Pregnant!

Whilst I wait for the assorted friends and family who read this blog to pick themselves up from the floor, I shall explain how this odd event came about.

The news was, in fact, revealed to me on a visit to The Guardian website as I was perusing through the jobs section just to see what was available. For there I found the job I am leaving at Christmas being advertised as Temporary Maternity Cover! Well, you could have knocked me sideways with a spatula, beat me with a whisk and turned me into pancakes.

I went to work the next day in a state of shock. A colleague appeared in my classroom just before break time.

'So when were you going to tell us you were pregnant?' said she, for she had been reading Guardian Jobs, too.

'Well, I didn't know myself,' said I. 'Bit of a shock I can tell you.'
'Is it one of those menopause babies you hear about?' said she.
'Must be,' said I.
'When's it due?' she said.
'I don't know. Sometime around Christmas, I suppose.'
'P'raps you should check with Senior Management,' my colleague suggested. 'Because they seem to know all about it.'
'Clearly,' I said. 'Because I can't imagine that they would be so deceitful as to advertise a permanent job as a temporary maternity cover if it wasn't true, would they?'

And then my colleague and I had a good laugh about the whole preposterousness of the idea.

I have flirted with the idea of playing along with the charade because up to now not a single member of SMT have asked me why I am leaving. None of them have even mentioned it, in and either 'sorry to see you go' nor ' good riddance' kind of way. In fact, it's like I don't exist. I like to fantasise that they might care, but they don't. I think they might be too afraid to ask, because I have gone beyond
the state of depression at the situation and have now reached the state of blazing anger.

So, after half term I might shove a tiny cushion up my dress, and stand in Assembly rubbing my back a bit. I might do a bit of huffing and puffing going up and down the stairs. I might take to chewing on a lump of coal at staff meetings. Or carrying a spot of knitting around.

Of course I'm no more pregnant than I'm an, oh, I don't know, Ofsted performing monkey.

On another note, we had a house viewing today. First one in three weeks. Nice young couple who are marrying next year and wanting to start a family straight away. And we are going to look at a house tomorrow, and are planning a trip to Norfolk soon to see two more houses we've found on the Internet.

Life moves on, but for me there is a distinct smell of freedom in the air.