just another morning here

So tired!!

It’s been a whirlwind few days saying goodbye to colleagues and children at school, as well as a morning at my new school, and an Anglo-Saxon banquet … all at the same time as trying to mastermind project ‘Get the House Ready for the Russians’ while working.

I have been well and truly spoiled, my TAs made me a photo montage of my class students and staff in a gorgeous frame, and gave me a silver sparkly bracelet. AND we had a lovely night out together Then today I had a few little gifts from the children in the class as well as flowers from other people too – my house looks great tonight!

We were lucky enough to be able to organise a bus day today, so we had a day out with the whole class (plus one extra!) at Decoy Park – they enjoyed the play area, we had a picnic, and walked around the lake, then played some more – and the sun shone, and I took lovely photos

I am really sad to leave everyone (it was so weird and sad today – I hate goodbyes) but yet looking forward to the next chapter in my surprise teaching career – in my next school I am going to teach the Early Years class which is a big change from KS4.

And now, we are into the Russian Exchange, our Russian guests arrived this evening, thankfully an hour later than expected as I would never have been ready in time! Regular readers may remember our trip to Yaroslavl in 2010; this is the return visit. We (ECO families) are hosting a ballet troupe and an accordion ensemble as well as leaders etc., so we have a week of entertainment and cultural activities laid on for them. I don’t have to be involved in all of it, just a few of the days, but we do have two lovely teenage girls staying with us. Anna, Abbie and Josiah worked hard during the first two days of their holidays to get the place ship-shape and beds ready etc. It’s going to be fun if we can all just catch up on a bit of sleep first …

Having really enjoyed the week at Calvert last year, I was really pleased to be going again this year – with some students who had been before, and others for whom it was a new experience. I’m pleased to report that it was brilliant again

I confess, I was mostly looking forward to the food and the company, but I enjoyed the activities too (the food was the best though!). We had a camera in each group this year so I wasn’t the official photographer, but joined in with all the activities, so that was a lot of fun.

In a shock spontaneous moment I decided to ride a horse – I have been slightly scared of horses since I was a child but decided the time had come to get over it! It was quite fun, I can definitely see the attraction, but I think I’ll stick to geocaching – much cheaper. Speaking of which, I found one of the caches around Wistpoundland reservoir this year while walking around with the students – excellent

Generally it’s just a lovely week to spend with some of my favourite people – staff and students alike – they are a fantastic bunch. Brilliant to see the children having opportunities they don’t normally get, achieving so much, and enjoying themselves with the freedom that comes from being away from the confines of school. We were lucky with the weather again this year which was great. There were a few people who couldn’t go which was a shame, and they were very much missed.

My family, meanwhile, didn’t miss me at all, I don’t think … so after a day of music related activities on Saturday followed by a school quiz night in the evening, I went back to work for a day on Sunday to write reports. It had better be nice weather in the Easter holidays, that’s all I can say!

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