When We Were Very Young...

I was originally going to call this post, 'If Carlsberg made weekends...' as it has been so fabulous but I feel that is rather over used, although not as much as the bloody 'Keep Calm and...' which tends to throw me into a very un-calm state whenever I see it.

I went racing at Newmarket on Friday night.  Dad had a couple of horses running, neither of which won, but coming in third and fourth they didn't disgrace themselves.  Kate, Aly and I decided we were born to the lifestyle of sitting in the owners enclosure drinking champagne bought by other people.  Aly suggested that we pool our winnings at the start of the evening.  She's a clever girl as I won on the first race and then Kate on the third! Luckily she pulled it out of the bag on 'Tax Free' and we came away splitting a very respectable £115.  Unfortunately, we had the taste for champagne by then and 115 quid doesn't last very long when Bar 62 have sold out of everything apart from vintage champagne and so it is unthinkable that you wouldn't buy that and would lower your class of drink later on in the evening...

According to my dear husband, I don't make enough of an effort to come in quietly when I've had a shandy or three so he offered to sleep in the spare room on Friday night so that I wouldn't wake him up.  I'd already changed the bed for my ladies who were arriving on Saturday so he wasn't allowed to and I headed out the door at 5pm promising to come home late and loudly.  Lucky chap.  His main complaint is that I turn on every light in the house so I dutifully stumbled around the in dark instead probably making twice as much noise.  He should be grateful I wasn't giggling, hiccuping or vomiting however, as all of the above have been known to happen on occasion.

Saturday morning I packed my husband and children off to Redditch and indulged in a couple of glasses of medicinal wine over lunch as I waited for my five best friends from Uni to arrive.  We haven't been together for 9 years, as the last time was Lynsey's 30th. She was delighted to keep being reminded of this as we each individually clocked on to the fact that she must therefore be approaching 40.  Poor old Clare is gestating a sproglet at the moment so I can imagine that we were suitably shouty and dull by about 9pm.  All credit to her though she was up until nearly 2am when she firmly packed everybody off to bed.

We dined in 'The Cock' and were waited on some of the time by someone  I used to teach GCSE drama to.  This caused much hilarity at our table because although my St. Albans friends are pretty used to me falling (drunk) over ex-pupils, (and in fact Shelley is particularly adept at removing me from those sorts of situations if I'm a little too merry), my Uni friends still struggle I think with the concept of Nikki Stocker being a proper actual teacher, (don't really blame them).  There was therefore a little bit of interrogation of this girl who then pointed out to me that a boy who used to be in my form and also worked there was seriously trying to hide from me.  I left the poor chap alone, for a while anyway; after the third tequila rose I think there might have been a little bit of name-shouting and waving.  Ugh.

It wouldn't be a night out with these girls without laughing till you cried (and for some I think, till you did a little wee-wee) and crying until you laughed.  I stuck my foot right in it by drunkenly announcing that a girl we went to Uni with had died a few years ago (I'm available for hire to ruin all your parties).  We all knew this, or so I thought, but apparently we all actually didn't.  One of our table ended up in floods of tears and was beside herself for about 15 minutes until we thought it would be cathartic for her to look at a picture of the dead person in happier times on Facebook.  At that point she realised it wasn't actually who she was thinking of and the tears dried up.  Honestly, we are bad and nasty people.

My kids will be back in a few minutes now and it is time for me to stop pretending I'm 21 again and grow back into Mummy.  Regression every once in a while keeps me sane though I think.

A Frosty Reception

We've just had Sebi's induction morning at Reception.  I don't remember doing this with Zak and I just figured that it was a new thing that they had brought in during the last couple of years.  No, apparently not.  It seems as though I may have just 'missed' it last time. That seems relatively slack, even for me.  I know that I deliberately always skip the new parents' talks nowadays as I can't bear all the hot air that tends to be spouted there but surely I would've taken poor old Zak in to see his new classroom?  Maybe not.

Anyway, Sebi and I hit Reception today for an hour, (oh yes, that's a long, long, time to meander around a relatively small classroom with too many children in it), and then lunch. Anyone who knows my 'fuck off I've got enough mates' face from seeing it around school before, would, I think, have been surprised at the new heights it hit today.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't stomp around in silence for an hour but I carefully chose the people I was willing to talk to and those I definitely wasn't.  A mother of a child I have referred to as an abbreviation 'HM' in previous posts was obviously top of this list, but luckily she seems to have got the message, and it fills my heart with joy to report that our loathing seems completely mutual nowadays.  Job done.  There was another lady however, who was desperately following me around and trying to make eye contact for most of the session. I'm sure if you asked ten people who knew her if she was a nice person then all ten would agree that she is, but having observed her from a distance during nursery pick-ups/drop-offs I just know that she would do my head in, immediately, and so we are best not becoming acquainted.  What's wrong with her?  Not a lot.  The fault most definitely lies in my personality, but I cannot cope with over-zealous-highly-competitive-my-perfect-middle-class-life-is-actually-such-hard-work-but-nobody-else-possibly-understands mothers who talk too much.  Ahhhhh, that's better.

She will get the message soon enough in September I'm sure.  I was out to lunch with one of my BFFs Kate the other day and we were frankly discussing the playground politics.  Kate's children are at a different school and she visibly cringes when we talk about how differently we behave in the playground.  Kate is a very friendly, open person and she has come across more difficult personalities like myself in her own playground. She now keeps her distance from those scary witches.

So, back to today.  Over lunch, the Headmaster came and sat next to Sebi for a few minutes.  Seb studiously ignored him and carried on eating his bread and butter.  After a little prompting and a poke from his mother in the ribs he deigned to answer one of the Head's earnest questions with a small nod; avoiding all eye contact however.  He hasn't managed to hone his antisocial skills effectively enough yet to realise that whilst cheerfully discounting the masses we can't be bothered with, it is important to always make time for the big cheeses in life.  We'll get there in time.

Busy Bee

Hello.  I'm aware it's been a while.  I am slowly coming up to the surface after moderation month.  Last year was the first time I had done it and I wasn't prepared for the fact it would be a month of absolutely no fun, drowning in a sea of paper and videos and mopping up the mess of other drama teachers.  This year I was more prepared but I was not ready for the fact that my school plonked report deadline day on exactly the same day as the moderation deadline.  How the hell did that happen?  My feet haven't touched the ground.  I have been saving time by prepping reports in my dreams (yes really) and then just typing them up when I woke up and with five days to go I have half a centre left for moderating and 38 reports left to write.  Believe me, considering where I was this time last week, that is a happy place to be.

I'm not whinging I promise.  There have been times in the last month when I have thought if I watch one more video of one more class exploring 'Blood Brothers' I may do myself or my TV some harm.  I do love it though, otherwise I wouldn't do it.  However, I have been hanging out for it to be over and for me to get my life back.

So I went out last night.  My BFF and I wandered up to a local pub for dinner.  We made a strategic decision not to go into town so that there was no late night option.  Over the years we have learnt that it is important to plan against drunken foolish decisions before one is drunken and foolish.  How then did I end up head first in a bush somewhere around the Ridgeway at 1.30am this morning?  I blame the council.  All the bloody streetlights were out and what with the Ridgeway being a bit of a curly road it is easy to get disorientated and stray from the path, over a wall and into someone's front garden. Thank the Lord that (a) it was dark and (b) I don't teach in St. Albans anymore so can revel in this dreadful behaviour without the risk of being caught by pupils or worse still parents of pupils that you then have to try and convince you are actually a civilised professional instead of a drunken scumbag at the next parents' evening.

I had a moment of clarity as I realised I was too drunk to pull myself straight out of the flowerbed last night and instead had to drag myself back over the wall.  If I have a lot more free time now that examinations and moderation have finished I may find myself stuck in a bush (stop it you filthy minded lot) more often.  That's not necessarily a good thing.  I'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and assume that my quiet-night-out turning into raucous debauchery last night was just a release of the stress I have been under for the last few weeks.  Just in case though, I've decided to keep myself busy for another couple of years and today have signed up to do an MA starting in September.  It could be a slightly knee-jerk hangover reaction but I think it is better for my family and the residents of Marshalswick in general if I keep myself busy and out of trouble.

Surely with two degrees I am bound to then be grown up and sensible.  We live in hope.  I will keep you posted.