Reunion

Tomorrow, the grammar school I attended back in the late Seventies/ early Eighties is celebrating its 125th birthday. And I am being dragged along by some of old friends to go to the Open Day.

 There were four of us who used to hang around in school together and we've kept in touch over the 30 years since we left the school. I was the sensible, studious one, Alison was the popular sporty one, Suzanne was the one who got all the boyfriends and Sarah had an imaginary dog called Sebastian whom she insisted on walking home through town, in public, every day as we went to catch our respective buses home. Nuff said!

Now, the grammar school happens to share the same site on which the school where I currently work is situated, so this excursion is going to be a bit of a busman's holiday for me. I see the school every day. I tut at the shortness of the girls' skirts and think, 'Miss McCabe would NEVER have let us get away with showing off our pants in public.' I look at the driveway leading to the imposing front door and I can still see Miss Strudwick standing there in the morning shouting, 'Run, girls, run - you'll miss assembly!' And I still remember the enormous dark brown PE knickers we had to wear, and that I was in Saxon House which was represented by the colour yellow, and I hated yellow and wanted to be in Vikings because they were red. Oh, and Miss Price, the PE teacher who seemed obsessed with country dancing, especially The Gay Gordons.

And occasionally, because I am in education, I have been into the school for various reasons and I have seen all the changes that have happened recently and had the embarrassment of bumping into staff who taught me and are STILL there. (And, more worryingly, still wearing the same clothes and hairstyles.) And Heather went there, too, so all in all it is a place I haven't really lost touch with and therefore it will hold no 'ooooh - aaah' surprises for me.

But I shall go nonetheless and see what other blasts from the past turn up in the form of ex-pupils. Some I shall be happy to see because generally I got on well with everyone. One or two I am likely to tell EXACTLY what I think of them, now that I am 35 years older and have the age and confidence on my side which I lacked when I was 13 and they were making my life miserable. Sarah has just phoned to make sure I am still coming. I said, 'If Julie Hollands turns up, you may have to hold me back lest I try to punch her lights out.' Sarah said, 'Hold you back? I'll be filming it for You Tube.'

Oh, how times have changed...

And then on Sunday, we are meeting up with some of Andy's old uni/ vet friends, at Cliveden, because we are all of an age now where National Trust memberships are de rigeur. Five children will be tagging along, too, none of whom will belong to Andy and me. I wonder if we ought to take Kayleigh along and say, 'Look! We have one, too!' Plus I think Andy's friends will be highly amused to hear her calling him 'Grandpa'!

The weather looks set to be good for this weekend of social activity. Unlike this morning when I nearly drowned in the rain because I had a sudden whim to go and prune the lovage which had grown wildly out of control and will have to vacate the herb garden if it can't keep its growth in check. 

I have to go now...Tybalt is staring at me with a purposeful look in his eye. He may be trying to tell me that Skippy is stuck down a well again, so I'd better go and check because I do not want the death of an innocent kangaroo on my conscience.

But Julie Hollands...well, she might be a different matter...

And again!

It happened again. Today I left work an hour after I usually do because I had some data to fiddle with ( and you know how much I love fiddling with data...haha!) and I went my usual route only to be stopped at the bottom of the hill by a Welsh couple.

'Scuse me,' they said, all Welsh-like. 'But are we going the right way to the town centre?'

As it was, they weren't.  A local pillock, clearly a very special person, had turned the sign for the town centre around so it was facing the opposite direction. The Welsh couple were heading away from the town centre and at a fairly brisk pace, too.

And so I ended up doing another detour in order to deposit them at the end of the High Street. They were only down for the day. Going to a funeral tomorrow. Booked into the Travel Lodge which has about 50+ rooms and only 20 parking spaces and even I, with my limited mathematical skill, knows that is never going to work. They didn't want to move their car and drive into the town centre in case they couldn't get a parking space when they returned to the hotel. (Well done, Borough Council - visitors to the town are very impressed with your insightful planning...that was sarcasm, by the way.)

So I pointed out a couple of nice eating places to them, and they made happy noises about the river and the weather, and we went our separate ways.

And if it happens again tomorrow, that I end up being hunted down by more lost sheep who are having trouble making sense of this incredibly badly signposted town in which I live, with its ridiculous one-way system and multiply personality disorder, I am seriously considering changing my job to 'Tour Guide' because I am beginning to think the Universe is trying to tell me something weird. Only if I am going to be a Tour Guide, please can it be somewhere nice, like Norwich maybe, or Stratford -upon -Avon? Or Canterbury, or Bath, or Woodbridge?

Or Hereford. Hereford would be nice.

Good Deed

So today I left work and suddenly found myself turning left at the end of the road the school is on, rather than going straight on as per usual. My normal route home is: straight over the crossroads, down the hill, across a dodgy junction with no pedestrian safety facilities, under the subway, past the County Courts and Leisure Complex, over the bridge, up the steep hill by the church and Archbishop's Palace (puff, puff, puff), across another road, carry straight on, across another road, straight on past Sainsbugs, straight on, across a mini-roundabout, straight on, round a sharp right hand bend, walk alongside the park, then past the leisure centre, and straight on and I am home, avoiding various waves of school children who have no road sense on the way.

But today, I turned left at the crossroads. This meant I was heading straight to the centre of town rather than skirt around it. And this is an unusual route for me because I try to avoid town as much as possible because you all know how annoying I find people ergo I try to avoid them as much as possible. I had half a mind to do a spot of window shopping as I was passing. Many sales on at the moment. And I had almost completely forgotten how much we have just spent on the back garden regeneration.

On the railway bridge, a man stopped me for directions. I get this a lot, being asked for directions. Lord knows why, because if these people knew me then they would know that I have no sense of direction whatsoever and am more than likely to send them completely the wrong way.  Not on purpose, mind you. Not unless I am feeling particularly evil. I can only guess I have an approachable face and march forward with the kind of purpose that suggests I am a person who knows where she is going.

It turned out this chap was heading in the wrong direction. He couldn't have been further from where he wanted to be if he'd tried. Well, okay, if he had been looking for Aberdeen, for example, then yes, he would be much further away, but for the purpose of illustration, he was on the opposite side of town to where he wanted to be and was marching steadfastly further and further away.

I started off trying to direct him. And then I thought, I am heading right past where he wants to go, so this I said and suggested he walked with me, providing he didn't think I was an axe wielding murderer, ahahahahaha, thereby giving him the opportunity to say, 'You might not be, madam, but I am,' and thereby also giving me the chance to leg it.

As it turned out, we were both perfectly safe human beings, no concealed weapons, and we had a little chat whilst we walked the ten minutes across town. He was newly moved down from London, and he was marvelling at how nice the town was, and I resisted the urge to laugh and say, 'You must be joking, it's dreadful,' because it always pays to see old experiences through new eyes. And then I deposited him safely at his destination. 

He held out his hand and shook mine. And he said, 'Thank you so much for your kindness and grace.' Which seemed odd, but I think I knew what he meant.

And I said, 'You are welcome. And thank you for stopping me from going into the Clarks Shoe Sale and buying unnecessary shoes.'

It was a mutually beneficial encounter, and one that would not have happened if I hadn't turned left. 

Frustrating Farming

It is very odd that we are almost at the end of June and, apart from a spot of rhubarb, the first harvest from our allotment was today in the form of a bunch of radishes. Very nice radishes, I have to say, but oh dear - the end of June and that is all there is to show?

Things are catching up. There are a few flowers on the beans, and one flower on the cucumbers. Nothing on the tomatoes yet, although they are putting on some good growth. And in the green house the lettuce is growing well, and the basil and there is even some pak choi which I've never grown before but am going to nurture it as carefully as possible because it is mightily expensive at the supermarket.

Carrots, parsnips and beetroot are all showing shoots but Lord knows when they will be ready for harvesting. The courgettes are hanging on in there, like you'd expect courgettes to do. And the aubergines are looking surprisingly perky but again, it's going to be weeks and weeks before we see any edible results.

Still, we are lucky that we are hobby gardeners and do not depend on our crops for our living. They are a supplement rather than a necessity. I am not sure how I would cope running a small holding when the weather has been so unkind like it has the last year and a half. It is all very well reading lovely books with lovely pictures where everything goes according to plan. It is, in that respect, like teaching. You can read all your like about the theories of teaching and learning, you can even go as far as imagining the implementation of all these marvellous theories in your classroom. But chuck in the uncertain element - the child - (and in the case of self-sufficiency, the vagaries of climate) - and it can all go pear-shaped in the space of less time than it takes to grow, well, a pear.

But we try. We curse the cold because it prevents germination. We curse the rain because it stops us digging and planting. And then we curse the endless days of hot sun because the new plants shrivel up unless we are very, very on the ball with consistent watering. And don't mention the slugs and snails, and the weeds.

But, as I say, we try, because we like it and it is satisfying when things do grow, and there is nothing quite like the satisfaction of pulling up that first crop of fat radishes.

Bit of a Traumatic Day

It has been a bit of a traumatic day. Well, it wasn't until lunchtime when I left work and switched on my mobile phone and discovered 5 missed calls and a text from Andy saying he'd been taken to hospital with chest pains.

He is okay. He was given a good going over, prodded, pokes and cardiogrammed, and seen by two doctors. He was told if it happens again then he is to call an ambulance and NOT drift into the walk-in centre at the hospital, even though he was seen immediately and caused people who were already waiting to tut a lot. 

I have given him a good stern talking to. I have told him he is not to do it again and he is to start a healthy living campaign immediately. We both believe it is stress-related to his work. And a little bit down to Pandora, who is unwell again, though you wouldn't know it the way she is stropping at the sofas at this very moment and NOT using the cat stropping post in the kitchen which is designed especially for the purpose of stropping. 

So thank you to all Andy's work colleagues, and our friends who have sent messages of concern and have made him realise how popular and well-liked he is. 

And rest assured I shall not be having to push him around in a bath chair. Not for a while yet anyway.

Typical!

So the day I decided to try losing a bit of weight in order to reign back the sudden appearance of my matronly bazoom, one of my students marched into school and presented me with two not insubstantial rock cakes that she had handcrafted herself and was very keen for me to sample.

Well, I couldn't refuse them, could I, because of the shiny-faced, keen and eager, expectant little face before me. So I accepted them, and they sat in front of me all day going, 'Eat me...eat me...you know you want to.' 

I resisted. I took them home. They stared at me some more. I took them into the garden and casually shared one with Primrose and Daisy. Primrose and Daisy  appreciated it enormously and ate the lion's share. I had about three crumbs. I returned to the kitchen.

Inside, the second stared at me. 'Don't you dare feed me to the hens,' it said. 'Have you any idea how long it took that child to make me? If you feed me to the hens you will be guilty of a gross act of immorality. You HAVE to eat me.'

I made a cup of tea. And then I sat down and worked out how many calories I had eaten so far that day. And then I Googled, 'How many calories in a rock cake?' and spent half an hour being bamboozled by a myriad of diet websites offering various ideas about the energy value of rock cakes. I made an intelligent selection from the data offered. I ate the rock cake. It was good.

I had soup for dinner.

All a-Twitter

You may have noticed that a Twitter feed (is that the right term?) has appeared on the side bar. I don't know why, but I had the sudden urge to reactivate the Twitter account I set up two and a half years ago. Of course, I don't know how long this fad will last, but I do know it's a lot easier to manage now I have an I-pad and have downloaded the Twitter app. 

So, I arrived home today feeling very flimsy. No other way to describe it. Flimsy. Could be the weather, which is very close at the moment and threatening thunder storms. Could have been my having to deal with a couple of students today, one of whom refuses to talk so our whole hour is conducted using frantic sign language and even more frantic nodding and head shaking, and another student who has a low IQ, the reading age of a five year old and whose answer to every problem is to punch it. Physically and metaphorically.

Anyway, as part of my battle against the increasing matronly bazoom I have taken to walking to and from work each day - forty minutes there and forty minutes back, eighty minutes altogether and around 9,000 steps. This could also have be responsible for making me feel flimsy. So I got home and decided to recline my flimsy self on my sheepskin rug and read awhile and hopefully unflim. After I'd had a shower, that is, and fed the cats, cleaned out the litter trays, made a cup of tea, put a load of washing in the machine, swept the kitchen floor and collected eggs. 

And dealt with email and gathered ideas ready for work tomorrow. And brought in the bins (green recycle, garden waste and food waste) from the drive because the bin men NEVER put them back where they find them. And written a blog entry because now I have two to keep up with, and had dinner and written another blog entry and all in all I am sitting here still feeling very flimsy.

I hope there is more flimsiness going on in the world today, and it isn't just me. Maybe we should all join together and unite in our flimsiness. Maybe we should declare today National Fimsy Day.

'What is she talking about?' says Daisy.

'I have no idea,' says Primrose.

'I have a cousin called Flimsy,' says Daisy.

'Fascinating,' says Primrose.