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.
121. Wish you were here…
Conversation 1
Jellywoman?
Hi Ma. Are you having a good time?
How are things there?
A rat has eaten our toilet.
120. Thank you for your feedback…
I’ve had an email wanting my approval for the following comment on yesterday’s blog:
“Thanks for the auspicious writeup. It if truth be told used to be
a entertainment account it. Look complicated to far delivered
agreeable from you! However, how can we keep up a correspondence?”
Well, that’s told me!
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.
116. The black dog…
Although I’m a glass-half-empty kind of girl, it has to be said that I have been extraordinarily lucky with my lot in life. I’m not stuck on a mountain in Iraq, nor in a refugee camp in Gaza. And when it comes to dealing with the everyday ups and downs, I do have kith and kin who are second to none.
Incidentally, don’t you think that ‘kith’ is a great word? Madam, you have greatly insulted me, so I am going to unkith you from Facebooke.
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.”
114. This shall be for a bond between us…
Flossie came in with the other children, about ten minutes before the end of Meeting. For a while she squirmed on a lap. Then, she wriggled free and crawled across the centre of the Meeting House to the feet of an elderly Quaker. His shoes had enticingly long laces, textured brown leather, solid stitching. It all needed close examination and she stretched out her hand to pull at the lace.
The look on her face was that of pure wonder. For the rest of the Meeting, she was absorbed in exploring the footwear of assorted, obliging Quakers. And we were equally absorbed in watching her.
The Jelly Chronicles 