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My new Aim in life

 Post holiday blues are real, I tried hard to fend it off by doing stuff, but after mum left on Saturday I just slouched about for a while with very little motivation to get on with the day. It didn't help that it was cloudy and cold. But after a bit of sorting A and I went out for lunch and we watched a silly film and once she left I played some tunes recommended by my pals.  On Sunday I decided I would head to the rookies skating having woken up really early. New job nerves kicking in big time. I spent a bit of the day going over my plans for the first week. Mindful of the importance of setting the right tone. I didn't do much skating and skills, but enough to feel useful and to have moved my body a bit. The plan after the session was to go to the pub to chat to the new skaters and give them a chance to ask questions and hopefully persuade them to sign up for the full 10 weeks. I treated myself to a very nice pizza, not expecting to eat it all - but managed. There I had a ve...
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Japan week 2

  Our hotel room had, instead of a western bathroom set up, a Osen - a shower/bath set up that is very typical for this part of the world. I enjoyed using it in a relatively traditional way and also the privacy of it being in our room.  After an enjoyable breakfast we set off to the memorial museum to find a very long queue. So we decided that the wait was not quite on. Instead, despite the rain, we wandered through the memorial garden and saw the flame of peace, that will burn until all nuclear weapons have been destroyed or decommissioned. It is when great sadness that we all thought the same, it will never be extinguished. Then for our next mode of transport - a boat to an island - Miyajima. Sadly no view to speak of but the TV screen on board pointed out what we would have been able to look at on a sunnier day.  The island itself was beautiful even in the rain, with plenty to do for the day, a museum and shops to entertain us all well, we saw the famous floating templ...
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Japan week 1

If you read these, or have been reading mum's shorter and funnier ones you may want to get a nice drink and strap in for a long read. Or skim read the highlights!  Our first day was travel, because of the time difference that was all it was and we got to Tokyo on Sunday. We'll of course gain hours on the return. I managed to get some sleep, A, BigA and mum only about 15 minutes each, perhaps a little more. We easily got our taxi transfer to the first hotel of the trip and dumped our bags.i like mums style is travel!  Once slightly refreshed (it's true what the say about the toilets) we headed out on a mild evening as the sun was setting for a wander and some food. Although we are so very privileged to have quite a lot translated for us, it is hard to realise you know so very little and have the crippling embarrassment of not being able to ask in the most polite way possible. This translated to us having a less than satisfying first meal out where mum unwittingly ate tuna an...
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Fond farewell

  What a week... The end of a year.  Our blissful weekend at the W's feels like a lovely but distant memory. Those beautiful puppies, country walks, pub lunches and fire pit joy. Our extraordinarily British insistence that the sun shone so let's have a BBQ - which was lush but very cold and in the dark with torches lighting our way. And here I am on my way to Japan. Life is full and full on.  Two mornings this week have been getting up early to deliver the training sessions online to international adult students learning how to be a leader. I enjoyed them both and it reminded me of the elements of leadership I enjoy.  At school there have been lots of goodbyes and many last lessons with classes. I wasn't sorry to have my last lesson with one particularly hard year 9 class, but the drama club were sad and many students wished me the best of luck. I got some sweet cards and a few nice emails as well, quite a lot of chocolate, flowers and probably my...
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mothering Sunday

Here's a humble brag - I have lots of friends and it's sometimes hard to stay in touch. (Over now) And I was thinking about just how lucky I am because I have you guys who I send my ramblings to and you don't mind! And if you do you just tolerate it.  Any way - thank you for being my select group of really lovely friends.  Here's the email The sun was shining in G when I got up last week, still cold though. My big sis had booked us a table at a place for a slightly early mother's day meal together (with mum of course) the food was delicious and plentiful. We got a doggy bag for K and then met up with him and enjoyed the wine at Wetherspoons. My sister saw people from her childhood days, some she knew the full name of despite not having seen them for nearly 50 years (impressive). It was lovely to relax together and laugh too.  Upon our arrival home T was just pulling up, she chatted away and I tried to keep up but was so sleepy after midday drinks. We were still do f...
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ah cheese

Having spent time at my new school I spent a bit of Saturday working on the schemes, I don't want to change much but I do need to make the lessons my own, and as I'm not going to be able to do this over Easter I thought it made sense to get a Headstart. I managed to do a bit in the garden too and continue to enjoy seeing things grow and come back again, the delicate primroses giving a particularly needed dash of colour.  That evening BigA and I used a present from my sister to go to the cheese barge for our evening. Neither of us have been to Paddington for a while and certainly not eating on a barge. It was delicious, not just the food but also to have a reason to get out and do something different. We promised each other while in Malawi that we would do our best to find things to do together as this was a highlight of our time there. I'm not sure we're quite the date night once a week type, but I very much enjoyed booking him in advance! We took a slow walk by the can...
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More Paris

 Our full day in Paris was really lovely, the sun was doing it's best to shine, it was a bit cold at times but at least no rain. We got a hop on hop off bus ticket which had a really informative and not too irritating audio track for the sites. We'd agreed to a few of the stops and started by getting off at the recently reconstructed Notre Dame. There was a queue to get in and we saw off a small group of young men who tried to push in in front of us, which led to a short and funny chat with fellow Brits in front of us who agreed that it just wasn't cricket. Inside it was quite noisy, despite the shhhhhh over the loudspeaker and pleas for silence. The building was very interesting, I preferred the other churches we saw, they seemed to have more character and this one was quite dusty which surprised me. Then we went for a beer and had a proper laugh out loud time with a very friendly waiter who found my attempt at ordering in French beer tres amusant. He also did mum a mass...
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