I am a cliche

This afternoon, while Mr Z slumbered deeply during his nap, I decided I was sick of looking at the long grass in the back and front garden, and that maybe if I mowed the back garden, he might do the front. This was also a ruse to get out of going to the gym this evening, as I thought that some pushing-up-and-down of a mower would count as exercise.

It was all going swimmingly, until I decided to do the edges. And now the lawn mower doesn't work, and one of the pieces of wood on the border is badly splintered. I fear I have become the cliche of woman-with-machinery. And now, we are have this situation.



And in the front garden? Wild fucking kingdom.


Not only can we not finish trimming the back garden, thanks to a dearth of cord for the strimmer, but the only way the front garden will get cut before next weekend is if I take my nail scissors to it.

Here are a couple more gratuitous garden shots - there's some lovely colour in the front garden, and the sneaky Christmas tree is growing again - we put it outside in its pot in January 2003, intending to burn it, and it has rooted through the pot, but it keeps pretending to die and then coming back to life.



...and one further gratuitous shot, of Mr Z peering out of the window, trying to work out why I was taking pictures of my butcher job on the lawn.


It has been a week of weeks. Due to the early commencement of the GCSE exams this year, the year 11 leavers' ball took place on Tuesday. It was the usual mixture of drinking, being ignored by the kids and dancing to the Cha Cha slide. This year, Paul, the very definitely inclined dance teacher, got tongues wagging by dancing extremely suggestively with Katie, whilst his staff "girlfriend" Cara looked on, green-eyed (oh how we love spinning these yarns for the kids); Rob and I tried to re-enact our Christmas Strinctly Come Dancing success to McFly's "Stargirl", succeeding only in knocking Heidi's drink from her hand; and I managed to get all three men in my department into a picture together. Sadly, the cover supervisor also decided to join us, since she spends such a lot of time in the History department, but oh well.

The highlight of the evening, however, has to be when Carol, the head of repro, decided to have a good old boogie in her gorgeous green satin boob tube, and forgot that she had to keep her chest lifted and shoulder blades back. The unfortunate year 11 who was having his picture taken at the time got an eyeful and is possibly scarred for life. At least it was just the one that popped out. This is why strapless bras are an absolute must under boob tubes.

Anyway, the year 11 ball was tres fun, but it was a TUESDAY for crying out loud, and I didn't manage to catch up on my sleep all week. It was so bad, I spent all day Saturday with chronic indigestion, napping on the sofa. The whole 5-fruit-and-veg-and-20-minutes-of-exercise plan has totally gone out of the window, and I am not feeling great. Back to it this week.

An aside: I am annoyed that the option to change my text into Times New Roman has gone *pout*

Predictable as ever

Of course, I went back to work and the entries tailed off immediately.

ICI's quotes of the week:
"Oooohhh you're all doing so WELL! I'm so produ of myself."
"I'm not saying anything this time. I'm not speaking. I won't say a thing. ................. STRADDLE! Ooohhh I can't help myself"
Extreme comedy value.

I have kept up the 20-minutes-a-day extremely well; the weekend was a bit hairy, I actually hauled out Yourself! Fitness and went back to Maya for 15 minutes. She was very pissed off with me and our 15 minute session consisted of weighted squat-lunges (3 sets on each side) and 100 side crunches. Note to self: do not ignore computer program for so long again: programmers have a sadistic streak.

I tried the dress on this week. It still fits, in that it stretches over my inflated frame, but I couldn't do it up without some serious corsetry or a minor miracle. It will be a good measure of success (or lack thereof).

My tutor group seem to be having something of a meltdown this week, there have been some very strange goings on, from even the most quiet member. We've had the usual "EVERYONE HATES ME AND THIS SCHOOL IS SHIT AND NOBODY CARES" rant from C; L has been excluded for most of the week for throwing a rock at someone; and today, there was a big row between S & S - S says she's going to punch other S if she doesn't stop sending her rude texts. It's like a little soap opera, it really is. The highlight of the week so far was when Ca refused for a day and a half to remove her second pair of stud earrings and was removed from lessons as a result. I find this extremely petty, on both sides, but she is the only one I had a chance of talking round. It didn't work. More of this school's shit and I'll go somewhere else. Le sigh.

Funny moment today when Sarah, the PGCE student, quietly and cautiously voiced her concerns that K always seemed stoned, to which Caroline and I responded in tandem, "He is." I then realised how matter-of-fact we'd been about it and was momentarily a little shocked, but then, he's been stoned for the past 2 and a half years, so it's no great shakes. At least his ambition has moved on from pimp or drug dealer to scaffolder - he won't need Maths GCSE for that, not like the other two.

I have been rather hurled into the deep end with the new job. The Head caught me on Wednesday and told me I needed to find 2 gifted year 11s staying on in the 6th form who could afford to fork out £700 to go on a G&T conference to Hong Kong in November, by Friday. Deadline for said trip passed 3 weeks ago, so needless to say my predecessor (who has the jobs of about 4 different people combined and a very sick baby at home) is named "Muddikins von Mud Mud" with senior management. I was torn between wanting desperately to complete Mission Impossible and impress, and being very aware that I don't officially take the job until May 1st - I haven't even had the confirmation letter. In the end I threw myself into it. I think I may have sorted it, although I don't have any paperwork about it at all, even application forms, so that makes the possibility of success slightly slimmer. Still, I have my first G&T meeting tomorrow so perhaps I can get one then.

SO tired. Bed and Ian Rankin novel, I think.

It WORKS!

OK, it pretty much works. Yey me! I have not lost all my techieness, in spite of taking up knitting and stuff. Alright, it doesn't work PERFECTLY, because it should be uploading to the diario folder, and it's just uploading to the main folder - but that's OK. I can change my links (read: get Mr Z to fix it when he gets back), and anyway nobody reads this anymore. I KNOW YOU DON'T READ! Otherwise, you would have emailed me. It's OK. I know I'm boring now. I don't care.

Well, it's exciting. Yes, it is an exciting time. Exciting times! Interesting times, if you will. It is spring. Spring is springing all over the place. The weather is great. I did 4 loads of washing today and line-dried the lot, in the space of one day - and I didn't even get up until 11am. I bought some new (pink) gardening gloves and a trowel and mini fork and dug the garden. Alright....I dug a square foot of one flower bed whilst waiting for dinner to cook, but my heart was in the right place. I am hoping there is a magnolia on the way - Mother Hand has hinted there will be a magnolia in place of an easter egg. I have wanted a magnolia for a very long time. Last year, Mother Hand presented me excitedly with a camelia. Eventually I had to come clean and explain why I wasn't as excited as she thought I would be. So, I need to clear a space for the magnolia. Our next door neighbour has just removed all growing things from her front garden and gravelled it, so I feel the need to
(a) replace the foliage which previously shileded us completely from the street, so I don't feel so exposed
(b) plant something that will shed leaves and flowers on her gravel, thus punishing her in a very small way for removing the shield of plants that hid us from street view (only in a very small way - she is very nice and I will probably help her clear up any rogue foliage).

So, want my MOST EXCITING spring news. I got PROMOTED! Yey me! I had started reluctantly, to look around for new jobs, since I have been at my school for 4 years now, and one risks getting stuck in a rut. I didn't feel ready to leave, but I said I'd look when my luscious tutor group got to year 9, and my little babies are there now so I thought I'd better show willing. I got some details for a school closer to home, and guffawed at my arrogance - the school is bigger, with an 80% A*-C rate in History - yeah, right! I wouldn't have had a prayer.

Then, the day after I rang up for the details, I was having a bit of banter with the Head of Personnel, and she went a bit quiet. I froze for a second - she is one of those turn-on-a-dime people and is also in charge of cover, so not the type to piss off - and thought about what I might have said wrong... but then she leant over and whispered, "There's a job coming up. An internal vacancy. You might be interested in it." And I forgot about the other school instantly, because I thought, well, if the head of personnel is giving you insider tips, she obviously has you in mind, and that's a good sign, right?


It was. I applied. I panicked a LOT about the letter getting to the head before the deadline. I went out and bought a new dress (as you see - although it is listed as a top and I did wear it over trousers, and the colours are much nicer in the real thing - very aqua and springlike). I picked the forum's collective brain for hints and found out one of my fellow forumites works for the relevant department at the DfES, and she was able to give me some excellent pointers in terms of what websites to look at. And I had my interview. And I got it! Although it was crap, and when the governor asked me what I did at the school my mind went totally blank and I ended up reeling off a list of subjects I teach instead of talking about mentoring PGCE students, which is ACTUALLY what he meant although I totally didn't get that at the time.

So, I was the only applicant, but the head made a point of saying that they had me in mind for the job, and that even if there'd been a dozen applicants I would have been a very hard act to follow, which was really nice of him to say.

The job is Lead Teacher for Gifted, Talented and Able - which is a very posh way of saying head of G&T. Well, the job was obviously mine - I love G&T. I wanted it when I was an NQT and didn't apply, and always regretted it. Now it's even better, because it's a fat payrise and I will have hours in my timetable to dedicate to it, and I get really decent training which could count towards a Masters (yeah, cos I need another post-grad qualification...). This program is being rolled out to all schools and I think that eventually it will mean I can apply for a job as Head of G&T, like people apply for pastoral or senior management jobs. I am stupidly excited.

The job is mainly going to involve me observing teachers and telling them how they can better provide for gifted students in their lessons. Guess I'm going to be off a lot of Christmas card lists. Oh well, better for the environment. This is where the PGCE mentoring comes in - I am lucky I have been doing that for so long, it probably swung me the job.

That's all for now. I mean, how much excitement do you want in one post?