Bah Humbug!

Today was a shitty day.  I'm meant to be in Norwich tonight with my dear mate Lyns, putting the world to rights and drinking champagne.  I'm not there, although there may be a glass of fizz on the go rather soon I reckon.

My weird 'eyeball eating itself' disease decided to make a reappearance last night which meant I spent another Saturday sitting in eye hospital in Stevenage today.  I did what I was told last time which was to go through A&E and get a referral to the eye unit.  A&E was a sight for sore eyes this morning, (sorry, couldn't resist), as it had been their Christmas party the night before.  They were on go-slow already before the bloke in front of me started kicking off about nothing in particular and I began to worry at 11.40 that I wouldn't get into the eye place before it shut at 12.  I did, only to be told that they were full and they wouldn't see me today and I should come back on Monday.  I very politely told the receptionist that they really would see me if he could just get a message to them with the name of my problem.  Huffing and puffing he reluctantly went round to the doctor and came back with a right cob on saying that 'luckily' I could wait and be seen.

I have managed to wear contact lenses for three days in the last four months and today I was told that I was back to square one and one three different sorts of eyedrops every hour for eternity; well, six more weeks.  I think the time may have come to possibly stop my contact lenses by post order as we have racks and racks of the things in our bathroom now.  As I am unable to drive in the dark and was not going to get to Norwich in the light my lovely weekend plans went down the toilet.

Whilst all this was going on, Stu and the boys were off Christmas tree shopping.  I joked to my Dad that I was quite glad to be in hospital if Stu was having to handle the boys plus Christmas tree plus his first go at getting it standing up straight in the stand.  Unfortunately, when I returned home it was still leaning against the front door in its netting.  Stu and I have thus far avoided any marital Christmas tree erecting disputes by a wonderful invention I found called 'tree-in-a-box'.  It pops out of its box, fully lit and decorated onto a stand in ten seconds flat.  The boys began to be a bit miffed that they couldn't actually hang anything on it though so last year I caved into it being tree-in-a-box's last stand.

I admit that I wasn't in the best mood when I returned home this afternoon.  Stu had no chance; it was never going to end well.  He took charge of tree-lifting and I made myself chief stand-screwer.  Within two minutes it was standing straight and stable in the lounge. Happy days.

'The feet are wonky', muttered my foolish husband.

'Who gives a crap; the tree is upright', replied his mutinous wife.

Taking his life in his lands, the poor, unfortunate man began unscrewing the screwed in and up-until-this-point, stable, tree.  He received a tirade of verbal abuse for the following ten minutes that he screwed, unscrewed, lifted, replaced, screwed, unscrewed, etc., etc. and yep, you've guessed it, the tree would no longer stand upright, or in fact stand in any way at all. Zak removed Sebi from the room at this point as he thought it was best for him not to be around his parents at this particular time...  To cut a long, painful and potentially divorce-inducing story short, Mummy ended up attaching the tree to the ceiling, Daddy legged it to the pub and the Angel Gabriel decided that Christmas was not worth the hassle and tried to top herself by flinging herself from the top of the tree.  Ho, ho, fucking, ho.

The kids are happy.  The tree is, as of 17.59, still standing.  I intend to drink enough champagne that my blurred vision soon becomes normal.  Man Utd. surely have some hope of beating BOURNEMOUTH at least, so I would imagine that peace and tranquility Chez Ward will soon be restored.  Could just do without the ghost of tree-in-the-box past, gloating quite so much from the attic. ;-)

Little Shop of Terrified...

I am taking a large deep breath this evening.  I have just finished my short but really rather lovely run of the school production of 'Little Shop of Horrors'.  I must admit that there have been times over the last few months where I have considered feeding myself to a giant man-eating venus flytrap but, forever the cliche, it was alright on the night in the end.

The problem with being in a department of one, plus auditioning for a show when you don't know any of the kids, and trying to squish rehearsals into a crazily short time frame; means that a newly appointed and inexperienced Head of Drama could end up rocking quietly in a darkened room wondering what on earth she has possibly let herself into.  Of course that didn't happen at any point.  Definitely not.

Fortunately, I have discovered, once again, that I am mostly surrounded by good-natured, patient, talented and resourceful individuals that aided me in a pulling a successful musical out of my bum against the odds.

My partner in crime, the Head of Music; the very talented Miss Sarah Dearn, was a gift from before I obviously managed to piss off the God of Performing Arts.  There was no competition, no bitchiness, many a hashtag and an awful lot of laughs.  Amazing when you don't know each other at all.  I'm assuming the fact she is now leaving the building is nothing to do with me arriving therefore... #coincidence  Neither of us are precious about our roles.  Quite often, Sarah would end up regrouping a tableaux whilst I was banging out the same tune on the piano for the ten millionth time.  It was a beautiful thing; although as we were finishing each other's sentences in Sainsbury's yesterday afternoon, we both agreed that maybe the time had come to part temporarily.

In a fit of panic at the beginning of October, I realised that directing, plus fulfilling all of the technical requirements single-handedly could potentially either (a) kill me; (b) make me very quickly become a single-mother or (c) mean that my children would have to send postcards to my school in order to be able to connect with their mother.  As if by magic, an unsuspecting and eager new Head of RE floated into my hemisphere and mentioned casually that he had taught some Drama at his old school and would be interested in attending a few rehearsals.  Like a predator sniffing out my prey, I casually enquired if he had had any involvement in the technical aspects of any of his previous productions. Would you believe it - he had only a keen interest in Theatrical Lighting and Sound.  Before he had a chance to say 'I was only being polite', I had cemented his name in the programme as 'Technical Director', handed him a poisoned chalice and made him responsible for the techy minions.  Job done.

I was inspired by this success and deciding that I had nothing to lose I penned an email to the entire staff asking enthusiastically if anyone was harbouring a secret desire to be a wardrobe or props mistress, set designer, hair stylist, make up artist or front of house manager.  It's amazing how an official-sounding arty title, a few well chosen words of encouragement and some kisses at the end of an email can manipulate poor, unsuspecting, kind-hearted and overworked teachers into giving up more of their time to the greater good.  I was flying high - I had the support of an incredible team and nothing could possibly go wrong!  Not unless of course, the lead performer dropped out two and a half weeks pre the opening night, but of course, that would never happen!

That happened.

Year 8 saved the day.  The 12/13 year old boy who was playing Mushnik stepped forward into the lead, and another 12/13 year old boy who wasn't involved at all, stepped in to take over his role.  The entire cast pulled together to support them and they all worked crazily for the last two weeks to make it happen.

On my knees, I was ready for the inset long weekend last weekend and celebrating with a few well-earned vinos last Thursday night.  The text arrived at about 11pm to say that Sebi had started vomiting.  My weekend of lunching at Auberge-du-Lac, dinner parties and an entire Christmas shopping day in John Lewis swiftly became a weekend of rubber gloves and carpet scrubbing, greasy hair and l'eau du sick instead.  All doable, as long as nobody else became ill.

There were various miscommunications with less favourite people during the Tech Run and Dress on Tuesday/Wednesday that I would love to detail but can't without risking being fired.  I think that I possibly managed to successfully communicated my displeasure however.  My own children at this point were catching the odd glimpse of somebody they used to call 'Mummy' first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  I nearly allowed one of my form to stick a post-it to my forehead to remind me about Sebi having to wear a costume to school one day in the week but in the end I thought it could be a little conspicuous until the end of the day, so I left it to Zak to sort it out at home.  Stu started puking Tuesday night and was banished to the spare room with orders not to use any towels or utensils without seriously sterilising them afterwards and under no circumstances to mix with either his children or his wife without the use of a surgical mask.

I realised on Wednesday that the show had taken over my life completely, when my work trousers burst during a lesson due to less exercise and more lard than usual; beautiful.  Fortunately, I started puking at about 10pm Wednesday so would fit into them again by Thursday.  Shame that Thursday was the first day of only two days of the show that had nearly killed me to produce and now I was possibly too ill to see.  I pulled my diseased and broken body into work on Thursday morning after three hours sleep.  I'm no martyr but I am a realist.  A new Head of Drama that phones in 'sick' on the morning of a show would forever, (in my eyes too, I admit it!), be labelled as a flaky knob who was unable to cope with the pressure.  No.  Way.  Fortunately by about 4pm I was better and able to eat a banana that got me through the first night.  It was amazing.  I was complete.  I had worried and worried about taking this job for months and whether I had done the right thing or not, and finally it had all come together and was absolutely worth it.  I came home, flying so high, and then my wonderful Nanny handed in her notice...

My Mum has this theory that not everything can go right at the same time.  She always said to me that in your twenties you can have two out of the three following things being great but not all three: flat, boyfriend, job.  She was right at that stage of my life and I transfer that to now.  Mum, Wife, Job.  Two out of three can be successful at a time but obviously not all together!

I picked up and carried on for Friday's production, putting this current problem out of my mind and convincing myself I would deal with it at the weekend.  (Damn it - I guess that is now then...)  My wonderful Technical Tom began to puke two hours before the show started but also soldiered on through.  Stu and Sam were there last night as Stu's Christmas party was Friday.  My wonderful parents picked the boys up from school, fed them and brought them to watch last night.  Obviously Dad wasn't going to stay - so not his bag, so I reserved three front row seats for Mum, Zak and Sebi.  I stuck my boss on the end next to Sebi as he has kids of his own and would cope, plus he was in and out sorting out front of house shizzle.  Unfortunately a more and very important Deputy came in and sat next to Sebi instead.  Now, Sebi is a delightful child but he also does a good line in death stares which unfortunately he has got from his mother.  Zoe and I were sitting in the row behind watching in trepidation to see his reaction.  He opened the dialogue with a light accidental kick to her thigh, for which she apologised, to which he gave a death stare.  Oh God.  He warmed up a little when she asked if he would hold his hand if it got scary.  By the time he had had a coughing fit and she had confiscated my bottle of water to sort him out, they were serious bezzies. 

Darling Daddy obviously had a fit of remorse/pride pre pick up and decided to arrive 30 minutes early to catch some of it.  He therefore sweet-talked my boss into slipping in and letting him through the back door so that he didn't disturb the show.  There's always one, isn't there...

Job done.  Now sleep and re-integrate myself into my poor family.  

Don't feed the plants. x

P45

Having proved myself in my performance management this week as an outstanding teacher in my new school, I had cockily invited the Head to pop in 'any time'.  Obviously any time does not mean period 5 on the Friday before half term!

My Year 11 students have worked like dogs since I arrived.  They are producing work that they could only have dreamed of six months ago; but not today.  We were having a bit of fun.  They have been stuck in a computer room for a month and will be again after half term.  Therefore when the Head arrived this afternoon it was unfortunate that one of the alpha males was dressed as a woman, a more able A grade hopeful was giving it gangster speak, the Jeremy Kyle theme tune was playing and every other word on stage happened to be 'shag'.

I was watching the horror unfold assuming that as I get on with both the Head well enough, and my Year 11s extremely well, one of them would do something to stop the carnage. Surely he would leave or they would stop and we would all make polite conversation until he respectfully WENT AWAY.  It didn't happen.  The Head stayed and watched the car crash unfold and due to a combination of nerves and exhilaration, the dreadful improvisation went on for about 10 minutes.  They'd only been devising it for 10 minutes - how could it last that long in performance?!

I couldn't decide on the spot,whether 'shag' is a word that can't be used in school drama.  I let it go once assuming that it could have been missed by our leader.  Wrongly assuming that the students wouldn't then take that as a green light to use it as often as possible for the remainder of their piece.

The correct teacher response would have been (a) stop the (already shit) drama and correct the use of possibly inappropriate language and (b) make a point of the fact that Year 11 students could have achieved so much more with the stimulus given. Unfortunately, this harassed and strung-out-newly-crowned-Head-of-Drama tried the following: (a) whooping up the crowd into a Jeremy Kyle frenzy hoping to blank out what was happening on stage and (b) sidling up to Head, WINKING (really, REALLY?!  WTF?) and saying sotto voce, 'it is so nice to have a bit of fun just before half-term, isn't it?'

He left then. ;-)

Come fly with me...

I'm struggling at the moment.  A lot.  I'm going on a long awaited holiday on Wednesday and at this current moment in time I'm not sure that I can get on the plane.  Bit odd to share it with the masses but my husband doesn't want to hear it anymore and I would like my bezzies to have a little break so a bit of public declaration is obviously what is called for?!

I used to be terrified of flying.  I'm not sure if it started as a child when I landed in Perth in a horrendous thunderstorm.  Or when we did an emergency landing in Abu Dhabi and my mother slept through it and denies all knowledge to this day.  Or possibly it was my Dad as our jumbo chugged along the runway on the edge of a cliff at Auckland airport, chuckling, 'I'm not sure we're going to make this!'

Who knows?  Anyway, what I did a lot as a child became a huge problem for me as I hit teenage years.  Julie will remember me chatting up American businessmen at the age of 15 to distract myself from take off.  Katy and Aly will have not particularly fond memories of me hanging out until the seatbelt sign went off as we went to Greece and we legged it to the back of the plane for a fag (remember those days)?  My fail safe solution to flying, (and possibly to everything ever), was always to become completely legless before getting on a plane.  In fact, Katy and Aly will again remember a trip to Skiathos in our twenties which has the most ridiculously short runway that we had to go around twice to land on on the way out.  On the way back I was worried we wouldn't make it into the air, (they were weighing our luggage - to be honest, I think there were some fat people they should have been weighing too if it was that tight), and so I downed a bottle of vodka at about 8am. That is pushing it, even for me.  The key to getting shitfaced on flights is doing it at the right moment.  There is that nasty pause between boarding the plane and the drinks trolley coming around to you, where you want to be nicely pissed but not a blithering idiot.  I've not always managed that balance so well.

I was in Turkey when September 11th happened.  Not a great combination for a fuckwit like me.  I remember talking to my Dad on a payphone and explaining, (quite rationally I thought), that I would just find a little boat and come home that way.  See you in a few weeks then.  At great expense, over a period of a number of days, he managed to talk me around to getting on the plane.  It was not pretty and I'll leave that one there.

I had a rather disastrous trip to New Zealand where my poor parents had treated Stu and I to first class flights with them.  I knew I would be scared so I responsibly went to the doctor and got a stock of valium in order to cope.  I didn't read the 'no alcohol with valium' rule however, and cheerfully popped the pills and drank the plane dry of Dom Perignon on the first leg, leaving me on a hideous and collectively painful come down from Hong Kong to Auckland.  Oops.

When I had Zak, I decided that the time had come to become a responsible adult and do something about this so that I didn't pass it down to the next generation.  I did a BA fear of flying course at Heathrow that was amazing; cost a fortune, but was worth every penny. You spend the morning with pilots finding out the mechanics of planes.  They related everything to driving which worked a treat for me, as, being such a control freak, the fact that when it sounds as if they have turned the engines off is just the same as you taking your foot off the accelerator a bit made perfect sense.  The afternoon was spent with psychotherapists who explained in detail the nature of phobias.  It was hilarious to see how many people sheepishly put their hands up to admit that they had checked the weather a million times that morning (there was a flight at the end of the day).

It worked!  It really did.  For a few years I flew without fear and looked forward to holidays without the dread associated with having to get there first.  I went to Las Vegas for Shell's hen do.  I remember as we went through a rather serious bump of turbulence over the Atlantic, Aly looking at me on that flight, and then looking again to check that I was still reading my magazine and drinking my glass of wine rather than digging my nails in to her and screaming.  I flew in a six seater jet from Luton to Exeter and was fine.  Nana was with us at the time and at the age of 90 she managed to get on with it so I thought that I probably should too.

I know nearly as much about flying now as most cabin crew.  I had Sam, (who is also normally a little bit aviophobic), in fits of laughter last night as I told her that it was so ridiculous that you were statistically more likely to be kicked to death by a donkey than die in an air crash, even if you didn't spend your life with donkeys!  It should put it into perspective.

So what's gone wrong this week?  I don't know if I'm honest.  The anxiety has crept back over the past few years, probably as the children don't keep me so distracted on the flights now that they are totally self-sufficiently plugged into IPads.  This year is worse than ever. I have been veering from insane to hysterical over the past few days, with no obvious cause. If I'm honest the suicidal pilot in March did throw me slightly into meltdown even then - I've always thought that whatever else goes wrong you can trust in the pilots!  My dear long-suffering husband deserves a medal.  He is entertaining the idea with almost a smile on his face, (although if I'm honest I think it could be him that is verging on hysteria, but possibly more silently), that we might have to chuck 3 grand down the toilet and drive to France for two weeks instead.  I'm hoping I get a grip before that happens though.

I read 'THE' fear of flying book in one sitting today.  I'm not cured.  Apparently there is a lot of mental rehearsal that needs to be done before I will be.  Something to do with memorising song lyrics.  I'm not convinced.  I'm obviously not helping myself as my immediate thought was 'what the hell use are memorised song lyrics when your plane is crashing?'  Hmmmmm.  I'm fully away that I'm my own worst enemy.  This flight anxiety is probably only a small piece in the jigsaw at the moment but it is the easiest thing to focus on.

Fingers crossed.  By that I mean, fingers crossed I actually head to the airport on Wednesday and don't go via Dover and a massive unnecessary bank loan.  I'm hoping that the public 'outing' might shame me into getting on the plane on Wednesday, rather than publishing random pictures from France without a location on.  Let's see.  I'm promising nothing but am fully aware of the cock that I will be if I don't make it to Greece.  Thanks for listening.

Hangxiety

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Growing up without growing old.

Parenting in the Ward household is reaching new dizzy heights of excellence this weekend.  We seem to be taking it in turns to entertain the kids while the other one lies down in a hungover coma.  Today it is more my turn to bear the brunt of the childcare which means that everyone is having less fun.  They are playing games such as 'put all the bits of lego in the lego box' and 'lay the table' which apparently is not as fun as wrestling their father or playing football!  Spoilt.

It has been a great weekend.  I've been out in town two nights on the trot which hasn't happened since about 1998.  I had a bit of an epiphany whilst throwing some shapes on the dance floor in Havana at about 1am on Saturday: maybe I'm getting a bit old for this shit.

It was my first night out with my new workmates and I was determined to make it a success.  The thing is, with each new workplace I get a little bit older, (I know I'm stating the obvious here, bear with me), and therefore being the life and soul of the party is becoming more challenging.  I wasn't even sure where I should standing in the pub as there were a couple of groupings and I didn't quite fit into either.  The young beautiful people and the older crowd.  Obviously the answer is to down a bottle of rosé in approximately 10 minutes and then you convince yourself that you are still well and truly down with the kids.

As we got to the club some of the people in front of me got ID'd.  'Aren't you going to ask me love?' I drunkenly and un-wittily quipped to the bouncer.  At which point he asked me for photographic ID (as apparently everyone needs it to get into Havana anyway), of which I had none as I had a different handbag on me.  I then had to use every trick in the book to talk my way in without any, holding up the entire group, and suddenly my young beauty began to fade a bit even to me through my rose-coloured-rosé goggles.

I was doing revolting shots at the bar for the rest of the night and shaking my booty on the dance floor with people that I could have technically given birth to.  At 1am my feet hurt, I smelt like an old beer mat and I decided it was time to go home.  I had seriously done my bit at integrating with my new crowd and now it was time for bed.  As I waited outside for a taxi, a load of Beaumont staff were coming INTO Havana and for a moment I thought about turning around and regrouping with them but luckily my one remaining brain cell forced me into a cab.

It was quite a relief last night therefore to go out with really old friends (in the time I have known them rather than their seniority).  We drank nice and slowly after our dinner as we were full and digesting and we all complained about the music being too loud and interrupting our intelligent conversation.  Oh dear.

I'm out on the piss with my Dad tomorrow night who remains the worst influence of everyone I know.  He has started trying to find a younger crowd himself to hang out with as he gets annoyed with people of his age falling asleep and not coming out regularly enough. There is officially therefore no hope for me and I'd better stay in the this current job rather than again trying to prove myself by dancing around my handbag with people half my age when I'm in my forties!

Forgetting the Fear

Hopefully the last work-related blog post for a while!  A quick update on my improved mindset towards my job.  In a nutshell, I manned up a bit.

It took a while and there was some distinct lack of man-uppiness in between.  In the course of the last week; I've had my first row, I've cried in the staff room, I've cried on the Head, I've attempted resignation and I've sworn quite a lot.  Well done me.  (What. A. Knob.)

Surprisingly all this has resulted in me getting quite a few more friends!  I'm aware that this could possibly be that people are just wanting to see what happens next to the car crash... When I was mid-about-to-resign state on Wednesday, I sobbed on the Head of Music that I was just going to be remembered as that Head of Drama that cried a lot then left.

The hilarious thing is, that when I went for my meeting with the Head, unable to decide if I was about to be fired or was going to resign; I came out 15 minutes later completely at peace with the world and then couldn't quite understand why everyone was still 'fussing' over me.  'I'm fine now', I cheerfully told everyone.  People in general were looking a little bit puzzled.  I keep forgetting that this group of staff don't know me.  The fluctuating tide of emotion is yet to become normal to them and from the outside it could well be misinterpreted as fair to middling psychosis.

I'm making it sound as if the entire staff knew I was a complete cock.  I don't think they did, but it is not the largest staff body around and so I'm guessing that a fair few of them are privvy to the fact.  I heard by default today that there is apparently an email that goes around on a Friday about going to the pub.  'Why didn't they email it to me?' I lamented at my poor dear husband as I frogmarched him to the pub instead after work.  'Erm, probably because you keep crying and they'd rather go out with cheerful people?'  Yikes.  Alright Stu.  Hearing you loud and clear there.

Roll on next week.  Even more than that; roll on the summer hols - four weeks to go!

Feeling the Fear

Nine days in and I'm pausing for breath.  A nice, deep one.

In so many ways the job has started really well.  Everybody is more than friendly, the kids are so pleased to have a permanent drama teacher and the cleaning out of someone's years of crap collecting works well for a serial binner like me.

Why then am I finding it so hard?  I'm not such a tough cookie as I thought.  In many ways a department of one suits me very well.  Everybody in my department accepts my decisions on the first vote.  Everyone in my department gets their shit done when its meant to and everyone in my department seems to agree on the best way of things being run.  It is however, the tiniest bit lonely.  It is horrendously tempting to stay shut in away in cupboard at all times as there is so much work to do.  Why bother eating my sandwich whilst trying not to make conversation with my mouth full in the staff room when I could be happily writing drama grading criteria on my own in a cupboard with crumbs all over my face.  Oh...

I haven't found my deviant mates yet.  I know they must be out there (surely, surely?!)  It is good that the colleagues that you meet in a school seem friendly, yet professional and sensible.  That means they are good teachers.  Even I can pull that one off with advanced acting skills.  However, there seems to be no element of naughtiness I can sniff out so far. Everybody is extraordinarily good at their jobs and very keen.  4pm on a Friday I am in the pub with my Beaumont colleagues lying face down on a table emptying a bottle of rose in five minutes.  What worries me is that this is also the nearest pub to my new school and yet the other guys are not there.

I'm getting all sorts of advice from every area of my life:

'Take cans of gin and tonics to the staff rounders match.' (Shelley)

'Screw the lot of them and do your own thing.'  (Dad - note why he never entered the world of teaching).

'Liven up T&L briefing by arriving with a bottle of fizz.'  (The Greek.  8.15am I may add)

A gorgeous friend from Beaumont yesterday told me that it is good to shake things up and try somewhere different.  Beaumont is like family, said she, and lots of people never end up leaving for the wrong reasons.  She is so right.  However, I love that family, they took me, warts and all, and we laughed and laughed and laughed.  I will cut the umbilical cord, soon; get me to September and I'm sure I will have found the new school Friday boozing haunt and won't even remember the family names.

Maybe...  Just maybe...

x

Facing the Fear

This time next week, I will have taught my last lesson at Beaumont, possibly ever.  I've just received my timetable for Samuel Ryder and am busily planning for the next half-term but there is a feeling that is sitting with me that I'm not used to; the feeling of complete and utter terror.

Some slight nerves would be normal at this juncture I think, but this is more than that.  I'm aware that it is going to be a big change for my family as well as myself, but kids are resilient and our new Nanny is wonderful.  I just hope that I won't scare her off with my four sides of A4 instructions as to how to look after my kids.  I managed to edit myself down from six sides and surely more information is better than less?  Right?

At the crux of it, it is absolutely the fear of failure.  Nearly everyone that I have broached this with has laughed and poo-pooed the idea of me poo-pooing my pants but it is really true!

"But you're Nikki Ward!  You aren't scared of anything!" has been a familiar refrain.  Along with:

"You are fabulous; you know you will be fabulous."

I have obviously spent so many years telling everybody I meet how wonderful I am at everything, that they've started to believe it, whereas I seem to have forgotten.  This blog is not a cry for sympathy, or for a load of comments telling me that I am wonderful, though thank you for the thought.  It is merely an outpouring of anxiety that I hope will ensure therefore that the worst does not after all happen.

So what is the worst that could happen?  It would be, that I am a distinct non-event.  If I have been told once, I have been told a million times, that this job is the perfect opportunity to make a huge impression and to turn a department around in a school that is on the up. All well and good, but what if I arrive and my huge splash actually becomes a little drip in a puddle.  Well awkward for all of us.

I still believe that I am a brilliant teacher, but I'm wondering if I am just brilliant at Beaumont.  I have spent a long time there and not much time anywhere else over the years and we fit extremely well.  I like the Beaumont way of doing things, Beaumont likes me and it tolerates my idiosyncrasies.  How do I know that I am able to run my own department?  Maybe the fact that I am successful is that I am just currently flying underneath the extraordinarily capable wing of my amazing Head of Department.

Samuel Ryder is going to be very different.  I am slightly concerned that the kids won't jump through the hoops I need them to.  The catchment is different to Beaumont, however, as Sam put it, it's the other end of St. Albans, not Moss Side.  Fair point.

Having fun has been banned (by me) in our department office at Beaumont for my last week.  Suddenly all our jokes about me being alone in a department, howling at my desk, aren't quite as funny.  Even the Greek has temporarily toned down his elation at my departure and removed the calendar where he is crossing off the days. ;-)

It will be fine.  Of course it will.  Not every kid in the school will hate me.  I only have to keep up the pretence in the staff room of being a nice, non-alcoholic deviant for a few weeks, surely?  If it doesn't work out then I will just have to leave won't I?  I will quietly resign, lay-off the Nanny with a huge guilt-payout and skulk up to school in massive sunglasses to pick my own children up whilst being incredibly nice all the time to my suddenly-having-to-earn-loads-more-money husband.  Hmmmmm, none of that really bears thinking about.  Maybe it is time I manned up and remembered that Nikki Ward is perfectly capable of doing this after all...

'Never talk about religion or politics'

I always thought my Mum was old-fashioned when she quoted the above to me.  Suddenly I'm understanding why.

Social media is the medium of choice where everyone who is unhappy about the General Election result has their say.  I am happy about the result and I think that the economy has been being slowly repaired over the past five years and it will hopefully continue to do so. However, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that this is a dirty point of view. Tirades against anyone who has voted Conservative are rife with a strong feeling that we all should have admitted it previously so that the pre-election polls were correct.  I have always voted Tory. apart from last year, when I had the privilege to be able to vote for my Dad in a general election, and I have never hidden my political inclination.  I would have been surprised at myself if I had attacked the political views of any of my virtual friends if the result had gone the other way.  I have seen a few posts about 'not having any friends who voted blue', but yet have still not been deleted.  If you feel that strongly, let's part ways.

According to Facebook and Twitter ours is a totally unfair method of voting.  Having looked at the statistics, I think that is a fair shout from both the Left and the Right in this election. However, the British Public has the choice to reform the voting system four years ago and we chose to stay with the first past the post system, therefore how can we continue to complain about it now?

One thing I have noticed through managing my Dad's social media through the last two General Elections is the tendency for people to become too personal in their attacks.  I have sat on my hands and shut my mouth over many an insult but when I was presented with: 'John Stocker is a tosser' by somebody who had never met my father, I took exception; and took the accuser who was working from a false name, from behind a cartoon icon, to task.

Believe in what you believe in.  Stand up for what you believe in.  However, do not, confuse political beliefs with personal traits, and, do not ever, be carried along by a tidal wave of hate.

I think that we need to remember how lucky we are to have democracy at all; and that democracy has spoken, whether you like the result, or not.  We are, at least, able to vote without our lives being endangered.

Party Pooper

Today has been a long day.  My normal plan for a Sunday is a couple of drinks with my parents over lunch followed by a bottle of wine or two with my husband over the course of the afternoon and evening.  It is 5.55pm and I am nil-alcohol by mouth. BORRRRRRRRRING.  I've had two and a half weeks of lazing around in bed until past 9 every day and now the school holidays have come abruptly to an end.  I'm even working on a Monday tomorrow (ugh - and will do every Monday from June!) so I thought it would be good to give myself a fighting chance of sleeping tonight and getting up tomorrow morning by staying sober today!  On the same track, I thought when I woke at 8.15 this morning, I'd better not roll over and have another hour but instead I hauled myself out of bed and went for a run!  On a Sunday!  Just in case any of you ever feel like trying the same, I will tell you now, don't bother - it is seriously not worth it.  By the time I'd got to the end of the road I'd realised that yesterday evening's diet of pizza and champagne had not supplied me with the fuel I needed to successfully exercise.

I was cross-examined by both my father and my husband over my weird decision of a lime cordial with lunch.  To add, insult to injury, I then spent over two hours at a children's party this afternoon; totally sober.  I don't really do kids' parties.  I find other small children, as a rule, generally quite annoying.  Luckily with Zak I have never had to accompany him.  I did the accepted run of parties with him while he was in Reception and the minute he hit Year 1, I dumped and ran.  With his blessing, I hasten to add; he had no desire to have his bossy-teacher-mum embarrassing him any longer in front of his friends.

No such luck with Sebi.  I had been gently suggesting for the past 24 hours that he might be absolutely fine to be left on this own at this particular party.  He said that he was sure that he would but he would have more fun with me there too.  I very much doubt it Sebi darling.  I upped my game a little in the car on the way to the party and said quite firmly that I would stay for five minutes and then he would be fine.  This backfired spectacularly as he then became hysterical as we rang on the doorbell that I was going to abandon him. Cue the parents of the birthday boy opening the door as I tried to throw Sebi through, whilst he yelled: 'I DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE STUPID PARTY ANYWAY.' Excellent. Hi, my name is Nikki.  Nice to meet you.

I eventually got him into the party and we sat in the corner for the first half an hour with his face buried in my neck and me watching some bloke in a lab coat not managing to get a balloon through the neck of a jar.  Oh, and did I mention, I was sober?

Sebi eventually warmed up but by this time it was not worth me vanishing so I stayed and contented myself with bollocking the naughty children.  Never invite a teacher to your party. Particularly a hungover teacher, on the waggon, on the last day of the school holidays.  I was a right fun spoiler.

One nice lady sat down to have a chat with me.  Pretty big of her I reckon considering what a miserable, unfriendly cow I am in the playground.  She told me that she was happy that there was a good balance between working mums and non-working mums and that it wasn't heavily weighted in one way or the other.  I told her that the easiest thing to do was not to give a shit about what anyone else thinks.  Cue tumbleweed.

It was a good way for me to edit Sebi's birthday party list by watching the boys in action. One particular to-remain-nameless child will most definitely never darken my door or be added to any birthday list as long as there is breath in my body.  I had a stand-off with another child as he held out his cup to me and demanded 'JUICE'.  'Juice what?' I countered approximately five times before I realised I was getting nowhere at all and therefore left it to a more tolerant parent to meet his demands instead!

I reckon I should be able to go to bed fairly soon and then Super-Sober Sunday can be replaced by No-Alcohol Monday.  At least I am used to that one.  I'm comforting myself with the thought of how pleasantly shitfaced I will be by this time next week at my parents' Ruby Wedding party.  Stu is in charge of the bar, the boys are in charge of crisps and I'm in charge of socialising.  If there was ever a recipe for a successful social event then surely that has to be it!

Sleepover

Zak has just gone off on his first ever sleepover.  The Mum was ten minutes early picking him up, thank God, as ever since it was arranged we have been crossing days off on the calendar, and since yesterday we have been counting down in minutes.  I didn't think he would be worried about staying away for the night as this child has cheerfully toddled off to childminders/pre-school/nursery/school/kids club without one backward glance, ever, at his mother.  However, all I wanted was a teeny bit of apprehension at the thought of staying in a strange house, without any member of his family present, at the tender age of seven. Not a hope.

'What's the big deal Mum?' he asked.  'I like Sam, I like his Mum, I like his Dad and I like his sister.  Why would I be scared?  I'm only taking Pooh with me to keep you happy.' Fine. Good.  At least we all know where we stand.

When this sleepover was first arranged, the younger sibling's bottom lip went out and the beginnings of a huge tantrum started to burble as Zak was doing something good and he wasn't.

'Mummy and Sebi can have their own sleepover', I pulled quickly out of my arse.  Luckily, this went down a storm with the poor deprived child with the promise of pizza out of a cardboard box in the lounge whilst watching 'Paddington'.  Oooh, we know how to live.

I've categorically told Zak that he has got a long wait before anyone comes back here for a sleepover.  I'm not having anyone here that doesn't come with a written declaration from their parents that they won't need feeding pre 9.30am and that they know how to shut the fuck up like a good 'un in the morning.  I consoled Zak with the thought that sleepovers here would be rubbish anyway and would actually lose him friends as he would still be put to bed at 7.30pm and lights would be out without a sniff of a midnight feast happening.

Sebi wouldn't want to go anywhere overnight anyway, I don't know who he's kidding.  He's just refused a play date on the grounds that he doesn't want the boy to think that he likes him more than he actually does.  God forbid eh?  Don't know where he gets it.  I had to feign deafness the other week at school when I heard him telling the teaching assistant that he did like her but obviously not as much as he liked Mrs Dawson as she was his favourite and his best friend in the world after Mummy.  Need to know basis Sebi, need to know.  Is this nature or is it learnt behaviour however?  I think he will be out Nikki-ing Nikki one day as our Easter card this year said on it: 'I have a lovely Mummy and brother.'  Poor Stu.  Apparently, a transgression from a couple of weeks earlier had meant eternal banishment from the 2015 series of Easter Sebi greetings.  What on earth have I created?

Happy Days

I love my own company, always have.  When I'm on my own there are no arguments, no irritations, I am always in total agreement with myself and there is nobody to piss me off. What's not to like?  My liking for my own company has definitely increased since being a Mum.  Obviously it's not as intense as when they were tiny, but still, having to break up an argument whilst on the loo, incessant interrogation on the meaning of life pre-8am and the general level of noise in my house on a weekend makes me revel in my 'me time' when it comes.

My Greek friend is convinced I'm going to be ever so lonely when I don't share an office with himself and Zoe any longer.  He says that in my newly formed department of one I'm going to be crying into a mirror and lamenting the days of Beaumont Banter.  I will, of course, miss them both dreadfully, but actually working on my own doesn't phase me at all. Probably for all the same aforementioned reasons - mainly, I can do things my way with nobody else either telling me what to do or, God forbid, doing stuff wrong.

I had a matinee theatre date with my dearest Deputy Head at the Young Vic this afternoon and set off nice and early on a beautifully sunny day in a fantastic mood.  I revelled in the simple act of sitting on a park bench in Southwark in the sunshine eating my egg and ham baguette and thinking that all was right with the world.  Until I was joined by the beggar.  I was early, it was the only bench in a half a mile radius and I wasn't moving.  It was a particularly awkward social situation as he sat that little bit too close for comfort, (plus he smelt bad), and started a monologue that went along the following lines: 'please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please', (you get the idea), whilst staring at me.  If I was ever have going to have given this particular beggar money, he hacked me off enough within a second that I was giving him nothing.  He was however pretty persistent.  I luckily had my iPod so I plugged in, tuned out, and eyeballed him back.  I began to realise however that us staring into each other's eyes on a park bench, could look from a distance as if we were in some sort of relationship.  So, after enough time had elapsed so that he knew he hadn't bullied me off the bench, I left, and went to the theatre.  Damn you smelly beggar bulldozing me out of the sunshine.

We were watching 'Happy Days' which is an absurdist drama about a couple abandoned in some sort of desert in a sand dune where the husband lives in a cave with horrific sunburn and the wife is buried up to her waist for the first act and up to her neck in the second.  As the house lights came up for the interval, I had Morag in hysterics when I told her that it was all a bit more depressing in the flesh than it was when I read it as a play. 'What were you expecting?' she said.  Fair point really.  The wife character, 'Winnie', keeps up an insistent monologue throughout the play and in the first act refrains that she is so lucky to have yet another 'Happy Day'.  This happy day is fuelled by her lipstick not having run out quite yet, or by being able to read the writing on the tube of toothpaste.  Most of the time she manages to forget the fact that she is buried in sand.  The second act takes on a more sinister feel as she is buried up to her neck so unable to reach into the treasures of her bag or even the gun that could put her out of her misery.  Her husband appears occasionally and towards the end we aren't sure if he is reaching out towards her or to get the gun.  There are maybe therefore certain types of solitude that are not to be relished...

To the lady I met on the train home with two boys aged three months and two and a half years, who is moving house on Tuesday, with a husband who is currently working in China: I hope you listened to me.  Send the big boy to pre-school and put the tele on without worrying so much.  Things will get better a lot sooner than you think.  Throw those eco-nappies in the bin and drink some more wine love.  As the SMA advert keeps telling you - you're doing great.

Nanny-tastic

I have employed the most fabulous Nanny.  She makes Mary Poppins look like Cruella Devil.  I loved her, the boys loved her, she loved us (I hope!) and it is all going to be lovely and wonderful happily ever after.  She is going to do Arts and Crafts with the boys and make sure there is no sign of it left by the time I get home - music to my un-arty-crafty ears.

The whole 'being an employer' thing is a little grown-up for my liking however.  'Yes of course I can sort out your tax', I gushed, whilst inside actually thinking 'Shit - how the hell do I do that?!'  Luckily, there are very efficient Nanny Tax agencies that do all of this for you, for a certain fee of course, and there are a ream of highly efficient sounding ladies with cut-glass accents at the end of the phone answering all my really rubbish enquiries quickly and correctly, and if they have a slightly patronising air about them then I am choosing not to notice.  I was doing really well on the phone to their payroll help department earlier until they asked me if I figure I had just quoted them was gross or net.  'No idea', I said, 'but if I had to guess I would say gross'.  Apparently however guessing is not the way forward when you are sorting out somebody's payroll...

I am doing everything correctly though and have downloaded a very officious contract from the agency.  During the customisation of this contract though, I found myself deleting a clause about never drinking alcohol around the children.  What if I got home early and decided that I wanted to treat the lovely Nanny to a little tipple in the garden one summer's afternoon?  It would be dreadful to be in breach of one's own contract wouldn't it?  Better to be safe than sorry in this house. ;-)

I hope that I am going to be a wonderful employer.  I just need to keep her away from any of you lot.  Particularly Shelley who might tell her the story of how I rearranged the washing up on the drip tray when she moved into the flat and told her 'we don't do it that way'.  I'm not quite sure which 'we' I was referring to... Poor girl - doomed. ;-) x

Jobsworths

I have had a vaguely irritating day full of encounters with flaky, inefficient people not really doing their jobs properly, which never really sits particularly well with me.  As The Greek reminded me earlier, 'Darling', (he didn't call me darling, it will just annoy him intensely if I misquote him), 'you need to remember that not everyone is as good as you'.  I duly stated that they should therefore all be fired with immediate effect.

My rumblings continued after the end of school when I discovered that my Green bin hadn't been cleaned after it had been emptied today.  I pay the princely sum of £3.50 a month for this to happen and it hadn't happened for the second time in six months.  I got hold of the bin cleaning man who told me it hadn't been cleaned as there was a banana skin at the bottom of it.  I retorted that if a banana skin hadn't fallen into the lorry as it was being emptied then it was hardly my fault.  Did bin-cleaning-man expect me to upend myself into the bin and retrieve it myself?  When he started suggesting I found a long stick-type object to remove the banana skin so that the bin could be cleaned I decided to quickly end our standing order relationship.  Jobsworth.

What was therefore going to tip me over the edge this afternoon?  Craft, that's what.  I am not a craft-mother.  There are no paints in this house.  Much of the boys artwork gets recycled without even surviving the walk home.  I am the least artistic person you could meet and remember my art teacher giving up on me at the end of year nine and allowing me to sit on a desk and read a book whilst my classmates charcoal drew me - suited me nicely!  We had a long and detailed email from Sebi's class teacher today telling us (parents) how we needed to provide an inverted box for technology on Monday.  The box could not be resealed with sellotape as this could not be painted on top of so we needed to use masking tape or double-sided sticky tape (neither of which I had in the house, obviously).  There was no way that was going to the shops to spend MONEY on equipment for CRAFT so I decided I would just be clever and make my own double sided sticky tape by folding normal sticky tape over and over on top of each other so that it stuck together.  Read and learn and save yourselves.  It is a really shit solution.  Don't bother. I'm a stubborn cow though and as I'd started I was most definitely going to finish.  Sebi now officially has the most rubbish inverted box with which to start his technology project. If it was Zak I would be worried that it is that rubbish that people would laugh at him.  I don't worry about stuff like that with Seb - he has his mother's eyes...  This is another reason I am looking forward to working full-time again.  In a few months time I would simply delete the aforementioned email as I will be way too busy and important for that kind of caper.  Or I will delegate to the Nanny (yep, Nanny, whoop whoop, another blog post to follow on that one), or the scary cleaner or in fact any of the Ward staff really... ;-)  I'm waiting for Seb's class Mums' Facebook group to start collectively whinging about the box, I may even join in this time.  They love a good whinge - previous whinges including Cathedral visits being too Christian, not being informed about the Year 1s visiting another classroom in the school day etc..,  I have to be sure not to log onto the group with wine in my belly as I may start typing and offend; heaven forbid.  I should just leave the group, but it is useful when it comes to things like finding out about boxes that need creating for craft activities...aha! That seals it then, (not the box, that is definitely still only partly sealed)!

Unfortunately, poor Stu is working away for a few days so I have nobody to take my random grumpiness out on.  Fortunately, I can open the Veuve with no danger of sharesees and let my grumps float away on some bubbles.  Fortunately, I'm still not dying and need to remember the pure joie de vivre that comes with that!

x

Domestic Delegation

My latest piece of news in a week of monumental developments is this: I have a cleaner!

*Tumbleweed*

Bear with me...

I haven't had a cleaner for 3 years and I have hated every hoover-crumbing-wee-stain-wiping second of those three years but, working part-time, haven't really been able to justify it until now.  Justifying it I absolutely am!  Starting full-time work in June means that I have this dissertation to bang out between now and May.  Employing the cleaner was the first thing I did after popping the champagne on Tuesday evening.

Up until 3 years ago, I always had a cleaner.  Ever since I moved into my flat.  That was pure indulgence and laziness.  Marcela used to clean for Shelley and I and we took great pleasure in throwing dinner parties the night before she came, just so that we didn't have to do the washing up!  Marcela fell out of favour when Stu moved in.  She became the teeniest bit obsessed with me and my arrangements, reading the calendar in the kitchen and then 'coincidentally' turning up at the same gigs as us in London!  Scary.  Bye bye Marcela.

The current cleaner started today and worked like a dog.  I love her.  I am possibly in love with her.  When I was telling Dad yesterday that I had employed a cleaner, his first question was. 'What does she look like?'  I was trying to convince him that I had no interest in her looks, whereas I had a lot of interest in her skills with a feather duster.  My dear Father was trying to infer that a sexy cleaner and a husband that worked at home could be bad combination.  Ahhh - warms your cockles doesn't it?!  Luckily she is no oil painting.

I gave myself a talking to before she arrived this morning about being completely clear about exactly what I wanted from day 1 as bad habits to start with are then quite hard to correct.  That went out of the window when she strode in and started poking about and I realised that she was most definitely wearing the trousers in our relationship.  'Where is the mop?' was one of her first questions.  When I showed her, she continued, 'It's a bad mop.  You need a mop that doesn't spread as much water.'  Oh.  I quite liked my mop.  I was then quaking in my boots when she demanded to see the hoover.  Henry passed the test though with a grunt of approval.  I found my feet again when she told me it was a big house to clean in 4 hours and I told her I managed it quite easily in 3 and a half.  I think I gained a smidgen of respect for this comment and lo and behold she did do an amazing job in her four hours here and I am NEVER looking back again.

I now just need to ensure that my Mondays and Fridays for the next four months are spent on educational discourse and not on sitting in the pub having elongated lunches...

The Bottom Line

This blog post may refer, however tastefully, (if that is possible), to the inner workings of my gut.  Male friends of mine, or those of a more sensitive disposition, may choose at this point to skip this particular post and with my complete blessing and encouragement.  ;-)

I feel better today than I have done since the beginning of November and have possibly just got through a couple of the most stressful days of my life.  The 'piles' issue I referred to in a previous post did not end up being piles but instead is some form of inflammatory bowel disease called proctitis.  For goodness sake don't Google it, as Google then accuses you of being a serial bum shagger with an STD.  (No, that is not true.)

Anyway, it is all treatable and controllable; happy days.  If only I didn't have such an active imagination, which unfortunately I have.  The problem with all forms of IBD is that it completely mimics the symptoms of bowel cancer.  My rational head is fully aware that bowel cancer is pretty much unheard of in people under the age of 40 (yes, Martin Russel, I am).  However, when Googling on your phone at 3am in the morning it is totally possible to convince yourself otherwise.  I have been a complete mess and hiding it well, apart from to my nearest and dearest who have greatly suffered along with me.

It is incredible how an intelligent, relatively sane, human being can overnight become a victim of their own Googling, pathetic self-diagnoses.  I am pretty convincing though, even to myself.  Sam told me on the phone tonight that she has been coming off the phone to me each time telling me to pull myself together and that I'm fine and then crying on her husband over the fact I might be dying.  It's catching.  I am bloody convincing.

Zoe and I have done some black humour counselling sessions in our office.  Kyl is the only man in our department and we have stopped talking on a number of occasions when he has entered the office.  We fed him the absolute bare minimum information about the situation so that he didn't get paranoid about our secret squirrel conversations and the poor man ran scared as soon as he possibly could.  I texted him tonight: 'All good, not dying' and got the reply: 'Ah, that's nice'.  It's as deep as the two of us ever need to go into that kind of discussion.

But this week, I had this procedure today, proceeded by my first ever Head of Department interview yesterday.  To say I look like shit is an understatement and I am inhaling a bottle of wine ready to have passed out by 9pm tonight.  I think I may actually sleep properly for the first time in two months.  I celebrated last night in style when I got the job but all the time with the cloud hanging over me that it was such a shame I was a professional success when I knew really I would have to phone the Head tomorrow and tell him that I couldn't accept the job after all due to my speedily-declining ill-health.  For such an optimist I do a good line in scary black clouds.  Maybe I tempted fate through through all this doom and gloom imagination?  Maybe I just need to get a little more statistical awareness?  Or maybe, as Shelley suggested today, after the week I've had, I should really go and buy a lottery ticket.

All's well that ends well.  High on gas and air this afternoon I do remember telling the consultant that I didn't want a copy of the picture of the inside of my bowel for the family album.  He looked at me as if I was a complete cock.  He was right.  However, I'm a completely alive cock, with a fabulous new job and a rejuvenated attitude towards the insignificant trials and tribulations of everyday, happy, mundane life.  Cheers.  :-) xx

When they were very young...

Stu and I had a discussion this weekend about whether we think we will miss these days with the kids when they are teenagers.  My mother is convinced that we will, but on the days when you are in the park at -1 degrees just because you can't bear to be in the house any longer with them laying into each other, it is hard to imagine.

I don't miss them being babies.  I was just looking back nostalgically at some photos thinking how delicious they were, but that doesn't make me want to go back to those days. Buggies, nappies and not being able to leave the house between 12 and 2.30pm made life a little more restrictive than it is these days.

The only thing I am worried about losing is the physical affection.  How long much longer is Sebi going to grab my face ten times a day and kiss me square on the lips.  I would like to think we have a few more years of that but at the same time he may start getting the shit ripped out of him if it goes on too long.  Zak went off kissing about the time he came out of nappies...

Sunday morning swimming is something I long to give up on and will not miss AT ALL.  At least after 18 months, Sebi has started actually moving forward, all be it with a woggle, and has finally released his orang-utan grip from his poor instructor.  We still have the rite-of-passage tears before he gets in each week but even he doesn't look convinced by them any longer - it is purely for my benefit.

Will the things that they say stop being hilarious as they get older?  I think not.  I think we just then fall into the seriously embarrassing-parents-category when they are teenagers and we will simultaneously lose all sense of fashion and humour and decorum.

We've had a hint of Zak's teenage self this week as he has had a week's ban from the ipad for the first time.  With good reason.  He learnt Stu's password over his shoulder, one letter at a time, (the kid has determination and staying power - I'll give him that), and then bought a whole load of new characters for 'Crossy Road'.  Over £60 in total.  Luckily, Stu was in London on a night out when the emails started coming through as I hate to think of the confrontation if him and Zak had been in the same room!  Apple refunded all of the charges after one phone call with no argument, as they said it was 'unusual account activity', which I thought was pretty incredible and above and beyond customer service requirements really.  It is killing Zak not having any screen time and I am revelling in the control-freak potential of it (shock).  Sebi is still getting to play on the computer or the ipad and if Zak can't control himself and leans over to touch it, he loses another day.  At this rate, he may get it back somewhere during the summer of 2017.

Poor old Zak.  The whole world conspires against him.  He has been trying to convince me that his very lovely class teacher was 21 last week.  This lady is fabulous and attractive but most definitely about my age.  I have tried to convince Zak that she is more likely in her late 30s but he is having none of it as 'she wouldn't lie'.  The fact it could have been a joke instead did not wash with him.  Unfortunately for Zak the teacher and I happened to bump into each other after a few glasses of wine had been consumed on Friday night in the pub and I shared this with her.  I think I howled with laughter just a millisecond longer than she did about the fact that she could possibly, actually, be 21 years old.  Oops.

I love them.  They're gorgeous; but they're getting older and I love that too.  I reckon Sebi will fit into his size 4-5 trousers soon.  Zak takes great pleasure in winding me up by telling me that he is going to go to Sandringham instead of Beaumont when he is 11 as 'then he will get an ipad'.  I reckon he has this rose-coloured vision of secondary school where there are lines and lines of Demon-Headmaster-style pupils playing Crossy Road for six and a half hours every day.  He may have a rude shock to his system in a few years, wherever he ends up going.  If only I could be so decisive about my own next secondary move for such solid reasons... ;-)

Je Suis Charlie

I am rather drunk, probably insufficiently-educated and overly-opinionated but the joy of blogging is that you are only your own filter.

I have been pretty addicted to the news over the last few days and today I have been obsessed.  My 101 year old Nana is convinced that bad things didn't happen as much in the olden days and I don't want to disillusion her by just telling her that these days we have immediate access to everything that is going on, always.  I did feel at some points today as if I was watching a Hollywood Blockbuster rather than BBC News - surely this couldn't be actually happening, right now?

There is no sense, no meaning and no rationale behind this obsessive fundamentalism. After Wednesday's horrific events I found myself hoping that the perpetrators would be found (and killed) as soon as possible so that they wouldn't be able to inflict any more damage on the further population.  How wrong is that though?  That I'm actually hoping that some human beings will hunt down other human beings and kill them and that that would be a success.  Am I a product of the recent media coverage or is this just the world we live in now?

I firmly believe that no human life is worth more than any other human life but still I begin to question how any God can let this happen over and over again.  My thoughts tonight lie with the victims, the families of the victims but also with every peace-loving Muslim in France and in the rest of the World.  Within hours, there were reports that Mosques in France had been vandalised by racist graffiti.  Unsurprising, but depressing, nevertheless.

It just feels as is these kind of attacks are happening more and more frequently and there is no way to stop them.  There is no way to combat radicalised individuals who have access to weapons and there is no way of knowing where they will indiscriminately strike next.

Zak thinks I'm crazy when I overreact to his monologues over breakfast about joining the army and it's 'OK Mum as they have the right sort of guns'.  I don't want a 7 year old to have any idea that any sort of guns are OK.  As far as I can see at the moment, guns are generally a key to people losing their lives. Without access to guns today, those terrorists would have struggled more to take the lives of innocent people.

The absolutely worst part of my soul is that I think tonight, at least three more people who want to kill and maim innocent people are dead.  Surely there can't be that many people in the world that want to do harm to other people?  I think there are though.  I didn't even realise this was a major whole world problem until 9/11, along with the majority of the rest of the world I think.

I worry for our future.  I worry for my children and their future.  I feel ultimately more sorry for every non-radicalised Muslim citizen of the western world however, who will be increasingly more segregated, more scrutinised and more ostracised from the countries in which they have chosen to make their home in this new, terrifying and unpredictable world we live in.