Nick and I went for a walk today. We walked across the flats to Wanstead park which is where we saw the family above. We carried on up to Wanstead High Street and browsed the shops. We then got the bus back to our local cafe for tea and cake! A nice afternoon out :)
Yep I'm here! Really here for the first time in ages. A whole half-term has passed by without any posting. A clear indication of how busy daily life has been. Lots going on at school and some children are being quite challenging at the moment.
Yesterday was a good example of that. Had to help deal with a child that was refusing to co-operate with any instructions and had been sent to what we call the "Restart" room - a time out area where they are expected to carry out their work. This particular child had no intention of working and was proceeding to climb and jump across the tables in the room. We decided to ensure everyone's safety by removing the tables and chairs from the room. I would have liked there to be padding on the walls but as this isn't the case I decided to borrow some bean bags from the nursery so at least the child had something to sit on. Made the mistake of bringing one that had a zipped on cover rather than sewn on. When I went back to check how the supervising staff member was coping I discovered the floor was covered in the polystyrene balls from inside the bean bag!
Fortunately by that time another senior teacher had arrived and I was able to get back to my own work. The child was also persuaded to help clear up the mess they'd created.
Other than incidents like that - of which there are many - we are now counting down to the end of the academic year and a new era - the Headteacher is leaving in July and for the time being the current Deputy will act up as Head. Works fine for me as I get on really well with her. Yesterday they also promoted two teachers to acting assistant headteachers so things are slowly falling into place.
On the home front progress is being made on hubby's snoring but we have opened a can of worms. He is waiting for a letter to arrange a sleep test but it may be that he has sleep apnoea which is not great. It would explain why he's so tired and able to nod off so easily during the day but if it's really bad the treatment could involve sleeping attached to a machine to ensure he keeps breathing during the night. It could also affect whether he can drive or not but as the long term effects of sleep apnoea can lead to high blood pressure and heart problems it's not something to be ignored.
Our youngest flew off to New Orleans for the week yesterday and hopefully has arrived ok. There were delays at Heathrow yesterday so I hope he made his connecting flight ok. His long distance relationship seems to be holding up - SKYPE is a wonderful thing! (Although time differences are a pain in the butt!) His girlfriend will be visiting here again in July.
Our daughter flies out to visit a uni friend in Jersey today for a few days so a quieter house at the moment. It will be even quieter soon as our eldest son is all set to move to Nottingham in the next couple of weeks. He leaves his current job next week and today (finally) received the contract through for his new job which he will start on 10th June. He has rented a two bedroom flat (his girlfriend will be moving in soon) which looks lovely. We'll be able to see for sure when we help him move all his stuff up there! Fortunately he doesn't have loads of stuff but he does have a large TV and stand and he's taking a computer desk from here so we may have to do 2 trips or hire a van to get everything there.
Once he's gone we will be playing the musical bedrooms game again as he currently has the biggest room of the kids. Once again one of them will probably have gone from A to B to C to end up back at A again. Sounds like the story of my life!
Well I've definitely slipped off the blogspot! The weeks seem to have been flying past and I haven't had much inclination to blog. Work has been a bit manic. After our successful Ofsted inspection we were just beginning to relax a bit when we were notified of an RE inspection. Being a catholic school we are inspected by people from the diocese who look at how we are delivering religious education in the school. We get a bit more notice of these and it doesn't really impact on the office team, except of course that all the teaching staff in particular get a bit stressed so the atmosphere in school is not great. But it's only temporary and they came last Tuesday and it was fine so we have a few years of peace now, unless our results really dip.
But of course in school there is never a dull moment - the latest event to occupy me was the resignation of the Headteacher. He will be leaving in July so now we are carrying out the recruitment process for his successor. Interesting times.
It's a busy time of the school year - budgets to be set, admissions to be finalised but for the next couple of weeks it's holiday time. We finished for Easter on Wednesday and have 2 weeks off. Nick also has the time off so we might go away for a couple of nights. I just hope the weather improves. It has been so very cold here for this time of year.
Michael's girlfriend Liz from America is here this week. She flew in last Saturday and was subjected to a family party that evening so she has met most of the family in one go - she seemed to cope with it well. We can be a bit overwhelming when we're all together. Unfortunately she will be returning home on Monday and they will be back to having to skype one another - usually in the early hours of the morning for Michael so not ideal. He's hoping to visit her in May and I'm sure they'll get together over the summer. Michael is currently working in a school so he has the holidays off like me. Liz is a teacher so she also gets the holidays but any long distance relationship is hard. He would still like to get back to America but it's hard to get a working visa. I'm not sure what the future will hold for them. Time will tell.
Matt is still waiting to hear about a start date for his new job in Nottingham but hopefully that will be soon. We will then probably have to draw lots as to who gets his bedroom as it is the biggest of the three the kids use. So musical rooms again.
Well that's my update. Have a peaceful happy Easter :)
My boys are home. Well I guess to make it clear that it's hubby and eldest son maybe I should say that the man and boy are back. Except of course both our boys are now young men. And our daughter is a young woman. Where do the years go? It's scary how time flies.
This past week has flown by and I haven't achieved very much but I needed the rest. I did read a couple of books and I finished the jigsaw I was struggling with. I was horrified to discover I started that puzzle in 2010! That's the downside of having a lovely puzzle board that can be closed up and put out of sight and definitely out of mind. If I'd been doing the puzzle on a table top somewhere it would have been finished much quicker, although actually I think it would have been given up on. So it was satisfying to finally finish it. I'm working on another one now which is definitely easier.
It might seem a time waster to some but it takes me away from screens and in my paranoid moments of worrying about developing dementia or alzheimers it's another brain testing exercise. Crosswords and number puzzles are something else I can often be found doing.
I still need to work on the physical exercise though. Apparently that can help too. Or maybe not. I'm not particularly motivated to exercise at the moment. And as I've got older I've realised that life's too short for doing things because you think you ought to or because it will please someone else. Several people were surprised that I didn't go skiing with my men and the other family members but quite honestly I didn't want to go. So I didn't.
They both enjoyed it though so I'm glad they had the opportunity to go. The journey was not the best though - 17 hours on a coach is no fun. Another good reason for staying home. But hey I don't need reasons for not doing things I don't want to. Shame I can't apply the same principal to my work life.
Well this is another blog that has crossed the date line between preparing and posting! It's now Sunday so it's time for bed.
