Malawi & More

  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...

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...

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...

 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...

    bravely did a cautious prune of my apple tree and then did a random range of things in the garden, a gentle start to the weekend. We then played host to one of BigA's friends Au pair - perfectly lovely, young and enthusiastic about being in London which was nice.  Sunday was the first of the new intake Rookie taster sessions, I can only make about half of them as helper. I am being quite cautious because I really didn't want to break anything. It was good to be useful, I stayed to be an NSO (non skating official) in what we call mega scrim and learnt more about some rules etc. Home to a restless nights sleep, which is common before term starts.  Back at work and it was exam week for yr 13. They did alright, suddenly adding things they never did before and two of them dropped lines which will impact their grade because it was obvious. Otherwise a fair enough week of work. I know I keep saying it but I really will miss 4 day weeks...

  BigA got me an appt and funny card along with gifts I really wanted. Actual soup spoons and socks. Might not sound terribly romantic but I really wanted both. He wondered if we should spend the whole day together but I sent him off to his frisbee, he is often happier after some sport. As the sun was shining for what felt like the first time in months I got out in the garden for some weeding and muck spreading. The primroses are coming through and there was one happy daffodil, I sat with the sun on my face for a bit and breathed in the (kinda) fresh air. I made soup. I enjoyed the satisfaction of chores done and then got ready for our valentine night out. We went for a lovely meal at an Italian place neither of us had been to before. We suspect the waitress had been recently employed as she really didn't have a clue about the menu and got several things wrong, but we were too in love, just enjoying our 25th year of dating so it didn't matter and she was very sweet and apolog...