So, after an evening out with a fair few glasses of wine, I am awoken early by the lovely Nik. I had planned to go meet Mary for an early morning swim, so with a slightly glazed expression I packed my swimming bag and trip-trapped off to the pool. Mary and I had such good intentions, having attempted to swim through the children yesterday we decided it would be early mornings for the duration of the summer holiday.

On arrival I was greeted by an elderly woman who declared "It's closed, they only run out of chlorine didn' they"

"Oh, dear," says I "that throws my day's plans out"

"Yeah," she says, "I thought I would try the sea instead but when I got there the bloody tide is out!"

Clearly it is not meant to be. Such good intentions.

We were most interested to see the queue of about twenty people awaiting the opening of Safeways. Like something from a zombie film, they slowly closed in on the front door as opening time approached, you could almost hear the groaning and bits of limbs falling to the ground. Mary and I were making the most of the closed swimming pool so are not usually to be found in that position but we were forced to wonder if there is always this many people clammering to get to the slightly lesser quality goods proffered?

Knitted zombies!

Posted by kary at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The CD count is now up to 764 and still going... Nik has now added the laptop to the effort - so we can now have 4 machines going at once!

Today is the first day of the Summer Holiday. Kent doing so well in their Ofsted last year (aherm, cough) means all Kent employees have been given an extra day off this year. I am not complaining about that one little bit!

My kids have now headed on their merry way into the wide world and I wish them all the best of luck. Keep in touch!

I have so far spent the day working on school stuff, editing photos and reaquainting myself with terrible daytime TV just to remind me how much I don't want to watch it! You can see the results of the photo efforts in the Gallery

Work has been so hectic recently that there has been little time for adventuring. Thankfully now the Summer is here we can sort that. A mini adventure to Dorset is planned, involving cars, tents and monkeys, along with goat hunting, dinners out and cricket. I need the break and am going to consciously take a rest from all things work while I remind myself what it is like to be awake and relaxed.

I have some recently purchased music
(Lostprophets, Muse, Snow Patrol (thanks Nik x), Angels of Death Metal (thanks Wayne), Thom Yorke, The Kooks, Razorlight...) to become familiar with so am off to do just that...

Enjoy your day!

Posted by kary at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

288 at the last count

Posted by kary at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After recently investing in a new hard drive of considerably more space and finding an old one full of music and images to be limping somewhat, Nik has decided to rip all of our CD's onto the new one. He flies around the house mastering three machines at once, reminding me of the 80's star Howard Jones and his seeming ability to play half a dozen over sized keyboards at the same time. He is just a blur as he skips between here and the 'hole', the cats and I sit patiently in the middle waiting for a gap, occasionally providing sustenance.

His initial calculation is 15 days.

Story

It is good to keep a sense of humour. Ram-raid indeed.

Posted by kary at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So time ticks on as usual as we head towards the end of the academic year. The Junior Production was very successful as was the Summer Fayre, SIAS inspection and today's end of year Prize Giving. All that remains of the end of term celebrations are the Governors meeting, Leavers Service, disco/party, reports and the completion and distribution of the school magazine. It is exhausting. Utterly exhausting. The kids begin to wind down for the year and it's quite an effort to keep them going just when we need them to!

Prize Giving is always emotional for me. I think it is because they are all leaving, not just moving on to another class. Being the oldest they seem to have a greater understanding of it all. Every year I get up to say my piece and announce my awards and I look at their faces as they return my gaze. I watch as they nod and appreciate eachother's efforts and recognition. It never ceases to amaze us how willing our children are, even the youngest, to give eachother a pat on the back when they feel someone else deserves something, often something they themselves would have liked. It is something our children do very well and is rare, certainly in the schools I have worked in anyway. So I stand up there and look at them and inevitably words fail me, every year I try to fight back the tears that come from being so proud of all of them. The kids know, the staff know and the parents know and it has become something of a joke as to whether I will manage it before the floodgates open. We spend so much time with the children in our classes, we know them so well. Know what they are thinking as they sit there and know what each little smile, sparkle or grimace might mean. The hardest but the proudest thing about this job is watching them go. Even though you know they are ready (as they ever are), you know you have done everything you can to help them and you know it is scary and tough for them, you know they dont want to go, you know they are desperate to go! Even though you know all this you watch with pride and sadness as they head off to start on their next journey. Hard as you know within weeks they will have forgotten most of what you have done but proud that it is because they are ready.

In other news, well nothing much has changed. Nik is lovely, the cats are furry and I am tired! Looking forward to taking some time off this summer.

Or at least I think I am, haven't had a chance to think about it yet!

Meanwhile the clock ticks over and over.

Posted by kary at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)