Monday 6th August

I'm older. I warned Mr Z it would happen, every time he lamented his supposedly ancient status (he is 30) - I said to him, don't worry sweetpea, I'm going to be older before you are, and it happened - I am. I am 23 now, and he isn't 31 until the end of next month. I'm feeling a bit weird - Jen said 23 is a bit of a watershed and I suppose it could be construed as such - I just feel like I really shouldn't look forward to future birthdays with quite as much excitement as I have always in the past, but I can't help it. I was so excited about this one, even though I didn't have a massive party or a serious drinking session or anything - we went to Losely House (stately home where they make ice cream) on the Saturday, Mr Z and Mother Hand and I, and out to dinner in the evening at a precious little steak house that does wicked ice cream sundaes, and then to the pub, et voila. Mother Hand cooked my favourite lamb stew with lamb steak instead of chops last night and even put green bits in the dumplings. I combined the grandparent donations and bought an enormous fish bowl which holds so much water it's almost too heavy for me to lift when it's full. It's currently sitting "settling" next to my computer waiting for tomorrow when I put some fish in it. It looks a bit dramatic, since I had to move some junk off the desk before I could find room for it, and one of the bits happened to be a porcelain skull which one of my classmates made for her GCSE coursework in pottery, dropped, glued back together, and gave to me. Thus, the porcelain skull - which is a fair bit smaller than a human skull, I feel I must point out - is now resting on the bottom of the fish bowl, maginifed to human headish size by the water. Haven't decided yet whether or not to leave it there - it is a bit gruesome, not at all fluffy bunnies, but then it will make a useful resting place for the new fish. Not quite sure what to get yet - a fighter fish, I think, but the bowl is huge and it might look a bit lost on its own, so I am thinking of getting a couple of flouncy goldfish to keep it company - the ones with the big fins and tails. In that case I might take the skull out because it might look a bit cluttered, and I'd like to think that in a room full of clutter the fish bowl would be a small oasis of calm and order.

On second thoughts, maybe I will just get a fighter and tell everyone that he's a piranha and the skull was his last victim. Heh heh heh.

Dinner on Saturday was lovely, we went to a miniscule little steak place I haven't been to since Tim turned 12, and coincidentally sat at the same table we did last time. When I ordered my ice cream I asked for a flake (I was having very grown up chocolate with amaretto poured over the top) and Mother Hand requested a sparkler "because it's her birthday". The ice cream arrived with neither flake nor sparkler, much to my disappointment, but when the music suddenly went off and was replaced by something unidentifiable by the first few bars and being played rather loudly, my suspicions were aroused. Sure enough, the staff all trooped out singing happy birthday and carrying a big cocktail with a sparkler in it. Tried (not very hard) to feign embarrassment to hide my sparkler-induced excitment, and momentarily felt rather bad because there had been some kids on a nearby table singing happy birthday to one girl all evening and she didn't get a sparkler or anything, but I wasn't about to complain - there's nothing like a good sparkler. Was gutted to miss out on them by being away for Guy Fawkes last year so will make the effort to buy extra this year.

Work gets better and better, I am still carrying this "I like challenging children" label (thinking of getting a t-shirt printed with it) but it hasn't been all bad. I had a Downs Syndrome boy called Jamie on Wednesday and Thursday last week, we spent most of Wednesday running around the field, bouncing on the castle (I love that bouncy castle, I want one) and lying on the bean bags, where he prodded my finger nails (which are getting ludicrously long) with the tips of his fingers and repeated the word "cat" over and over - to which I replied "meow" over and over - a game which lasted nearly half an hour. He also set up a game of draughts, with all the draughts on the wrong squares, but interestingly, all the red ones on white squares and all the black ones on black squares. I couldn't see any sense of order but there must have been one because we started "playing" - picking up counters and putting them on other squares, and after about my third go he started sighing and scratching his head as though I really had him on the run. It was so sweet. Bless.

We also invented a game, along with Sam ("What you doin? Do it 'gain! Do it faster!") and Dylan ("I hate kissing, when my mum and dad kiss I have to go upstairs and go BLARGH down the toilet, it's 'scusting"), which might loosely be titled "Attack Sally While She Roars Like A Lion". This usually consisted of me being attacked by all three littluns and roaring while they giggled and roared back. This was a game I could get on board with, and we played it a lot, even when it was just Jamie and me - him pushing me over and sitting on me and then gently prodding my chin while I lamented my pathetic predicament at the top of my voice, punctuated by roars. The next morning, when I chased Dylan across the playground roaring after he'd told me I didn't scare him, he didn't even blink but all the staff came running around the side of the minibus cos they thought I was a child having a mad fit and trying to escape. I took that as quite a compliment in a way - if I can be confused with a child, I must be doing something right, n'est ce pas? I hate it that a lot of the staff don't play with the kids.

Anyway, the attack-sally game translated well into the pool when I took Jamie swimming the next day, and he kept pushing me over backwards by my feet so I turned a somersault, which was fun for about the first 15 times but got a bit old after that. Luckily he decided to pelt the people in the main pool (all other playschemers - we had the pool to ourselves) with water wings after that so it wasn't all bad. There was a bit of a crumpled-face moment when he decided to go into the main pool from the splash pool, with his water wings, but got out of his depth a bit quickly and started to choke, so after that he decided to stay in the relative safety of the splash pool, where I swam around just under the water pretending to be a friendly shark.

Mother Hand says I shouldn't be getting paid for having so much fun and sometimes I agree with her. Have decided it would be great to temp for the rest of my career so I always have time to do playschemes and go off trekking across the Atlas Mountains and that sort of thing (saw it on TV tonight and have been reading short stories based on Latin myths - Atlas et al - so thinking of adding it to my mental list of things to do, even though I get out of breath and break a sweat trekking to the off license for diet coke and it's only at the end of the road).

Anyway, after swimming we had some amusing moments with the double entendres created by my telling Jamie to eat his banana properly and swallow it, not spit it out, etc etc (the staff had fun with it - the kids just ate - for once I think they might have been better behaved than us). It's *very* different from Camp America for things like that, and for taking the children to the toilet - and I can't really decide whether it's because this is a special needs playscheme or because it's England. Maybe it's a bit of both. That day went very quickly and in no time I was in the staffroom waiting for Mother Hand to come back from her bus driving duties and take me home and listening to the seniors do the allocations. Justin, senior autistic bloke (as in, he works with the autistics, not that he is one) was winding Colin up (who is at uni doing a teaching degree for infants) and telling him that the kid he had for Friday was a famous shit smearer. The funniest part was, Colin came up to me on Friday morning and said, "I've got a really tough day ahead of me - apparently my kid likes to get his shit and smear it over walls and things so I'm going to be really careful!" Eventually found the courage to point out that Justin, who must say a mere one serious thing a day, had been joking...Colin looked a bit put out but made a good recovery by saying it had said on the boy's notes that he needed help wiping himself after going to the toilet and he couldn't be too careful.

For my own sins, I had the infamous (in Portsmouth special needs circles, at any rate) Bradley on Friday. Bradley had already made himself known to me by belting me across the cheek with a surprising amount of force on the bouncy castle on Wednesday, rendering me momentarily speechless (good grief, whatever next) so by Thursday night I had worked myself up into quite a little state about the prospect of caring for him the next day. I put on my scariest t-shirt - my Chicago hockey one with the wolf on it - but when I got there Sheila, my senior, told me it wouldn't make any difference. It did though - as soon as he got off the bus he stared at it and made pointy teeth motions and a growling sound before shaking his fist menacingly at it. Bradley's got a bit of a speech problem - he does talk, but he's a bit difficult to understand sometimes. The day ended up being fine - I lugged him about and rugby tackled him everytime he tried to push other children off the top of the bouncy slide on the bouncy assault course, and dragged him out of the hall screaming when he wouldn't stop trying to untie the ropes from the ceiling (so he could climb them - the monkey) and gave him a fireman's lift everytime he got too wriggly. That backfired on me a bit though because he kept lifting my t-shirt and snotting down my back - but you live and learn. He soaked Colin too which was nicely amusing - managed to push him over in the paddling pool which Colin took in good humour, even giving him a piggy back afterwards. Unfortunately Brad was in his underwear by this point and used the time to moon everyone on site. Lucky us. He then had a good time tying me up with all the art supplies and then trying to paint me - I let him tie me up (although I ran everytime he picked up a paint brush) which some of the other children found slightly distressing - they kept trying to free me. Bless.

He has got a lot of energy, I'll give him that - and when he got away from me and back on the bouncy castle after I'd dragged him off for pushing other kids, he gave me the finger and stuck his tongue out. Because I am the childish type, I looked at him, stuck out my own tongue and gave him the finger back. He was momentarily stopped in his tracks, to my immense amusement. But I ended up having quite a lot of fun with him, and he wasn't nearly as scary as everyone said he would be - he didn't try and escape or climb the fences or anything. There was an amusing moment when Sheila asked him for a kiss and he said "NO!" in his Bradley way (loudly, repeatedly). So she went off and I started to put his shoes on him and he made a kissy face at me so I let him give me a little peck, and went back to my shoe job, whereupon he leapt on me and tried to give me a very sloppy kiss involving his tongue. Luckily I was able to wrestle free (he is all of 9), but not everyone had such a lucky escape. There is another littlun called George who was born old (as Sheila says, she's worried one day he'll go swimming and say, "Oh I don't like the look of that water Miss, it looks a bit wet, doesn't it? Can we dry it off first?") and he's a bit of a big girl's blouse (where does that expression come from? answers on a postcard...), ie he whinges if somebody breathes on him. Needless to say, Bradley was not his favourite person, but Bradley quite liked George (ie, he only pushed him off the top of the slide 8 times out of 10), which George's carer, Sarah, picked up on. Thus, Sarah spent much of the afternoon calling, "Bradley, George wants a kiss!" which usually meant that George got attacked, pinned on his back and damn well kissed. Sheila had to run up at one point shouting, "NO BRADLEY! GEORGE DOESN'T LIKE TONGUES!" whilst Sarah and I were helplessly pissing ourselves with laughter on the crashmats. Cruel but true. It was most amusing. George didn't really seem to mind too much. At one point George got pushed off and came rolling down beside me gasping, "I nearly got pushed over the edge onto the ground and I nearly got dead, but luckily I'm still on earth so everything's turned out alright" and I nearly harmed myself trying not to laugh.

I think I am so lucky to have a job that involves playing on a bouncy castle for most of the day. It is hard work, though.

Monday 20th August

Am most amused. Sheila at work has a Bagpuss mobile phone holder and I want one, so I went and had a look in Tesco but they didn't have any, so I did a Google search for "Bagpuss mobile phone cover" and it returned 32 results - one of which was the June 2001 page for this Diario. I was reading the blurb thinking, wow, that sounds like something I would write...and then I bother to look at the address. Silly. But it's nice to know I am on Google, anyway.

I tried to write an update for this last week but only got as far as finishing the one for the week before so I am going to break this down into days, because otherwise it will get very confusing for me to write.

Tuesday 7th I worked with the boy I requested - Dan - and we went to Netley Abbey for the day. It rained for a lot of it but luckily we managed to stay relatively dry. Dan was my first experience of an English ADHD child, and he was a babe - very helpful all day, did as I said, asked for his Ritalin at lunchtime, &c. As such, I showed some favouritism and bought him a Thomas the Tank Engine flag after we'd been on the mini train. We sat in the front carriage with Jamie and roared out of the windows to frighten away the tigers in the woods (we succeeded in frightening the train driver, at least). Dan saw some tigers but they'd run away by the time I looked. We waved to the princess locked in the top of Netley Abbey and I told them I'd seen the advert in the paper: "Wanted: Princess to be locked in tower; will involve some weekends; long hair essentail, own crown a bonus" - but that it didn't pay enough money so I didn't apply. Strange deja vu feeling about the leeches in life jackets story on Camp Black Hawk.

Wednesday 8th Possibly my toughest day - I worked with Thomas, who was chair bound, blind (which I didn't realise until after he'd gone), in nappies, incapable of speech and needed feeding through a pipe in his stomach. Didn't do too badly - got him out onto my lap on the bouncy castle a few times which he seemed to enjoy. Ouch moment came when his dad came to pick him up and I reported brightly that we'd had such a busy day Thomas had fallen asleep on me on the bouncy castle - whereupon his dad leant down and looked at him and said, "He'd not asleep - he's having a fit. But don't worry, there's nothing you can do about it." Doh.
In the evening I was graced with Graham MITCHELL'S company for drinks. His hair is different than I remember and we both turned up in gingham shirts which was amusing, but it was great to catch up. Remembering more and more friends in Portsmouth as time goes by.

Thursday 9th "The rain came down and the floods went up..." Even though it was dry when we left the house, it absolutely chucked it down after we'd got to work, flooding the playground and half of Portsmouth - one of the three roads off the island, the shopping centre in town, and the carparks and cinema at the new development by the dockyards, to mention just a few places. Luckily we were having a Red Indian celebration day (no offence intended to any PC Americans - people here don't really seem to have grasped that that's a racial slur yet) in the hall, with face painting and tee pees and music, so the day wasn't a total wash out, ha ha. Mother Hand's bus got stuck in traffic in knee deep water next to Gunwharf (the new development) and a policeman had to direct her out, so she didn't get back in until after 11. I had two polar opposites, Oliver and Ed, who wanted maximum and minimum attention respectively. Easy, you might say, but no, although Oliver didn't turn up until after lunch, which was helpful.
Turned up to ringing to find 23 visitors from Leicestershire and 3 from Brighton (this to a tower practice which usually numbers 20 odd) so didn't ring much but it was nice to be sociable, anyway. Went to the pub and was shocked to find "Blast from the past" Malcolm sitting at the table I sat down at. He was most amused to find me smoking, since I was so violently anti when he knew me (I think he felt a bit paternal to me and Caroline and Sarah when we were there, personally, but then we were only 13 and 14). Then had to leg it from Old Portsmouth to Fratton station to collect Mr Z who had come down early because he loves me (fluffy look). Made it in record time - under half an hour.

Friday 10th Went to work with a smile on my face, leaving Mr Z behind to fix up my desk top puter - which is what I am on now (BIG CHEERS!!!). Had Dan again and Nick, who is very autistic and likes to twiddle things and run things between his fingers, especially grass. Went to Baffins pond and play area with Gavin and Thomas and their staff members..Sarah and someone else, I forget (shame on me, I must be going senile). Dan had made a dog on a piece of string (it was a round piece of cardboard) and it kept trying to escape, which meant he had to try and catch it. Then it was a naughty dog and bit him so we tied it to Thomas' wheel chair and didn't play with it again. Bollocks, that's really annoying me, trying to remember the other staff member..I'll have to look at the list tomorrow. Nick had a lovely time twiddling with a whole new kind of grass, as well as the bark chippings in the play area. I went on the swing.
Came home to my lovely machine, working again almost as good as new. Even the 40 speed CD drive works, and that was broken when I got it. You have to stick something in to make it start spinning though...but it's better than nothing.

Saturday 11th Big happy day. Mr Z and I went to London, dropped our bag off at the B&B - where we had a room up about 10 flights of stairs but it had its own bathroom and everything so that was ok - and then went and had drinks with Zoe in Croyden. Zoe seems happy enough...I think. She's coming down to Portsmouth next week for nearly a whole week so hopefully will be able to catch up with her more then. After that we went and changed and then went out and on the London Eye, which was...WOW! It was incredible. I have lots of pictures but I haven't sorted them out yet. Somebody leant me their binoculars and I confirmed that it really was Alexandra Palace I could see in the distance. Afterwards we walked along a bit and saw these trampoline/bungee contraptions being rented out which looked very exciting, but they were just closing, so I gave that a miss, and we went off to Garlic Shots for a very garlicky meal with Jen and Richard and Stu. It was VERY garlicky. For starters, we all (except Stu who wasn't hungry) had 3 bulbs of honey roasted garlic each, then I had garlicky chicken, R had garlicky veal, Jen had garlicky fish and Mr Z had garlicky chilli. We all tried the garlicky tomato juice shots but none of us plucked up the stomach to try the garlic beer or the garlic cheesecake. Afterwards we all wafted off to Break for the Border (apart from Stu, who went off to enjoy his red wine high on the train home) where then men drank beer and talked about computers (as men do) and Jen and I drank expensive daiquiris and talked about sex (as women do). We also discussed at length our holiday to Ibiza next year and I am really relishing it now. Mr Z poured beer over me (my fault, of course - I started it) and won Richard's instant approval for "knowing how to handle me". Jen and I had a bit of a dance and then it was time to go back to the room, in the rain. Got a bit maudlin being so close to all my old haunts but think it might just have been that last pint of Red Stripe talking (why do I think I like Red Stripe? It's a mystery). Got to bed by 4am, convinced I would get up for breakfast at 9am.

Sunday 12th Woke up at 9am, but decided to stay in bed instead of going for breakfast. We just made it out of the room by 11am (check out time) and went and wandered around the British Museum until Wagamama opened and we could go for lunch. Both of us stank of garlic but I didn't realise quite how badly until I realised people were actually moving away from the exhibits I was standing by. Had a lovely Wagamama lunch (still the best) and then toddled off back to Portsmouth. Cleaned my teeth about 8 times before I went to bed and had a long shower; decided my blood pressure must be at an all time low from all the garlic and hoped the smell had gone.

No such luck!

Monday 13th Of course it was Monday 13th. Was sat in the staff room waiting for my minibus driver, Sarah - I was doing escort duty all this week. Sarah walked into the staffroom. I was on the other side of it, next to the window, and the first thing she said was, "Phleeeerrr, who's been eating garlic?" Rumbled. The smell did lessen, but was still around on Thursday, shockingly enough. Sarah is a manic bus driver and we had a lot of fun bombing around picking the children up. I worked with George ("I don't like the look of that water Miss - it looks a bit wet") and Ryan (who is deaf and likes to bounce and swim only) and we went to Hamble Country Park to eat our lunch. Ryan was most unhappy about the lack of bouncy castle, and even more so because it was sat folded up in the playroom waiting to be taken back, and I couldn't make him understand why we couldn't blow it up and use it. He had a nice time in the adventure playground at Hamble though, and George tried to manipulate us into buying him an ice cream (and failed miserably). Got attacked once too often by this boy called Billy, so threw myself on his back while he was lying on the ground - only I missed and landed on him rather more heavily than I intended. Thought he was ok until....

Tuesday 14th ...we picked Billy up the next day and I went to the door to fetch him and he said to his mum, "That's the lady who jumped on me." Whoops. Oh well. Had Dan again today, which was a bit tough because I'd told him the week before I wouldn't be working with him on Tuesday, because I was going to Pitt Street gym and he doesn't like it. However, the powers that be (Alice and Sheila) decided that it was actually his mum that didn't like it and decided to send him anyway, with me. The first thing Dan said when he got to the Playscheme was, "Not going to Pitt Street, hate Pitt Street..." so I told him we were going trampolining and when he asked where I feigned ignorance. He claimed it would be Pitt Street and said if that was the case, he wasn't going in, but I had a chat with him and he admitted it had been 2 years since he had been so I said if it was Pitt Street maybe he should give it another try.
En route to Pitt Street, somebody let on and he had a minor hissy fit but then I told him we should pretend Pitt Street was the moon and we were in the space ship on our way to explore new territory. This worked (he loves pretend play) and we got off the bus doing big moon steps and shouting into pretend radios that this was one small step for Sally, one giant step for Dan. When we got into the building, he had a good peer through the glass door and declared it was different to last time - and when we got inside, he had a whale of a time pushing me into the pits of foam and jumping in himself. Pitt Street gym is for proper gymnasts really, so it had all manner of parallel bars and rings and gymnastics equipment like on the Olympics, set over enormous pits full of foam cubes, and there's also a trampoline which was my favourite thing. At one point Louise put Andrew, the child she was looking after who is in a chair, onto a crashmat in the middle and we both jumped up and down either side of him and he was flying off the trampoline and giggling like a maniac. Had a bit of an accident pushing Billy into the foam pit - he caught his foot and spent the next 15 minutes howling, but it was honestly an accident.
In spite of having a whale of a time, Dan told me he was going to tell his mum that we forced him to go to Pitt Street and that he hadn't had fun. There's no pleasing some people. We took a group of them over to Baffins Pond to feed the ducks and play in the playground, and he and Oliver between them managed to rip a branch off of a tree. Dan is now banned by me from future trips to Baffins Pond with the Playscheme. He said he was sorry but then admitted to be just saying that so he could go to Baffins again. Tsdk.

(It may amuse people to discover that I am so engrossed in writing this that I reached for my water glass just now and instead picked up and tried to drink out of the glass containing all my loose change. Pennies from heaven, it wasn't.)

Wednesday 15th Had two kids today - Lauren (slow, quiet) and Natasha (manic). It wasn't the easiest thing to do to find things they both enjoyed so in the end I gave up and took them to Baffins Pond - with Emma and her charge, Kieran, and her volunteer, Hayley. Felt justified - everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, had gone out on a trip except us. But couldn't complain after having such a wonderful time at Pitt Street. Hayley was very friendly - she is also special needs following brain damage from a car accident when she was 7 - but a more personable young woman would be hard to come by, and she offered me her phone number so that we could be friends and hang out a bit after Playscheme. Gracefully accepted.
In the evening, Mother Hand and I went and had a paddle in the sea (she nearly came out with another Mother Handism - "Let's paddle here because there's a concrete slipway all the way into the sea so you can paddle without....oops, I was just about to say that you can paddle without getting your feet wet but I meant without walking on the stones") and then went and had a pint in the Still and West (I had soda and lime at the grand price of 30p - cheapest pint of soda and lime in the city!). It was nice to get out for a bit but actually we had to leave the house at Tim's request - he wanted to borrow it for an hour, but was very mysterious about it. When we returned the house was spotlessly tidy and there were two coffee cups on the coffee table. Curioser and curioser - although I suppose we'll never find out what was going on.
Mother Hand took the minibus to the pub because the head gasket went on her car halfway back from Kent on the Sunday. She said she felt guilty, what with using a minibus bought for disabled children to take me to the pub, but I say it's just caring for the carers. Cough, cough.

Thursday 16th Went swimming again today, with a red headed boy called Simon who cries at the drop of a hat and an autistic boy called Sam. Neither drowned and I had a good splash about too. Afterwards we ate lunch outside and then went and wandered along the beach at Lee-on-Solent, which was pretty nice - don't think I have ever been there before. Was by this stage of the week very tired, what with escorting as well as the usual playwork.
Not so tired, though, that I couldn't make it to the "team building barbecue" at Alice-the-Nurse's house. Was thrilled to find, when we arrived, that the bouncy castle had been "borrowed" from work and set up in the back garden. Proceeded to eat sausages, drink large quantities of punch, and generally be drunk and silly. Sarah my minibus driver and Louise, who was one of her escorts in a previous week had a big argument because Louise said Sarah was a bad driver (she's not bad - just usually in a hurry) and they nearly had a catfight, but then Louise, who was really really drunk, ended up throwing up everywhere and Sarah helped sort her out so they sort of made up (but only sort of).
I got a bucket to wash the sick off of the concrete and Justin made a comment about me being really domesticated so I threw some water at him. Sarah managed to pin Colin down on the bouncy castle for long enough to give him a love bite and Bill got his bits out on the bouncy castle. All good fun. At the end of the night we managed to cram 5 passengers into Colin's Skoda and he gave us a lift home. He dropped me 5 minutes' walk from my house and in that space of time I managed to smoke 3 cigarettes and leave 5 messages on Mr Z's voicemail. Got home, went to bed, got up again, drank some water, threw up, heard Mother Hand phone the police because the bloke downstairs had a bust up with his girlfriend and broke the door down, then went to sleep.
But if anyone from Playscheme is reading this - I didn't actually throw up, I just thought I was going to so I sat in the bathroom for ages. Wink, wink.

Friday 17th Was TIRED TIRED TIRED today, but not hungover - I don't get hangovers. A lot of other people were though, of course, which was vaguely amusing. Was working with Bradley today and was really looking forward to it - especially when we went to pick him up and he came out of the door with a massive grin on his face and started clapping and cheering on the minibus. As soon as we got to Playscheme, he went and said hello to all his favourites and gave the finger to all those he doesn't really like, then I put a leopard skin cape and leopard skin mask on him and he became Leopardman. Meanwhile, I put on a long orange brocade curtain which dragged on the ground, and a glittery purple ribbon off of some flowers Sheila had been given, and I became Soft Furnishings Girl. We ran around exploring things and leaping off of walls and doing leaps and flying across the playground, much to the amusement of everyone else. Bradley had a lot of fun hiding behind me under my cape and having me walk around telling everyone I'd lost him, and then leaping out and hissing at them while making clawy hands - a gesture which I have picked up now. I think he realised that I was a bit nervous about jumping off the higher walls because he always waited for me at the bottom and then cheered and clapped when I did it. He displayed a really caring side when I was crawling under the fence, too - he wouldn't let me until he'd lifted it up and put his hand over the sharp bits. Bless. Thereafter I found a lure - I just called out to him for help whenever he was running off and he'd come back.
We inspectigated all the school next door, which involved climbing some high fences and going down some stairs looking for a mythical dog (I held onto his belt loops for that so he wouldn't fall, and when we did it again later he insisted I hold on again - he has a good sense of danger, I'll say that) and climbing over wooden gates and running races and such. At one point we went out into the road and he climbed back over the fence into the school, but I couldn't, so I asked him to sit and wait while I walked around and set Charlotte watching him from the other side of the field. He agreed, and I started walking but hadn't got 30 yards when a woman started yelling at me from a house across the street that "my little boy was escaping over the fence". Rushed back to find him lying on top with a leg and an arm each side, looking for all the world like a sleepy leopard in a tree. We raced around to the more climbable fence and after that he tied me up and poured some water over me.
Here comes the glitch. He went to pour water over Sarah but she moved, leaving her shoes behind, and she said, "Bradley, don't you dare pour water over my shoes" whereupon he gave her the famous Bradley grin and upended his bucket over them. She was hopping mad and threw him in the paddling pool. He got out and tried to run so I tackled him to the ground; he kept trying to escape and giving me the finger, so I pinned him down in the middle of the field and let him scream until he realised no-one was taking any notice. After that he sat up and drank some orange, then went inside to the quiet area, took off all his wet clothes, crawled under my cape - which had now become a blanket - and demanded I turn off the light so he could have a nap. There he stayed for half an hour while I wrote in his book and when it was time to go home, we managed to get him to wear a spare, dry t-shirt and sit quietly in the bus until we were ready. I was so pleased I gave him the last chocolate mini muffin in the staffroom and gave him piggy backs everywhere - which he needed, the poor mite was almost asleep on his feet. All-in-all, a fabulously successful day, I thought. When he got off the bus Sarah was still a bit hissy about her shoes, I think, so I made kissy noises and took him over to her on my back and he kissed her on the cheek, I think she was really touched. Bless him, he gets a lot of bad press but he's one of my favourites - so full of character. When I tried to stop him from running away by grabbing his cape, he turned around and yelled "NO!" and made violent choking motions and noises, which almost made me crack up, he was so "stupid woman" about it. He can be about everything, really - he'll stand there with one hand on his hip, the other over his eyes and shake his head and tut. It's very funny.
Anyway, after we'd dropped Bradley off Sarah dropped me at the station and I got the train to Bristol. Mr Z met me in full army uniform but I was sadly too tired to throw myself at him. We went to the pub and Wayne and Martin (new acting landlord or something) both asked me if I had had a hard week. Well, I could barely lift my pint, I was that tired. Disgraceful! Went back to the Z residence and might possibly have been asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Saturday 18th Slept until almost midday; the Parents Z must think I am horribly lazy, it always seems to happen that I sleep late. Got up and went to Bath; we wandered around the shops and then went and got lunch. I suggested that we sit outside to eat it, so we did, and the heavens opened. Mmmmmm....soggy chips. We were so wet by the time we'd finished we decided to call it a day and go home. Felt a lot better at the pub on account of all the rest I had, and even managed to come second in a game of Killer darts (NOT darts where you kill people - I'd have won that, my aim is so bad - but some sort of knock-out thing...I didn't understand the rules, really, but then I am a girl) but that might have been partly because Wayne leant me his glasses so I could actually read the numbers on the board. Always helpful. The ex-girlfriend of Mr Z turned up so I got a good look at her - she has my hair, it's straight and tidy and everything. But I have Mr Z so I suppose I am the clear and outright winner. Muhahaha.
On the way home from the pub we discovered a gatepost with about 20 snails on it ranging from the baby to the enormous old gran - with stripy shells, the like of which I have never seen before - so we played with them for a while and lined them up for races. We took a very protracted route home through a couple of parks and ended up returning around 1.30am, just in time to witness Mother Z opening a window. Oops.

Sunday 19th Made it out of bed before Mr Z this morning, shock horror! So took him some coffee in bed. Parents Z accused me of spoiling him but then Mother Z said I should start as I mean to go on. Ho ho. We went to the pictures in the afternoon to see Rush Hour 2 (not, as some have argued, as good as the first one, but still pretty good - there's even a bit of it filmed in Vegas) and went to the pub to play some Battleships (have become hopelessly addicted to Battleships) before going back for dinner. Then it was, again, time to go home. The weekends seem to go so fast when I'm working, I don't know why.

Today I was going spare so they put me to work with a littlun - Eliza, who is supposedly ADHD but is a sweetheart - she knows her own mind and likes other people to know it, too. My back has been aching all day which is a bit worry, so I tried my best not to lift her too much. We went swimming - the pool was icy cold but we all had a lot of fun splashing around trying to keep warm, I think. Ryan (the deaf boy) went with us and spent most of his time underwater - I've never seen him so happy! I kept pushing his head under and he'd come up grinning and signing for me to do it again! Lexi, who's a little Down's syndrome girl, was the same. Afterwards we went and ate our lunch in a park nearby, and George went to try and tell some boys to come down from a tree in case they fell and hurt themselves. He was most surprised and wounded when they told him to go and stick it. He said he'd tried telling them it was for their own good, but they wouldn't listen. Was most amused.

This is a mega entry! It has taken me ages and ages to write so I am going to upload it now and go to bed before it's time to get up again.

Wednesday 22nd August

Today was the Playscheme trip to Paulton's Park, which is a theme park/zoo for children about an hour away from Portsmouth. Every year, the taxi drivers of Portsmouth get together with a fundraising group and pay for about 15 5 seater taxis to go to Paulton's Park loaded with the needy children of Portsmouth. Our Playscheme got 15 places, and I was lucky enough to be picked as one of the carers to go along, which surprised me a bit as I hadn't worked with Kirsty - the girl was I accompanying - before; but Sheila said she'd picked me because I was the sort of gung-ho person who'd haul her on everything and laugh in the face of danger, et cetera et cetera. I've been dead excited about it all week and when Alice reminded everyone in the staffroom this morning that the trip was for the kids and not for us, she might well have been directing it at me. The taxis turned up decked out with balloons and we all went off to Tesco's to pick up the rest of the convoy, who were also decked out in balloons; we got bags of free drinks, crisps, sweets and fruit courtesy of Tesco (bless 'em) and then we were on our way, driving around Portsmouth beeping and generally making a racket and waving at everyone on the road. I was sharing a taxi with Colin (who revealed today that he was a secret transvestite - but he was only joking) and Kieran, who is loud at the best of times and was downright deafening today trying to drown out the horns. When we got on the motorway we stopped beeping at other cars in our convoy and pulled faces at them when we overtook them or when they overtook us instead. It was a great thing to watch as we rounded the bend onto the M275 - stretched out behind us was this huge line of Hackney cabs covered in balloons, it was awesome.

Anyway. We got to Paulton's Park and the taxi drivers all went off to play golf, so we went off and started our circuit. We didn't have a map and apparently only saw a quarter of the park, but it still a fantastic day. The staff were really helpful - didn't bat an eyelid when I hauled Kirsty onto all the rides (she is in a chair). When we went to go on the Stinger, at Kieran's (very oft' repeated) request, the sign said, "Disabled customers please go and ask at the photo booth for arrangements to be made" so we did, and instead of having to wait in line for half an hour we got on the next available circuit. Kirsty enjoyed it so much she thanked the Paulton's Park man without being prompted. The picture of the two of us came out really well so I bought it on two fridge magnets - one for me, and one for her. Colin went on it not knowing about the camera, but when he saw the flash going he was struck with inspiration and stuck out his tongue, so his picture also came out really well - except that his tongue is blue from the slush puppy he'd had beforehand! Pictures will be scanned and uploaded in due course.

All in all, it was an incredible day. I am knackered and sunburnt and I feel all sticky and grimy but it was so worth it. I'm thanking my lucky stars that I've had the opportunity to do this job every day - it's so much fun that I'm sorry it has to end this Friday. I have passed my phone number on to Sheila though, who works at Cliffdale School for special needs children, and she says she's going to see whether there are any temp contracts going until Christmas - she says there often are so I might be lucky enough to get a job there until Christmas. Will sure beat office temping! Yesterday wasn't a very easy day because I had two seniors to work with - Darren, who is 14 and chair bound but very sharp mentally, and Chloe, who is 13 and very mobile and sunny but doesn't have much understanding or speech. The problem was that Chloe just wanted to sit and paint and watch Beauty and the Beast all day, whereas Darren wanted to play the piano and go for walks and stuff. I don't think he had a very good day, but I did my best. I think I'm too used to working with the little ones to be much use to him, though. Mind you, Playscheme as a whole has been wonderful.

Colin has a website that he would like everyone to go and have a look at - it's for budding musicians and it's won awards and everything! Enjoy!