

Last night I was really suffering the withdrawal symptoms from chocolate - searching all the cupboards, the drawers, coat pockets etc etc. Nowadays I don'r get angry very much - well except at work! However, last night was awful, so tonight, after my gym session I went to buy some food and caved in - the food included a bar of chocolate. Oooh, a Galaxy bar really melts deliciously on the tongue doesn't it?
Bliss!

Turtles?

What does a Roman soldier have to do with turtles?
Answer: I'll have intimate knowledge of that tomorrow. We are visiting Wroxeter and my class are going to march in the turtle formation on the town hall area in front of the baths. Now they're going to have to make enormous leaps in their imaginations tomorrow to 'see' the buildings from the little bits that are left. The outdoor swimming pool is a wreck - if only a decoratively shaped wreck, the underfloor heating has lost its floor and the walls have gone awol.
How do I present this to them - as a kind of BBC 'help my ruins a real ruin - what did it look like?' programme. Somehow I don't think they are going to be too impressed with that idea. I think I will take the laptop and see if I can redraw it in 3d while they have their mock battles outside in the cold. Oh, they could try the swimming pool too!!
Meanwhile, what does this person have to do with a Hoover?
Answer, as little as possible, but I did switch it on this evening, so I am in shock. Must go to bed to recover!

Extremities of points of view.

Well Charles has put his foot in it again, the MP's have brought done the hunting toffs etc. etc. Where in all this is there an iota of common sense and a modicum of tolerance?
Charles - I don't tell the children I teach that they will all achieve the top notch jobs in any sphere of work. I point out that they are going to have to work extremely hard. One young man in my class is determined to be a farmer, so his attitude was rather antagonisitc towards things like learning his tables and how to spell correctly and write legibly. I asked him how he would check the deliveries of stock and feed, check the bills, write out letters to other farmers and firms that he is dealing with. Bankrruptcy is an easy option when you ignore costs. (Oh dear - this sounds non PC for a teacher!)
Another young lady is an excellent footballer, she also excels at other academic subjects, when she goes to the secondary school, she will find that there are others who want to do the same and they will provide some sense of the competition for these top sporting places. There are many other examples of pupils who are good at subjects, and I tell them they are. I remember only too clearly the Edwardian attitude of some of my family members - always put someone down, never praise them. I think that praise is an extremely powerful motivator, both for myself and my pupils. however, they also get a strong dose of common sense with it. There is always the rider, that if thing is worth doing, then it is worth doing well, so work at it.
(Now I wonder if this is the kind of treatment that Diana received from him in their years together? Sorry, I couldn't resist that unpleasant thought.)
As for the hunting bill. I am going to poison my soap-guzzling mouse, I hope he suffers badly from the cholic before his blood is thinned by the poison. I can do this legally for three more months, then after that I'm not sure what my rights are.. Where do the punters who buy battery reared chickens stand in this? The poor birds have their beaks cut back, no freedom or fresh air and are force fed so that they fatten up in half the time it used to take to rear them, that's almost as bad as poisoning a mouse, or killing a fox by hunting it. Shucks, we shall just have to run over 25,000 more foxes each year, or many more if they get round to sorting out that chicken cruelty, because the foxes will then have lots more food available.
Then we must ban fishing, swatting flies, killing wasps and driving - because we kill tremendous numbers of bugs each year in this cruel way.

Cross? You bet!!

Watch out mice!

Can someone help me please? I gather the new anti hunting law has all sorts of ramifications which have not been made clear to yours truly.

I have a mouse visiting my little house again and I wish to persuade it to leave - or kill the little varmint. He has chewed the collection of soaps I have from various odd places - they come (but as from now, it will be came) in useful when studying historic times at school. Do I get sent to jail if I hunt him out and kill him in a slow and unpleasant way? If I have a cat I gather all is well - he could do the deed and we would both be out of the law's remit. If, however, I borrow my neighbour's dog, then we are in trouble, except if I say he accidentally killed the mouse on his ways to chase a pheasant out of my attic. See how difficult life is in the country? I can't shoot him because I don't have a gun and I am not sure i would kill him outright, good shot though I am. So it has to be poison and that is nasty for the mouse. (I wonder if I could follow the trail of bubbles that he must be leaving behind him from all the soap he's eaten?)

So, what should I do? Shall I ring the police and ask for their advice? Can you imagine what they would say?

There! I've invented a competition - what would the police say if I asked their advice about killing mice in my home and garden. The winner will receive a sugar mouse of their choice of colour for their Christmas stocking.

DONE IT!!!!

Wow! What a feeling of relief, the job is done and dusted!
What am I talking about? The final proposal for my dissertation - it has been honed, revised, chewed up and spat out etc, etc. And now it is winging its way through the ether to my tutor.
Heavens, if I feel this relieved about the proposal, what am I going to be like when the grand opus is finished!
I feel quite excited about the work and am looking forward to the library stretches, there's nothing quite like a warm room and a day's reading - drat I'm thinking Agatha Christie here... dream on.

What a meal!

Last Saturday saw me rising at the unearthly hour of 6 - and bear in mind this is the morning we are talking about, in order to catch a train down to London to visit the Language show in Olympia. I went with Jill, one of our wonderful Teaching Assistants at school.
I think she has found me rather a new experience in teachers, apart from the fact that I teach her son, we have fun! Our DT work this term has been to make bread, so she asked us to make her some for the October Fest she was celebrating with her year 4 group. Of course, we obliged, but we also sent her an invoice. One with very small print at that.... then we crept along to watch her read it in the class room she works in. Bear in mind this woman is very shy, she has been asked to teach a class and then has a rumbustuous class and teacher spying on her through the glass door!
Much laughter later, the more aggressive children in my class pointed out that the bill had not been paid. So we sent the Bovver Boys in..... no response other than she woud look at the situation again. Huh! One week later we sent in a solicitor's letter - U.O.Me Unltd, Debtford etc etc. The response came in German, so I had to do some rough translating and explain the situation to my class. Oh, and one pound fell out of the envelope.
Now, would the business minded amongst you decide whether I should pursue the matter, or should I go for good relationships with this very local firm of Frau Mack's Caff?
However, this is all beside the point - she is a lovely person and the commercial 'front' is just that, an act. The language show was wonderful and we came back with lots of lovely stuff. (How many people in the real world, give up a week-end day, pay to go to London themselves and then buy the books too? Does that happen out there?) We came out of Olympia and couldn't make up our mind which way to turn and were heped by a lovely Londoner. Off we set,in the right direction, then he came back and asked if we were looking for somewhere good to eat. This was true!! So he directed us to the most wonderful Persian restaurant. It was so good, lunch took 3 hours to enjoy! Each course was so tasty - the hors d'ouevre were cheese and very special bread with herbs, and stuffed vine leaves. This was on the recommendation of a couple who were just leaving as we arrived. The main course was saffron rice and two different types of lamb stew. Then the pudding was an orgasmic sorbet - lemon and rose water with very fine egg noodles in it. Oh wow!
We were forced to walk back up Kensington High Street to the tube - three stations along because we were so full! Sadly this took us past a rug shop and I succumbed to a rug. (Breaking power and Kit Kats come to mind here....) Then off back to Shropshire. It was a great day and we didn't stop talking all the time.
Got home and set off for Leicester to go for the walk with the harem man on Sunday. That's another day's story and another question - do all fairs travel in the depths of night?

It's all right to....

weep, said the vicar at our assembly yesterday, when someone has died or something else sad has happened. However, it is not alright for a teacher to burst into tears in front of the school, so I crept into the cupboard and cried my way through the rest of her assembly. I thought I was much stronger about my mother's death, but these things haunt you don't they?
So, I am making a list:
It's alright to cry, to drink a toast to my mum, to laugh about things we enjoyed together, to wear the mohair jacket that we both loved and, most of all, to talk to her.
So if you are ready - raise your glasses and join us in a gin and tonic, it is our time of the evening for a large glass full! The black olives are also very necessary.

Thank-you Blogger help men!

When will I learn? Trying to be clever does not work, then I blame everything except myself!! Uergh.... I put an address in somewhere which should not have been 'put', so my posts disppeared and the comments refused all offers.

I'm off to write a hundred lines: Do not meddle with things you know nothing about.
Do not meddle with things you know nothing about.
Do not meddle with things you know nothing about.......

Testing, testing

One two three....




BOO!

Boo Hoo

My last three posts have gone AWOL, I am just trying out this pathetic little mesage to see what happens.
My bottom lip is trembling with sadness here.