126. Nervous? Yes. First time? No, I’ve been nervous lots of times…
To begin at the end.
We landed at Stansted in the early hours and finally tottered through our front door at about two thirty this morning.
I’m a very poor flier, as you know, and was in a horrible panic all the way out to Naples, despite my valiant attempts to ‘man up’. Coming home was much better, partly due to the application of a large glass of red wine just before embarkation, but mostly because, by keeping my eyes fixed on a book, I managed to fool myself into believing that I was actually on a train.
125. I know my place…
Everyone was looking at me as I reached for the nappies. What on earth was I doing here, now? I skulked around the baby wipes, trying to ignore the frowns. Would I need a bottle steriliser? The NCT lady said no, but my cousin, Young Bessie, had said yes and she is a woman of infinite resource and sagacity. I tried to ignore them all tutting as I picked up the Milton, but I could smell the disapproval.
124. Normal service to be resumed…
I have Blogger’s block
Everything I right
Seems rong
123. Learning Objective: to be a domestic goddess….
- Heat 4 fl oz of white vinegar in microwave for about a minute.
- Add 4 fl oz of washing up liquid.
- Put into hand-sprayer.
- Spray onto shower screen.
- Rub off with cloth or sponge.
122. School’s out…
Term started yesterday. I guess that now makes me officially retired. It feels surreal.
I’m not short of things to do. There’s a whole bungalow to decorate, for a start. We’ve been here for over a year now – people will start to think we actually like the brown and yellow kitchen tiles and the polystyrene ceiling. There are still swathes of the garden to reclaim for civilisation and an allotment with a plenitude of guilt-inducing weeds.
119. Ssshh!
And on the subject of Family Planning, did you know that Marie Stopes disinherited her son because he married someone whom she considered to have ‘inferior traits’, namely poor eyesight? You did? I only heard the other day, whilst listening to an old In Our Time. It had passed me by completely, Marie Stopes being a eugenicist. Another hero bites the dust.
118. The Final Countdown…
I’ve got it cornered.
The In-tray
The Still-to-do List is down to one sheet of paper; the accumulated detritus of my years at Thrush Woods has been herded into a corner of the ICT room and sits tamely waiting to be sorted. I’ve found no untaught children stacked away in boxes, so it looks like I’ve got away with it again.
117. Run that past me again…?
“The ratio of the shear stress to the strain rate in a fluid is commonly known as what?”
The students confer; Young Fogey whispering to Phiz Illustration while Hockey Captain checks with Normal Looking Kid. There’s a lot of confident nodding. Paxman looks confident too, but then he has the answer in front of him.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to understand the question. A-level Physics was forty years ago and the only thing I remember now is Mr Hurst setting his jacket on fire by pocketing his pipe while it was still alight.
The individual words make sense; it’s the underlying meaning that has me fogged.
115. Golden Brown, texture like sun…
In my personnel days, I went to visit a colleague who was about to have her second baby. She’d obviously got it taped this time; everything seemed to be in place, down to address labels written ready for the birth announcements.
“You seem to be pretty organised,” I said.
“I am,” agreed PregnantColleague. “I’m just going to write a letter to myself.” I sipped my tea and waited for the explanation. “I had dreadful post-natal depression after Rebecca,” she went on. “If it happens again, I want something to remind me what’s going on and why. And that it won’t last.”
113. And I’d like to thank my hairdresser…
In the sliver of time between waving off the last child for their summer holidays, and coming back for the ‘do’, it occurred to me that I should have prepared a speech.
Last time I left Thrush Woods, I’d given quite a lot of thought to what I was going to say. A neat little speech at the Leavers’ Service in the afternoon. The last eight years have been very special, the school is very special, the staff are very special but I need a new challenge. So long and thanks for all the fish.
The Jelly Chronicles 