It's like this y'see...

It's Friday evening. I have a pimple on my tongue. I feel physically shattered. My left tonsil is still rumbling, although I am now able to swallow without pain which is good news given how fond I am of cheese on toast and the like. I should have had a couple of days at home, recovering. But I didn't. I couldn't. I have to soldier on, as I've only been back at work for four weeks.

And also, I've just been given a Year 11 class whose regular teacher spends several months an academic year off sick. So they've had a succession of supply teachers, and that's not on, not with their GCSE's looming large. They need someone reliable and constant. And that'd be me.

This morning, they weren't playing the learning game. They were playing the chat-over-the-new-teacher-who-can't-raise-her-voice-because-she's-got-tonsillitis game.

When I finally got their attention by constantly tapping a board marker on the desk (oh for the days when you could scrape your nails down a blackboard), I said, 'You are being unfair. I am here to teach you. (Or to help you learn, if we are to use the correct Government terminology whereby teachers are not teachers but 'learning facilitators'). I have been trying to manage my facilitating battling with tonsillitis all week. You know I can't raise my voice to get your attention.'
'That ain't our fault, you being ill,' said one of the thicker, less sympathetic examples of humanity.
'No,' I said. 'But I could've had time off sick and then you'd have had more supply teachers.'

There was a brief silence whilst the rabble considered this notion. Then one of the lads said, 'You're a lovely lady, ma'am.'
'You have no idea,' I said.

And I have attracted a follower, a scruffy year 8 girl, whom I shall call Grace. Because that's her name. She seeks me out at lunchtimes for philosophical discussions. She is like a cross between Del Boy Trotter and the Kray Twins. Today, she informs me she wants to be a human rights lawyer when she grows up. If she grows up, I think.

Now Grace clearly comes from a deprived background, so I try to give her some of my time as it doesn't seem like she gets much attention at home. She is always very keen to write my learning objective on the board for the lesson after lunch, or underline the date. Or staple displays to the wall. Sometimes I feel inclined to give her some of my marking as I have to mark over 80 exercise books on a fortnightly rotation.

And Grace always starts her conversations in the same way. 'It's like this y'see, ma'am,' she says. But sadly, I often never do see. Not fully anyhow. I do try as she rattles on in her own Kentish Cockney Vicki Pollard way, nineteen to the dozen, filling me in on her love life, her many siblings, her plans for the weekend, with occasional requests for a time check. She can't tell the time, Grace. I have a hugh clock in my room. I have to point out hands to Grace, and we tell the time in measures of how many more full rotations the red hand has to make before she sets off for her first afternoon lesson.

'Where are you off to now, Grace?' I say, as she hoikes her massive bag onto her shoulder.
'Dunno, ma'am,' she shrugs. 'I lost me timetable. And me planner. But I've got a tracker,' she finishes, waving a green level behaviour sheet at me.
'Why are you on a behaviour tracker?' I ask.
'Swore at a teacher, didn't I?' she says, sighing, but not really bovvered.
'Oh Grace,' I say.
'Don't worry ma'am,' says she, heading for the door. 'I'm not going to swear at you.'
'That's okay then,' I say, because I am getting a tad annoyed at all the ones who do.
'Nah,' says Grace, 'coz I reckon you'd swear right back.'

And with a cackle of a laugh, off she goes.

I've been wondering this week if I've made the right decision, going back to teaching.

But kids like Grace make you put off such decisions.

For one more day at least.

Ye Gods, They're a Pushy Lot

My readers are a pushy bunch. In the last week I've received all sorts of cajolancies and admonitions about my decision to allow Much Malarkey Manor to slip quietly into the sunset.

'But,' I say, 'my creativity has died. It has been sucked from me by my return to teaching. I stagger home from work, after a 45 minute walk, tired and bad-tempered, lugging bags of shopping from my detour to Sainsbugs because I've got to cook dinner when I get in. I no longer have time to be a-blogging.'
'We don't care,' say the readers. 'We miss you. You make us laugh. You entertain us. Can't you just write a teeny, tiny, teensy bit just once in a while? PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE....'

'I'm not going to be held responsible for the quality of my output,' I say. 'My sense of humour has been replaced by a sense of exhaustion and, this week, tonsillitis.'
'That's okay,' say the readers. 'We'll read any old rubbish. Look, we've even got a copy of this week's 'Hello' magazine on the coffee table. And the coffee table needs dusting. In fact, it needs dusting even more than your coffee table needs dusting.'
'Shut yer face, readers,' says I. For another thing I don't need pointing out is the sluttish approach I've had to take to housework, now I no longer have the pleasure of leisurely pootling around with a hoover in between writing a bit here and writing a bit there.

I mean, you'd think the cats would clear up a bit, now I'm out the door at 7.30 and not home until 5.30.
'I can't work without rubber gloves,' says Phoebe. 'I can get one on, but then I lose my grip with the other. You can't do cleaning wearing only one glove.'
This sounds a feeble excuse.
'I can do housework without rubber gloves,' says Tybalt. 'But my big frilly blouse gets in the way.'
'What's housework?' says Pandora, flicking another empty can of Red Bull across to the rubbish bin and missing by a mile.

Okay, the truth is I miss writing this blog. But I find it frustrating I don't have the time to do a good job and I fear also that I'll end up writing about school related tripe. Sometimes school related tripe can be entertaining, but mostly it is boring, and can so easily turn into a bitter, acidic tirade.

For example, this week a 12 year old told me to 'go f**k yourself.' Not funny. Wearisome. And sadly, increasingly indicative of the society that is breeding in this progressive, illuminative 21st century. But then the five 15 year old lads in my form group informed me they were going to create a boy band, and I could be their manager. 'Thanks,' I said, 'but you can't actually sing.' 'It doesn't matter,' they said. 'We're going to enter the X Factor.' The ensuing conversation about lycra based costumes was highly entertaining.

And I ended the week coming down with a dose of tonsillitis. I've never had tonsillitis in my life. I don't like it. I sit here now with what feels like a couple of holly covered golf balls down my throat, and the feeling I could choke to death any minute because I can't swallow properly. Will I take time off work? Of course I won't. I intend to seek out the child who coughed the germs at me in the first place and cough back twice as hard. And then set them a detention.

I've been trying to organise a 'do' for my Mum's birthday. She's going to be 70 at the end of February, and has gone to great lengths to tell me she DOES NOT want a party OR a fuss OR any extravagant amounts of money spent upon her because she DOES NOT LIKE the idea of being 70 at all, NO NOT ONE JOT.

Well, I can't afford to take the risk of doing nothing (the easy option given the shrinkage of available time to perform these social niceties), so I've booked a restaurant for a birthday dinner. I have invited Mum's sisters, Auntie Nece and Auntie Pollie. I have invited my brother and his family, even though we don't get on because I think Mum would like to see us all in the same room being civil to each other. (I have already told Chris and Heather that if they fall out I won't be expecting any similarly conciliatory offerings, because, let's face it, you can't help who you're related to.)

The restaurant lady said, 'How many guests?' I said, '13. Unless my son and his girlfriend go into labour early, in which case there will be 11.' 'Or 14,' said the restaurant lady. I agreed. How odd, to think that by the time my Mum is 70, I could be a granny and she a great-granny.

I've located a cake company for the cake. Lovely brightly coloured cup cakes, full of ADHD additives (I don't have time to make a cake myself. Number of cakes made in this house since I went back to work? Zero.) I've got flowers and balloons sorted. I'm still working on transport. I'm thinking classy and vintage, rather than the back of our Picasso.

And so I plod on. But along with tonsillitis, I also got a wage slip this week. Which means the Bank of Me looks healthy once again.

Going back to work has had its advantages. But only one.