boblog

I heart Dan

Many of us can move to the garden, plan picnics, things like that - and if you've got the kids and you're planning something at least you can plan something for the outside instead of huddled indoors with them all, sort of running round doing puzzles and things like that.
The troublemaker's been low pressure, spinning around, it's been there for days, finally getting the hint, finally moving away like a stationary bike, just stuck there going vrrrrrrrrrr, going nowhere...

Dan Corbett, 11.30pm forecast, BBC News 24.

No-one else does a forecast quite like Dan.

UPDATE:
An entire blog devoted to Dan!
That's the weather, for now.

wedding meme

via Verbatim

1. How many weddings have you attended?
LOADS - I used to be in a church choir in my early teens (that's another story) and we used to get paid 50p each every time we sang at a wedding.
Weddings I've been a guest at? Fortunately, not very many. Fifteen at the most.

2. Wedding registries: buy from the list or freestyle it?
ALWAYS buy from the list. I can't remember being particularly overwhelmed by any of our 'free-styled' wedding gifts.

3. Are you more likely to slow dance or participate in the chicken dance?
Neither - you wouldn't catch me dancing at all.
That's partly because wedding reception music is invariably shit and partly for fear of feeling self-concious. I've never found dancing pleasurable since the day a friend said to me,
'I just love the way you dance, Kirsty! You don't care what anyone thinks!'

4. The garter find/toss experience: cute or tacky?
VERY tacky. Also dislike bouquet tossing.

5. If you could marry someone famous, who would it be?
Tricky, as I'm not really that into famous people as a rule.

tasty snack

I got a packet of these from Waitrose a couple of weeks ago.
Made entirely of apple (and, well, cinnamon), they are a delicious combination of crispy, crunchy and sweet.
I seem to remember the carb total was almost 80% and Snackspot claims almost half of that is sugar.
Made a tasty alternative to crisps, but surprisingly less healthy*.

*if you belive sugar is the root of all evil, as I do.

flash

Receptionista considers making abc flashcards.
It reminded me about how particular I am about this kind of thing - but then, they're the tools of my job.

The measure of a good abc set hinges on whether all the letters are correctly represented by their initial letter sound.
Assessing a new set, I check i and x first.
Any set with ice-cream for i, or xylophone for x are immediately discarded.
Ice cream begins with an 'eye' sound! Xylophone begins with a 'z' sound!

The problem with i and x is that there are so few words beginning with those sounds. In fact, none for x, or at least none that your average 4 year-old would understand.
Igloo is considered un-PC these days - better off going with 'insect' for i.
X is tricky, but 'x-ray' is just about acceptable, using the letter name as a last resort.
My abc cards have a 'fox' in a 'box' for x.
However, I recently discovered that the kids find this confusing.
me [showing the child the x flashcard, picture-side hidden]: what sound does this letter make?
child: fff?

crap.

So if the set passes the i and x test, I then check d, t and f.
D cannot be 'drum' - kids tend to hear the 'dr' as 'j'.
T cannot be tree or train - kids hear the 'tr' as 'ch'.
A colleague of mine hates to see 'frog' for f, saying frog begins with the 'fr' blend. I'm not that bothered about that one, but her ideal set contains no blends. I suppose you avoid the 'jum', 'chee' and 'chain' problem with that rule.

Perhaps I have been brainwashed by phonics.

I wonder if it's possible to make the most annoying flashcards in the world?
Angel, bread, circle, drum, eagle, frog, giraffe...

oh how lovely

The other perk of the job are the presents we teachers tend to get at the end of the year.
At my last school we used to call them Oh How Lovelies;
"Oh! How lovely!"

Don't take this the wrong way - I don't expect gifts, I always accept them graciously and with effusive thanks and I do try to appreciate them in the spirit with which they were given... (you can hear the 'but' coming a mile off, can't you?)

This year the presents included chocolates, wine, smellies, gift vouchers, candles... and six or seven magnetic things with sentimental teaching slogans on.
Example:
'If teachers were flowers - I'd pick you'
and watch your petals fall off as you die a slow death? Hmm.
I even got a whole book filled with them.
Not my cup of tea.
Even if I liked tea, which I don't.

However, some gifts are easier to enjoy than others...
A mini chocolate fondue - a mug-sized container filled with solid chocolate. I've never had a chocolate fondue before, but I'll certainly be having one again. I finished it off in two sittings. Mmmmm. Very relaxing.

A personalised mug, with drawings by the child on it. Sweet and unique!

Home-made pepperminty-chocolately confection, which is one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. That went in one stitting. I'll have to get the recipe.

Oh dear - this post didn't quite work out as I'd anticipated.
Not really showing my best side this week, am I?

At least I'm being honest...

neighbours

I am quite an observant person, plus I do like to know what's going on.
Husband says I am a nosy neighbour but, to tell the truth, he's just as bad.

Boblog Towers is the fourth house along on a row of five small terraced houses.
The first house is occupied by a single lady in her early-forties. Let's call her B.
All five houses back onto the property of a larger detached house, owned by a single man (of good fortune?) in his early-thirties. Let's call him D.

Perhaps now it would be a good place to point out that my imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. Do you see where this is going?

May.
I was washing my car one evening, when B and D returned from work. They both work in London, sit with each other on the train home, then walk back from the station together.
I waved to D as he disappeared into his house, B stopped to chat.
We all used to go to a pub quiz every Wednesday, but since that was stopped we haven't seen each other to talk to in quite some time. We chatted for a while, until B announced,
"Must dash, D and I are off to the lake to take sunset photos."
Sunset photos? Sunset photos!?!
I raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious.
"Oh yeah?"
Unusually for B, she did not respond.

When I related this later, even Husband thought it fishy.

The following week I met up with my friend W, who used to live next-door. She refused to believe that there was anything going on, saying B was not D's type. She pointed out that when B and D first met, B thought D was gay!

Over the next few weeks the story developed slowly.
He helped her cut down a tree in her garden.
They were seen cooking together in her kitchen.
At a mutual friend's BBQ he stayed by her side constantly and was heard commenting knowledgeably on her likes and dislikes.

Husband drinks Pepsi in vast quantities, requiring frequent trips to Tesco's to feed his addiction.
On one such journey he saw D and B getting out of her parents' car, dressed up as if they'd spent an evening out together. On his way back he saw B sitting in D's living room.
(See what I mean about him being as bad as me?)

Last night he went to Tesco's for the usual Pepsi re-fuelling and stopped to chat to B as she was tending to the plants in her front garden. They talked about Saturday night's petrol incident,
"We wondered who had called the fire brigade..." she said, as D came around the corner carrying a bag of compost. We!?!
On his way back, as he passed B's wide-open front door, he saw them kissing in her living room.

I do like a happy ending.

999

Had a bit of excitement this evening; we had to phone 999 to report a strong smell of petrol around Boblog Towers. A fire engine came (sadly, without sirens or flashing lights) to check it out but nothing was found.

We can still smell petrol outside, but at least we can't smell it in the house anymore!

my angels

At the moment my class are a joy and a delight.

The summer term ends tomorrow.
I'm trying to savour these last few days with my angels.

For the first time ever, I think I'm going to cry on the last day of term.

the photocopy

So, FA/I drew us some amazing pictures when he came to visit - large line drawings in permanent marker, in his characteristic style.
There was one in particular that I was desperate to have in my room, but I was told that it was school property and it would go in a clip frame and to be displayed in the entrance area for everyone to enjoy.
Fair enough, I suppose. Truthfully, I was disappointed, as everyone at school knows how much I adore FA/I's work.
But I could see the point.
So I got it photocopied.

I took the precious drawing up to the the office services shop in Boblogville. About A2 in size, it was fed through the giant machine like a fax. A moment later, out popped the copy. The quality was excellent, so I got another; one for display, one for insurance.
£2.82 - bargain.

I returned the picture to school, and there it stayed, rolled up in a corner of the staffroom, for the next four weeks.

I went to speak to a colleage in the annexe at lunchtime yesterday. Crossing the playground, I was approached by a girl in my class, who thrust a small piece of paper into my hand,
"I've drawn this for you, Mrs. Boblog."
I thanked her and paused to admire it.
It was a scrap of white paper with drawings on both sides. One side had a series of small figures drawn in colouring pencil, the other had buildings perched on top of rolling hills.
Those hills... that was a steadily drawn thick black line for a five-year old.
I took a closer look.
The lines were shiny.
Thick, shiny, black permanent marker lines.
I turned the paper upside-down. Hang on... isn't that..?

One of the Dinner Ladies had cut it up, the original I had wanted.

In all fairness, she'd asked if it was scrap paper first, but she'd asked the only other person in school who was equally clueless.

The kids in my class have been really sweet, trying their hardest to gather as many of the pieces as possible so I can stick them back together, despite the fact they've already defaced each one.

I can't look the culprit in the face.
To think that if I'd been selfish and put the picture I'd wanted up in my room, it would still be with us today.
I still have the photocopies, but each time I see them I sigh, thinking of the broken original.

the visit

So much has happened at work lately, none of it momentously huge, each recorded as a draft blog post. These drafts have been steadily accumulating, getting to the point where most of them relate in some way or another to one event that I hadn't planned on blogging about just yet, but made mention of a few weeks ago: The Very Exciting Event at work.

A famous author and/or illustrator of children's books came to school.

Not just any famous author and/or illustrator, but my all-time-hands-down-number-one-hero-worship-favourite author and/or illustrator of all time ever.
He is a genius.

It could not be said that I was ambivalent about this visit. I was almost wetting myself in anticipation in the days running up to it, my stomach lurched violently each time I thought of it. My colleagues knew, and teased me mercilessly.

The visit had been booked over a year ago and the kids were equally well hyped-up. We had read almost every single one of his books, studied his illustrations, thought of questions to ask him, made class books in his style. We were Famous Author and/or Illustrator (henceforth known on this blog as The FA/I) experts.

So, already being a great admirer of his work, I just knew I was bound to do or say something incredibly stupid or make a right fool of myself. OK, I admit now that part of the reason I was all a-flutter was that I'd seen a picture of him and found him attractive. Bear in mind I don't go for the Brad Pitt types, I prefer unconventional beauty.

I really ought to have thought more about the few facts I knew about him beforehand: Single man, lives in Brighton. cough.
Anyway, that's beside the point - he ended up being much less physically attractive in the flesh.

As we have already established, he was A Very Nice Man, very good with the kids (whose excitement had bubbled up into a frenzy, making them unusually difficult to control - my own fault I suppose!), very approachable and easy to talk to.
At lunchtime I showed him some of the things my class had done inspired by his work and he appeared genuinely interested and impressed.
In the afternoon he did some wonderful drawings and read some of his stories, then worked with some of the older children.

I had my eye on one of the pictures he had drawn, imagining the perfect spot for it in my classroom.

By the end of the day I had managed, without gushing, to get his autograph (I'm such a fangirl), tell him how much I enjoy his books and express how pleased I had been to meet him.
I went home that evening utterly exhausted from nervous tension.

I don't know why it took me such a long time to get round to blogging about this, but now you know and I can finally blog about all the other little things that relate to it.

rain

It has been very hot for the past week or so and it hasn't rained for about a fortnight.

Our conservatory frame arrived today - and so did the rain.

the end is nigh

We didn't go to the bookshop at midnight. I was too tired and Husband was too busy playing an online computer game to let real life interfere.

We bought a copy in Boblogville yesterday afternoon, then ate at our favourite restaurant, sitting outside enjoying the sunshine.
I started reading it as soon as we got home.

As much as I hate extended posts, if you're as sensitive to potential spoilers as Husband, you won't want to read the rest.

Ha-ree Pot-ter

Husband has ordered his copy of That Which Need Not Be Named from a large bookshop in a certain out-of-town shopping centre, not too far from Boblogville.

We shall be there at midnight, if I can stay awake - it is my school trip educational visit today and I'm bound to be exhausted by the end of it.

This time we're only going to buy one copy. There is one week left until I can read all day, every day for five weeks - if I wanted to.

babies

It has been about eighteen months since I bumped into my friend W and her husband at Bluewater and she told me she was pregnant. I was so jealous then that it took all my energy to appear pleased for her and then spent the rest of the day pushing back the tears.

This weekend another friend of mine revealed she was expecting.
Then yesterday, the McMuffins.

How do I feel?
There are no tears, no pangs of jealousy - I'm happy for them and that's it.

What has happened in the past two years to bring such an about-face?
Seeing my friend W's difficulties with her baby?
The overbearing interference of the MIL with The Niece?
I wish I knew.

You may already know I don't want a baby and at this moment in time I can't imagine anything worse*.
Adoption has even lost its appeal.
Perhaps I'm too selfish, self-centred and set in my ways to change my lifestyle so radically now.
A child would get in the way.

I'm blogging this because I used to think it was abnormal for a woman not to want or have children.
Growing up I don't remember knowing any childless couples. In my twenties I met a few couples who were childless out of choice, which I remember thinking was incredibly bizarre.
But not now.
Now I think it's bizarre to want them.

Everyone** I know who has children seems weighed down by them, yet try to convince me how fantastic they are - and fail.

I teach children.
And that's enough.

* well, that's obviously an exaggeration, but saying 'I can't think of anything worse, except maybe starvation, disease or disfiguration' sounds a bit harsh.
** except for Marc, who sings the praises of his wonderful children at every opportunity.

pimp

Although I love my MINI, I've never been particularly interested in cars.

However, there is something curiously compulsive about MTV's Pimp My Ride.

Presented by the ever smiling ha-ha-hardened rapper, Xzibit, community do-gooders get their old bangers done-up and over the top by West Coast Customs. TVs, DVD players, games consoles, fridges, computers, table-tennis tables, soft drink dispensers, fountains and rivers (yes) all crammed into resprayed and refurnished old wrecks, topped off with shiny rims - each alone worth more than the original value of the car.
The results are invariably hideous, the owners inevitably ecstatic, but it is half an hour's enjoyable entertainment.

Then there came... Pimp My Ride UK.
Our version is presented by (c)rap DJ Tim Westwood, a man who almost defies description.
Poxy and pathetic by comparison to the original, I'm no longer laughing with it - I'm laughing at it. Go on - clicky on that Pimp My Ride UK link - then on the 'Episode' above your boy Westwood's head. You won't believe it.
Not sure if it's the accents or the shitty haircuts, but we just can't pull it off.
So to speak.

grasshopper

poppy

My drive to work takes me past the station in Boblogville. It was deserted this morning and the roads were unusually quiet.

Everyone at work is safe and accounted for, thank goodness.
Most merely suffered travel disruption, but a few had eyewitness stories to tell.

I took this photo about a month ago, but thought it was appropriate for today.

dark clouds

I never think of London as being local, even though Boblogville is a commuter town.
Lots of the children I teach have parents who work there.
It was a hard day.

sandals

Women's sandals; they are mostly hideous.
Comfortable they may be - attractive they are not.
This thought passes through my mind on a daily basis each summer, not only when I'm sitting in the staffroom looking at the awful array of footwear, but also when I'm out shopping, hunting for a decent pair for myself.

And I'm by no means a fashion guru, but tights with sandals is so very wrong.

pancakes

'To make or eat pancakes in your dream, represents gratification and pleasure in your current situation. It may also mean that you take pleasure and comfort in your work.'
via Dream Moods

Yes. You read that correctly.
I had a dream about making pancakes and I am loving my class to bits. They are adorable.
Work is still a bit shitty, but at least those gorgeous kids brighten my day.

conservatory

Work started on our conservatory this week.

On Monday we expected the builders to arrive.
On Tuesday we got a phone call telling us to expect them on Thursday, as they were badly behind schedule due to 'storms'.
On Thursday the skip arrived, but no builders.
On Friday they finally arrived and work began!
They did a surprising amount of work, not only shifting quite a bit of soil, but damaging the wood on the front doorstep and cracking a couple of paving slabs on our path while they were at it.
Before they disappeared for the day they told Husband they'd need to come back on Saturday because the concrete has been ordered for Monday and they have work to do before it comes.

So this morning I got up at 7.30am to make sure I was decent when they arrived. I showered, dressed, checked my e-mail, discovered the crappy changes TypePad had made to my blog, tried to fix them, gave up and headed out to work. It was 9.30am when I left, by which time they still hadn't arrived.

Husband wanted to go to Bluewater, but stayed in to wait for them.
And he waited.
And waited.
And waited.

I got back from work at about 6.30pm to find they hadn't been at all.

Things aren't going terribly badly, I suppose. Just not as smoothly as I'd hoped.

If you're interested, I've started a photo album to chart the progress of the build.
There's not much in it, mind.