Tuesday 28th October
Boy, am I hot. I'm hotter than a bonfire in Death Valley at noon. You want some caramel? Then pour some sugar on me baby! Bada bing bada boom - candy galore. Everything in my life is JUST PEACHEY!
It might even happen - now nobody get too excited here - but it might just happen that I get through a whole entry WITHOUT WHINGING!
Exhibit A - vroom vroom!
I am the proud owner of a brand new, shiny, panther black Ford Ka, with CD player. I went and signed the papers for it today. The Mini, much as I adore it, has put its foot down and simply refused the other day to get me to work on time - it was a Monday morning, and I'd left not only my AA card at home, but my phone too, so I was stranded...fun fun fun. That was obviously just a warning as it started again five minutes later just as I was about to go hysterical, but I can take a hint. I decided my blood pressure couldn't cope with a car that runs on 4 star and prayer any longer, which is how I came to be test driving a shiny new Ford Ka with the very unpushy salesman yesterday. Luckily he was with me all along because I would have got totally lost on our little jaunt around Bristol. "Do you know where you are now?" he asked, as I turned left onto a busy road. "This is Muller Road, where we started." "Oh yes!" I replied, "well that's good, now I won't have to make a right hand turn on this very busy road to get back into the dealership." "That's right. We don't include right hand turns on the route - they make customers nervous," Tony explained. "And in the 2000 odd test drives I've done, you're to only person who has ever noticed."
Gold star for me then!
And ONE THOUSAND POUNDS off my new Ka! Because they're so desperate to meet their quota before the end of the month. That was how come I could splash out on the CD player and the metallic panther black paint (which isn't the sort of black that sucks the very light from the day, but rather the kind that is ever so slightly sparkly if you look at it the right way). Jen suggested Moondust silver but I like black. Then she said how ironic it would be if there was a Stardust silver finish, on account of my online name being Stardust...and we looked and there was! But I counted colours on the way home from work the other day, and got 45% silver, 45% blue and 10% assorted. And I don't want to be a sheep, even if the colour is named after me.
Exhibit B - Flick! Shine!
I have the shiniest, gorgeousest hair in Bristol, and here is the secret:
Step 1 - Go to Lush and buy some of their henna. It smells like turkish delight, and when you dissolve it, it looks just like bird poo. Hence its name, Las Cacas, which they say means poo in French (but I cannot vouch for this).
Step 2 - Colonic irrigation in the bath (or at least that's how it looked).
Step 3 - Strike a pose with your head wrapped in clingfilm, and a towel. Try to avoid getting neck ache from the additional weight of the henna.
Step 4 - Go to sleep in a hoodie to avoid spreading las cacas on your pillow.
Step 5 - Rinse. Panic, because the rinse water is green, the shampoo foam is green and the bathroom mirror is steamed up. Rinse more. Rinse A LOT. Get sick of rinsing, and end up with orange conditioner where you didn't rinse enough.
Step 5 - Dry. Straighten. Admire. Style as required. Flick hair all over Bristol for the day.
I've never dyed my hair before. Mr Z tried to, but commented that his hair had already died (that's a joke for the folically challenged). It looks amazing. The bits that were mousy blonde are now dark, glistery copper, while the rest of the fluffy mud has transformed into sleek, rich, shiny, autumnal oak that smells of mocha and eastern spices. Very exotic. Even Mr Z is impressed. He complimented me in the car this morning when I as driving him to work and I was so flattered I drove him all the way there and made myself late for the vet rather than just dropping him at the petrol station.
(We've got a cat now, forget if I said. The inimitable Ziggy is back with us permanently after her brief sojourn last Christmas. So I was taking her to the vet, not visiting for my own health).
Go there. Buy some. Do it. We'll all be a bunch of Lusheads. But if you're scaredy cat like me, only go for the Brun. The Marron and Rouge are even redder, and this one's red enough for me. I'm no wannabe Outspan.
Exhibit C - The Size 14 Skirt
So, I went to the shops last weekend and bought stuff, as was my wont, and I bought a lovely skirt in a size 16, which fitted well enough. Then I wore it to school on Friday and it was too big. So I had to take it back yesterday and buy a smaller one. I was so happy I bought two smaller ones (in different designs, obviously). Now, I know what shops are like with their sizes and I shouldn't get too happy as I still have size 16s which cut off my circulation hanging in my wardrobe, but really it was a great moment for me. I wore one of the new skirts today: I have dressed up even more nicely than I do for school for the past two days, as if I am trying to say, "I am strong! Confident! You want to give me a huge loan! You want to sell me a new car at a good price!" - it's working! I'm even getting free stuff in Asda! Only sale stuff that they can't get to scan, but still...
I own and can wear two size 14 skirts! This is historic.
Exhibit D - New Shoes! New Bag!
You may have heard me comment on the ridiculous width of my feet in the past. It really gets me down. Jen, who is residing Chez Z at the present, has a similar problem but the reverse - while I can't get shoes wide enough to squeeze my porky trotters into, she can't find them long enough, being a size 10, and has a problem keeping some shoes on (ie knee boots) because they're too wide. We're going to start our own usiness when we find someone who can make shoes and enslave them.
So anyway, I found this lovely pair of sparkly sandles in New Look in Swindon last week with Nadia but the only size 8 was broken so I went to look in Bristol but before I got there I happened upon a rather lush pair of shoes in Barratts, they were black satin high heels with white polka dots, very now (dahling). I tried them on with no real hope, and they fitted. Not only that but they don't make my feet look like a pound of sausages squeezed into one very inadequate bun. They had to be mine. I even forfeited the sparkly New Look ones...
(But now I've been paid I might have to go back and look for a size 8 tomorrow).
As if finding the perfect shoes wasn't enough, then I went to look at the bustier bags in Kookai and they had a pink, tartan and red velvet ribbon one which is, at this very moment, adorning my computer monitor. I have wanted a bag like this for a year but their recent designs have been somewhat impractical - pale pink brocade, white satin, the sort of bag with "Smear me with mud!" just written all over it.
Then I found a perfect new coat in H&M (although Jen and I knocked down most of the others in the process: "They shouldn't put them up so high! I pouted. "Oh wait, there's a whole rail down here as well...").
And then I found a matching scarf to go with one of my new size 14 skirts (which is spotted with different shades of pink...I'm very into dots atm) which just looks like it was MADE for it...thus proving I'm the uber shopper. (Also proving, I just can't stop shopping. I'm a menace with a platinum card).
The shoes. The coat. The skirt. The bag. The scarf. The car. The hair. The free stuff from Asda. Could it get any better, I hear you cry?
Exhibit E - The Best History Lesson...In The World....Ever!
Thus was the response elicited from a year eight pupil in one of my lessons on the last day of the half term. All three year eight sets were enthralled. They were quiet. They worked hard. They didn't mess about. On the last day of term! What's my secret?
Mr C! Alias Ben, good friend from PGCE, who, finding himself on a teacher training day with nothing to do, decided to come in and help me teach. And boy, did we teach!
Activity One - Miss H begins her lesson as normal. Mr C slams into the room looking terrifying (not difficult at 6 feet 5), shouts and gesticulates wildly at Miss H (who manages to start shaking the first time round for extra effect), then slams out. Miss H sits down and looks worried. Kid sent for my Head of Department, who comes in, all concerned, and explains to the kids that we need a physical description and a detailed explanation of the events.
Kids cannot agree on - what he said, what he was wearing, what he looked like...thus we prove that we cannot believe all historical accounts because everyone remembers something different, and perspective means a lot.
Are you with me so far?
Activity Two - Random kid sent to reprographics for a transparency. While kid is gone, class shown a bottle of apple juice and told to say it tastes of orange, when passed around. Random kid returns, oblivious. Miss H and the rest of the class put on performances worthy of Oscars. Two out of three kids agree that the apple tastes of orange, thus proving that peer pressure can have a great affect on peoples' perspectives; the third child says it tastes of pineapple, thus proving that (a) one different account amongst 25 that say the same thing isn't necessarily untrue and (b) that kid's a total nutter.
Activity Three - Writing and essay is like making a sandwich. Miss H makes jam sandwiches. Mr C chips in with useful learning bits. The pupils enjoy, and appear to understand.
And one kids said it was the best lesson ever! Which made my day.
The sandwich bit was, I think, the most "historical learning" bit of the lesson but the rest was fun and useful and a good way to end the term. Then when we got to the pub, the media/theatre thesp-type teacher said he'd been hearing wonderful things about my lessons all day and wished he'd known before.
Not that he could have observed. I even had to warn the LSAs so they didn't try and lamp Ben. Some of the kids in the second group I did it with bristled at him a bit, looked as if they might try and spring to my defence, bless 'em. My tutor group were saying things like, "Fair play!" and "Good on you!" to Ben all the time he was yelling, little gits. But they managed to keep their mouths shut at least - the over-protective group went and told the next class what was going to happen which totally ruined the first part of the lesson. Nevermind.
One of my tutor group did a lovely picture of Ben advancing on me yelling while I backed myself into a corner with my hands over my mouth (I was trying to stop myself laughing although I didn't feel like it in the event). I'm wearing my new skirt. I left it at school though...but I'll scan it and put it up when the new term begins.
*Sigh* what more could I ask for? I've just got it all.
Just time for the obligatory whinge. Princess Diana. If she *knew* someone was trying to kill her in a car crash, why the HELL wasn't she wearing a seat belt?!
Derrrrrrrrrrrr........
Wednesday 29th October
Jen, having red yesterday's entry, reminded me that not only did we knock all the coats down in H&M, but when I attempted to extract the final high-up one from its rail, I flicked a coat hanger across the room in a slightly aborigine-with-a-boomerang type way. She walked off in shame while I cowered behind the sale racks, hoping that nobody would notice and eyeing up a ridiculously short red velvet skirt in the process - which is about the only thing I didn't buy that day we went shopping. Between all the clothes and half the contents of Lush I'm surprised the car got home at all.