Kay's Blog

2012-02-12T22:06:00.002Z

At school we were sorting 2d shapes according to number of sides and whether they have curved or straight sides. It was a really good lesson ( well I was enjoying it which says a lot). With my most able little maths minds, I was moving them on to thinking about the intersection between two groups ( a la your classic Venn diagram) and what could fit in the intersection between not curved and curved ( we found a semi circle fitted our needs but I appreciate beyond the elementary level of maths this might not work). Anyway, in trying to explain the point of an intersection I split the two hoops up and said - what if this was boys and this was girls - would there be an intersection and what would be in it? Immediately the 'tom boy' announced that she would go in the intersection and another girl piped up with 'and a camp boy'. I DO NOT MAKE THIS UP - out of the mouths and all that! As part of this learning about shapes I went on a game which said that circles have 0 sides. I always thought that a circle has 1 side but I am wrong. R looked it up on the interweb and it has between 0 and infinite sides. That is the kind of helpful thing that really makes maths accessible to 5 year olds ( and their teachers). Anyway, apparently if you insist that sides are straight it is easy to see why a circle has 0, but what about a semi circle?

Home from all that head boiling in maths to find H has been given a year 9 maths test for homework. Really got my brain cells bubbling, thinking about algebra for the first time since I was 16, which begs the question why MOST people do such maths at school - when most of us use it for things like calculating which pizza is cheaper and whether the bargain really is a bargain. She had to do some pointless things with graphs about the Eurovision song contest, and she coped really well, only needing help with a few questions about negative numbers. She has a very strong mental map of numbers and relationships between them but it all unwinds for her when you go below 0. I am not sure that my image of it being like a mirror of positive numbers was helpful. But that might just be because I am her mother and therefore know very little, despite her love and cuddles, I am a maths no hoper, spending my days with 5 year olds adding and subtracting to 20 and not doing tricky things like she does.

I spent Wednesday dressed up as a fairy godmother of sorts, and had a fabulous day role playing fairy tales and eating a fairy tale banquet for lunch and acting out a comedy version of the Enormous Turnip for the children for the entertainment. We invited parents in at the end of the day to read Fairy Tales and had a big response and a fantastic day.

Half term now - time to do things like wash my hair, cut my toe nails and moisturise. Just the once.

2012-01-15T19:12:00.002Z

"Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax"
"Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter"
"New York Police Kill Man with Hammer"

I like those kind of sentences.

Today we went on a family bike ride, it was cold and sunny and windy, A was a bit moany and went back the short way for hot chocolate with R at the pub but H stuck with me for the longer loop and I got to take her down my favourite lane in all the world for cycling, which is Greenwood Lane/Alma Lane in Durley. I was delighted to take her out there and for her to not moan. too much. Really proud of her, we earned our hot chocolate and cup of tea at the Farmers home pub when we got back.

I am trying once again to teach my left ankle, knee and hip to run, and am doing a 'run your first 10k' programme and until today have stuck with it - that's over a week of regular running! I have just today finished Kelly Holmes' autobiography, which is incredibly inspirirational - I had no idea that she had lived in a children's home as a baby as her mum's parents disowned her when she had a mixed race baby. To go from a start like that to all that she achieved is amazing, really awesome and a brilliant read. Another awesome book I have read recently is Skellig by David Almond, it is a children's book for H's reading age, it is truly original and gives you shivers all the time you read it with what it might be and what it might be about.

I have spent a lot of time with my wonderful nephews lately, and am enjoying being with a Year 1 boy on a 1:1 and seeing what kind of things interest them and make them tick! We seem to have a routine which involves milk shakes at the baptist church coffee morning as a main feature. Bookham is a great village ( that's why its called Great Bookham!) with charity shops worth travelling 70 miles for.

Last night I went out for a meal at the local Holiday Inn, which I won at a school raffle. The food was good pub fare and the prices were similar, I was pleasantly surprised and am considering it as a venue for our staff Christmas do. Remind me when it comes around!

2012-01-01T22:32:00.003Z

Shocked to find out I have a fan who reads this missive, I have decided to continue my quest for perfect punctuation on the interweb, so cross everything and hope I have reason to insert a ;. Hi Nick. Glad you still with me. Today it rained a lot and R went sailing, which I guess is as good a thing to do as any on a rainy day. I cycled 17 miles, mainly before it rained, and got the ferry back from Warsash which always makes me feel like I have been to sea. It was low tide and I had to take my shoes and socks off to walk along the slippery bank to get on the ferry, as cycling cleats do not mix with mud, slime and seaweed. Yesterday was my first cycle for a long time, I did 30 miles, 10 of them with the lovely Sarah and Emma, who are sedate and stop to blow their noses and adjust their clothing solutions. It is nice to have company and they are very keen. I like cycling alone for thinking, but sometimes you want to talk and not be on your own, so it is great to have the option of people now and again. I really felt the difference in my fitness since I have not cycled very far since October, which was the last time I did 80 miles. I am excited about the new year, booking in for some sportives and upping the hours on the bike somehow ( a turbo in the classroom might work?). I have also been keenly swimming these past few days, mainly to minimise the effects of Christmas pudding which tend to make me take on the shape of a Christmas pudding within seconds of eating it. I am working on my kick which is very weak. H did a trial time trial a couple of days ago and swam 400m in about 9.30. That would be a good time for me, she is getting on really well with the swimming, mainly because she does more of it than I do. A can now swim a continuous 100m, so our quest for family domination of the swimming, triathlon, sailing and athletics at this year's Olympics seems to be on track. Still not had a call from Team GB but I totally understand that they need to let down some of the people who are smugly sure of their place in the team to make way for some wild cards like us. R is doing a marathon in April, and to help him on his way has booked in for a half marathon in February. Why not do the half twice and forget the whole one, I say?

On to the skiing. Team GB is not known for cleaning up in the medals department at the winter Olympics, but again, that is set to change as team Bowen take on the might of the alpine countries. I am particularly good at the chair lift lift - using one arm to pull up the bar so you can get off a chair lift. Other important winter sports events include drinking the 'vin chaud', carrying two sets of skis to the ski school every morning and the all important bumping down on your bum on the icy road event. If only we had a video camera we could have kept 'You've been framed' in business for weeks and weeks. We were very impressed with the snow, laid on nice and thick, had snowed for about ten days before we arrived, and a few more days whilst we were there. The resort, La Plagne, is amazing, it has every possible need for skiing families sorted, mainly including a huge number of blue runs, some a reddish tinge of blue, but still blue enough for me to get down without too much trouble off piste. I do like to get up close to nature, and loved skiing down the 'Narnia' runs, lower down the mountains into the valleys, with tree lined pistes leading to some exciting moments with close ups of bark and branches, a little more off piste than anyone else in our group. A is a speed freak, and the red run at the top of the mountain called 'Kamikaze' sounds right up her street. H is brave and mastering the art of turing gracefully, although both girls did not enjoy their ski lessons much this year, and seemed to plateau a bit in their skills. We had some lovely family skiing in the afternoons, so much fun to be with them out in the mountains and see them be so brave and try anything, if any faults lie in the Bowen girls it is in being too confident when faced with a steep slope that has mountain goats fainting, they just storm on down.

We stayed in La Plagne 1800 and I would utterly recommend the resort, it is the most pretty and villagey of the La Plagne centres. Next year we are considering going to Champagny en Vanoise, as we skied that side of the mountain and enjoyed it, and you can ski the whole area from there too. We are going back to La Plagne for sure, and also interested in Les Arcs which looks even bigger and better. We have already set out budgets for the months ahead and planned in our savings to make skiing a possibility for 2013 as everyone likes it so much.

Somehow despite the pay freezes, higher costs of everything and expensive habits we have in sporting life we seem to have found some money to pay for holidays! Don't smoke, don't drink, don't even go to a posh gym anymore so the money all goes on boats and bikes. Wiggle caught up with me eventually, as my time as a Cycling Plus celebrity is long gone, and I had to pay for the bike in the end. Still, I got a brand new bike for less than half the cost and would never have bought such a great bike which has given so much joy. Still got it, still going on my lovely Verenti Millook, I don't know what other bikes do better but this one works for me.

Christmas - we got back to Gatwick on Christmas eve, after a long early morning journey which involved both girls being sick within seconds of each other on the coach, followed by an hour and a half of sitting on a coach smelling of sick. We were popular. So, by the aftenoon of Christmas Eve we were ready for Christingle action, and Holy Trinity Claygate does Christingle on an industrial scale - 3 services, 560 oranges speared and banded in red. R and H went back on Christmas morning, when they reported that the church, foyer and church hall were full to bursting for the rendition of classic carols, R's dream church meeting - belt out carols and go home. Clearly Jesus is fashionable among the rich and well manicured of Claygate. One of my friends, Lara, with whom we spent a lovely evening eating curry and playing rummycub, remarked that they had missed us at the Thornhill Christingle. Which was interesting, as we are nearly always in Claygate. Next year we will hang about down here and go for St Christophers.

We were very well catered for in Thames Ditton, staying with Granny Mary and being spoiled with breakfasts of profiteroles etc etc. No wonder I look like a pudding. The cake she bought from M and S is as good as any home made one and I strongly recommend buying one from there next year, despite my embargo on M and S after the incident with the combat trousers. Pop pop taught us how to play whist, or something like whist, when you do tricks and choose trumps. We have also had a good few sessions of Scrabble, one of those things you have to do when it is dark outside and you can't go cycling. Paul Whitmore somehow beat me at Scrabble a few years ago, despite not knowing the rules, so we had a rematch and I managed to beat him, narrowly. Rob won, however, in his irritating fashion. The irritation comes from how frequently he beats me at Scrabble.

Another great social day of lolling about was spent with the Sious and the Taylors, when the main event was the 'how much can you eat?' contest which went on all afternoon. We have played Who's in the bag? with the Whitmores, as New Year's Eve compells us to, although we didn't get around to it on the 31st so they came over today to play it instead. I use it as an educational and feminists device, selecting female figures from sport and history who are inspirational in some way, to counteract all the other pop stars and cartoon characters put in the bag by children. Today everyone struggled with Victoria Pendleton. I mean, I might have spelt her name wrong, but everyone knows her, surely? No. Only Rob and I had heard of her. Similar fate awaited Emmeline Pankhurst and Zola Budd, Joan Collins and Judi Dench, who had the dishonour of being described as sounding like dentures, rather than based on her awesome dramatic art. Joan Collins was in my head as I heard an interview with her the other dau, in which she said she thought she could have been more successful in life if she had the security of knowing her parents adored her.

As I am getting older and know more dead people than alive ( I guess the tipping point has to come sometime) I tore out the year's obituary feature from Granny Mary's paper to go through it with Hattie, as she and I like to keep up to date with deaths. I noticed that Elizabeth Taylor died without telling me. I just need to fix some tea and low calorie treats up for Hattie and I to enjoy whilst we figure out who the famous jazz people who have died are. Lots of jazz musicians die in the Times. Talking of jazz, my school Christmas 'do' was at the Concord club in Eastleigh, a place you only go once, unless you are over 75 and need helping on and off the dance floor, or if you like the feeling of a meat market night club, but for the elderly. Getting to to loos was like running the gauntlet past the bar full of old men with roving eyes. The Michael Buble (sp) tribute act was probably ok but a long way away and I only know one of his songs so a bit wasted on me, especially as he did that one first. No, not my kind of place, thank you. The Royal Southern Yacht Club in Hamble, however, won top marks for a brilliant sailing club 'do' - my first time attending and I loved it, the food was fine, I won something in the raffle, the company was great and I don't remember much else!

I have been spectacularly lucky with raffles this year, winning the first prize in my school raffle, which is a party for 20 children at a cafe. Tempting though it was to take 20 of my class, I am going to let the girls choose 9 friends each. I also bid successfully in the school silent autcion for a meal for two at a hotel somewhere, to which I am treating lovely Marie, my long suffering and gifted LSA. I have actually been doing some work for school today, and yesterday, and I think I am all the better for having had a complete fortnight off not thinking about work at all, my vision for phonics is fresher than ever, even when faced with this sentence:

When observing a child writing, the question the practioner should be asking in relation to Phase 5 is: Is the child applying his/her phonic knowledge and skills, including knowledge of alternative prounciations, as the prime approach to reading unfamiliar words, including those that are not completely decodable?

Well, I should say not, if you did not understand that! Are you secure in phase 5? I think the question is really 'can the child have a good try at new words they come across?' but that does not sound so complicated and technical. Teaching children to read and spell is technical and complicated in some ways, and one of the most exciting and rewarding things you can do in life, in my opinion. Seeing children want to read, choosing books for pleasure, using reading as a tool in everyday life, is what makes is worth getting up in the mornings in term time. Skiing, cycling, scrabble, card games and eating too much with friends and family fill that void nicely during the holidays. However, if I were a millionaire, I don't think I could do that all winter and would miss going to work with children. I would probably go back to being part time if I were a millionaire, though, as I miss my long bike rides with tea stops in Hambledon and Bishops Waltham, and also I have had to shelve the tennis and it would be nice to try that again on weekdays. I would get a cleaner again, for sure, as I spent 5 hours the other day listening to Radio 4 and cleaning the kitchen. Granny M has threatened to come down about once a month and clean the house, so I am keeping it really clean for her arrival. I am really pleased at her offer as I hate the messy carpets and cobwebs but am only here in the dark and not usually in the mood for cleaning in the dark.

For a while our radio in the kitchen had a demonic presence and would only stay tuned to Premier Christian Radio, even if you turned if off and on again and pressed the button to find other stations it only let you listen to Premier. After an exorcism we can now listen to The News Quiz, Just a minute and The Archers, praise God! I did enjoy some of Premier, the interviews were interesting and some good old hymns to sing along to. Its just the adverts which clearly suggest I am not at all in the profile of listeners - adverts for immigration lawyers in Brixton, a denture centre in New Cross and a conference for women making a difference at home. I can not make a difference at home. The dirt is too deep and only Granny Mary has the power.

2011-11-14T20:53:00.002Z

A recent phone call to the bank, at their request, to give them my phone number involved me having to recite numbers at them. I have numbers of everything, the library code, the paying online for everything codes, the code for remembering codes. One thing I think eternity has to offer is a code free life. No 4 digit codes. No codes that have to have numbers and letters in odd combinations. No codes that are memorable and yet forgettable. No re joining the same teachers resources site under 3 different names because you can't remember what you called yourself or which email you used to sign up. Help. Now and again they send me clues in emails addressed to Kaye. Ah, clearly I called myself that one late night to log on to use another lovely teacher's freely shared resources. Would share some of my own but I struggle to upload a photo to a blog let alone a resource to a website.

We are apparently going on strike again in a couple of weeks. Our financial situation will feel the strain, but not as much as the financial situation of all teachers for ever more if we don't. I find it hard to be in a profession that seems to be so hated and scapegoated as teachers are. Either we have too much holiday, too much pay, work too short days ( I reckon 7 til 7 counts a long enough) or its all our fault when children kill each other or bully each other, or anything else each other that they shouldn't be doing - or both. I wish the whole government would come and spend a day in a school working as an LSA, to realise how hard everyone works and what a difference most of us make most of the time. We are not the enemy.

Phew, safer territory, onto 2 lovely bike rides on my own in the sunshine of the weekend afternoons. That's better, up a hill, every shade of colour around me, and I even saw some splendid looking chaps, in suits I thought only Fantastic Mr Fox's enemies wore, shooting something or other, and feeling very pleased with themselves I am sure. Maybe it was Boggis Bunce and Bean themselves.

I don't think I have announced a death here before, but I am very sad to say that Kathryn Copsey, founder of CURBS charity, died. She wrote the book 'From the Ground Up' that said what I felt about children and the way we do children in church, or out of church, or anywhere really, and I spent a few days with her a few years back seeing what she and her team did in East London and leafy Surrey, where I attended a house group for people with mental health troubles that was the most loving example of the body of Christ seen this side of Bosnia. Kathryn received treatment over the last year for a brain tumour but it seemed to be lurking and there was no more treatment to give. Although I only met Kathryn a few times, I can honestly say that the effect she and her husband Nigel had on me was lifegiving and life changing. Like many thousands of people impacted by her ministry, I give thanks for a life lived out in the front line with children in the most deprived communities. Maybe a bit like Jesus.

2011-10-29T21:44:00.002Z

Train toilets - no one's favourite place to be, on the way home from Waterloo today ( pun intended) I walked through the carriage to the loo, followed by a man. As I opened the door to the loo, he stood behind me and as I went in, said 'Number one or number two?' I could not believe my ears. Here was a stranger asking the nature of my intention in the toilet. Did Jane Austen have to put up with this kind of thing in the stage coach from London to Southampton??? I begged his pardon and controlled my urge to retort with an in depth detailed account of my expected movements and said 'we'll have to wait and see'. A reply I thought suitably enigmatic. He then explained that he was in two minds as to whether to wait for me or head on up to the next carriage. He headed on up to the next carriage. What ever next? Can you imagine the reception he would have got from someone less charitable than myself, ie someone carrying a gun or knife, or even someone a bit miserable. He might have tipped them over the edge and how could they be held responsible for the actions in the light of such preposterous nosiness in their private business. The guns and knives feature in my thinking because on the last night we were house sitting for our dear godly friends the Parson family, I started reading a book about gangs in south east London. I am glad I read it on the last night, as they live in South east London and I was feeling rattled enough as it was, staying in an area less leafy and green than I am used to. The problem with London is that it is a victim of its own success and is too busy. The buses are packed, the traffic is fast, the people are fierce and stressed and even the cyclists go storming over Blackfriars bridge so fast I thought there was a special event on, maybe a time trial, but no, it was just the 'rush' hour. I have never seen so many bikes apart from on a triathlon or sportive. Everywhere are people, and the fact that we did the Science and Nat History museums at half term did not help, as they let in about a billion people to each museum so they are busy too. We rushed straight to the dinosaurs, which are so utterly spellbinding that I was lost for words. We looked at the obligatory half a million stuffed birds and animals, and really enjoyed the inside the earth bit about gemstones and rocks and volcanoes and fossils, really well done and interesting. The Science museum included a fabulous educational show about bridges, and meeting up with the cousins which is always a hit. Seeing Stephenson's actual Rocket, and the Apollo pod ( looks like it was made by Wallace and Gromit) is amazing too. How did the british end up with a piece of USA history like that??? Did it land off the Isle of Wight and we said 'Finders Keepers?'. We enjoyed Hyde Park, and walked all the way back via Buck House and St James Park to Westminster bridge to get the bus home to the delightful Old Kent Road. We also did a walk around Spitalfields with Elise, and the Museum of London which is also in the city and worth a visit next time you are up in town. The Parsons family home contained a worthwhile range of reading material and we also watched a favourite old film, Shooting Fish, which is not about fish or shooting and is really fun to see if you have somehow missed it so far.

So, home to the green and pleasant land of Thornhill.

2011-10-13T19:47:00.002Z

The days have been full, as Calvin or Hobbs would say, however, not as full as theirs - just many many hours at work, 3 days a week, from 7am until at least 5pm, usually 6pm. Two days, don't get in until 8.15am and leave at about 5pm. Then a couple of hours in the evenings. No sympathy needed, I signed up for this crazy deal. I have, however, been keeping my weekend fairly work free, you will be pleased to hear, thus being able to keep my sailing career afloat, boom boom. Double pun there, as you get hit by the boom if you don't move your head down quick enough. Boom boom.

Unfortunately, the training for triathlons does not mix so well with being a full time lackey, I mean teacher. I am cycling to work most days, and have done another 66 mile New Forest sportive, on the baking hot 1st of October, but apart from that the cycling is a bit shelved. I am missing it. I am enjoying lots of the features of my new job, but other bits are hard. R is being a domestic god, making chutney, keeping on top of the ironing and shopping, making much nicer dinners than I ever did. He has been busy with bike business, a steady flow of work coming in, sometimes one night he thinks he will not have much the next day and then he gets a call and has a job to do. He is reducing the stockpile in the shed on quiet days, and selling refreshed bikes to ebayers. Today he had dog company, Noodle, who did a lot of poo in the garden. The rest of my family want a dog, however I have stipulated so many regulations to be met before a dog moves in that I think I will die before a dog comes to live here. After only one doggie day, my kitchen stinks of dank dog. The poor goldfish are starving and forgotten, the dog would go the same way within a week, limp and lifeless in the garden with the RSPCA knocking on the door. Not that the goldfish are in the garden, limp and lifeless. They are in the playroom slash bike work room. And the RSPCA were at the door last week, which I noticed when I saw that R has signed up to pay them money every month to protect pets from their owners. Could have given them the fish and saved the money and their trouble.

Anyway, today was a big day, as after trailing around a few secondary schools, and lots of discussion, and then some, and then an analysis of the benefits of each school according to H's criteria ( number of stairs, friendliness of teachers, ease of transport links, etc etc etc ) we have finally submitted the application for secondary school. We will find out on 1 March, and any of our 3 choices would be fine, so if number 1 says no, we would be happy with 2, and likewise 3. Which is a good place to be in, and why the choice was hard, as we genuinely would have been happy with any of the three options. Including our local comprehensive, which when we moved to Thornhill was a real sink school for the authority to send all its troubles to. Now, its our number 2 and was very very close to being number 1. Its a big day, thinking about secondary school, when it feels like only yesterday that I turned up at Kanes Hill with a two year old and six month old to look around before we moved to our new house. Now here we are in Year 6, Chair of the school council, netball team member and doing everything extra curricular the school can throw at her. Yikes.

R did his half iron man triathlon a few week back, thank goodness, he sruvived and did it in a time that he was happy with - i.e. within the day. We planned to do a stay in campo at Sandy Balls the triathlon venue, the night before, but I booked the wrong night. So we stayed in our own beds instead. But made it up with a campo trip to the sailing club for the hot weekend at the start of October for the girls's last sailing course. Hurrah, a stage 1 and a stage 2 sailor in our midst. I have had the joy of crewing for some very patient catamaran sailors and learned a lot more about sailing from them, despite spending most of my time hung on the edge with a wire. It is quite a good analogy for faith, you have to trust the wire to take your weight and just kick out and get on with it. Trusting utterly in the helm is vital too, if you are with a good sailor who you know is trusting their boat, watching the wind and waves and in control, then you don't need to worry. I can feel a book coming on here.

A reads a Salvation Army comic every week, and wants to join their bible club, and was looking at the form to fill in. It asks ' church attended' and she said 'well I go to several, I am not sure which I attend, do we attend a church mum? '

Mmm.

2011-08-30T16:46:00.002Z

Home from Greenbelt. Everything went well, the weather was mostly ok if not warm, but my new sleeping bag meant for comfortable nights under canvas, as the House family were using the campervan, we were back to the trusty tent. For £50 and a trip to Salisbury, that e bay purchase must be knocking up towards triple digits in the number of nights we have slept in it over the summers of 2008,2009,2010 and 2011. It leaks a bit, but not to the extent that we have wanted to throw it away in a skip in a fit of dampness. The annual pilgrimage to Cheltenham for Greenbelt gets better and better - we know the way there now, we have the arriving, reservation of spot and camp construction down to a fine art and this year everyone from our little church gang came, plus the Lennards. The band have been invited back next year to once again bang out some worship songs for the children, the junior age range, who had a late night youth club this year. Will write more elsewhere about how much more enjoyable the system was with the children, and also me not working meant I got to go to a lot more things than in years when I have been working as a volunteer. The chilling out and chatting was great, and I went to a few comedy shows, some awesome acrobatics and a surreal clowning show, plus the ubiquitous Family Twist. A and H got to tell a joke on the last night, right near the end, after sitting through some torture waiting. We loved Fischy music on mainstage, obviously, and seem to be amongst many when it comes to Fischy fans who do all the actions. One extremely nice thing was bumping into Helen and Andy Hunter and hanging out with them a fair bit, felt like we had never lost touch ( last saw them nearly 7 years ago) and I popped in to see Andy do his DJ thing and thought it was great! Saw a few other old friends from here and there, couple who cleaned toilets with us in Croatia in 1998 were there and Sue is getting ordained next week, which just goes to show that even bishops clean toilets. Not that she is a bishop. Yet. R is cycling home from Cheltenham, although he called a while back and is having spoke trouble near Nether Wallop, so I found him a nearest station to Nether Wallop to aim for. The girls opted for an afternoon of watching the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe next door but one so I have got through an immense amount of washing, tidying, cleaning, even mowed the grass. I am off to the office tomorrow.... September looms...

2011-08-24T10:58:00.001Z

If you go to George Burgess Photography .com you can look me up in the new forest rattler gallery for some great pictures of me looking awful. My rider number was 125, so you can use that to look them up.

2011-08-23T17:54:00.002Z

Now, a while back, in April, I went to a new hairdresser, Sam, in Sarisbury Green via Groupon. She was a bit negative, ie talked about her bad luck and didn't have a very adventurous outlook on life, and seemed to me a bit scared of others' thoughts - ie not wanting to ride a bike in case people laughed at her. Anyway, the haircut was nice, but the salon was not very welcoming and I decided to try elsewhere. So, randomly, I picked a salon in West End, and who should be cutting my hair, but Sam herself. Spooky! So, clearly fate has it that we are destined to be together, so I have rebooked with her, and lets see what God has planned. Haircut is great.

Today we made our repeat visit to Portsmouth Dockyard to see some of the attractions we missed the first time, which was back in the half term holiday on a nice sunny day. Today, it was less sunny, and we did the indoor Mary Rose museum - worthwhile, even without the actual boat available - apparently with the MOD cuts it has been brought back into active service. We learned about Tudor medicine and timekeeping and navigation. Then we went to Action Stations! which is a bit like Intech, the science centre near Winchester, in that there are lots of interactive exhibits, so you can shoot and land an aeroplane and do similar things which are not really my kind of thing, however I did do the climbing wall, and the girls did 2 climbing walls. I mentioned to R that I had no idea the navy involved so much climbing ( I guess the Marines have to) and R said if you are on a submarine you do a lot of climbing. Now, the good thing about this ticket is that it is valid for a year, and some of the things you can go to every day if you wish. So we still have not done the Dockyard Apprentice experience, and the Warrior you can go on as much as you like. which is interesting. And you can go to the Naval museum unlimited, although there comes a limit even on a rainy day, even for someone interested in history.

On Sunday I cycled 79 miles, it was the New Forest Rattler, a ridiculously long, but flattish course all around the aforementioned national park. Great scenery, nice people, I hitched a ride (not literally!) on the back of a few groups for a few miles to help me along, and found a couple of nice guys who took turns with me to pull me along a bit at other times. I was pleased with my 'silver' time achieved - 5 hours and 7 minutes. Saw a lady with the same bike as me. Saw a group of lady cyclists from Bromley. Still mostly men, but I am used to it now. I had a really good ride, making it to the second feed station at 55 miles without feeling it too badly. Had a hard 15 miles after that though, slogging it out mostly alone, then there is a killer hill, short but deadly, about 4 miles from the finish. I could not get off once I had started it, as I would have fallen off. I had to keep going, but was screaming that I couldn't do it, and was talked up by aforementioned nice chaps. I honestly had not felt so physically exhausted since giving birth. If anyone asks you to ride up Blissford Hill, laugh in their face and get off at the bottom, unless you are a Tour de France veteran. After all that cycling, I ended up cycling down to the leisure centre to go to Pilates that evening, a welcome stretch out after being hunched up on the bike all day. Now I am working hard on my running, did a short but faster run this morning, hoping to build up some running fitness again before a duathlon in October.

We have been away recently, to Stockport in Cheshire for our pilgrimage to Aunty June's, and then to North Wales for some sailing. It was the Sprint 15 nationals, and R borrowed a boat, so that I could sail them too, so I found a willing helm and off we went, me crewing, and messing that up sometimes. Luckily most of my mistakes were redeemed by Bethan, sailor extraordinaire, but even she couldn't do anything about me being sea sick on day 1 in big waves and so we retired from those 2 races. I took herbal remedies for the next 2 days, and the waves were not so big, and I did fine. Loads of other sailors got sea sick so I felt a bit better. We actually won the ladies cup, but as there were only 2 boats helmed by ladies it was not that much of a competition. The setting was spectacular, Snowdonia in the background, sandy beaches, and people speaking Welsh in the streets and shops, which I think is great. Once someone spoke to me in Welsh! Clearly I was starting to look like a native. We had not been to Snowdonia before and were really impressed with the mountains and the only trouble is how long it took to get home. Like the Lake District, it needs to be moved a few hours nearer. I am sure we could get rid of Birmingham and then sew the country up at the break and that would help.

I have been trying to do a bit of work these last few days, as I want to hit the ground running, as it were. There is a lot to get my head around, but I know I will have a lot of people asking me questions and I want to be mega organised and not lose bits of paper. To that end, I spent 4 days at the start of the holidays tidying my room and cupboard, so that everything is filed, and spent all of yesterday morning doing likewise for my computer documents. I deleted all 'my favourites' on the interweb, but I think that is good, because the important ones I will remember, and the others don't matter anyway. I feel a bit in a state of flux, rather like the dLorian car in Back to The Future. 'Marty! the flux capacitor!' Hattie helped me to see that I probably thrive on routine and work and am at the lowest point of the holiday, ie we have run out of money for fun things, the weather is awful, and I kinda want to get back to work and get going on new things. The girls are busy making cakes as part of their 'Baking Sisters' business, they have been commisioned to make birthday cakes for Charlie and Daisy. Therefore, the kitchen floor is sticky at all times. Apparently they are getting paid materials for this one, so we won't be making a loss. If only they could afford a cleaner to clean up after them.

Now, a nice thing that happened at the weekend was that Gillian and Keith from Alnwick came to stay, with their delightful daughter Rosie, who incidentally is our god child. It was her birthday while they were with us, so we arranged for the Houses and the Clarks to join us on an afternoon at Hilliers Garden, near Romsey, a splendid spot in the sunshine for an afternoon of sitting. That seems to be the main hobby of Duncan and Emma. We also took Keith and Rosie sailing, and the weather was perfect, sun and windy enough wind, onshore, so H and I practised capsize drills. We were having such fun it was 7pm and we had not thought about food for dinner. The trampoline broke on the boat though, which will mean an expensive repair, coming in at over £400, which is very expensive compared to the new ( to them) Topper which Paul and Rachel have bought for £50. We could buy a fleet of old Toppers instead of mending our boat, have one each and a spare. Hey ho.

Campo the Camper van is doing well, although mostly being used by Emma. We have it this week, I used it to get to Ringwood, but it is rainy and a bit grim and so we are not camping in it. Emma, meanwhile, is using it for evenings out by the sea in the rain. She has put up flowery bunting and furnished it with retro cushions. R hopes her enthusiasm wanes soon. We have a shared log book to write down where you went and what you did, and it is mostly Emma doing things in it, presumably sewing. We don't mind at all, and it makes us laugh, we are so not into flowers and furnishings, it is funny to have a shared residence with someone who is.

R is off this evening frantically practising for Greenbelt, at which he is playing which is this weekend. I am sure it will be fine, their band are playing in a junior youth club each evening, and doing some songs for the little kids in the mornings, just him and Hattie singing and playing guitar, without any loud drain noises in the background. Will report back.

2011-08-04T17:21:00.003Z

Another fish is in residence to keep the other one company, so we now have 2 fish we never wanted. Newsflash that A found some money on the verge along a road, she gave a third of it to her chosen charity, Edukids, and is spending the rest on things she is not usually allowed to buy. H found some money in a field on a cliff near Swanage, clearly they take after their paternal grandfather who is well known for having an eye for gold in the gutters of Claygate.

My last day of freedom as a at home person was spent in Bitterne, aptly enough, as on the last day of term when everyone was at school except me, I enjoyed a very nice swim at BLC, in cool and almost empty pool. My general low energy levels are dragging on and on, I have got rid of the sore throat but am exhausted and can only manage a 15 minute jog, the idea of a 78 mile bike ride in a couple of weeks is not filling me with joy right now. I have even spoken to my Dr with a view to getting an appointment, as maybe I am anaemic or something. That was suggested today, as someone noticed all my bruises. My bruises are war wounds from sailing at the high performance end of dinghy and cat sailing. Seriously!!! I was asked to go out on a fabulous fast cat with a very good couple of sailors on Sunday morning, and learned to trapeeze, the hard way, on a fast boat, but it was awesome as we were soaring across the water, and I felt excited and not scared at all, in safe hands!

After lunch, as I happened to be wandering around wearing a wetsuit, a man I had never seen before asked me if I wanted to go sailing. Of course I said yes, and set off towards the water after him, and able to answer his question 'are you ok going out on the wire?' with the answer - 'well, I learned this morning!' It was a very different boat, being a dinghy, and it seemed to be the kind of tippy over boat that would have FREAKED ME OUT a couple of years back. I was once again in the hands of a very good sailor, literally at one point as I fell off/out/somewhere and I have the hand shaped bruise where he tried to haul me back in without us capsizing. Somehow, in wonderful slow motion, we managed to capsize, and then righted the boat with nowhere near as much trouble as it takes to do it with a cat. Still quite a lot of fiddling around in the water, but it was ok. The reason for my falling off/in is still unclear, but it was when I was just taking control of the spinnaker. This is a beautiful and awesome piece of fabric that means you can sail fast downwind, it is literally like a kite, and is beautiful, so powerful, so awesome, and the crew has the job of holding it in the right place. You can feel the power of the wind through its rope, it is so so awesome, however, clearly a novice I got something wrong and ended up over the edge. I had got it right (ish) the first time and messed up the second time.

So, still smiling, a bit achey the next day, and have instructed R that our upgrading of our fleet will not be to a Dart 18 but to a F18, and I also need to upgrade the Topper to a Asymmetric Dinghy. The boat pot is a little low at the moment, but R is now working as a bike mechanic and is a part time teacher, so I am sure he will soon start using his bike profits to buy boats. He won't need much encouragement!!

2011-07-23T21:15:00.002Z

Some freaky fish thing is going on. Step 1, H and her friend C attend the fair at Claygate Flower Show and win two goldfish. They live overnight in a big tupperware and make it through the night - one of them dies, which we appreciate. The other one makes it back to Southampton in the tupperware and lives on, tired but ok, until R gets home on Monday with a glass tank from the dump, £2, which he has carried on his bike in a carrier bag, risking untimely death or aterial damage at least if he had made one wrong move on his bike. Tank is dutifully filled with gravel and water and fish is re homed, at which point it gets a new lease of life and dashes about exploring. Friday, the fish gets its new friend, a posh fish from a proper shop, and new proper gravel and a skull and some stones and looks happy. New posh fish looks tired. Saturday night - fair fish two now dead. Posh fish happy. So, in a week, we have acquired and buried two dead goldfish and have ended up with one from a shop that we would never have bought. Damn the things! They have found a loophole in my anti pets policy. I got a book out of the school library about looking after a fish, and it says you need pumps and all sorts. We had a goldfish for years on the sideboard and it never had a pump and lasted for way too long. If you have a spare pump, we will give it a go, but this fish is going to live 1980s style.

Apart from dealing in dead fish, we continue to celebrate H's birthday, which goes on and on. We had the weekend without A in Swanage, then her actual birthday which coincided with the Claygate Flower Show so was spent there, an early start as we were taking up exhibits for the girls, H got a second for her decorated cake, A won a cup as she got a first and a second prize in her age group. For a collage scene in a shoe box with a working light, and for a drum kit made out of yogurt pots. I was ill, still am not great with a cough, but last weekend I was grim, with no voice at all on Friday ( stupidly went to school though) and a temperature. I seem to have a weird virus in my throat that has been there for months, have not swum or run for weeks and my cycling limited to a short commute, I am hoping that the end of term will come and I will magically have energy to go out cycling again.

A weekend before Swanage, dad retired from active scouting and we went to the AGM to see him get his thankyou and well done, and it was a lovely occasion, when you grow up with a scout group like 1st Claygate you get to thinking that everyone lives in a great community with amazing scouts and guides that do exciting things. The Scout and Guide band are playing at Disneyland Paris this year, good luck to them, I shall not be returning to watch. The Claygate flower show obviously is a flagship for Claygate ness every year, and this was no different, apart from the usual impeccable weather, it was raining in the morning to the extent that the thornhill festival was cancelled, but Claygate is in a different league, and floods and tempests would not stop the flower show. I managed to swerve into the WI tent where my mum was selling bric a brac and limply sit for a while on a camp chair, but my illness made the experience far less fun than usual. Well, sitting on a WI chair is probably about the same in fun factor, but I would not normally be doing such, but would be watching dogs or classic cars. On Sunday morning, R was swimming from Hampton Court to Kingston, and so we went to watch. It poured with rain and we were wetter than he was. Plus we couldn't tell who he was as there were over 1200 swimmers and we didn't even know what colour hat he was wearing (yellow). He then spent the rest of the day falling asleep - in the bath, on the sofa, driving, on a different sofa and on the rug. Then in bed. The organisers told the swimmers that after the event they should drink a can of coke to kill any bugs they had swallowed. Yuk. What kind of bugs would be killed by coke? Or what kind of drink would kill bugs? I am going to start using it as a cleaning product to clean surfaces in the kitchen.

2011-07-07T18:27:00.002Z

Sign in toilets at Paultons Park:

It is likely that these facilities will be cleaned by male and female attendants.

I would have said it was more than likely, but absolutely certain, unless they have asexual aliens doing the cleaning. I know what they meant. But they did not say what they meant.

Everyone is very tetchy and fractious at school, that's just the staff! No, we are holding up well in the face of adversity, in the form of tired children and a full up curriculum, but the children are tired and flagging, tomorrow is meet the new teacher day, always nice as the new class are trying so hard to behave for you! I have a whole bunch just finishing Year R, so will be well trained and hopefully not too wriggly - or squiffly. A uses the word squiffle as a verb, as in 'I squiffled up the tree'. It is a super word and describes her motion upward perfectly. She is a bit of a good squiffler up trees, getting to heights I expect most koalas think twice about.

Apart from holding it together in the classroom, I have been on strike, which was interesting, I don't know if it will change anything but united we stand, and a two year pay freeze amounts to a 10% drop in pay in real terms, apparently, plus the higher pension contributions demanded, and the bit that gets me, they want me to carry on teaching til I am 67. 67! My parents are 68 and I don't think either of them would relish the idea of having just given up a full time teaching job - it kind of shows that people who decide these things don't know how demanding it is, exhausting, being on stage all the time, that is why we need the holidays, to sleep, become human again and catch up on all the planning and paperwork that is thrown at us with constant changes and tweaks and improvements. When I am 67 I might want to work, but I don't think all 67 year old teachers will want to, or be in good health to. I will need a nap after lunch, not a rounders lesson!

Spent some time the other day at Bursledon windmill, which is worth a visit if you are ever near at the weekend. They have been milling flour but the cuts have left them without a miller, and needing volunteers. So, if you fancy learning to mill, now is the time, hear the call! In the meantime, get in quick to buy any of their milled flour. Am off to Bursledon Brickworks next week so will tell you all about that - never been there either, but both these places are very local history for the children at Hamble to study. And interesting for me to go on pre visits to.

2011-06-20T20:54:00.002Z

Amy's quiz

She made this up at the weekend, it is rather eclectic mix of information, google came up with the answers if you get stuck.

Who invented dynamite?
How many shops are there in West Quay?
How do you spell supercalorfragilisticexpilalidocious?
Name two brands of toothpaste.
What is the longest road in Thornhill?

Where does her mind wander? Now you know. She also invented a new service of washing up, for the price of 50 p per item, she will get your dirty pans SPARKLING. So far I am her only customer and am using her for trials.

H, meanwhile, was busy making a powerpoint about pedometers, by researching on Amazon, she is able to show you the prices and features of an array of reasonably priced pedometers.

Alberto Contador was reccying the T de F and got stopped on a ride by the gendarmarie for not having lights on his bike in a tunnel. good on them. Who does he think he is?

It is a very exciting time of year for sport, with the T de F about to start in a couple of weeks, after Wimbldon finishes. Sadly, I spread myself too thinly over too many sports and once again missed the cut for either of these events. The Olympics didn't want me either, saying that all the tickets I wanted had gone. Really? Other people were prepared to pay to watch grown men play ping pong? I seriously thought we were in with a chance on that one.

You will be delighted to hear that my prayer for healing worked on my ankle, I can now run over 5km with no pain at all in my ankle and a tincy bit of discomfort in my knee. As a consequence, I have now entered a triathlon in September with a 10k run, so something to work up towards again. Wahoo! I have really enjoyed a couple of runs lately, knowing I can do it again. I did a lovely sunny evening bike ride to the north of Winchester on Thursday night, the girls were at Brownies at the planetarium getting their stargazer badges. I hardly saw another car, and no other cyclists, and after a long haul up the A272 towards Petersfield, I cut off down through Rodfield and across the A31 to meander along with the river Itchen. Glorious.

My Friday night and Saturday were spent in an Anglican church, in Bitterne Park, enjoying the brilliant teaching and ministry of Lin Button and her team. You have to go see her! Superb stuff, really simply presented quite complex issues of the human condition. Got a lot out of it.

2011-05-29T20:34:00.002Z

More great sailing, less Scrabble. Yesterday was F5 gusting F6, and R and I were home alone without the girls, so we headed off to sail together, in very exciting conditions and with only 5 other boats attempting to race, and them full of hardcore sailing nutters, we knew it would be fun. I have never been so wet, drunk so much sea water or had so much fun! I loved it, despite not being able to see or breathe at times. R is great at helming the boat and with me being confident I could enjoy it rather than think about jumping off and swimming home. We had a bit of 'running' when at times the boat would catch the top of a wave and surf for a bit - wow! Fanastic result! Today we got up at 3.30am to do a triathlon in Arundel, a beautiful if hilly part of the world. R and our super fit triathlon PE teacher friend Claire had a 6.30am swim start in the Lido, and were doing double the distance to me, as I had downgraded as ankle/knee still not functioning as it should. I didn't start til 8.45am so went back to bed in the car for a couple of hours. I was a bit disappointed with my swim time, but my bike and run were great (for me) and I was delighted to post a time under 1 hour 30 mins, 1 hour 28 mins and 0 seconds, to be precise. The bike ride was started with about 15 minutes of climbing up, so that warmed the legs up. We went to the sailing club barbecue for tea which was chilled, chatted with some friends and there were not many people about, so plenty of food to go round. I was going to retire from triathlons after this one today, but I enjoyed it so much I think I might do another one....

2011-05-09T21:22:00.002Z

Today I saw something so jaw droppingly scary I felt better about taking Amy on the back of my bike when she was little. She did wear a helmet, since you ask. We were driving to Hamble, car on autopilot, and along Ingleside in Netley Abbey we slowed down behind a pony and trap, which Hannah told me was a cruel way of using a horse and it had a brading line or something on it. How did she get to know so much about horses? Anyway, a man and lady were being trotted along, and the lady stuck her leg to the left to show they were turning left at the t junction ahead. At which point, in swivelling around slightly, I could see that in her left arm she was holding a baby girl. Goodness, don't we all have our funny ways?

Another weird thing I heard about is a man in our Triathlon club, a fellow triathlete no less, but who takes his traithletes in bigger chunks than I do. First, he does Ironman distance, which involves swimming a couple of miles, cycling over a hundred miles and then staggering off your bike and RUNNING A MARATHON. When I did nearly 100 miles on my bike, and no swimming, the last thing I could imagine doing is running a marathon. Anyhow, this guy, is going to do that 10, yes TEN days in a row. He must have a screw loose, as my mum would say. Meanwhile, in the Bowen house, Mr Triathlon himself is still nursing a nasty injury to the arm after falling off his bike in the triathlon we both did a week ago. My knee and ankle combo meant that I did a 5k run in the longest ever time recorded in the history of the earth, 2 minutes longer than it took me two years ago. I made time on the swim and the ride though, and finished in just over 1 hour 30. R did it in 1 hour 21 I think, the winner, a guy in his forties, made it in 57 minutes. It was a lovely day, sunny and windy. Granny Mary met us and looked after the girls, offered moral support and a lovely picnic afterwards. R was so amazing, with his injured arm all bloody, he ran around to support me on my last few hundred metres before seeking first aid help. What a star.

Today I had a phone conversation with my oncology consultant, saving me the horror and hassle of sitting in outpatients at the Princess Anne, not one of my favourite places for a variety of unhappy associations. Dr Marshall tells me that my blood results are fine, keep taking the tablets and she'll see me in a year. It is a funny time of year, in between my blood results going in and getting the result, I am sure the feelings fade, but its still an anxious few weeks. Still, another year of grace, nothing lurking in my blood, so you are not getting rid of me yet.

Last week I was in Portswood, hanging out at the delightful Llama Lounge, or something like that, which used to be Pizza Hut. I went into October Books, which I love for its subversive nature, and i actually bought a book. I am not one for buying books when a perfectly good library service exists, still my premonitions of the end of a perfectly good library service ( we don't have one in Thornhill anymore, we don't even have a Post Office here anymore) led me to buy a book. It is called the Sacredness of Questioning Everything, by Dave Dark. I question the author's surname before we go any further.

Last week Lou and I were in the post office pick up point in Northam, trying to pick up some postmen, and were chatting to them about surnames. One told us this, which deserves to be an urban legend and to which end I am passing on: A family have the surname Hogflesh. Pronounced Ho Flay. How Hyacinth Bucket is that? We laughed like drains and wandered out into the sunset, feeling slightly more of a comedy duo than when we arrived.

I railed against the evils of Facebook and Xbox to Lou and another friend the same night, poor girls, they don't know what to do with me when I get like that, foaming at the mouth and all. Friend wanted R to go round and help her set up her X box. I suggested that if he were the last man alive, he still wouldn't be the man for the job. We don't have an X box, a horse box or any kind of box other than cardboard ones that bike bits arrive in and A sleeps in and makes into a house for her teddies.

Sailing has been great lately, I had a fabulous sail one evening last weekend in gusty conditions, a year ago I would have been crying and begging to get off and swim for home, and now I am laughing maniacally and loving it. R and H sailed on the weekend, H did one race with R on a borrowed boat ( it was a series for a bigger type of boat) and then she had other commitments, so R did the rounds of teenagers at the club to find crew, and went out in such windy conditions that the mast fell down and they were towed in. Now, I suspect that I would have been crying and jumping off in those winds. R's career 2.2 as a sailing instructor is going well, if unpaid, as he is doing a couple of weekends teaching children at the club. I have got all my duties out of the way for the year, I was the very responsible post of Officer of the Day, having to open the safe and set the alarm and other such things like look after keys, and add up money, which don't play to my strengths at all, but I got through it! It was actually fine, and a lot of it is signposting people to other people to help them.

H has taken up netball club, to add to her wide range of sporting activities, so we now have swimming on Mon for me, R and A, and H has orchestra. Tue, choir, followed later by diving for girls. Wed H swims. Thur H netball, both Brownies. Fri H swims. Sat H triathlon, K and R swim. Good grief, I need a PA or au pair or someone just to keep up with the costume changes.

2011-04-19T20:47:00.003Z

2011-04-17T20:00:00.002Z

Going for the burn/ My legs, still sore with lactic acid dripping off them from skiing, were a little upset to hear my plans for today, as I jumped out of bed at 8am and decided I wanted to do my first ever group ride with Fareham Wheelers which starts from Wickham at 9am. So all hands on deck, with R pumping up tyres and A serving me an interesting breakfast of sugar puffs with milk and lemon juice. So, Wickham Square, blue sky and sun shine, very little wind and the most perfect cycling day, so off I go! Now, cycling is not reknowned as being a female dominated sport, and I keep telling the few single friends I have that they should take up triathlon, but I was the only woman, with about 18 males, ranging from 13 - 70 something. Was not expecting it to be any different, if I am honest, and it might explain why I have taken such a long time before taking the plunge of going along to a club run. However, I opted to join the slow gang, and there were 10 of us, we did a pleasant route out around Corhampton, West and East Meon, Petersfield and Rowlands Castle. We stopped there at 25 miles to have a refreshment break, it is a great cafe with speedy service and good choice of food so check it out if you are ever over there. So far so good. However, my body assumed, wrongly, that the day's cycling was done. Oh no. My fronts of my thighs were burning and heavy and I was utterly leaden for the next 15 miles back to the start. I struggled to keep up, got lost behind at one point and really had to work to keep up. My heart rate was always in the zones above the zone 1 I have been training in all winter, at one point my heart rate was above 180bpm. I blame the skiing for my legs being out of practise on the bike... However, I was utterly delighted to find that our riding average speed was 17mph, I usually managed about 14mph on my own, so having a gang to chase along with made a huge difference. I am looking forward to going out with the very welcoming Wheelers again, but I am afraid that Sunday mornings are at a premium. It would work much better for my sporting life if Messy Church could be on a Saturday morning. On my return home, we decided we would go to see my bro and family at Bracklesham Bay where they are staying in a holiday home, with a huge garden and gate directly onto the beach. Wow! Amazing weather, the children all played in the sea and on the beach all afternoon, and R checked out his open water wetsuit which had arrived since we were away. He found it a bit freaky to swim in the sea, with no visibility when you are head down, and a cold head as the wetsuit does not cover your head. I was really proud of him, anyway, I think he is great, learning to swim open water in order to do his half ironman in September. I would stick to breaststroke, at considerable disadvantage to my speed, but at least you can see where you are going when you breathe.

2011-04-16T18:34:00.003Z

This last week, I have been taking in my quota of films for the year, as R and I have spent an awful long time on a coach, on the way to and from Morzine, in France, near Geneva, for skiing with his school trip. More on that later, but for the film buffs, these were all new to me, and a fairly eclectic bunch of titles... The A team - great, but too much double crossing and I get muddled. Marley and Me - I cried at the end, and was pleased to see miscarriage and early parenthoold given a fairly realistic portrayal by Hollywood standards. Balls of Fire/fury - ridiculous comedy about ping pong. There is no way you can make a good film about ping pong, but it had is comic moments, despite the subject matter. Sherlock Holmes - excellent film, missed the end as the coach drew in to the school driveway seconds before it finished. Despicable me - great comedy genius characters, loved this one. Wild Child - what can I say about a film about a wild child from LA who joins a boarding school in England and falls in love with the foppish son of the head teacher that hasn't already been said? What happened in Vegas - one of the most predicatable rom coms you could imagine, no twists in the tale whatsoever. So, that is probably my year's ration of films, all over in a week. Phew. Skiing. Now you are talking! Why would you want to stay inside watching DVDs when you could be out there doing it for real? We were a bit subdued on arrival because the temperatures were in the low 20s, great for a spring walking break, but not good for snow to stay snowy, and the first two days of skiing on slush and lumpy snow low down, but decent snow and great sunny conditions higher up were tempered by the fear that the snow would all disappear - it really was melting that quickly. It is very late in the season and we were delighted when the temperature dropped overnight to freezing, and despite a rainy/sleety day when everyone was miserable, and then a 'white out day' with good skiing but no visibility, we were jut pleased it was cold again, the pistes were being looked after as best they can be and the last two days were clear but cold, perfect conditions and lots of runs high up in good condition. Lots of the lifts were shut (about 50% open) which meant that although we could see the swiss border at the top of a mountain, we could not ski into Switzerland, which I thought would have been fun! The only other problem with the lack of snow at lower altitudes is that like us, tons of people from the lower resorts were heading higher up to start the day, so the slopes and lifts were very crowded on the days with sunshine. However, despite my fear of crashing into people (and of being taken out by the dreaded snowboarding fraternity who sneak up behind you) I managed to keep up with the intermediate group and skiing with 13 teenagers with no fear certainly speeded me up. The French alps are beautiful, the buildings in the villages are identical to those in Switzerland, and it is a cheaper place to ski, and handier to get to, if a bit crowded and packed with Les Anglais! Amazingly, there were lots of skiers there worse than me, which is not something I have come across before, I think a combination of me getting better and it being a big resort with lots of beginners. So, I found myself having to think ahead about other people's moves and avoid them, and overtaking people, the only people I have ever overtaken before have been stationary, so a big shift in my ability! The company on the trip was fabulous, R and I had a pleasant en suite room in the hostel which served great food, although the vegetarian options were egg or cheese, for lunch and tea. Ah, omlette again! They did apologise at the end of the week and explain the oven was broken so they were struggling to cater for our group of 30 teens and 8 adults, (we had a rep and two coach drivers to feed) plus a bunch of about 50 Belgians, who true to form brought their own two ring stove tops so they could cook waffles of an evening. The other teachers from R's school were great fun and easy going and very accepting of me into their 'gang' - likewise the teenagers, who were generally polite and chatty, or polite and quiet, but either is fine with me. The boys who skiied with me in the same group were really sweet, always checking I was doing ok and apologising if we bumped into each other. Spending time with young people is always such a positive and life enhancing experience, I remember when we ran the youth group in Sheffield we wondered why anyone would lead adults when you can work with youth? I was really impressed with R's rapport with them all, they really like and respect him, and he clearly has built that up over the decade he has been at the school - bearing in mind that the youngest kids on the ski trip were only babies when he started teaching at Cams - and the oldest ones he taught there are now 27. The oldest kids he taught in Sheffield are now over 30 - weird or what? I was really proud of him, he is a great teacher, clearly, and I remember something we said a while ago when we were still involved in the big Vineyard church leadership - that the leaders of a church should spend a day a month shadowing their volunteer leaders in their day jobs, to really see what skills and talents they have but which are missed. I have never shadowed R at work before, and although this was kind of not 'proper' work, I was impressed by how his laid back approach works, with the young people grasping the chance to be responsible for themselves, in most cases, with the odd exception as can be expected from 13 year old boys! I hope R cuts and pastes this and prints it out for his head teacher to read, as for many of us, our bosses don't always realise the fabulous people they have working for them, and get complacent about those people. Note to self - remember not to do that when I am sec of state for education. We brought back some delicious rose wine with grapefruit in it, it is a beautiful drink and a bargain at 4.5 Euros a bottle. Had some tonight. Yum. We got back to Fareham at 11am, dragged our stuff into the car and then out again and then shot up to Claygate to eat lunch, and pack the girls stuff up and bring them home. They had a lovely week staying with Granny and Pop, and a day with the cousins in Little Bookham, after a weekend away with the big Vineyard church, thanks to Ang and Paul who took them with their clan. We have a plan to go skiing with them all next year, lets see if the plan comes together - I hope so, as it would be fun to take them all too and they have the crazy 'have a go' spirit that is necessary for a good time in the snow. The present to R from the children on the trip was a pair of reconditioned skis and poles, so he now has all his own kit, so there is no giving up now...

2011-04-06T20:48:00.002Z

Ah, Matthew, I knew you would like that weird mobile phone story. It is true, you couldn't make it up could you? Today I got an email that started 'Hello dear Friends' . Which almost makes you stop reading right there. R and I have been working crazy hours lately, every night we sit and tap away at plans and mark schemes, so you, dear reader, have been neglected in favour of the education of the young of Hampshire. I have been offered and accepted a new post at my current school, the offical title is Key Stage 1 leader, the unofficial title is 'general lacky and mopper up of administrative issues and stray children no one else has the effort or enthusiasm to deal with'. I do get paid a bit extra for the wearing of a prefect's badge. I am genuinely delighted with this turn of events, as I like where I am and want to help build the team and make it even better than it is at the moment, and it is the perfect next step up on my campaign to become secretary of state for education when the revolution comes. Until it does, I will carry on drumming finger spaces and capital letters into the minds of children who will probably never hand write anything in their adult lives and be used to a world without capital letters as they have been born into it. We had a lovely sunny games lesson today, we are doing 'inventing our own games' and they all played brilliantly on making up games and then testing each other's games out. And the sun shone. We had lots of space on the field and no injuries and only one argument that I had to arbitrate on. Isn't the sun an amazing invention? In the winter, I would have had injuries everywhere - after 3 I blow the whistle and go in, as experience teaches me that if you carry on, the injuries get so thick and fast that you reach a tipping point where more of your class are sat in the medical room than on the playground, there are none left to stretcher bear for their buddies and I and the chapping wind are alone picking up balls and limbs. And the secretary is discreetly typing 'child protection' into Google and seeing if there is a technical loop hole that allows teachers to avoid being strung up by the hamstrings for child cruelty when all they were trying to do was the unit on skipping and hopping, as per the Scheme of Work, and not deliberately maiming children by scraping them along a cold playground. I speak from experience, as my best friend at Infant school and I were skipping along with our arms crossed and I fell over, but she carried on skipping and dragged me the length of the playground - or a few metres anyway, dredging grit and agony into my knee. It was probably the same Scheme of Work. After a fruitless visit to my GP and a faintly hopeful one to my podiatrist, who I am paying, so have more faith in, I am out jogging again, about 1km tonight, but it is better than nothing and desperately needed as I am planning on running 5k at the start of May on a dodgy ankle that has been ill since December. No quick fixes, but another gadget purchased from the 'fitness fund' a wobble board to strengthen my ankles. Do you know of another family that has a fitness fund, that is about 75% of its disposable income. Wobble board, new bike bits for R's faithful commuting and hardworking road bike, two triathtlon entries for the club Tris for H, sailing lessons for h, diving lessons for H and A, swimming lessons for A - swimming training extra session for H . Tri suit for H. Flippers for me and R. The diving people sent a letter asking if H wanted to be fast tracked ( at a cost) and we decided no, even a Bowen girls can't do all that exercise. Goodness, membership at the Hampshire ( not missed - when did we find the time?) is beginning to look like a bargain compared to all this add on expenditure here and there of a triathlon family. The girls are both going on brownie camp this year, perfectly timed to mean we don't need to worry what to do with them whilst we do our biggest triathlon yet. They are staying in a village hall in Owslebury, which is not very far away, but further away than last year which was staying in Manor Farm. When I went on Brownie camp it was always to a village hall somewhere in Surrey. Glad the Brownies are keeping hold of important traditions.

2011-03-26T21:40:00.002Z

What a day. I got up early and ended up being late getting to an industrial estate in Eastleigh to join an NUT coach to London. I was a bit stressed by having cycled on my hybrid at time trial effort to get there, then was not sure where the coach was, so abandoned my bike for R to pick up later and waved down a passing coach, which was the right one. On arrival in London we got on a ferry to take us for free to the end of the march, and then spent a while snaking up the outside past the assorted people there before finding the NUT. There were loads and loads of NUT people there, marching alongside the NASUWT, another teacher union. There were an unbelievable assortment of people - A Ghurka with medals amongst a gang of similar and their wives, all tiny and smiley, and this one chap shouting alleluia all the time. There were librarians against cuts, nurses, even physiotherapists, for heavens sakes, and it takes a lot to get them riled. Firefighters, Unison people who work for councils, Prison officers, court workers, the Boiler makers, goodness knows who else, all manner of people from every nook and cranny of the UK. Half a million people, giving up their Saturday and some of them forking out a lot of cash to get to London. Unbelievable. It was my first big march and I had a fantastic day of solidarity and unity, saw no violence ( the protesters causing trouble were not on the main march, but elsewhere) and took 4 hours to walk about 1.5 miles. It wasn't exactly one for getting the heart rate up, ( I had done that on my race to Eastleigh in the morning) but I was very glad to be there and think this is the start of something bigger, of ordinary people fighting for basic public services to be available, for the people who need those services most - the poor, the young and the elderly - they are the people who need schools, health care and libraries. After all the walking, we sneaked in and had a cuppa in a cafe and then strolled back to get the coach back - luckily for me I found a different coach heading back to Southampton. There were a lot of young people on the march, young teachers, which is encouraging. The day was well organised, the police were smiley and polite and so were the stewards and to everyone I asked to come with me who didn't - you missed a great day which I am glad I didn't miss. Next time, come with me! Even if it is your birthday.

Yesterday at work was great, I had my lovely class back, as my student has finished her placement with flying colours. I loved having her and learned a lot from the experience, but it was nice to just faff around after school on my own, tidying up and so on and catching up on little things that need doing. I am very fired up about school at the moment, as I have been offered and accepted a new post there which will mean more responsibility and a leadership role. We have a great team and a lot of potential for growth and improvement, so my job will be to nurture that into reality among the youngest classes. Watch your back, Michael Gove, I am telling you, I am after your job.

One of my favourite placards of the day was a picture of Garfield with the slogan Eat more lasagne. Some had pictures of Cameron planted inelegantly on the end of large pink tubes. Another favourite on the coach home was the sign that said 'Let this be a sign'. See what they did there? The girls were fascinated this morning by my plan of the day, hence the breakneck cycle to get there, with them asking me so many questions as I tried to escape. They watched it on the news when I got home and were asking good questions about it all. I am delighted to be developing their political awareness and hope they develop their own opinions which they follow through with actions, which are about the poor, the marginalised, the outcast. I don't want to be growing pew fodder who sit and nod inside churches. Let's hope today helped in that regard. Amen.

2011-03-25T22:04:00.002Z

Weird phone call today. On my way to work, with my mobile in my bag on my bike, I became aware of a lady talking to me out of my bag. I told her I was on my bike and then stopped so I could talk to her properly. It turns out that I had rang her! from my bag! And she was from a hotel in Beaulieu! How weird is that, she was not on my contact list, my phone had jiggled about and rang her, I guess the chances of getting an 0 and a 1 at the start are getting quite remote, and then to get a proper code and number of a proper, and local, business, I thought was fairly remarkable. I thought you would like that.

I have had some great sunny bike rides lately, even in shorts - da da! Spring has sprung. Today I planted trees with my class and I heard one boy say it was the best thing he had ever done. That is why you become a teacher. surely.

2011-03-09T20:13:00.002Z

Two trips to Bitterne in two days. That's more like it! Both by bike, in stunning sunshine. Monday I made excellent time up the hill to get to the doctors for my annual blood letting, the thing about sitting in the doctors waiting room is that I feel like a fraud because I am not ill. Still, the NHS really is cradle to grave, and I have to give a phial of blood once a year until I die, which is checked by my consultant, although she may die first, so I am not sure what happens then.

Yesterday, it was a social trip to Bitterne metropolis, as Ang had offered to take me clothes shopping, as a birthday gift, so I jumped at the chance to do the charity shops. I found a lovely top in the local charity shop on Thornhill Park Road, and then found a over top made of wool in Barnados, so a new outfit for £5. Ang and I also had a very pleasant cup of tea in Greggs, although it needs refurbishing in there, but the place brings back happy memories of little girls in pushchairs and teetering on the the dogdgy loo when toilet training.

Today Fareham - that charity shop treasure trove - but sadly not for shopping, but for part 3 of 4 of my Magnificent Middle - not an abs exercise class, but the leadership development course I am doing at work. It was not as inspiring as the others in terms of content, but still great to be with other like minded people and inspirational head teacher leading it.

I have not told you about the Dinghy show, so I will. First. Do not ever go to Alexandra Palace. It is a stupid place to get to and takes hours and hours and hours. H, R and I went, A wisely decided to stay with the cousins and play. It was fairly interesting in a boaty kind of way, I entered a trillion competitions, some to win things I have never heard of, some to win boats and holidays, which I have heard of. The tickets were a win, so the only cost of the day was to our patience as we sat in traffic in north London. Bumped into a few people we know from the sailing world, Chay Blyth, Ben Ainslie, Ellen Macarthur - well, none of them actually, just a few guys who sail 15s and a dad from my class at school.

I have just read a great book about a new settlement in Oklahoma which did not have a rail road station, and so was starving to death, and about how the community was formed and who did what and the role of children in civilizing the adults. It is one of those books that makes you gasp with shock. Now I am back onto Lance Armstrong, book 2. He should have changed his name to Legstrong.

Amazing news, after months off running I have done a few jogs lately, and not too much trouble with my foot so far, so hopefully the inserts are doing the trick. I have done a lot of swimming, but a rather inaccurate clock that I used for timing ( no second hand) seemed to imply that my time has not improved very much over the last two years, despite all the training I have done. When I look at the times from my first tri, which I am repeating this year, I am hard pressed to see how I can shave any seconds off any sections of it. Surely two years worth of training can be worth something?

On Friday night, the girls were at granny's as they had an INSET that day, so R and I were alone and could have gone out but no, we opted to spend two hours doing our month end finances and budgets for this month. This is our fourth month sticking to our system of writing everything down on the kitchen wall. Will soon need a redecorating budget. It is going really well, and despite having to buy a washing machine, and having just come back from skiing, our monthly figures are standing up quite well. Let's hope the government don't cut our pay, it is frozen for two years, which is as good as cutting, but not as bad a situation as some are in. I am going on a march against the cuts, and have free transport on the NUT bus from Eastleigh. What a result! I love things for free. Sadly there are almost none of them, but lets hope I win the electric jam maker I have entered for from the WI.

2011-03-01T22:47:00.003Z

Today I cycled down one of my favourite roads, favourite because of the comedy names the residents have chosen for their houses. One is called Gazebo. Another is called Random Oak. Love it! it sounds like the kind of name a rock star would give their child - Gazebo Random Oak. A friend of a friend of a friend has a baby called Matilda, going by the name of Tiddles. Tiddles Gazebo is a nice twist.

Apart from swimming, cycling and wearing my new trainers to walk around the house, I have been skiing! It uses the same leg muscles as cycling so it counts. I am sure you would be bored by the details of the scenery, perfect snow, sunny blue skies and happy children in ski school, so I won't bore you with them. Instead I will tell you about our progress. I am the lower attainer in our skiing family, using the whole piste ( they were lovely wide ones) to make my turns, I like to get my money's worth on the lift pass by covering every inch of snow with my agonised snow plough and attempts towards parallel turns. R, H and A are all above average achievers, we can all now do red runs, but I take twice as long as everyone else. A challenged me to a race, and she was out of the chair lift and down the hill before I had fumbled my sticks together and untangled my legs from the bar. R and I went to the top of the mountain on a grim snowy afternoon, and then on the next sunny day I went back all by myself! I love the views, and the solitude and quiet pistes, and I hate being on busy red pistes when everyone else swooshes down really fast and I am gently snow ploughing my way down. I did not overtake anyone all week. H injured her thumb and is in a plaster cast, with a date next week at the hospital. She missed 1.5 days, and luckily for us, Granny Mary was staying in the same village and was happy to do the childcare. that left r and I free to explore a different ski area, the unbelieveably good Tauplitz, with one of the best snow records in austria and a wealth of options for the blue / red skier. and the most amazing panorama of mountains covered in snow from the top of the lift. I got on well with the chair lifts, I was a bit worried about them as in Switzerland I found them a bit nerve wracking. As well as skiing we walked on a frozen lake, I struggled to have faith in the ice, although it is 25cm deep, it just felt all wrong. We ate out and I partook of a couple of apfel strudels, you really need to immerse yourself in the culture, I feel.

2011-02-16T21:46:00.001Z

Bit late posting this, but this is one of the places we visited in Portugal last summer. I should consider working for the Portugal tourism office.

2011-02-13T20:39:00.002Z

Last swimming lesson at the uni this afternoon, we worked really hard and I did some tumble turns! Was dead chuffed as my hope for these lessons was to achieve this aim. It is a lovely pool at the uni, and I am torn between it and the Quays as my new home. R is now a paid up member of the Southampton Tri club and it is my turn to try it out tomorrow.

I was supposed to be in Leicester today riding my bike, but got to Newbury last night ( interestingly, just a few hours after 2 horses had died there in freak circumstances) and realised I had forgotten my shoes. I turned for home and decided that a 4 hour drive and then a 5 hour bike ride were not what I needed this weekend, going for an early night and a 2 hour bike ride instead. It was chucking it down, and the route was quiet, hardly saw any other cars, let alone cyclists. I was pleased with how I kept my heart rate down and got up Beacon hill feeling quite comfortable, but I did struggle with the cold and being wet, my waterproof gloves are maybe oversold on the waterproof feature. Still, being out in the elements is always good for the soul, but ice and freezing winds are more my weather than rain and freezing winds. I can visualise myself doing the same routes in the summer with shorts and t shirt, of an evening - it feels good - and less washing afterwards.

Yesterday A did a diving taster session, and grinned for the half hour duration, so I have put both their names down to do the beginners lessons after half term. If you have ever wondered where everyone is at 8.30am on a Saturday, the answer is - at The Quays. The water is thick with young people diving and swimming, if anyone thinks that young people are not as fit as in the olden days, you need to go to the Quays to see how wrong you are. They can all dive and swim better than me. R was at the Quays, having run there, for his swim training session, whilst A and I set off at a trot to get H and also Kate, R's cousin who was staying for the weekend. We had booked to see 'animals united' at Vue cinema in Eastleigh. A sobering message film, A found it scary despite its U certificate and spent a lot of time on my lap. It is worth seeing, but don't watch it for the laughs. After a quick lunch it was on to Chandlers Ford for me, A and 3 of her friends, to a party at an indoor play centre. I left them there and went to Eastleigh for a shop, and actually bought myself some clothes. Shock. I also won £10 voucher for Vue cinema on a competition, so I will be going back to Eastleigh soon. I already have a £10 cinema voucher for the Point in Eastleigh, but their films are a little random this season.

As it is midpoint in the month, I am about to update our finances. on my own, as r is out at men's curry night. the last 3 months of tight financial planning and recording, we tend to do this review together, so here I go to have a go on my own. Without a calculator. Lets hope I only get things wrong by one order of magnitude, as in the other day when I calculated that we needed £15 000 a month to cover a set of expenses.

2011-02-10T21:04:00.002Z

I have become a follower, of another blog, which is of one of my local councillors, Matt Stevens, who is very commited to Thornhill. I am thinking of becoming an MP as have realised my ambitions of becoming secretary of state for education depend on first getting into the lower chamber. Or I could become a peer straight from the shop floor and get in that way. I am going on a march, in March, in London, to protest about the cuts. Just in case you didn't know already, I DID NOT VOTE FOR THEM.

R had a meeting tonight at the Youth centre where he does his bike project to find that all the open access youth work on the east of the city is being scrapped. This means that effectively, unless people volunteer to open youth centres ( and it is not a job for inexperienced, well meaning volunteers on their own, but a very challenging and tricky role which you need professional training to do well) there is nothing for the most disenfranchised and vulnerable young people in the city to do. Shall we look forward to a rise in anti social beahviour, drug use, petty crime and teenage pregnanices? I wrote a letter to one of my councillors ( the young tory one) telling him what I thought, and not to reply with platitudes. He already tried to fob me off regarding the library, which is to be run by local people. Only Libby and I are local people who care about libraries, Libby is not running a campaign a la her Cobbett Road efforts yet, and Thornhill does not have the capacity of people who care about libraries and have the spare time and energy to volunteer in them. Grrr. Can you hear my blood boiling? There may well be other library lovers in Thornhill, I hope there are, but you can't expect people to run public services well.

Having left Esporta on my bat, with R reluctant to do so, we have been experimenting with public swimming pools. A baptism of grime after two years of comparative luxury, at a price. R has done two training sessions at the quays with soton tri club, and got on well. I did ok there apart from the smell of urine in the changing rooms, which I mentioned on a comments form and got a reply today. Last night I had to go to Eastleigh to go swimming, as Southampton pools shut at 9. Well, Fleming Park, I had not been since 1994 and I don't think they have cleaned it since then. I found it a bit too scary for me, as the deep end is really deep and sudden, a sort of cliff edge effect about 5 m in from the deep end edge. It is like a deep water vent in the Pacific ocean. I kept thinking of sharks and that if I drowned down there, the smiley but plump lifeguards probably did not have the skills to rescue me from certain death. And Fleming Park ( I don't like it to start with cos of the word phlegm in its title) is not where I plan to die. So after 32 lengths trying to shut my eyes over the precipice I gave up and came home, never to venture near the place again. I can't help thinking that R will be feeling a little smug over this episode, although he is much nicer than me and doesn't say ' I told you so' when I come home with veruccas all over my body.

2011-02-01T21:07:00.003Z

Rod rang again today, for Jan. Said he had been with her all afternoon but she had not changed the number on his list. Clearly, she is trying to shake him off. I told Rod that maybe one day our paths would cross. A man knocked on the door shortly after ( not Rod, that would have been spooky) and it was a man trying to drum up business for his Karate club. Makes a change from utility companies and double glaziers. Also had a man round this morning wanting to buy gold off me. Do I look that bling? I don't have any gold to sell. I told him that, but he was already drifting off towards next door, clearly could tell with one glance that I was not one of the seven dwarves. dwarfs? Hmm. Not sure whether dwarf does the same thing as wolf when it is a plural.

Today in some amazing sleight of hand with the clock hands going slower than usual, I managed to do the household chores, some school work and then a two hour bike ride, still had time for a bath before getting the girls, cooked a nutritious tea and lit a fire and have been sat down for hours. It is uncanny. There must have been some time zone travelling going on which meant that I gained hours. Marvellous, have even lit a candle and watched a programme on i player, which I might have seen before, it was Clare Balding cycling through Shropshire, made me want to do likewise. I also had an interview with the student teacher taking A's class, who wanted to know a bit more about what she is like at home, what she wants to be when she grows up, what her favourite subjects are at school - then she asked A the same questions, so it was great to know I got them mostly right. A has taken up recorder playing with her class teacher learning with them and teaching them week by week.

Just a month ago I had to re apply for a card driving licence, as not having had one for ages, I found out that it is essential to have one. So I paid up my £20 and watched the video on the website showing me how to apply online ( not the most Oscar winning of films ever). Well, would you believe it, but my old work rang up to say someone had found my driving licence card and did I want it back! Today! If only I had not been so efficient at the start of Janaury with getting organised with such matters I would have £20 more in my pocket today.

Now, I have not yet seen the most recent Cycling Plus magazine. It is out in the shops about now I think it would be the March edition. Anyway, even if you have not been buying it so far apparently you have to buy this one cos it is me on the velodrome! I have not seen it yet, so if you do buy it, you could pass it on to me when you have read it. I imagine that angle they have taken is that if I can do it, anyone can, which I utterly believe with regard to most things, especially sports related. Somehow I have been kind of missing sailing lately. Maybe it is actually the sunshine and summer that I miss, and sailing is related to that. I am keen to get out there, although I think April at the earliest for me. In the meantime, we have now given up our gym membership and are striking out alone with regards to training venues and so on, I hope the triathlon pals at the gym will still invite me on their rides. But it is time to find a new pool with a deep end and a training session for swimming, plus maybe the odd go with this comedy Aqua Jogger I have bought to help me through the healing of my ankle time. H is keen to add diving to her broad range of water related past times, so with the spare cash from not being slaves to Esporta we are paying for a set of diving lessons, and A is going to do a diving taster too. She is coming on really well at her swimming lessons, after a shaky start which almost saw her demoted to the shallow end, she has held her own and seems to be listening really well and doing what the teacher says. Which is better than me in my swimming lesson this week, when I got bored and couldn't hear very well and just switched off and got out early. We were doing breast stroke and butterfly kick this week, neither interest me greatly. I did a sponsored swim on Friday night, swam non stop for one hour and managed 108 lengths, 84 of them were front crawl.

I just referred back to my blog of almost exactly 2 years ago, when 20 lengths of front crawl had me almost dead. Get me! There is progress, it just happens in creeping increments so suddenly without knowing it you can easily swim over 80 lengths front crawl, when 2 years ago a quarter of that had me gasping for breath. Now, while I was swimming R and a lady called Sophie were sat on the side as my safety cover, and this Sophie goes to Swim club and is a swimming teacher. I tried to be nonchalant when R relayed her comments regarding my swimming technique, but really I am ELATED! that she said I had a good technique and any swimming teacher would be pleased with it. Woohoo! I am not flailing helplessly anymore, I feel like an ugly duckling who turned into a swan, metophorically speaking.

I am thinking about the series of talks I am planning on the international boat flag code. I think they are a good pile of imagery and are relevant to everyday life. Take this one:

Keep clear of me. I am manoeuvring with difficulty.

Works in a car park when you have an estate car, but also relevant in life, ie when you are going through some tricky transition in your work, or just have PMT.

I also like:

I am operating astern propulsion.

Ouch.

2011-01-25T23:17:00.002Z

For a while I have been getting emails from Bon Jovi, and wondering why. Then R told me I bought him tickets a year or two back for his birthday so they probably have my details on their system. Makes sense now, I thought they were stalking me to play bass for them or something. They would be desperate, clearly.

Today, phone call (we had 3 in quick succession, clearly the phone is making a comeback)

Hello Jan, its Rod (Rod said that bit)
Hello Rod, its not Jan ( I said that bit)

The other two calls were not from Rod. Or for Jan.
I tried to embed a map on here to show you where I go on my bike rides in case you are Jon Bon Jovi and want to follow me around singing rock anthems. Although ' Here I go again on my own' ( not bon jovi, whitesnake?) would be apt for my cycling efforts. That bit in commas sounds like a cryptic crossword clue doesn't it? Anyhow, as is usual for anything technological, I failed, and so you can't see my route across Hampshire at a yelping pace behind two men much faster than me, or with more competitive testosterone oozing around them, anyway.

Swimming was fun tonight, about 1800m covered apparently. I do like my swimming club night and am sad about leaving that behind. I am meeting with a gym membership person on Monday, so maybe she will be desperate to keep me and do me a deal to stay members. It would have to be a good deal, though, but I feel I am in a strong position and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Today the sun shone, I was too hot on my bike and had to stop and take a layer off. That has not happened since about October, so I am hopeful that Spring is springing. I also saw some crocus flowers in my garden. And I remembered how lovely snowdrops are and am looking forward to seeing some soon. Anyone know any good local snowdrop gardens? Aslan is on the move!

2011-01-15T20:37:00.002Z

Today I watched Saints play, live, in the stadium, against Notts County. It was a nail biting 0-0, with Southampton much stronger and deserving to win if you look at statistics but somehow not actually making anything of their chances. I really enjoyed the experience, having not been to a football match since about 1995 when I went to see Sheffield Wed play Ipswich after winning tickets in a Debenhams staff members incentive draw. I won a bottle of whisky that year too, in a raffle at a charity where I volunteered in the office. I really enjoyed the football and would go again, should you ever need someone to take. I was fortunate today to be there with my financial advisor, who very kindly agreed to take me on his season ticket with him. Clearly I am good business for him.

I did get one of the cloth badges from Rapha, for doing the 500km of cycling. it has not come yet, but my name is on the list of about 80 people who did it. One guy did 728km, clearly not realising that you don't have to overachieve. One guy who did it was 12. I stopped cycling the moment my Garmin said 500km.

Our new shops are taking shape, as they are being rebuilt, I was amused today to see that the chief builder who has won an award is called Mr Wall. I kid you not.

I went on an inspiring course this week, about being a leader in school. I am encouraged greatly by the course. However I have so much school work to do that I have to go now to do some, else how can I lead others, if my maths marking is not up to date?

2011-01-10T21:58:00.003Z

Today was a great day for eavesdropping - the moon was over Jupiter and the stars were swooping under the sun, with a Dreamworks moon for good measure. I was in the changing room listening to two ladies who were drying their hair.

Yes we flew straight to Malo, Kuoni are the only ones who do it.
Ah yes we went to Mina.
Flew direct.
Mina was great, we went for the diving, how many hotels were there on Malo?
Hotels? No, there were 27 lodges, the whole island is just 27 feet wide and 4 feet across ( might be a bit out there, but bear with me, the hairdryers were blasting out).
Oh, on Mina there is a bar at one end where the watersports are, a bit livelier, and it takes 20 minutes to walk around the whole island.
( Cranking up now) Oh, well Malo is the size of a postage stamp and you can walk around it in 10 minutes. and you can swim out to the reef.
Clearly not the Isle of Wight then. ( that was me thinking, not them)
On Mina there is a bar in the middle and one at the end, where we went for the diving.
Of course Malo has a reef all around it.
Oh. Well, Mina has a reef that you can swim out to in just a couple of minutes, we did diving there, of course.

I left, feeling that my circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight on a bicycle would be as alien to them as almost anything else I could contribute helpfully to move them on in learning to listen and not just talk at each other. They didn't look like they wanted to learn less combative forms of communication, and frankly, they were enjoying the whole thing almost as much as the guys in the steam room a while back comparing kitchen gadgets. I am reading a book by Alistair Humphreys about riding around the world on a bike, not a camel. So far he is in Ethiopia. It is a well written travel book and I recommend it to Granny M, who likes travel and travel books.

Today I met Heidi, my new best friend, as she is a massager. Or whatever you call such a person, a sports masssager, I hasten to add. She gave me some idea and exercises that should help my knee be able to cope with running again. Basically, it is that I have too much muscle on the outside of my leg and not enough on the puny insides. So, off to the gym tomorrow to toughen up my miniscule inner knee muscle. The other option would be a transplant, I suppose.

Glory days are back at Liverpool FC, eh? When I did the Panini sticker book collecting ( approx 1983) it was the glory team which included Sammy Lee, Ian Rush and Kenny Dalglish. Now I hear KD is back as manager, with S L helping out on his days off from Macdonalds, or whatever footballers do after being part of the dream team of the 80s. We shall see. I will listen to the sports news with Johnny with more interest now my team are back in the running. I am going to watch Saints on Saturday, so will have plenty to tell you after that I am sure. Also exciting on the radio is Jack Dee pretending to be Humphrey Littleton and the Archers, with high drama of birth and death - better than Eastenders.

Yesterday we went to the uni to do the bargain swimming lessons, me and the girls, with my evangelistic ways meaning the Whitmores, Clarks, Crandons and Hannah's friend Jennifer were all represented somehow in the pool. Ang joined the improvers, and I was in the improvers improvers. We did diving, which was fun, but not much swimming, in fact after 10 lengths we had to cool down! It was a bit annoying that the teacher spent all her time with the most needy person, and I didn't feel like they helped me to improve my stroke at all, which frankly needs improving. But the whole point of it is to be guinea pigs for the student swimming teachers to work on, so I can cope. I asked if we could learn tumble turns, and the poor lady went into apoplexy about why not. Wished I had not mentioned it, but am a bit nervous to start looking like a berk, as my dad would say, and sloshing around upside down solo when the hair drying ladies are doing sedate lanes. Would have liked to try it out under tuition at the uni. Still, days at Esporta are numbered so I will soon be free to go to Bitterne Verruca Land again, and before you know it we will be begging to rejoin our posh gym and going out robbing old ladies to find the money. We are still doing well with our budgeting, writing it all down etc, however my swimming hat split so I had to spend an unexpected £6 on a new one. I have figured that we save too much ( uni fees, if required, although will do about a week at current figures) and give away too much. If we didn't give any money or save any money, then we would have tons of spare money to spend on starting smoking, or doing a triathlon every weekend, or drinking coffee at Esporta daily, or all of the above.

2011-01-06T22:43:00.002Z

R came to bed chortling the other night, after flipping back through my blog and finding some of my rants amusing. He says I don't rant enough on it these days. So I will right that wrong. I did track cycling at a velodrome a couple of days ago, while being photographed, obviously, it was exhilirating and totally fun, but exhausting and going round and round made me feel as sick as a horse on a carousel. I totally recommend it as a fun night out, not the feeling sick bit, but that's just me, I am sure most of you have stronger stomachs - remember, I spent all those Euros and all that time at Disneyland Paris just queueing up for the others to have a go. But cycling a la Chris Hoy and his mates, up a vertical wall, can't be beat. If you can ride a bike you can have a go. No rant there.

We are now the proud owners of two Brownies. A has graduated from Rainbows to Brownies, and H was very proud to be the older sister of a newbie. H is now a Sixer, of the Gnomes, and A is a Kelpie, which is what I was. Old Brownies feel to their sixes as old Etonians do to their houses. I imagine. With only 24 days left of our Esporta membership, we are using every drip of water in the place for every shower we take, and R and I squeezed in a training half hour in the pool. It was training in self restraint, as the lane swimming lane was busy, ie 6 people when we got there, and the range of velocities was so wide that it was impossible to stay behind people or not lap people. R took the racing line and ploughed up and down the middle, with me using him as a battering ram and staying behind him, apart from when a guy with a vendetta against me insisted on turning right across me and not letting me go through despite me clearly being an Olympic hopeful in training. Then, to bring out the patience of a saint, a chap got in who was so wide he took up most of the lane and took 6 of my lengths to 1.5 of his. The only patient saint tried harder was the Bitterne leisure centre ladies morning, when a lady was doing widths - widths! against everyone else's lengths. Why did she not do half lengths, I ask you? What was she thinking? Maybe she did not have her contacts in or something, lets give her the benefit of the doubt and be charitable. This Sunday our whole family is starting the bargain swimming lessons at the Jubilee Sports centre at the university. I did a couple of the adult sessions 2 years ago when I was just learning crawl, hopefully now they will be able to help me improve.

The children in my class ( 6 and 7 year olds) have been writing recounts about Christmas day, which give an interesting and frank view of life in families in 2010. Either they were all copying each other, or everyone got an Ipod touch for Christmas. I am not sure what that is, but it sounds scary that children that young either want or know what it is when I am not really sure. I think it is like a personal stereo, I had one of those when I was 12 and it was REALLY exciting to listen to tapes of the top 40 from the radio. There were some great bits of oneupmanship, where someone on a table wrote 'I woke up at 4am' and the person next to them woke up at 3am etc etc, until round to one boy who wrote ' my mum got up early with me and drank tea and coffee'. Poor woman, I bet she did, all in one cup, with a slug of brandy is she had any sense. People still seem to eat turkey dinners, although puddings were more of an ice cream variety than Christmas pud. Breakfasts were suitably bad for you, ranging from Candy canes from Santa to chocolate dougnuts, via Lemonade (cloudy). Not all in the one house, you understand. One family were at the Madisson hotel in London for Christmas and had a swim in the pool pre lunch. Their lunch still featured brocoli, so not worth going there if you don't like greens.

Our other piece of work is about the local shops, with a trip to the shops coming up soon. Today we were exploring Google maps.. and I felt like a magician opening a box of tricks, as the children gasped in admiration as I swapped from map to satellite view, and effortlessly navigated the roads of Hamble and showed them the school building and the local Coop and Tescos. Our study is about Tescos and how local shops are suffering, and we have to persuade people to shop locally. The local shops include a post office, so we have one of those as our role play area at the moment, to the great delight of the children who can't wait for their turn to pretend to be the misery guts behind the counter who does everything painstakingly slowly.

2010-12-30T23:20:00.002Z

I have another place to vent my cycling fury on the public - the Rapha Festive 500 which you can find on google, but its a bit late now as it has finished. as usual, can't say too much in case my C plus blog is compromised by world leaders etc looking here first, instead of going to the C plus one and getting convinced on the way they want to subscribe. But the bare bones of it is this.

22 Dec I find out about the Rapha 500
23 Dec I start the Rapha 500
today I finish the Rapha 500.

What is it, I hear you cry? It is a challenge, for love, not charity or any other reason, apart from that 500 of the people who do it win a badge. I have cycled 500km since 23 Dec. That is this year, not last year. I did 485km without a puncture. I cycled to and from Granny Mary's house, from our house. I cycled all over the place in Surrey and Hampshire. I did a minimum of an hour and a half of cycling every day. I cycled when it was below freezing and there was ice on the roads and I cycled through fog. I am like a modern day Forrest Gump but on a bike. I also have very tight hamstrings and quads and thighs that would make a rugby prop's eyes water they are so muscle bound. I am thinking that the England rugby team might give me a call if they need any real clout in their forward line, or whatever you call it. Probably, I haven't tested this yet, my thighs are so muscley that my jeans won't fit. I have been wearing up to 5 layers to keep warm on all this cycling business, and have had to do a lot of washing to keep myself in clean ish cycling specific clothing. I finished today and am having a day off tomorrow. I did it all on my own, I was due to have a ride buddy today for the last push but she got tonsilitis and had to pull out. It has been quite a solitary experience, lots of thinking time. R and the girls have been fabulous as a support team, encouraging me on and meeting me half way on the long trips and telling me ' you can do it mummy!'

Now, an amazing thing about the puncture. I was not far from home, about 10k as the crow flies, and was checking out a lane that I had always wondered about, it turns out that it really is a dead end with a caravan park at the end of it and nothing else. Returning along it, I went too hard and fast over a speed bump and knew I would get a puncture. Although I do know in theory how to do it, and have even done it once at home, I thought that frankly I can't be bothered, so nearly there, I will call a man who can. No sooner had I finished the call to the lovely RJB cycle repair chap who was on his way faster than the RAC, I spotted runners coming along the lane. Now, what are the chances of them being someone I know AND someone who can do punctures? Well, after the event we can safely say 100%, as it was Lucy and Kev, swimmers and cyclists extraordinaire from Esporta gang. I felt that somehow God was watching over me and sent along someone to help - as it was, I turned down their kind offer and hung around for R to turn up a while later, rather than ruin their run regime - but I felt like they were angels sent to me.

Today I have eaten chilli for tea at the home of some friends from sailing, who had an open house - yum. Yesterday I ate curry and nachos at the home of Vicky with some of the old NCT gang in Netley. I am hoping that someone will invite me around for chinese tomorrow night as I am doing so well at eating out right now. We were really spoilt over Christmas, staying with Granny M who had done lots of organised cooking and had some really good food waiting for us in the freezer, she managed to knock up amazing tasty and healthy food without any effort at all. I was also delighted to be invited over to Little Bookham for Christmas day, so my bro and Angie cooked and hosted us, ma and pa and Angie's ma and pa too. All I have done in the cooking scene for weeks is wash up and make the odd hot chocolate. Our fridge is a little depleted at the moment, having been away for Christmas and not stocked up since returning ( no need as eating out every night with delightful and generous friends) and R asked if we had any yogurts. Yes, I answered, there is one that was best eaten before Christmas eve. Perfect, he said, and ate it. He is still with us as I write.

The other night I stayed up way too late reading a book called 'Left for Dead' by Nick Ward, as sailor in the 1979 Fastnet race, which, for those of you too young to remember, was a disaster as a huge freak storm swept the fleet away and lots of people died. Well, this book is unputdownable, I think the title tells you a fair bit of the plot and I won't be spoiling it by saying he was knocked unconscious in a capsize and then was abandoned by his fellow crew when they took to the life raft, but he wasn't dead, and has written a book about how it was to be not dead on a boat in a storm. R is reading it now, so he will be up till too late too, as you can't not find out what happens - he is rescued, btw, he is not still bobbing about on a broken boat off Ireland, 30 years later.

Our Christmas family secret santa went well, the oldest 3 in the family all got swimming related presents (flippers, goggles, costumes, that kind of thing) and the youngest person got a paint your own tea set, her choice. The girls got lots of books and some money, and Granny M gave me a lawnmower! Hurrah! I will be able to mow the grass without killing myself/the lawnmower/someone else who gets in the way of the electric beast. Our current model was a dump rescue mision and is now really really broken, not just a bit broken but we will manage. So, Bosch super flyweight portable mega mower, mark 3, here I come. Granny M gave R some tri bars for his bike. I already have those but don't get much flat road time around here to use them.

2010-12-21T22:41:00.003Z

Can you tell it's the holidays - I have time to breathe, bathe and blog. I am really into watching Miranda at the moment. I have just worked out how to use i player, I thought you had to pay for it a la i tunes, but it is completely different and is just like watching tv! Anyway, i am a complete Miranda groupie and even say 'bear with' when I answer my mobile. That is a rare thing to happen, it is usually lost, charging or on silent in my bag, and when it is on and rings I am never sure quite how you answer it.

Today we went to Romsey, which was as cold and bleak as everywhere else, but we were meeting Sandra, a very lovely relation ( my dad's cousin's wife) for lunch. She bravely came to watch R and I do the Salisbury triathlon last year, which I am bravely doing again this year. R is doing the Hart one, which we did the year before. We are doing one each in early May so that the girls can come and watch, having never been before. And then we are both doing a big one in late May. I have also signed up for the New Forest Rattler, a 89mile bike ride in August, although they do do a 49 mile option if its raining or something. Sandra was a great photographer, she kept jumping out of her car at different places on the route and taking photos. She is the only person yet to come and watch us compete, triathlon is not much of a spectator sport as you only get to watch people doing the stupid bits, like running across a shingle car park barefoot, putting wet feet into dry trainers, taking off sweaty clothes and limping out and then limping back over the finish line. However, if you would be interested in getting up early on a Sunday or bank holiday Monday to either look after our children or bring them with you to watch we would like to hear from you, CRB check or no. We had a cold and slow lunch in Romsey, at That Little Tea Room, which is cold and slow. Then we did a trawl of the charity shops ( there are 7, all selling Jaeger and Hilfiger, dahling) and then a sprint round Aldi. Today I also impressed myself by going to two classes at the club, dahling, I did spin this morning with Karl (white too tight trousers, difficult to know where to look, just keep my eyes on the RPM) and then went back this evening for a swim with girls followed by Pilates with a brilliant stand in teacher called Katie. I have not done Pilates for ages and really enjoyed it. Since then, R has gone swimming ( his turn for swimming club, hence my flurry of exercise earlier) and I have watched 3 episodes of miranda, eaten two of yesterday's mince pies and finished off a bottle of wine. Yesterday we had a mince pie making fest, with 7 children in the kitchen applying jam to pastry (a genius idea of Vicky's, who figured early on that children don't like mince meat) in a manner which is more Chuckle Brothers than Nigella. Anyhow, they loved their pastry products and all went home happy customers, whilst I have been trying to get encrusted jam off the floor for all of a minute since.

R told me that a good friend of his has handmade his wife a pair of shoes out of some old bike tyres for a Christmas present. I snorted 'God I am so glad I am not married to him, can you imagine being given an old inner tube fashioned into a flip flop for Christmas?' which R did not appreciate. He said he thought it was romantic. Romantic! who wants an old tyre shoe, even the eco crazies of Bitterne Park themselves!! It takes a rare woman to sound delighted at the prospect of wearing a punctured tyre as a fashion statement, and luckily the person in question has the poise and grace to probably genuinely be delighted. Which is why she is married to her R and I am married to mine. Who gave me a Mister Blobby car sponge. Once. Only once. R had a very generous moment in the gym shop and bought me a lovely top that I have been admiring all summer, it was £40 and has finally been reduced to £10, so R bought it for me, secretly! along with a rucsac (might he be fed up of me borrowing his?) and a more sensible sports T shirt for school wear.

I have wrapped up some more presents, but am bored of wrapping now and am thinking of doing the girls' secret ones in newspaper, to be more eco friendly and because I am annoyed at the fact that we had to buy wrapping paper this year, as usually I salvage enough off other people's presents. At least my recycled cracker gift tags were handy and well used. I left A to wrap up a box. It looks like some piece of modern art, all flourishes and swags of sellotape festooned about. She bought a sweet shop for £1 and now we are all buying sweets off her, and she also bought a book called 1000 things to do which she has not got all the way through. She reckoned about 3 hours would crack it but she only got about 15 minutes focus on it today. 1000 things to do sounds like a quiet day to me.

2010-12-19T20:55:00.002Z

Having been overlooked once again for the sports personality of the year award from the BBC, I have relented to watching it from my sofa. Two women contenders, which is 20%, but that's still some way off my dream of 50%. Just watched the tribute to dead sports people, ALL of whom were men. So, either women who play sport at a high level are healthier than men, and don't die (although statistically, you would expect the rule of 50% to at least work in death, wouldn't you?) OR there are not the same number of women in sport, girls are not encouraged to take their bodies and their possiblity of sport played at a high level seriously, the financial backing for women in sport is not there and the world of sport needs me as an ambassador for females in sport. Well, a jockey and a darts player beat the heptathlete this year. I don't mind a jockey, but for heavens sake, a darts player? Even if he is the best in the world for a million years - darts is not a sport, it's a past time, and if most people who play it are tipsy there is room for improvement, just by sobering up.

My kettle. As some of you know, the Lakeland one ( version 2) developed the same fault as the first one, and the fantastic customer service people there send me a cheque for the purchase price which arrived the next day. It tooke me a while to get a new kettle, but while on the ethical superstore dot co dot uk, i found an ECO kettle which seemed to meet my criteria for eco friendly water boiling. It is not rocket science, I know, but boiling water in my kitchen comes close, after the last two disasters from Lakeland being preceeded by the disaster of the unrefined One Cup boiler. Well, this kettle is huge, you fill up the reservoir at the top, and then press a button to release the exact amount you need into the boiling chamber. So you never boil extra water, and it is really quick. In tests is shows people using it use 30% less energy, suggesting that the rest of the nation boil 30% extra, which I can understand. We will wait and see if we see any dramatic downward shift in our electricity bills, although I recently managed to reduce our bill from £82 to £58 a month ( that is gas and electric). I am sure they will just change the direct debit up again at some point. Still, maybe the kettle will keep us down there on a low monthy bill.

The competition we were part of through H at school has finished. We got a mention in the final report as we reduced our electricty consumption by 40% from the baseline week, but the team that won was from another school ( Thornhill) - the Whitmores got a special mention too for their reduction. One night we rang them and they were sitting in the dark, with candle light only. So H made us turn the lights off too.

School has also finished here. We are exhausted and relieved. My work do was at Botleigh Grange Hotel, and as social secretary, I was relieved to be taking people's compliments, not complaints, about the evening. I recommend it as a venue for anything, if I was getting married I would do it there, and we have been to a few of R's proms there. There was lots of tasty food, a nice classic disco that keeps all types happy - Bon Jovi to Cheryl Cole, you know the thing. And, dodgems! What fun! My pre evening out preparation had included an osteopath appointment and 10 minutes in Fareham buying a dress and accessories ( tried one on, bought it, kind shop assistant ran around finding necklace and ear rings). The osteopath had actually poked needles in my neck, ankle, knee and thigh ( I really am falling apart, due a lifetime achievement award not just sports personality of the year). The osteopath suggested that high heels and dodgems might not be the best post treatment option. Maybe she was right. Still struggling with sore ankle, thigh, knee and neck, in various combinations, all on left side, and the training slumped - what with icy roads, freezing temperatures and too much work, my training is not what it was. But I feel fine about that, I am not beating myself up, just admitting that December is a month for hibernating.

We had our messy Christmas church today. We made reindeer poo for pudding, and had an amazing story from the most brilliant godly player on our team, Libby. R and Ang cooked a full roast for 35 mouths to eat. There was nothing bad about it, I am enjoying our messy church a lot now, the girls adore it and the children are involved in the planning process - a different child over about 8 goes along to the monthly planning meetings, with a standing committee of 3 adults, and sometimes a swap in of another adult, so lots of people involved in the planning and have ownership of the whole thing. So, there is an idea for your church - get the children on the planning committee. A played the first two lines of Silent Night on her harmonica, which she got really worked up about, but she was fine, it looks really tricky to me, I am sure I would get it all wrong, sucking and blowing the wrong way round, she did really well and I was impressed, even if she got upset that she couldn't do line three.

I have finished reading A Christmas Carol. What wonderful prose, and such a moral tale. Really enjoyed it. Have also finished the most recent Mr Gum - Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree. Luckily for me, Lib is a big fan and actually spends money on buying books, so I get to borrow them from her. Which is better than the library, in that she has all the Mr Gum books. Talking of libraries, I have nominated one of the library ladies in Thornhill for a customer service award, again. There are two ladies in Thornhill library, chalk and cheese are closer relations than they are in terms of their ideas on customer service.

Next time I write it will be to report back on the panto at Ferneham hall, Fareham. It's Aladdin this year. I know I always tell you after it, and you miss out, so I am telling you now, so you still have a chance of getting tickets. I was delighted to find that my wonderful colleague Marie, my LSA who seriously is worth her weight in gold, also goes every year to the panto at Fareham. Thus proving my theory that all the best people to to Fareham for panto.

I found out a few weeks back that some people don't like musicals. Can you believe it - two of these weird types I count as friends. What's not to like about the genre of muscials? I bet they don't like panto either. I love both. I honestly can't see what you wouldn't like about musical theatre. All that energy and colour and sound and excitement. You don't get that at The Mousetrap do you? You do at Aladdin! It had better not let me down this year - at least I know all the jokes.

2010-12-06T20:08:00.002Z

A letter came home from Rainbows tonight inviting us to come along next week to the Christmas sing a long, with home made mice pies being served. Sometimes, it pays to be a vegetarian. We often get letters from the school liaison person who runs a coffee morning once a month. They go like this:

Want to socialise and meet new people? ( why yes, I am an E)
Got piles of paperwork you need to get on top of? ( oh yes, despite being a J I have years worth of payslips etc that need filing properly, if you are offering)
Need help with benefits? ( ah, I see where you are going now. No, I just got a pay rise! Can you believe it!)

Another written offer which I find sweet but actually not very helpful is when you take cash out of a ATM and it says on the screen ' Would you like an advice slip?' I always think ' Why yes, what advice can you offer? How to hang clothes up so they don't need ironing? How to light a fire without any dry kindling? But when I do ask for an advice slip, it doesn't actually give me any advice on anything. It just tells me my bank balance ( no idea) and how much I just took out ( know that cos I have it in my hand).

Still, I live in hope. Yesterday I did a run for an hour, it was a slow run, but I kept going and managed 5.5 miles, which is fairly lousy pace but apparently the idea at the moment during the winter is to do everything slowly and keep my heart rate down. Then, apparently, I will reap the benefits come the spring when I am faster and fitter. We shall see.

Saturday, R and I were in the wonderful setting of the crypt of St Paul's for the Godly Play annual lecture. It was a lecture in the morning, but interesting, because it was about children's spirituality and given by Rebecca Nye. Then, the afternoon workshops, I went to a godly play of a new story and it was wonderful to be done to, rather than the do er, as it were, of godly play. Then for the closing worship we had the holy Family story godly play, and then we had time to sneak a peek at the main floor of the cathedral for free. Wow. What a building - you have to see it, incredible, beautiful, not be be missed.

As our lovely friend Elise is now living near St Pauls, we went back to her hall of residence for a cup of tea and a reminder of just how old we are and how glad we are not to be living in halls. Goodness, I could not do that again, I so admire Elise being so dedicated to becoming a doctor that she is cool living in a hall again. Brought back lots of memories, mainly of manky kitchen worktops and no milk in the fridge. And Nell, my next door neighbour in hall who had a mohican hair do and a lot of piercings, and a smell coming from her room which convinced the rest of us that she never had a bath. Now, I know my room mates have baths because I am their mother and wife and can legitimately check up on their personal hygiene.

We had the piste to ourselves on Friday, with day 2 of the snow and time off school meaning a later start for the sledgers, so it was just us 4 on the slopes at 9.30am. 4 snowboarders turned up, they can really get up a decent run down by being able to steer, whereas on the sledges ( we now have 2) steering is a bit limited. A described the experience as 'romantic'. Which was apt. She has a great word for dessicated coconut - she calls it disintegrated coconut, which works too. Amazingly, I went to the dodgy local shop ( Esgros) and they had two things I wanted to buy, dessicated coconut and baking powder. They must have been clapping their hands - hooray, someone has bought the two products that have been on the shelves since we opened. How many people in Thornhill buy baking powder? One, clearly. Actually, at my bus user group meeting on Wednesday I was speaking with Trixie about how much nicer Thornhill is since we moved in - not because we moved in, clearly, but just that the regeneration is working and it is just safer and better as a community. Or maybe it is because we moved in - the gentrification of the area, baking powder users are all creeping in at the edges. Before we know it we'll have sewing machine users and all sorts of low lifes.

The bus user group - I know, I hardly ever go on the bus, but I am on the group for historical reasons, and it is very little commitment being the secretary of a group that meets 4 times a year. The impact of our work is, I hope, great for the people in our area who most need public transport, and who are most powerless. And for very little effort on my part. I got the giggles, last time, cos one person reported that a lady who lives on a cul de sac needs the buses to go nearer her house. Maybe she could move on to a main road? It is funny how people expect bus companies to trail up and down all the streets on the estate on the off chance that someone wants to go somewhere.

2010-11-20T09:21:00.002Z

Forgot to tell you about the moon. A looked up at a perfect crescent moon and said 'Look, a Dreamworks moon.' A beautiful moment. H has just gone off in a flurry to her first event, a charity Duathlon at the gym. She looked great, in her Tristars bright yellow cycling top, she is really chuffed to be a Tristar, and seems to enjoy the training sessions. Possibly because they involve a lot of chatting with other girls, and lengthy showers after the swimming. She read in their club book that after a Triathlon you should eat chocolate, not that she needs any convincing, so R was depatched with a Time Out bar to help her recover from it. It is 5 lengths of the pool and a 500m run, after all...

2010-11-19T22:39:00.002Z

More wet and wild bike riding, but all a bit subdued now as the dreaded Autumn cold has descended on the Bowens. It is a occupational hazard of spending your days with 6 year olds who snot everywhere and breathe on you. H was ill last week and had a day off work and spent with Nurse Granny, and then this week she was away on her school trip all week. On Tuesday A was way too hot ( I even used a thermometer on her to check - get me!) and she was despatched for two days with Nurse Nightingale in Claygate. So we had two nights with no children in the house. A weird thing. All back now, all sneezing together, lots of congestion but happy to have everyone home again. H didn't seem to be as full of the trip as she was last year, but maybe that was because she went last year so knew the deal.

I am really pleased with how things are going at work at the moment, lots of initiatives taking off, including an enormous mission on my part to encourage outdoor learning, after showing an interest I seem to be the environment and outdoor learning designated person, judging by the paperwork that appears in my pigeon hole. Had a great conversation with another teacher about the siting of a compost bin, the suggestion was for about 200m away from the school building, because of the smell. That is serious compost - they must be thinking manure! Our home compost bin is about 10m max, from our back door, and it doesn't stop me going out in the garden. Seems to me that putting the compost heap miles away and not letting children take the refuse to it is setting it up to fail - unless there is a very keen teacher who wants to take a daily jog across the field with a pail. And what do you do with the remote compost when its ready? Lug it back again? I may set myself up in business as a school composting consultant. If there was any hope of a job in that line, hardly any jobs for teachers, there are rumours that Early years is being scrapped - I assume that means that children won't start school until year 1, so all year R teachers are out of a job, to save money. I DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE NUTTERS IN CHARGE !!!! Sorry, did that come out loud? Whichever way you look at it, every woman and child in this country is in for a raw deal under this government, and a lot of the men too. We had a pension man in to school to tell us what to do, essentially, die at 64 seems the best option to save any trouble. And don't even think of going to uni, kids! Grrrr. I am feeling militant enough to go on a march. I see the TUC are organising one, for March! Nothing like striking while the iron is hot. Still, gives me time to make my banner. March in March will be my motto.

H is still doing this environment saving competition with school, which involves taking daily meter readings of our gas and electric consumption. It is quite interesting, once you get started, to try to beat yesterday's score and spend less. We are all wearing more jumpers and R is charging his mobile at school to use their electricity, which I think is not really in the spirit of the competition, but is saving us a few pence. As our effort for Nutty November ( see Southampton Vineyard church for more info) we are writing down every penny we spend this month, to see where all the money goes, and then next month we can try to alter our habits. Well, we already are, just by writing it down, it makes you stop before doing things. Like buying a newspaper. No point. All doom and gloom and ends up being covered in paint at school and thrown away.

Goodness, the Sudafed is making me sound miserable. I am actually really happy with my work and generally with my family and life, honest. Just fed up with the state of our society where the poor and most needy are most marginalised. Maybe spending more time praying is the answer.

2010-11-11T21:38:00.003Z

I heard yesterday that there was a bomb found a week or so ago on a plane, and no one had told me. Also, planes in the news for having bits of engine fall off them. Better to go by P and O ferries, that's what I always say.

Today I nearly got swept into the sea on my way to work, despite being half a mile north of it at all times, it was so windy i thought I might take off and was glad I had chosen my heavier bike to keep me grounded. It was an onshore wind, actually, to be nautically precise, and no chance of getting swept off the shore, but nearly could have made it to Basingstoke if I had been swept off my bike going inland. I was soaked, like something that lives in a sewer that I hate so much I can not say the name, only that it rhymes with cat. It would have been great weather to test out R's theory lesson on launching with an onshore breeze, which he recently had to teach to his fellow students on the sailing course he is doing at the moment. This weekend is the last one, so maybe some wind will liven things up a bit, as so far the conditions under the Itchen bridge have been calm to boring. R is going to be a fully battened dinghy instructor soon, and will take his first aid qualification and cat endorsement certificates in the spring so he can do the cat training for the youth at the sailing club, plus work as a sailing instructor in his spare time/retirement, were he to live that long. Talking of dying, two recent conversations with friends who feel that their jobs are at risk in these Thatcher's child in charge times, both decided that undertaking was the way to go to be sure of work. I suggested that chaplain at a crematorium, and registrar are less physically demanding jobs but also benefit from the winter boom in business. The rest of my family were talking about getting a hamster. I said they could get one when I was dead. I then thought it was funny to think that I might live to be 80 and R might outlive me, if he is not missing at sea, presumed dead before then, and the day after my death he could go out and buy a hamster. An 81 year old man, denied a hamster all his days. He did have several in his childhood and we had one when we got married, but I count them as fluffy *ats and can't bear them. Urgh.

My coach, Joe Beer ( look him up on line - he really knows what he is doing!) says its ok to put on a few pounds for the winter, an insulating layer. I ate two doughnuts and two toasted tea cakes today to follow his instructions to the letter. He suggestst that this is the time of year to book into events next year, so far i have found a 10k at Exbury Gardens if anyone wants to do it with me?

Every week I pass two amusing signs on the way to Sialou's. There is a pub which has a sign up advertising its 'Large Rear'. then, nearby, a takeaway called Chunky Chips. But they have done this thing with the C being big and on two lines, so you don't see the C and read it as Hunky Hips. Which I don't think is a good advert for a takeaway - ie eat here and leave with hunky hips! Chunky hips even worse I suppose.

Swimming was good this week, I had not been for a fortnight. Breaking news - we have given in our notice to quit our gym at the end of January. Yes, our lovely secret hideaway. We realised that with me doing my cycling thing, R doing more running and sailing, and neither of us having time for tennis, we were essentially paying a lot of money for a swimming pool at the moment. I never get time to get to any classes as any exercise time is taken up outside. So whereas a year ago, I would play tennis two or three times a week plus a class and a couple of swims, now it is swim club and maybe once a week with the girls. So, we are going to depart. With H doing her tri club she gets swimming training twice a week through that, so we are going to investigate some lessons for A to get a bit more style in her swimming, as she can get from one end to the other, but not by any stroke an Olympic committee would recognise.

2010-10-31T23:01:00.003Z

Goodness. disneyland Paris. Goodness me. I am at a loss as to where to start, plus I am reading a book by a pastor called Will Bowen about not complaining, so this might be short. If I just write single word sentences, they are not complaints, are they? Hmm, he says if you have to ask, 'is it a complaint?' it probably is. In the book, apparently, my prosperity will increase as I stop complaining, as people will offer me things for free that other complainy people have to pay for. So I am looking forward to Walt Disney himself welcoming me back for free and reimbursing me the 400 Euros I spent to spend two day queueing up to go on fairground rides. The pricing policy makes Claygate flower show fair look cheap. You could spend over an hour queuing for some ride, almost none of them any better than the ones at Paultons. For £100 less, I could have bought our family season tickets for a year of Paultons. and had change for a couple of cups of tea to save R lugging around a flask (one of his least favourite things to do). There are less rides at Disneyland Paris than at Paultons Park. And with Peppa Pig world set to open at Easter 2011, no one with any sense would cross the channel ever again. Now, having written all that, I need to encode it so that I am not faced with a lawsuit from Disney. So, lets call it Frisbeeland Paris instead and re read it swapping all the D words for F words. Not the F word, clearly. It's not that bad.

Good things about France -of which there are lots. The roads - less full than in England. Arras. We stopped for lunch and had a look around, having stayed in the Balladins there en route to Switzerland in February, and only having seen the ring road in the dark. It is a pretty town and the area is worthy of more investigation. Autumn colours on the trees as pretty as in England. Mobile home had unlimited electricity so we managed to keep warm inside although R had a cold nose all week. Supermarkets - Auchan! sounds like a sneeze, is a shop. I like shopping in other countries. Paris - we looked at the Eiffel tower but did not go up (queues too long - had already paid for the experience of standing in a queue for almost all of the day before), walked along the river, and spend a couple of hours in our favourite area of the whole of Paris, La Defense. We went there on our honeymoon, and visited again 3 years later when we accidentally didn't move house when we were going to and booked a holiday to fill in the gap when we wouldn't be moving after all. It is a beauitful area of modern buildings and modern art, and a free museum charting its history with lots of architect's models to look at. Well done France.

We went in the cheap seats, with the Sun 'Holiday for £10!!!' offer, back in January I collected the tokens, and booked the accomodation, at La Chene Gris, a campsite 20km from frisbee land. it's not quite as good as it sounds, the £10 bit, as the 'foreign' destinations are £15 a head, plus I paid the £10 extra each option to guarantee a channel crossing after 7am and before 9pm. Our outward crossing was at 7.30 am, so we spent a night in a Travelodge in Margate ( £19 Supersaver rate, booked in February!). After A threw up on the ferry and both H and I spent out time with our heads in our laps, with eyes shut, we vowed that we would always always go by tunnel in future. The sea was really calm. On the way back it was more wavy, but we found the kids lounge and watched the jungle Book, the perfect Disney film to round off our Disney fix. The girls have been saving up their pasta reward system for 3 jars to get the trip to Disney. We have stopped doing the pasta jar, now it has been patented, appeared on Dragon's Den and Suppernanny and everyone on Netmums is doing it. Our focus for it for over 2 years has been to foster more loving and cooperative interactions between the girls, and they have changed into more loving and cooperative creatures. A had birthday money to spend burning a hole in her purse today at Itchen Valley (new play park great for girls and older age groups) and she bought H an item for £3.50, the same amount she spent on herself. Out of freewill, not with her arm in a chinese burn from older sis. At Frisbee land, they had spending money and cooperated to buy two items between them that they both wanted but which was a compromise on what they really wanted individually. Hurrah. I am not saying we have conquered sibling rivalry, found the great elixir and neither of them ever spouts' but you love her more than me' but things are better than they were.

It was interesting to try to guess the nationality of the families at Disneyland. French people smoke a lot more than English people do. If an overweight man with tubby children wearing a comdey T shirt was pushing a buggy towards you, chances are he was English or Welsh. Dutch men are all incredibly tall, and there are not many of them, but more that there are Germans, clearly the Germans are boycotting France/Disney - or maybe its not that sinister and they don't have half terms. Saw one Irish car. Clearly the Irish are not stupid enough to spend their hard earned euros on platic tat and queueing up. The car stock on a P and O ferry is of a different style to that on the Channel tunnel. Travelling by tunnel, everyone has a 'Posh and Betts' style Landrover or Mercedes or BMW. Travelling by P and O, everyone has a lorry or a Leger holidays coach.

Spending time with a mixture of Europeans, I was struck by how similar we are, not by how different we are. Sometimes the comedy T shirt man spoke in a language that I didn't understand, which means that the French are watching repeats of Little Britain and dressing up as characters from it for comedy effect. The odd Brit could be spotted with a bumbag, or in smarter attire than baggy tracksuit bottoms and a T shirt. Barbour is fashionable on the continent. Everyone's children love having their photo taken with a character from a film.

I found the photo taking really weird. People take photos or video of everything their children do. They don't have time to talk to their children because they are videoing them all the time. I was tempted to fish my phone out this afternoon as the girls walked across a narrow branch over a ditch, but only for the £250 from 'you've been framed' that might be coming my way, and actually, I don't think my phone does video. The girls got into the swing of the photo thing, and have had their photo taken with Minnie, with a gold carriage, with a playing card (what was that all about?). I spotted one child in a queue having her photo taken next to a sign about Dumbo. People took photos of everything. What do they do with all this evidence? If they started watching them now and never stopped they would die before the slide show came back round again.

After getting home late on Friday, we had a bright start on Saturday as I and the girls were off to Winchester to meet Nick Butterworth and Jacqueline Wilson, real people, authors who we admire who wrote books we enjoy in our family. I was excited about going by train, we drove to Hedge End and then its just 15 minutes to Winchester. We queued for 45 minutes for H's friend to get her book signed and photo taken with J W, and I took a photo of the girls standing next to Percy the Park Keeper, as the Disney habits die hard, queueing and photo opportunities with characters being the hardest to break.

A's constant question all week was 'is it real?' a philosophical question indeed, and hard to answer in a weird world where everything, even the trees, are plastic. Another philosophical gem from A was 'When does a rectangle become a straight line and not a rectangle?' That led to a lengthy discussion, the short answer from R was 'it depends how thick your pen is'. It was A's 7th birthday while we were away, we did a 12 hour day, most of it at the Disney Studios Park, which I rate much much higher than the standard park. Some really good events to watch, including a car stunt show which is fascinating, and that park left me impressed with the ingenuity and artistic capability of the people who make films and invent characters and do animation. If you are going (and after reading my review here, you probably won't) and have one day, spend it at the Studios park. A is always on holiday on her birthday (you may look back through the archives for proof) which means she gets multiple birthdays. So far she has had 4 singings and candle blowings, 2 in France, 1 with one granny and 1 with the other granny and pop. Bless her, last weekend things were a bit manic, with R on a power boat course all weekend and me trying to pack, clean (have to leave it clean for the burgers) and do a trillion other things, A took it upon herself to bake her own birthday cake. A lemon cake. Yum. Then there was the brownie cake bought in Auchan! and consumed at 10.30pm on her actual birthday. Then the M and S cake at Granny M's, which we didn't eat, just did the candle thing, then same cake, different day, different granny, consumed at last. And still, a party next Sunday with a few friends. How good to be 7. She has a plan for baking a chocolate cake for that one. Granny M rustled up a great spree at short notice, when we observed that our return journey around the M25 from Dover would mean passing junction 10 at tea time. We had Eton Mess, and a heard it, obviously as 'Eaten Mess'. she thought that sounded gross, a euphemism for sick.

Granny and Pop met us in Winchester, and are spending two nights with us which is great. Then we have posh London friends staying next weekend, the spare room is catching on and you will need to book via our online system soon. They are not really posh, I just put that to make Chris laugh. I hope he did.

So, after a whole week off from training, I am thrilled to be getting back out on the bike tomorrow, excited about going for a run and pleased that its swimming club on Tuesday.

And if you gave me the choice of Blackgang Chine or Disneyland Paris, and you were paying, and knowing how much I hate Blackgang Chine - you know what? It would be the Isle of Wight that won. Happy days, and Florida never was on my list of places to go before I am 80. I knew I was not Disney's market. I couldn't bear Legoland, and knew it would be like that but worse. I did have a great day on Thursday, honest, and we had a lovely lovely time just being somewhere different and being all together as a family, but it was like being a non believer at a religious shrine. Do go ahead and worship all that is fake and plastic and pretend, but I will not be leading the way.

2010-10-09T18:24:00.003Z

Today was perfect sailing conditions for me. When I got to the sailing club after an hour on the bike, I expected that R would be getting the boat out (in fact, I assumed it would be rigged and on the beach for me, but it wasn't - clearly I am not paying enough). R had in fact fixed up for someone else to borrow our rudders, and take me out on their bigger and boat. It was great, and I 'crewed' ie fiddled with the gib from time to time. We had a great sail, there was a fair bit of wind a bit further out, and lots of yachts, and we got up on one hull leaning off the side, and at one point nearly vertical. We were really zooming and I loved it. Coming back was a bit slower but still fun. I really loved it and was smiling from ear to ear. I had already done a triathlon in training, not all at once, but swam and then ran this morning, found a new piece of countryside to run in ( the path across the golf club has been eradicated by the new building site for the rose bowl improvements. Any way, this new piece of countryside is behind Burger King at Hedge End and is nice running terrain. I did an hour on my bike after lunch, out along Allington Lane and then back through Horton Heath ( did you know that was the surname of Horton hears a who? character). Then down to Boorley Green and back through Hedge End and over the motorway to Bursledon. In case you are my stalker. I tried a new technique for traing, of using the Garmin beeper to alert me when my heart rate went over zone 1, which seems to be 131 bpm. It was really good to stay with a low heart beat, and my average time wasnt any lower than it would have been if I had pushed harder more often. Which was interesting, and I will tell my new triathlon coach, Joe Beer, about that finding. He says we are to get more things wrong than right. I certainly achieve that, in last two events, I forgot my goggles and did 2 extra lengths, and then last Sunday on the sportive I took a wrong turn and did an extra 7 miles to refind the route. I think I am the perfect person to take that kind of advice.

I like Fair Oak and Horton Heath for cycling cos there are some great road names, like Pilchard Avenue and Dumpers Drove. Nowhere is better than Butlocks Heath, though, I was tempted myself to change the l to a t and add a l before the other t, to change it to Buttocks Health. Someone else has beaten me to it on the first part of that plan, if one of you would go and put the l in one night I would be grateful.

2010-10-06T20:50:00.002Z

After a really really wet and windy bike ride on Sunday, when I missed a signpost and did an extra 7 miles - made it 72 insted of 65 which was the intention, I have spent a couple of days resting. That is two events in a row where I have accidentally done 10% extra exercise. What is going on with me.

I am reading Ellen Macarthur's book - she went several thousand miles further than she needed to didn't she? I am finding it an amazing and exciting read, she puts my sailing skills to shame, I can just about tack with one sail, she had about six to reef and put up and down, on a boat 4 times as long and on her own among icebergs. I am also reading A Generous Orthodoxy, which I have read before, it is an interesting and fairly easy read for a dense Christian book ( not that I am suggesting the author is a dense Christian).

My life seems to be lurching, in some kind of rhythm, between doing family/exercise/cleaning/fun stuff and WORK. Which is all consuming on the days I do it. I have so much paperwork and stuff to catch up on that I found myself chivvying the children out of the door thinking ' right, now I can get the work done' which is stupid, they are the work, all the other stuff is just stuff - but sadly there is a lot of it. Bits of paper to fill in and give to a variety of people. What happened to 'Let Teachers Teach?' all I seem to do is fill in forms. I hope it is the time of year and it will all get done so I can concentrate on teaching and learning and not bits of paper.

2010-10-02T21:19:00.002Z

Today we took the Lashes sailing, it was mild weather and wind, so I taught Steve all I know ( took about 5 minutes) then we took Abigail out while R and Jonah tried to catch us on the Topper, then R took Victoria out. They all loved it. I am reading Ellen Macarthur's autobiography at the moment. Wow. I fell off my bike today, only my hybrid and on grass and mud, but still enough to feel a bit sore. H is loving her tri club training on Saturday afternoons, she did a mini duathlon today. Not saying much today as off to bed before a big bike ride tomorrow, got to get the sleep in for some healing and rest.

2010-09-03T07:26:00.003Z

Why didn't anyone tell me about Les Miserables? We went to see it last night, I bought the tickets for R's birthday, which was also yesterday, nice touch eh? We were in the rear circle, which is significantly further away than the front of the circle, still could make out the people on the stage. I deliberately hid my mobile in the car, as it is new, I have not found a quick way of putting it on silent so thought I would play safe and leave it about 500m away. I do now have a few friends, but after losing my phone which I had not backed up, Matthew, I really don't have many contacts and rely on people texting or calling me to get their numbers. Still, it's nice to start with a clean sheet and not have some of those people in your list who you don't remember who they are or why you have their number. Anyhow, we had a pleasant and reasonably priced meal in the Slug and Lettuce, and then went to join the aged of Hampshire to watch Les Mis.

Goodness. The singing is amazing, the whole thing is in song, it is a dreadful tragedy with not enough resolution for me. When it finished, I thought they needed to do another act to resolve the huge dangling French revolution that had not been resolved. Still, a tangled love story and a fascinating message about grace, forgiveness and mercy. I was emotionally wrung out after it, exhausting, not a light hearted evening out. It was a bit gloomy on the stage at all times, and didn't really have the song and dance routines that most musicals have. A very different beast to Chicago, for example, watched on my birthday earlier this year. Still, I liked it! Very thought provoking, especially the priest at the start who offers such tangible mercy and gives a man down on his luck a chance to redeem his life. The whole thing is about how our actions affect ourselves and others and how unforgiveness can mess you up.

Other points to note from R's birthday. We went to the Blue Reef aquarium in Southsea. On the way there in the car we saw a sign threatening delays into Portsmouth, so we decided to drive to Gosport, park and get the ferry, which we have never done before and which was a pleasant way to travel. I have been to Gosport a few times, once for a Chinese meal which was excellent. However, I had forgotten how much of a navy impact there is there - the whole place is a naval base, with a few shops inbetween. If I was an international nuclear superpower with a point to make against the UK or NATO or someone I would have a few guns trained on Gosport. People put Gosport down, as an inbred peninsula with no escape. Which might explain why the people look like they don't get out much. the tatooed anchors on the legs told a tale, and that was just the women. That's true. Anyway, the strapline for the Gosport ferry is 'Its shorter by water.' I would have thought 'Portsmouth is over there and marginally nicer' would work just as well.

We walked to the aquarium via Southsea, it was miles and we got the bus back. We really enjoyed the aquarium, it is a really well put together collection and very educational as well as entertaining. If you haven't been, it comes with 4 stars and would be a perfect diversion on a rainy day in Portsmouth.

got to go to work now.

2010-09-01T21:37:00.002Z

I tried to give you a link here to my cycling plus blog in case you wanted to look at pictures of me changing a inner tube, but I have failed to, so just type me into google and it's the first thing that comes up. Changing a tyre is a big effort and it was my first one, and it was really hard cos I am not strong enough to get the pump to get up to required 120psi pressure, so R had to bounce up and down on it to comedy effect.

I have done three weeks in a row at Swim club. Despite being in the lowest of 4 lanes, and being the slowest person in it, I am getting stronger and can feel the difference it is making, esp with kicking. Last night I swallowed half the pool, there are a couple of charming but splashy men in my lane, and we were doing back stroke, so got nearly knocked out as well as drowning.

Paultons Park found the car key and R went and got it today. He also got the repaired trampoline for the boat, washed the car, went to Bitterne market for fruit and for the girls to buy him comedy birthday present in the 99p shop, bought and posted a parcel for an 11 year old second cousin, washed the cushion covers on the sofa and cooked tea. And took the library books back.

My plan is for him to look forward to getting back to work for a rest. I spent the day of sunshine indoors, working on school related things all day, plans and so on, and I am going in on Friday to sort the classroom out, with my partner, and both of us bringing two children. It is a complete pigsty because the builders have been replacing the whole heating system, everything is a mess so really looking forward to that. It is clearly back to nrmal life now its September, I had three friends pop round (all for bike related errands, clearly more for R than me). If he went into business now as a bike mechanic he could be run off his feet by next week, he has a constant stream of people wanting things done to their bikes.

Tonight was the bus user group, which I am secretary of, despite being a fraud and never using buses. We had a host of the great and good from the bus world of Southampton, and just me and Trixie representing the bus using community of Thornhill. Come on, step up on the platform and be counted, bus users of Southampton. Next meeting, 1 Dec, 6pm at the Natterbox. Tell your friends. We have been analysed by a phd student from Middlesex, and he came along tonight to interview Trixie and I after the meeting - plus we had a sub meeting to discuss our logo and future of our group. How thrilling, there are only two of us!

It was Dippy's birthday today, I missed the celebrations due to aforementioned BUG, but A had made lemonade using a Victorian recipe found on the BBC website. Dippy is the dinosaur who went on holiday and came back and has a bag and a house and everything he could need for a happy life. He is 3 in dino years, 2 in human years.

Yesterday we came back from Greenbelt, having lived through our fourth festival camping experience, with weather of all varieties to test even the most seasoned campers, rain, wind and frost being the most severe aspects - a double rainbow and sunshine being a bit more cheery. We took a whole heap of people with us this year, and did communal cooking and camped together, an experiment in community living to remind us why we don't all live in one big house in the country. Most of our housegroup were there, plus the delightful Lennard family, who were a big hit with the younger children, as they didn't mind chasing and tickling and listening to awful jokes. The consensus seems to be that Greenbelt was a hit, and the Crandons are booking their place for next year, having missed out this year. R and his band have been asked back, and I have been easily persuaded to rejoin the volunteer team to help make the kidswork better, so I guess we are booked up next August bank holiday. I went along to a few workshop/worship things, a Taize hour which was moving but a bit chilly on the bum, and a great worship session with the Salesians ( Roman Catholic young people on a mission). I found out that I still am an ENFJ personality type, watched a awesome performance from a band who play bass and harmonica at the same time, laughed at the stand up comedy night and tried to persuade the liberal progressive radical chap that he should move to inner city Gloucester. He wasn't persuadable, and I was left wondering what that was all about? R went to watch some bands that I have no interest in, played guitar and sang for lots of children and spent a lot of time lying down with Paul, talking. I and A learned to illustrate a book and decorated sticks.

I snuck off on my bike and did 30 miles on Saturday up and down some hilly hills, to Stroud and back to Cheltenham. More of that on my biking blog, but Stroud is an interesting place - I only got as far as the jazz cafe where I ate organic plum slice and read leaflets about all kinds of alternative healing and so on - it clearly is a hippie hang out which would have some Christians casting demons out of it and shooing them down the main street before you can say Downward Dog. They have a worship service for people of no religion who want to identify with spiritual practice and come together to worship without calling it that. An intriguing place. Nearby is a village called Slad, which I want to live in for the great name.

2010-08-25T19:38:00.002Z

A's quote of the day was:
I thought this was going to be the best day of my life. But it has become the worst.
Hmm. Well, I'll start at the very beginning, with sarnies made and wet weather gear on, nothing was going to stop us enjoying the day at Paulton's Park we had booked 6 months ago, paying just a tenner each for coach travel and entry - thus making a saving of about £30 on the day cost if we had gone in a car as a family. We never pay full price at PP, but this was the most expensive trip yet. Just had a chocolate to munch, excuse me. They are building a Peppa Pig land at Paultons, just in time for Duncan's children to be at perfect age for enjoying Paultons. So, it'll be PP at PP for Dunc and Em next summer, no trips to Tank Land or Nuke World, shame.

Anyway, after arriving and getting Sandra's number in case of emergencies and her instruction to be back to leave at 4.30 ( Sandra runs the trips and most of Thornhill community generally, we've been going to these trips for ever), we and the Clarks trotted off to enjoy the rides and amenities of the fabulously clean and neat and friendly Paultons Park, which is half the price and twice as good as Legoland, if you ask me. That's not what Legoland say, but do you trust their marketing men?

All went swimmingly well, literally, as the rain came down and I began to regret not coming in wetsuits, they would have been perfect for the conditions. Lunch, more rides, dinosaurs and other such trifles, and by about 3 everyone was flagging and needed a hot chocolate and a sit down in the warm to keep us going for the last hour. We got out to the coach park at 4.22, to the sight of both our coaches departing! Despite my recent running training, I couldn't catch up, and desperately rang and rang Sandra's phone with no answer. By now the rain was heavier and we were all feeling a little wobbly and desperate, R rang for a taxi and finally at 4.36 I got through to Sandra - who on seeing my name on her phone had realised her horrible mistake. They were coming back for us. Hurrah! Meanwhile going through my mind was 'What have I ever done to offend Sandra this much?' She was grovellingly apologetic, and the other coach had forgotten two people too, so they were glad to get on our bus home. We got back to Thornhill at about 6pm, when R realised our car key had gone missing, and as our car was at one end of the estate and our house at the other, friends took pity on us and ferried us home in their cars, and R back to pick up our car, all in monsoon conditions. Could things get any worse? The girls had a bath and watched Mary Poppins and ate their favourite chicken bacon and sweetcorn pie for tea. I popped to Sainsburys and filled the car up with diesel.

But it's ok, our car is a diesel! So, whatever the third thing is that should happen now to show that things happen in threes, I am about to lie down and turn out the lights. I am glad I didn't read my horror scope about today. If I had I would not have got up.

There are advantages to going to PP in the rain. You don't have to queue for anything, and can sit on rides and go round again and again. There are almost no people. Just make sure you have your own independent means of getting home.

2010-08-20T12:03:00.002Z

This is a genuine conversation between 2 males in a steam room yesterday, clearly trying to win the alpha male crown in that particular steam room. I have not made this up, honest.

A: We are really enjoying the ice maker feature on our freezer. How much can you get out of it at one go? We've never tried to empty it all at once.
B: Well, ours has a bigger bucket than yours, we just open up the basket below and fill it, but then ours had a bigger bucket than yours. Did you treat yourselves to a new built in microwave?
A: No, moved the one we had.
B: Oh, so the counter looks bigger, yeah. Maybe you'll get a built in like ours?
Pause
B: Bet you enjoyed using our toaster! You haven't got one, have you?
A: No ( clearly losing out here, so far nil point on any kitchen gadget) We are wondering whether to replace with a two er or a four er - but now the kids are not around so much, we don't really use one... then, if people come round, you do toast....
B: We have a fourer ( course you do you win at everything don't you? eh?)

( I was desperate to interject on behalf of A that he would buy a sixer and raise him two.

So ladies, now you know what men talk about when you are not there. Gadgets, even kitchen gadgets are fair game and they will out gadget each other until there is a winner.

Our spare room is nearly ready for habitation, having spent Tue and Wed decorating and putting down carpet, it has paint, carpet, one curtain, nearly the other one but its a bit tricky measuring and I need some help and underbed storage boxes for all the Godly play stuff to live in. The room looks so nice, we would swap it and move in, but our neighbours on that side are the slightly loud ones and are not reliably quiet. If you want to come and stay for a few nights, they will behave, and its not too bad, honest, but we don't want to commit to it being our room and then have them banging their beds against the walls and shouting at each other early in the morning. Having said all that, we are really looking forward to having you to stay now we have the space and a nice set up for you. That's clearly not all of you, as it would be odd if you lived down the road and came and stayed, but if you are from further afield, please do come and test out the new IKEA curtains. A and I had a lovely visit to the great blue and yellow temple, we don't go often enough, considering how near it is, but then it is in town and I find town overwhelming these days.

did a 5km run this morning inside the magic 30 minutes. Got to do that twice, and a bike ride in the middle, on 4 Sep for my next event, which is early in the morning at Bushey Park if you wanted to come and cheer me on - though why would you get up early to watch women run and bike?

2010-08-17T12:13:00.002Z

That is a photo of A's first sail. She was in an Oppie in Portugal. Thanks to Nanny J for the photo. A has not sailed since being back here, but everyone else has, a lot! A seems to have picked up enough know how to point out last night that in the credits on NightGarden, Iggle Piggle is foolishly using his sail as a blanket and relying on the tide to get him across the ocean. A hung out with Granny M while H and R sailed in the dart 15 nationals (Dart 15 is a type of cat!). They came 48th out of 62, with a best result of 18th and the rest of the races ~ of which there were 6, they came consistently in the 40s. I hung out at the sailing club and tried out my new strategy for clocking up some sailing hours. I find a young man in a wetsuit and ask him to come out and sail with me. So far I have found 3 willing victims, all of whom have passed on their expertise to me, and given my confidence to helm. I even went out on a Dart 18 and only had a slight worrying moment when Tom thought we were gybing and I decided to tack. I really enjoyed being a passenger with Tom, he had a 'let's go a bit faster - this is tame with you helming' moment and we had to sit out over the edge, held on just with a foot under the toe strap. Well, a foot each, clearly. Lots of fun and I felt like I learned a lot, and am planning to mount my own campaign next summer at the 15 nationals. In between now and then i may publish an alternative sailing dictionary, to help you understand the terms involved which are a whole new language. That and all the cycling lingo I am learning - I could get in a muddle and luff up to my sprocket. We had a sunny weekend and I love the community vibe of the club, all the kids have fun together and hanging out there so much means I know a lot more people and remember their names. We are finally back at home for more than one night, first two nights in my bed since 26 July!

thanks to anonymous for joining the gang, hope you find something of interest.

2010-08-17T12:12:00.000Z

2010-08-10T20:55:00.002Z

It is impossible to be good at everything. I have tried. I signed up for my first ever solo sailing race on Sunday and it was a disaster. H signed up for the concurrent junior race and was the only competitor, so she got to start 5 minutes after the adults and join in their course. She actually finished the short course while I took over 30 minutes to cross the start line. It was awful, there was little wind and what there was shifted around and I never got to go anywhere, except backwards a little and then back to the shore cross and fed up. Bah. My confidence was elevated to the point of entering a race by the great sailing I had done in Portugal, where in quite brave conditions for me I had sailed with two sails and then with two sails and H on the trapeze wire dangling off the side. If I knew how I would import a bit of video in here for you to see that I can do it, except we didn't take any.

My lack of confidence/enthusiasm/competence for IT reached new heights, when on losing my mobile for the millionth time ( think it is in a field in Netley) I don’t care and am enjoying getting on with life without one, and the thought of going into one of those shops with no visible products and just shelves with phones around the edge makes me feel sick. I don’t have a clue what I would want, if I wanted one at all. R had done all the contracts since he first insisted I get a phone, when H was born. That is 9 years of no competence or experience or knowledge or interest. I am just going to not mention it, and if people really want to contact me they can ring our house or come round on their horses like in the olden days.

Portugal. Is a very warm and pleasant place for a holiday with nice beaches and friendly natives, who go to beaches on Sundays even when it is not sunny. The temperatures varied between 20 C and 38 C during our week long stay, and one day we went to the beach was the 20 day, with most of Portugal’s population out in their bikinis. They are up there with the Brits in the obesity wars, I can tell you. We did a few sessions of sailing back at the sailing school in Foz de Arholo ( or similar spelling) which we visited a lot last year. This year was A’s turn to have a go in an Oppie, with R wading after her to give her advice and commands to avoid disaster on the high seas. When disaster struck and she capsized, or to coin her new word, a capsization, it was R’s fault for talking to her too much. A came up with another malapropism, when she observed that Portuguese drivers don’t use their escalators much when turning corners. Or their indicators when ascending inside shopping malls. We stopped at a mall on the way back to the airport to get tea, and found a great bargain corner in the hypermarket where I purchased two sets of towel, goggles and swim hat for 47 cents each. Would have bought more but the bags were full. You can never have too many towels.

In a bid to not do any house work this summer, we stayed a night with G M, who kindly picked us up from Heathrow. I was delighted to do a run in Bushey Park which went ok, as my running in Portugal was sluggish at best and walking at worst. I am doing a duathlon in Bushey Park soon and wanted to get in some running there, plus it is a fabulous, flat and wild landscape within a mile of G M’s house. We then spent 4 nights at Netley, camping, after having done some washing and filing of post accumulated – recycling, mostly, as people still seem to think I want to buy takeaway pizza, despite not having done so since about 2000. We had really mixed camping weather, with a grim rainy afternoon on Saturday which was sister in law Ang’s birthday. They came down to join us, Angus sleeping in the tent and the rest of the family sleeping in our house. Ang tells me that it always rains on her birthday, so make a note not to plan any events for 7 August, ever. A is loving her new freedom on her bike and pedals around the sailing club constantly. The only problem is that she tries to turn on rough stony ground. I have never got through Savlon, antiseptic wipes like this. I even had to buy some melonin or whatever that super wound dressing stuff is called. She has scrapes and cuts that make her look like a NSPCC advert.

H and I did go back to the same piercing place, btw, where a lovely gentle man used needles to do H’s ears and she didn’t even flinch. She has been really good at remembering to do the Savlon spray applications, so I am thinking that shares in Savlon would be a good buy right now. Or a fortnight ago.

Today I went to a aerobics class called Body Vibe, which involved no calling up dead spirits at all, but some press ups and balancing with a ball and dancing around. I also did a bit of swimming, but got irritated by my goggles not working. When we were in Wales a few weeks back I went to a cycling fitness class at Esporta Bridgend, and then swam my 600m in a 25m pool to time myself ready for the West Wight Tri. Wales was a brief event, it was raining when we arrived and things didn’t improve much. We went to Barry Island, much to the mirth of my cousins, but I and the girls thinks its a great beach, wide and safe and sandy, and rightly a popular spot with St David and the Welsh. They could give the Portuguese a serious worry if the World Cup was for average BMI. We were mainly in Wales, for all of 20 hours, for a party for my cousin who is 40. It was a fancy dress party, or that is what he told the family, as we all dutifully turned up looking stupid to find half of the Welsh contingent hadn’t got the same invitations and thought it was smart casual. Or that was their fancy dress? Seeing a girl getting out of a taxi in Porthcawl to go out on the town it was hard to tell who was in fancy dress and what is normal wear for the Welsh of an evening. Again, if my camera was working by now you would see some pics, but its run out of batteries and despite my best efforts they are not recharging like they used to.

Today I caught two buses and one of them was so full I had to stand some of the way. I was a bit overwhelmed with being in Kingston, it was loud and full of people and traffic and just not as nice as I remembered it, plus it was raining. There was a topless man with a scar down his tummy shouting at people in the street. It was a relief to get off the bus in Claygate and hear the birds and the quiet. I really am getting antisocial in my old age. I found it all so noisy. I am glad I don’t live in Kingston and get to live in a really peaceful part of Southampton, with woods for running in within a km of my front door, and the sea within 3 miles ( I know all this because of using my pedometer on runs lately, having worked out how to reset it).

2010-07-23T22:14:00.003Z

As you know, I write here for the benefit of my non cycling public, although almost anyone can do it and i recommend it heartily. However, life is more than 2 wheels and I am delighted to announce the end of term. Yes, it happened today, and right now at after 11pm I am finally sat down and about to have a rare glass of wine. Rare cos it doesn't mix with training, but the last two weeks haven't involved much of that, as I have either felt not right or been at work or dreaming about work. But, here we are, on the eve of a hugely long holiday, with my first ever experience of doing the same classroom twice so no moving stuff and I managed to get books and folders ready for next year. When I say I, really I mean we, as my great LSAs were seriously on the case and did lots of the dirty work. The children were great too, we had a jobs wheel ( ie a rotation of 5 activities and 5 groups), and one of the jobs was sharpening pencils and another was helping me. We even got the maths resources tidied up. I had a bumper wine harvest, 5 bottles, from lovely families to say thank you for taking their kiddies off their hands for hours at a time, day in day out. Oh, and helping them learn something. Chocolates too, and a couple of mugs, some flowers and some shower gel. I gave the girls smellies for their teachers, and they also made cakes to take in for the helpers. I competely respect the mum who told her child 'we don't give presents to teachers as they are just doing their job' - absolutely, I agree! I think it is one of the few public sector jobs where you are allowed to accept gifts - probably you aren't and they are tax deductible, in which case you didn't read any of this.

I accidentally mislead my class yesterday by telling them the reason we had no fruit for them at breaktime was because the new prime minister had decided that the government was not going to pay for it anymore. That was the message I had received. It turns out we had run out and the greengrocer wasn't delivering, and DC has not made a decision yet. Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher, I can hardly see any outcome other than fruit being abolished, so 4-7 year olds won't get their one a day anymore. LSAs are in for the chop as well, we hear, so soon I will have no LSA, no fruit and probably no pens and paper in the next budget. Hey ho. The free swimming for children is being stopped too, in another short sighted move which will increase spending long term as more obese people have obese children and the health problems related to that, and they will not even be eating a piece of fruit to help alleviate the stodgey diet they exist on. Free swimming for children is so cheap compared to the benefits for the whole family. But then, who asked me?

The Claygate flower show provided the usual exciting entertainment you can expect from Morris Men, the scout band and a few pods of peas. The peas were thrilling, as my brother entered for the first time and got second for his peas, with my dad trailing in third place. Overall my dad got his usual haul of cups, 8 this time, including best exhibit in the show for an amazing Lily stem with tens of open blooms. H got a second prize, worth £2 for her poster design, and A managed a highly commended for getting 36 different objects in a match box. My mum got a third for her victoria sandwich I believe. There was a lot of competition in the baking classes, and the cake made by a gentleman class had to be seen to be believed. Our friend Jo came along for her first ever Claygate experience and found it a bit of a culture shock after Bangladesh, where the fruit and veg are of different varieties and there is a prize for the juciest mango. Jo managed to do the whole English summer in one go, with great weather and two sports days to go and watch, plus 2 clarinet concerts and a choir concert, she certainly got her money's worth from her visit. She also came to H's birthday party, which involved me setting a trail in Telegraph woods and H and various friends, family and haggard parents following it to find me and the picnic at the end. The sun shone and it all went without a hitch, and H seemed happy with the outcome. Her birthday present from R and GMary is a new bike, and A has moved up to H's second last one, with gears for the first time, so we are now able to ride further than just a few metres without A crashing or giving up, and R took the two of them by bike to the swimming pool yesterday, and back, and all I had to do was cook tea. My present to H is having her ears pierced, so we are planning a trip to town to do the deed. She had them done a few years back but was too young to deal with them independently and we gave up, so this is a second chance. I won't take her to the place I had mine done, which was a serious piercing parlour with ears a minor part of the body hardly mentioned in the price list and the price list giving options for piercings I didn't know existed. Ouch.

2010-07-12T18:54:00.002Z

During my various bike rides around the nation, I have taken to observing the names people give their homes. A regular on my route is Karma, a nice touch, but I never feel like I have reached Nirvana at that point in the ride. On my disaster ride around Marchwood, I came across the classically named quaint cottage - Almond. not Almond Cottage, just Almond. It was nearby to a close called 'Old Magazine Close'. Now clearly the local council are into recycling, but living in a road named after an old magazine? No thank you. Fair Oak is a treasure trove of comedy names for roads, Dumpers Drove always makes me smile. This weekend we went to Bike Radar at Brands Hatch in Kent. It is a great location and there was lots to do for all, including the 70 mile sportive ride which I did on the Saturday. It was very hot and there will be a full technical analysis in the magazine. I was followed by the photographer and after a while recognised his car and could sympathize with A list celebs, he kept jumping out from behind bushes with his long lenses getting close ups of my sweating face as I tried to ascend cliff faces on a bike. At least they have usually just stepped out of the salon. I can only suppose that C + mag are intending to run a Chamber of Horrors which is why he took so many pictures of me.

My stats were pretty good, didn't make a silver medal time, was 13 minutes over, did it in 4 hours and 43 minutes and 8 seconds. So, a bronze medal. But I was the 12th fastest female out of over 40, and well in the top half of the field overall. So, London 2012, move over Victoria and Emma, here I come!

It's getting very near the end of term and the children met their new teachers at my school on Friday. That meant that I was more nervous than them, but I know most of them from the playground anyway so I think we'll get on ok. I got a little note from one girl in my class saying 'I like you' which is always nice. the only trouble was, it was addressed to Miss Borin. Do I laugh at her spelling and hope it is just a spelling error, and then cry that her spelling is so bad and therefore it follows I have taught her nothing. or do I cry outright that she thinks I am boring? It seems to be a lose lose situation. I went through last year's 'thank you teacher' cards to get a bit of encouraging to make up for being addressed as Miss Boring, and found the one that says I love you ( twice). Aah. That's better. I need a bit of loving. Have now recycled them and have room on the mantelpiece for a new collection. Hint. Actually, our mantelpiece, such as it is, contains a award for R, who was Green Volunteer of the Year and a picture drawn by A of a tree, and a photo of a recent baby, there seem to have been a rash of them lately and the pictures are up, I promise.

A few times at the Bike festival I got spotted by my adoring fans, no one asked for an autograph but a few people said ' Are you the Cycling plus team'? or similar tentative questions. Fame at last. Jeremy, aged 5, asked me last week - 'are you trying to get in another magazine Kay?'

2010-07-04T16:39:00.002Z

Luckily for us, H's flurry of enthusiasm for football petered out last Sunday afternoon at about 4pm. She was in the front row in the sailing club house watching, and gave up her seat at half time for a lolly and a trip to the park. Normally on a hot Sunday, the walk from the sailing club across a few hundred metres of grass to the park involves tripping over sunbathers, families playing football and rounders and plump dog walkers eating ice creams. Last Sunday, there was no one to trip over or bump into. No couple sat under a tree playing scrabble. Not a person. Only a few plump dogs eating ice creams.

I am not sure how up to date you are regarding cat Emily, ie have I told you that she has moved to Milford on sea? and who would blame her? It's a lovely place to retire to, and her new family are a retired couple who live by the sea. R got in a muddle and told Jo that Emily had gone to Eastborne, but it is not true - its Milford. Due to not having a cat and wee and poo to cope with, we have made the most of our freedom and spent 6 of the last 9 nights camping at the sailing club. With the run of sunshine, we have relished sleeping with a sea breeze rather than in our stuffy house, which does get very hot in the summer. The girls commuted to school 2 days and turned up tanned, tired and with the most dishevelled hair that I would expect a visit from a social worker, were it not for our new government having sacked them all. We picked a prime spot so we had a sea view too. Last night we had a family fire on the beach, that is a little fire and sit, not a funeral pyre for members of the family.

We are watching HSM2 at the mo, the bit when Troy tells Sharpei he is going to clean the kitchen. A hero in our eyes.

To add some variety to my cycling training, I took Josh out for a spin last Sunday, which was fun and he has caught the bug and bought the shoes and shorts so he can come out with me again. As my blog is increasingly a sports related publication, it may interest some of you to know that Libby Crandon has bought some trainers.

I went to town on a Thursday evening a week ago to buy some sports bras, I was totally overwhelmed by Debenhams, as I rarely go to town or shopping if its not in a charity shop, but charity shops aren't the best place to buy bras. Especially sports ones. And as I have boycotted M and S I had to go into town. Even though it was late night shopping, there were too many people and too much stuff to buy. I so enjoy my solo rides in the countryside, I am finding busy places a bit much sometimes. However, I made an exception for centre court at Wimbledon, where I and Jo Hayles watched Birdych knock out Federer and Murray go through to the semi finals. We had a lovely day, with a Pimms picnic lunch /tea. It is weird how tired you can get sitting and clapping. We did do the walk to and from the ground from the station, and I got a stitch both ways. This is crazy - I never get them anymore when I run.

My sailing career has gone up a notch with two weekends camping meaning sailing on tap, as it were. Last weekend I did my first solo sail on the catamaran, known hereafter as Bat Cat. I managed to tack and gybe and the wind was kind, consistent and gentle. I then took Ang out as my crew, and there is nothing like teaching someone else to consolidate your understanding. I then had another go on my own and it was a bit more windy by then so I came back in quicker. Buoyed up ( is that the right spelling - in which case, great sailing joke!) by this positive experience, I fixed up a sailing date with Bethan, a mum from my class who is also a teacher and more importantly an Olympic sailor. When we went out, there was almost no wind, but it picked up and got to a point where I would not have gone out in it if I had seen the whites on the tops of the waves. I helmed and Bethan crewed, which is ironic, but she was a fabulous teacher, really patient and encouraging about how in control I was, even when I didn't feel it. We got splashed a lot, and she was so confident in my ( and probably her) ability and in the tolerances of the boat, that I kept going in wild conditions that would have had me begging R to let me jump in and swim for shore last year. So, 2012, it will be a steep learning curve, but I reckon Bethan should have another stab at the Olympics crewing for me. I am loving the outdoor lifestyle and feel immense gratitude to our creator for such a beautiful world to get out there and live in. A and H are very good at climbing trees and have a nice set of friends down at the club. H did training yesterday, sailing with another couple of girls of similar ages, they seem to make a pastime out of capsizing, sometimes on purpose. We found out that the world record for the number of people on a Topper under sail is 18, and H, A and sailing friends are setting out to beat that, and spent a few hours on the end of rope trying to all stand on the upturned topper ( hereafter known as ET). Am I selling sailing to you?

2010-06-18T18:59:00.002Z

It seems that H also has a secret desire to be a football commentator. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, she knows the names of the England team and said 'Oh, John Terry's injured. Oh he still looks a bit pale, oh he's up on his feet again' with more panache that Adrian Chiles could ever muster. At school her class are having a sweepstake on the time of first goal and the score, H has her money on 37 minutes, so she has 5 minutes more to watch and they just nearly scored, luckily for her they didn't. Her score prediction is 2-1 to England. We still don't have flags on the car, despite the girls telling me today 'They give them away with newspapers mum.' Well not my newspaper they don't.

A was incredibly sick and had a full time relationship with the toilet for a couple of hours last night, it was one of the most shocking episodes ever witnessed, she is so good at being sick, she just gets up and gets on with it without even calling for us, bless her. I had an INSET day today, although its not about training at all, its just a whole day for planning, we were doing our overview for next year, which is going to include re enacting the great fire of London with cereal packets in the playground being set alight. It was nice to plan with the LSAs involved for once, as they have a different viewpoint on the whole process and can see if things might come unstuck logistically. So, a sick A could come with me and potter around on the computer and playing with the toys in my class room. I do know that they didn't have cereal in London in 1666, well, not in packets. And we are going to deliberately burn some cakes and set the fire alarms off. We do have to run these plans by the caretaker first, and possibly the fire service.

This week I have had a couple of great bike rides, a 30 miler on my own on Tuesday which took in bits of the Meon Valley not previously covered, with lots of hills, followed by 36 lengths of crawl. Last Sunday morning I did about 25 miles with Claire, a mum from my class and a PE teacher, ex basketball player and triathlete. Well, she kept the pace up! I loved being out with someone fit ( ter than me!) and pushing myself a bit. I also loved being out on my own on Tuesday for the rest and meditation time available when its just you, your bike and a hill.

I just saved over £300 by shopping around for our home and contents insurance rather than renewing. Call me Martin Lewis! I was very alarmed to read what we are insured against, which includes 'malicious people' doing thing to our house. I had to check with R that he is not a street trader, goldsmith or diamond dealer before clicking the Continue button. I guess in those lines of work you have more than your fair share of malicious people turning up and doing malicious things to your house. I don't know what they do, these malicious people, or how the insurance company make up their minds on whether someone is genuinely malicious or just having a bad day.

Other things of note to tell you are that once again, my green fingers are too green and we are suffering a glut of spinach and lettuce, so its green salad every day and you are welcome to come round and maliciously sneak some green leaves from my garden, as long as you don't enter through any door locked with a mortice lock. I get up to £500 for missing plants, so that's a lot of spinach you can sneak off with before I have to pay. Guess how much the amount I can claim for ruined frozen food is if my freezer breaks? £60 000 !!! That is a lot of frozen spinach! Or thawed spinach, or in the case of our freezer, rhubarb and blackberries from dad's garden. If one blackberry is worth what, 5p, that's about 10 million blackberries defrosted on the floor.

The new government, who seem to be hellbent on making all teacher hate them, seems to be shutting websites without any replacement, changing curriculums which have already been sent out, but they seem to have made everyone happy by getting rid of the General Teaching Council. Why tamper around with education right now, leave us be for a year or two and do something else to do with post offices or banks or something. I wrote an email to Mr Gove ( face for radio) inviting him over to chat through education policy but he has not replied.

My internet bargain shopping included, this week, reducing the cost of flights to Austria from £1500 to £460 just by going to a different website. Same planes, same flights, just a different website. We have decided to go it alone with the skiing next year, leaving the safety of Oak Hall lasagne behind and self catering, staying in the apartment near Salzburg that we stayed in two years ago. The girls love the Oak Hall atmosphere, instant friends and English food which only Fairthorne Manor get close to. It will be a different kind of holiday, but I can't bear another week in bunk beds. but Austria! Hey, we really should move to the Alps to save all this travel time...

2010-06-12T19:32:00.002Z

Football commentating is one of my favourite arm chair sports, once every 4 years, you understand. I was disturbed, if not aggrieved, to discover that only one of the 30 strong England football world cup squad is older than me. When I told R, he said 'Well you are 37 its a surprise any of them are.' Gee thanks. Anyway, its 1 all in the first Englad game. Half time.

I have resisted the temptation to buy St George flags for my car, despite everyone else in my street doing so. In fact, I was in Fareham, ( another story) buying 3 diet cokes in Pound Land and was behind a lady buying aforementioned car flags. I thought about asking her if she had thought through her purchase, but decided to keep quiet as she looked on the Gosport side of Fareham, if you know what I mean. meaty. I texted R as I was walking through Fareham (in cycling attire) to ask him why it was full of students from his school and ill, poor people. The only town in England with more mobility scooters per head is Worksop. His logical reply was that the Year 11s should have been at home revising, and that only people on benefits have the time to drift around Fareham on a Tuesday at midday, the healthy and rich of Fareham are at work. All 3 of them.

Now, to the football. I would have thought that the USA have a better chance of winning based on having more people to choose from in their bigger country to be in their football team. And that the world cup is unfair on small countries with a smaller pool of population to pick from, like Wales, for example. To make things fairer, I think the number of people on the team should be in direct reverse proporrtion to the population. So Wales get to field a full 11, whereas the USA only get to put 0.1 men on, assuming that is that their population is one thousand times bigger. Do you see where I am going with this and how it would work. The Isle of Wight could start entering their own team, and assuming Wales a benchmark of 11, they would get to put on maybe 40 of 5o in their team. This would work wonders for the world population problem, as big countries would soon catch on to the troubles of deciding which footballer to slice into bits to put in the match, and dramatically reduce their population, one way or another, whether it be by a cull of the elderly and non football playing, or women, or by compulsory sterilisation of all except footballers.

Today was another sailing day, not for me and A, who said ' do you think I am crazy?' when I suggested she sail with R and H to Hill Head. So, she and I played tennis and had a quick swim, and R and H sailed to Hill Head, and A and I drove over and met them for a picnic on the beach. H is hugely confident sailing with R now, last Sunday in windy conditions they won a race at the club. R's first win at Netley, first sailing win for about 20 years, and with H as his crew. I and A both had a quick whizz around, it was windy and fun and R and I had a brief whizz around on our own, my first sail of the year, and I was ok, not getting too tangled up on the tacking and knew what to do.

H was keen to watch the football match, and rather bizzarrely is sat in a small paddling pool, empty, in front of the TV. A couldn't care less about anything on TV at the moment, apart from Total Wipeout.

The girls spent the last couple of days at their cousins' , as they had inset days. It sounded like they had a fantastic time, with a visit to a baby rabbit, a long walk, a charity shop trawl which resulted in 2 pristine summer school dresses for H, lots of playing in the garden and looking at the tadpoles they are growing in a barrel. Meanwhile, R was working hard, hard, hard with the noble art of persuading 16 year olds who have as good as left school that they do want to come in to school and finish their coursework before the deadline. And I was persuading a stupid EXCEL database, I ask you, that it would like to magically produce 28 reports for the children in my class with the right words in the right boxes. I got them all printed out and to the head for her comments before the deadline. Now, I just get them all back with the mistakes she has picked up that I and Sheryl ( jobshare star!) missed cos we've read them too many times.

I haven't told you yet about Switzerland, or my cat. Which first? Cat. On Monday I wrote an email to the Cats Protection league and on Tuesday, we delivered her to a vet's in Shirley who health checked her and passed her on to CPL who have a new family for her. A family who don't go on holiday and spend most of every day out, causing their cat to feel lonely and poo and pee everywhere to prove it. She needs an old lady who doesn't go anywhere, , no children to scratch at, and we need to not have a pet to stress us out. It was a decision which I felt bad about before, like I was the baddy and a failure for not being able to look after a cat, but since she has gone, and H spent one evening crying, I feel sure it was the right thing to do and already our house smells less of cat p***.

Switzerland. Does not smell of anything bad, just mountains and waterfalls and lakes and ice cream. We spent a week with Granny Mary in Wilderswil, we had not been there for 7 years so were overdue a visit, really. It is a great spot, near Interlaken, inbetween two lakes, clue in the name. We visited some amazing waterfalls inside rocks with the awesome sound and sight of glacial water pouring out of rocks above. The sound was really loud and A's great line when I said ' Its noisy isnt it?' was 'I've been in quieter places!' She rushed me around the whole complex of steps and waterfalls quick sharpish, not her scene. We also visited another awesome outdoor waterfall, took a quick trip on the lake, did several walks and runs and a bike ride. We did 28 miles, 14 of them uphill, if you have been to Gridelwald you will know it is a fair bit higher up than the lakes in the valley! The descent back home was good, we were really proud of H for doing the ride, even if daddy did get off and push two bikes some of the way.

The girls and R did a high ropes course, as I had done one before in Austria with H and am still shaking, I let R do this one, and it turned out to be much more varied, with 3 small, lower courses that A could do on her own. H loves being up in the treetops on zip wires, as her ambition is to be a hunter, modelled on Robin Hood. A did really well and had fun on it too. Granny Mary declined.

2010-05-27T21:11:00.002Z

Today the children at school wrote their own books. They have done loads of hard work lately, and this was a free choice afternoon for them to write a fiction or non fiction tome of their own. I was delighted with the responses, and as they took them home, most of them keenly to finish them off, it meant no marking for me at a time when I am marking assessment pieces and writing reports, plus planning a trip and a unit of english. Not thought about maths yet. Anyhow, I was delighted with the books I saw, which included a non fiction book called 'Football Shooting Strategies' and a version of a Nick Sharratt book, you know those ones where you open half the page and get something funny, like a cheesy princess, cos half the picture goes with the other half of another picture. Well impressed, I was! My favourite title was from an adorable boy who does not find writing easy. It was called 'The dragon and the nit'. Why should a dragon be bothered by a nit, I thought. Then I realised that he has not yet grasped the igh sound, or the i-e way of writing it, and silent k is a mystery beyond him at this tender age. So yes, it was not an original piece about a dragon with a nit infestation, but the classic Knight in shining armour slaying a dragon story.

I got back on the Slimming World wagon on Tuesday night. Despite all my exercise, my weight has crept up to 2.5 lbs above my target zone. And I think now is the time to get it back down in that zone, rathe than when its a few more lbs to deal with. I think with all the cycling I have got complacent and eaten more flapjacks, cakes etc than I would previously have done. So its back to Muller lights for me! In my absence from a Slimming World class ( over 2 years) they have gone all digital, with cards you get your data stored on, a great website with easy syns online to look up and a little reader thingy for the consultant to see your stats at a glance. i am pleased to say, for those of you who love the classic Slimming World set up, there is still a raffle with tickets and a basket of fruit for slimmer of the week. Claire, who runs this class and a million others around Hedge End, is one of the nationally amazing consultants, and is inspiring and lots of fun, and the sister of my ex job share partner at Berrywood, would you believe!

Things that made me laugh lately included cycling around the Isle of Wight. You have to read my other blog at Bike Radar for the full cycling story, but it was the most beautiful day out in the sunshine, 10 hours in the saddle, with the lovely Vicky and Rachel, two of the NCT gang from pre Hannah days. Their bikes were not really up to Millook standard, so to spite me they made me go further up more hills while taking a cross country short cut.

R and H had a great sailing day on Saturday, they were on the water for 5 hours, then H spent a further 2 hours in the water, playing with 4 other girls who she seems to get on really well with down at the club. I had a very special A day, with lots of walking in the woods and going on the train and eating ice cream together ( solero, 5 syns). We were walking along a board walk and got to a bridge. It was narrow, so I asked her if she wanted to go first. She said yes, quickly changed to a 'no, mummy, you go first, there might be a troll. ' So its ok if I get eaten by a troll. She was also concerned that there were crocodiles in the pond and wasn't convinced by my assertions that crocs and alligators don't live in Hampshire. We stamped loudly over the bridge to scare the troll off.

All my cycling is leading to a cycling tan, which goes up to just above my knees, and the bottom two thirds of my arms, despite all the suncream I slap on. I am going to have to try cycling in either my winter leggings again, or a thong, to get a more even colour. I don't know which would be worst option.

Today I had some time at the gym with Andy, the inspiring instructor who believes in health for life rather than doing something cos you ought to. We just have a chat about how things are going with my various events and training and he helps me to think about balance and what I enjoy. I commend him to you. He does sports massage as well if you ever need it, so he tells me.

Apart from work and exercise, I am reading a book by Henri Nouwen called The Prodigal Son. Clearly I am a bit slow on this bandwagon, but having read the Prodigal God by Tim someone twice back in jan/feb, this particular story still has strong messages for me and Henri writes so honestly and is easy to read, and gets me thrilled to the fingertips with the message of God's acceptance and love for me.

2010-05-16T20:23:00.002Z

Without giving away too many juicy details, I can tell you that I did not win the triathlon today, but I didn't come last either. I was dead in the middle of the pack in terms of the 60 females, out of 300 entrants, and was pleased with my time and with the fact that it turned out to be a 4 mile run, not 5. I came 255th overall. I was pleased with my 'sub 10 min' swim time, and I beat R on the run by 8 seconds. He beat me overall by 8 mins. Doing this one has fired him up for triathlons big time, so he may just now have another string to his sporting bow in terms of international mega stardom. The winner of the Salisbury triathlon was called Mr Goodhusband. What a fabulous surname. I hope he lives up to it.

2010-05-13T20:48:00.002Z

R is out playing tennis tonight for the county or similar. Last night he was out sailing for Team GB ( again, or similar). He should have gone to a private ( public) school and become the internationally acclaimed sports star that he was destined to be from a young age. Apparently the Surrey Cricket developement squad did not look at boys from state schools. Too bad his dad was spending all the cash on records and not on school fees for Harrow or somewhere eh? Still, he would never have met me! R that is, not his dad, although I guess that follows.

I, meanwhile, was never destined to be a sports star from a young age and skipping at Brownie camp and learning to play two ball was as good as it gets. I found out that this Sunday's triathlon involves a 5 mile run. I thought it was 5k, and those of you with a working knowledge of measures will know which is longer. So I did 5 miles on Tuesday, around Hamble Common and Netley. On Monday I did the best ride I have done so far, a 30 mile round trip from the gym out to Beacon Hill which is on the south downs ridge and back, with the best stop ever for a view, and then the best descent ever down a lane to Exton, with clear views and no hedges so no nasty cars sneaking around. I only saw 4 cars on the entire first 10 miles, once I had got out of Hedge End and to where I feel my rides start, Durley. Seriously, people go on holiday to far less beautiful spots than this section of Hampshire and I commend it to you.

Tonight has been a busy one, with H back from Brownies, plus a friend borrowing an alien costume, the window cleaner, the Sainsburys delivery man and Aleesha from up the road wanting to 'borrow' some wrapping paper. I was tempted to ask for it back but she wouldn't have got the humour. Luckily they did not all turn up at once or it could have been a bit of a muddle with people leaving and going with all the wrong things. I had cunningly engineered the Sainsburys man to come at a time R was going to be in and I was going to be out, because I would have liked to have come home to all the food put away by someone ( anyone!) else. I had forgotten that it was the warm ups for Wimbledon tonight and R would be out playing tennis with Federer. Serves me right, I got to put the food away.

I finally finished the last book in the Robin Hood trilogy written by Stephen Lawhead. I liked the Merlin ones and like these too, I am reading them cos R likes them, and actually I do too although I would never choose them. I won't ruin the ending, but its good. I am going to see the new Robin Hood film at the new cinema in Eastleigh, which I am over excited about.

I met a man in the sauna who was a body builder and told me I should carb load before Sunday. I don't really know what that means but just had a peanut butter sandwich and am hoping somehow it helps me go faster. Although why would it still be lingering 3 days later? I should think a 3 day old sandwich of any variety would slow one down.

2010-05-08T18:31:00.002Z

H's first sailing training session today. I was on bar duty for R, and usually it is really boring doing bar as no one buys anything. Not on a junior sailing day. We had to make hot drinks for all the instructors and children, and then lots of parents were keen on our coffees, and then people wer buying chocolate and fizzy drinks at the end of the day. Even 3 pints of beer were sold. So I was tearing around making hot drinks and getting H in and out of her wetsuit, plus a quick trip to buy some lunch in Netley. When I was getting H out of her wetsuit, I pulled her legs so hard she fell off the bench and bumped her bum on the floor, in a 'You've been framed' kind of moment which had us all giggling in the end. The weather was a flat calm, so the sailing experience was limited, but she got to go out on her own in the Topper and seemed confident and happy. Luckily for me, Granny M was there so she took A on the mini train and to the park and generally kept her busy and happy. R, meanwhile, was sailing in Swanage, in a national championships of a style of sailing he had never done before today. It seems that in sailing, if you have the right type of boat, you can enter the nationals of that class. I was thrilled to meet several real sports people in the last two days. One of the mums from my class is also a member of the sailing club, and was in the Olympics in 1996 for sailing. An Olympic sailor! Last night I was at the gym and met a couple who do gym cross training nationally, and she is in the top 3 women in the UK. Good eh? My own training has been so inspired that I got up at 6.45am to go for a bike ride. And was at the gym til 10pm last night.

Work has been a bit fraught this week, I have done some really long days and worked in the evenings, we are mid SATs, which is a lot of work with marking and anlaysing data - plus have planning to do for the trip and next half term, plus guess what - reports are due in June 11th. ha ha. Apparently the system for doing them does not cope with doing them at home and then bringing them in and putting them back on the network, so I intend spending my days off in school typing away. Yipee. That's when I am not tearing around the countryside trying to be a better, faster and more efficient cyclist. Still, I guess you all have your own work issues so I won't go on about mine.

I didn't want to get up on Friday morning after the political situation on Thursday and the dread of Johnnie boy Denham not being back in. He made it, just, by less than 200 votes. Which is scary, that nearly as many people wanted to be represented in Westminster by a gentleman who goes by the name of Royston. Royston? That sounds like a range of sanitary ware, not a person. Relieved ( spot the pun) to find that we do not have a ***** called Royston representing the people of Southampton East. What is really weird is that a student teacher at my school went to the trouble of looking up the education manifestos for all parties, and decided against the Tory one - and then DIDN'T VOTE! I kid you not. I didn't realise quite how much I detested the Tory boys with their arrogant ways until this election. I mean, I didn't like them much at uni, but for the last 13 years they have been so whispering and ephemeral, but the idea of being governed by Royston and his mates is beyond what I can cope with. I might have to leave the country. The difference the new deal has made to Thornhill people and the opportunities for children in Thornhill now compared to 10 years ago is immense and I can't see deprived council estates being top of the Tory list of places and people to transform and empower.

So apart from my entirely impartial reporting on the General election, what else to tell you about eh? H had Brownie camp last weekend, which was a rite of passage and reminded me of my own experience of a week in a village hall in Thursley on the occassion of the Queen Mother's 80th birthday. I learned to skip and had a tea towel with elephant jokes on it. not much has changed - H went on 3 treasure hunts and to a campfire and had to take a tea towel and a cake or a packet of biscuits. A was there on Rainbow fun time as well, so R and I got a rare bike ride together, and then as I had cunningly organised for A to have some sleep overs with friends, a rare tennis game without the girls and a night out at the cinema. We saw a film called Dear John, a slow moving, pretty romance with tinges of sadness and a twist at the end. It kept me thinking the whole of the next day, so one to watch on DVD I think. I still have not seen Avatar, thanks for asking. A boy in my class aged 7 asked me if I had seen it, and then whispered that it had lots of swearing in it. What rating is it? I find myself really disturbed by children of 6 telling me they play Battle of Glory or whatever that war game is called. I know I am really anti violent games and films, but I struggle to see who could think it was ok to let 6 and 7 year olds do these things.

Meanwhile, I am letting my 6 and 8 year olds watch Britain's got Talent, which some would aruge in just as bad. Saturday night TV is great for families. We can watch from 5 til 9pm - Total Wipeout, you've been framed, the full 19 yards and then BGT. Having previously thought that TV meant CBeebies, watching the adverts with the girls is interesting, they play a game called 'Guess the product'. Nice idea I thought.

2010-04-28T23:18:00.002Z

Forgot to say we had nice chips on Saturday from the Codfather, one of my favourite chip shop comedy names. There is a hairdressers in Warsash called Herr Kutz - like what they have done there. It's on a par with Pam Purred Pets.

Pet cat went to vet yesterday to have a booster injection which was mistakenly not given when she went in October. Forked out for some worm tablets for her. Also went to the dentist, we have a new comedy dentist from another eastern European country, he is very jolly and recommended Sensodyne, so clearly got himself onto a good thing there. He reminded me of Father Christmas. Let's hope he is still around next time we go, generally we get a ne one every time as they are all on six month contracts. It costs £16.50 to have him prod around in my mouth. Get half of that back from HSA I am relieved to say. Also went to the hospital to see consultant for my annual check in and my blood results are fine and its 'Watch and Wait' for another year. I have to go back every year until I die. Or she ( the doctor) dies first? Not that I am planning to assasinate her, you understand. She said next year she might have the technological advance to do the consultation by phone. Steady on, NHS! Just to complete my mystery shopping of the NHS on your behalf prior to the general election, ( did I say that all children in Southampton in Year 4 get free instrument tuition - I didn't get that as a Thatcher's child, I can tell you!) A decided to be sick and come out in a rash on her cheeks, plus headache and stiff legs, enough of the indicators to make even the least worried parent reach for a thermometer and check the meningitis website. in my case, I had to borrow Hattie's thermometer as I don't really have much time for all that fiddling about a la Nicky Davy, and temp was ok, but I called the Doctors out of hours nurse, who suggested I take her to to walk in clinic at Bitterne and wait for 90 mins to be told that she was fine. She did a dramatic puke whilst in the waiting room - well I got her to the loo just in time, but it didn't give us any extra points in the queue. Still, a tick for the NHS out of hours service, I feel that if she had got meningitis and was going downhill fast they would have fast tracked us.

I am beginning to feel a bit aged, that all I can tell you about is the health of family members. Nothing sporting to tell you about as my day yesterday was spent with A being a bit forlorn but not ill, and me doing a ton of washing - yep, literally! and getting it all dry whilst the sun shone. Washing is something I am good at, I also did the ironing, including 5 shirts for R, who announced that he likes ironing shirts and is happy to do them himself from now on.

So, the NHS and laundry. Went to work for a break from life as a drudge.

Nicky Davy is a legendary figure, the still living mother of two girls who lived next door but one. She poked thermometers in their mouths at every opportunity and seemed to always be saying ' they can't play, they've got temperatures.' which was bewildering to us who didn't know you could have a temperature. they also had to go to bed earlier than the rest of us in the street, so we played near their window just to annoy them. I loved both girls, Jo and Tricia, and in fact Tricia was in my class all through secondary school and then we were both at uni at the same time. She was the most healthy and robust sports person you could meet, rowing and canoeing for the country (almost). her sister, meanwhile, the last time I heard (and I am not on facebook so forgive me if you know better) was wasting away eating just cotton wool or similar. So, my reluctance to bother my children with thermometers stems from a mocking relationship with them from an early age, plus never knowing actually what is a good temperature to be, so why bother knowing what you are, if you don't know whether that is good or bad? if you told me you had a temperature of 38.8 I would be as impressed as if you told me you had one of 34.4. I have no idea which of those is better or if it matters.

2010-04-25T19:16:00.002Z

As Heifer would be taken as an insult if you were to call a young lady one, that might be an interesting texting experiment for Mr Niddler. I have done loads of cycling and feel that I may tell you a little about it as it will complement the words I have written on the Bike Radar Cycling Plus team blog, which you are welcome to access.

Today I did a group ride with the Esporta tri club, and tackled some great hills, both up and down - I seem to find coming down a challenge as I am tempted to brake too often and not trust the bike or myself to not have a terrible crash at speed. Having had a crash with myself while at precisely 0 mph on Friday I do well not to trust in my ability too much. I uncleated one foot and then tried to put the still cleated one down, thus falling slowly on my left and all this right outside the main entrance of the Holiday Inn in Fareham. I was there to attend a moderation meeting about maths, an experience so harrowing and depressing I was ready to give in my notice and never go near a classroom ever again as I left. Which strikes me as not the kind of reaction that a team of Hampshire inspectors would wish to engender in their workforce. Managed to overcome my feelings with a ya boo attitude, encouraged by R who says he never listens to what they say about grades anyway. Still, came home, via the Pink ferry from Warsash, nursing a bruised behind, sore wrists and dented confidence in my ability to teach as well as twisted handlebars. Luckily that evening I was reading Mark 7 with Sialou, which is always fun and inspiring, and we both learned new things about Jesus and what he did with people. When I got home, R had gone out to an Alarm concert at a pub in Southampton. I knew he was going from about 15 minutes before I had gone out, and he had got Hattie to nip in to babysit for a few minutes in our overlap - rest assured! He had a great time, as he did at the club tennis night on Thursday, where he found himself in the better quarter of the people there. He should write his own blog if you want to know about his sporting successes. I will stick to my own, as the list is getting longer and longer for him. He ran 10 miles the other day to ensure that I wouldn't beat him in the tri we are both entering soon. No chance of me beating him, really he shouldn't worry. I have more chance of beating him in a sailing race.

With everyone I meet, I insist they pick up my bike and see how light it is. Particulary impressed by the parcel delivery man, who said - 'About 8kg?' not bad estimate my friend, 8.6 - he clearly spends too much time picking up parcels. He can do 120 drop offs in one day at work. I got a text to tell me the hour window he would be there, and although he was 2 minutes early, his scanner would not release the parcel till the precise time of 2.30pm. What amazing technology exists these days. When I was at Junior school we did a project on bar codes, for some trade journal, we had to learn about what the numbers meant. They were a new and jazzy thing then - and now we all have them on our foreheads!

I cycled the long way round to the church weekend away at YMCA in Botley, where once again we enjoyed the pattern of weather we have come to expect - sunshine all day Sat, a downpour on Sun am and then more sun. We did Its a Knock out water games and the girls excelled at climbing trees all weekend, and the other favourite past time of theirs - buying drinks from vending machines. The girls and I and Imogen stayed the night and Granny Mary came down for the afternoon on Saturday. A and H both took part in the children's concert - H on clarinet, A singing from memory one of her own compositions. Bless em! The adult 'talent' was all male, but as you may well say, if I wasn't up there then I can't complain, be the change etc etc. I was delighted to say the Libby's talent as a songwriter was represented as R sang a song of her penmanship - or penwomanship I should say. Although the weekend was very pleasant, it has confirmed the nudging I need to keep seeking further and deeper and finding my sense of community and spiritual home someplace else for this time. Don't know - its a tough one, no easy answers and no way of answering them without some change.

Had a beautiful solo ride on Tuesday in the sunshine as part of a tri for some training, I did all 3 disciplines back to back, but in wrong order, while simultaneously getting a new tyre put on the car. I was not doing the car work myself. I rode out and back to Lane End, parallel with Winchester. It is such pretty and quiet riding country, I want all of you to come with me on my adventures, I love jsut trying out a lane and seeing where it goes and coming home when I don't recognise any of the place names anymore. I hardly see any cars or other people on the quiet lanes and its the kind of place people would go on holiday to.

A final cycling story. R and Timmy, Paul and Ang's 10 year old, cycled the 4 miles back from Botley as their overstuffed car was brimful with children and bikes and duvets. I passed them as we came out of the drive of the centre, and a little further on, drove carefully over some odd fabric items littering the road, thought little of it and came on home via a stop at a brilliantly renovated park in Hedge End next to the paddling pool. At home we found R and Timmy, who had cycled past said items and commented ' That's my dressing gown!'. So between the two of them they had cycled on with 2 dressing gowns and two blankets - Tim wearing the dressing gowns, and Rob swathed in blankets. Paul had been alerted and drove back to check for other sundry items that may have flown out of his roof box on travels. He said Rob looked like an old woman, and Tim was shattered with the effort of a mainly uphill ride in two thick cumbersome layers more than was necessary. I keep giggling now thinking of the pair of them. The moral of the story, of course, is to take due diligence to lock your roof box, or just keep quiet and cycle on past if you see your dressing gown in the middle of the road.

Before I wanted to give up teaching for good after Friday afternoon, I had a lovely time with my class learning about Percy the Park keeper and wild animals, with painting and making homes for animals in the woods as part of our literacy learning. Its all about immersing them in the text, so they have real experiences to write from. And on Monday I went in on a day off to take part in and achieve my Open Country qualification, which involves doing lots of risk assessments and taking compass readings and a nice mooch around the country park following a map. I had a lovely day, in the sun, I can see a weather theme developing here as no one apart from Eeyore and Hattie have nice days in the rain. She likes walking in the rain. She clearly didn't do guiding with Diana Sandford, affectionately known as Sandbag, who made us eat cheap spam and sent us on marches in the rain to obscure museums that no one really wanted to go to anyway. Once we walked miles to the vicar's house to watch the royal wedding on his tv. Imagine having to be so saintly as to have an influx of guides who had not washed for days sitting on your sofa to watch Fergie in a meringue. My dad still remembers the expression on the coach driver's face when he saw the assortment of old bits of metal that accompanied us on any camp, essential to the fire building process, which took most of our days. We were so busy making fires and cooking unhealthy breakfasts and tying bedding rolls we didn't have any energy left to sing campfire songs, or walk miles across countryside. One time she picked peas out of the grease trap to eat! We burnt everything, left no rubbish, we buried the ash left over. We dug our own lat pit. It was like flipping prisoner of war camp. We did everything for ourselves, literally there was a few hours in the afternoon for lying down before starting all the fire building work again for the evening meal. I thought spag bol was supposed to have black bits in it and taste of ash for years.

2010-04-16T21:23:00.002Z

Today I went for a ride on my new bike which was awesome. I can't tell you about the ride experience, but I can tell you about a conversation I overheard. I stopped at the Farmers Home in Durley, a village about 5 miles from my house and in deepest darkest Hampshire. Well, a guy came out of the pub while I was stood outside waiting for a lady to bring me a drink (couldn't leave my expensive bike so asked her to get my a diet coke and bring it to me) which she did very graciously. Unlike her male accomplice, who suggested I get a car and then I could lock it in the car park. Ba. Anyhow, the chap on the mobile was a tall and strong looking man of somewhere between 30 and 40 and he filled his jeans, if you know what I mean. I mean, not like that, and he wasn't overweight at all, muscly and big and I would have put him as a builder who did bodybuilding for a hobby. Now reading that back it is sounding more and more dodgy as I describe the poor guy in muscular terms. Anyhow, this was his side of the conversation:

yeah, did quite well today. 5 heifers and 5 steers, sold the heifers for 500 and the steers for 6. I was expecting to get 50 quid more for them but surprised by 100.

Now, either this guy was on ebay selling bits of a model farm, or he was a REAL FARMER drinking beer at the Farmers Home. I mean, I have never heard a mobile conversation about heifers and steers. Does predictive text cope with heifer? I was very excited to hear this snippet of a life so near mine and yet so far away, the last person in my family to sell a cow was my grandad who died before I was born. I don't know if he sold cows, actually, but he did look after them and milk them so I guess he took them to market sometimes.

The sun was out and the new bike is a dream and I just waltzed around some of the most beautiful countryside we have so nearby to our house. I am very lucky to live in such a pretty part of the world. And we have trees outside our house now. Yesterday I did a great little run at lunchtime in Royal Victoria Park, a route I have done many times but I did it backwards for a change (not running backwards, just running the opposite way round to usual).

Another exciting thing that happened yesterday was the window cleaner turning up at the same time as the labour canvassers for our vote. I told them I thought our current MP, John Denham, was excellent at his job, he really gets involved in local things and I like him very much and will vote for him again. But even more exciting today, was that JOHN PRESCOTT came past MY HOUSE in a minibus talking on a loudspeaker and saying 'Vote Labour'. How exciting! I was just getting out of the car and heading indoors so didn't stop him to chat.

As well as me being an international triathlete, cycling star, tennis hero and sailing champion, R is not far behind in his own sporting ambitions, in fact, he is way ahead and better than me at all those things. But this week's scoop news is his tenning rating. He had a tennis lesson to get a rating, which start at beginner and go through about 6 levels to get to 'County star - see you at Wimbledon.' He thought he would be middle of the road, but came out as a blue, that is a level below an international tennis pro! Almost! It is really good anyway and a rating I could only dream of one day having. Thus inspired, R had entered a couple of tournaments at the club and finds that one is counted as a veteran when one gets to over 35. So what with the sailing season starting tomorrow (I am on duty as 'general help' 3) and all the training I need to get in, I think R will have to play tennis on the boat to get any practice in. R is so modest about his sport, but really, he is one of those people who has fantastic coordination with bats and balls and so on and just can do brilliantly at sport. I am in awe of him. He can also make a bike out of nothing and knows how to get a mast up on a boat and today he made a wooden car with A. He is nearing Laura's pa in terms of skillset.

I spent the day at work yesterday, yes, sorry to burst your bubble or favourite joke about teachers and holidays, but both R and I went in yesterday - yes , in our holidays! And I spent the day laminating and trying to cheer the classroom up a bit with some new displays and so on. Laminating and using a paper cutter are important skills for a teacher to have. I came home with more work to do than all the work I had brought home in the first place to do at the start of the holidays. And now it's the end of the holidays. Nearly.

2010-04-11T17:45:00.002Z

My blog will be live on Bike Radar website this week so can't tell you too much about the 30 mile ride I did today, apart from that I wanted to die at the end of it. After it, I went to Sainsburys in Camberley and was very indulgent, having a muffin, a yogurt, a cuppa and a newspaper in Starbucks there and paying a nice man to wash my car, after the disaster last week with the car wash. I did not eat the newspaper, only read it, but it is all about boring ugly men anyway. might as well have eaten them. Then drove home and went to the very quiet gym for a jacuzzi / steam / sauna / 10 slow lengths of the pool combo to help my poor sore muscles. Yesterday we went in the outside pool for the first time this year, yippee! Summer is here, its official. We had Angus with us and he did not think much of going in an outdoor pool in April so we retired to the indoor paddling pool. Yesterday was a happy day as we picked R up from his ski trip to France, he is very brown from neck up and was very tired from being on a coach all night. He had a great time with charming teenagers who were very well behaved throughout.

The girls and I spent a few nights at my parents' in Claygate which meant I had time and babysitters to get some training done, for what it was worth - not much judging by today's bike ride. I went to the swimming training at the Esporta in Kingston which I really enjoyed, the time flew by. I also did one of the best classes I have ever done, Body Balance ( which is NOT anything like yoga, or tai chi, well, not much...) with the best instructor since Sarah at Pilates at Whitley. He was encouraging and praising and I left feeling great. Also did some bike rides on the road and a run across Littleworth Common.

We did another National Trust Easter Egg hunt, at Ham House, which is not made of Ham, but is in Ham. It is a great specimen of a National Trust house and is well set up for children and the girls enjoyed it, as did the two grannies we took with us. We also did Bushy Park with grandparents, for a woodland walk and a cup of tea. And with Angie, Angus, Niall and Pop we did Dinosaurs Unleashed! in Oxford Street. Going on the underground is an exciting enough day out for girls from Hampshire, and the dinosaurs were interesting but a bit overpriced. Security guards kept stopping us eating our picnic, so we had to keep swapping sites and nibbling. We had an ice cream in Hyde Park afterwards (thanks Pop). No security guards there to hound us. Although the deck chairs are £1.50 an hour. We sat on the grass.

Picked some of 'Claygate's finest rhubarb' from dad's allotment. He has officially entirely retired now, as the council have cut jobs for over 65s so he had to go. He only worked 3 days a week ( only! thats the same as me..) so now has 7 days to dedicate to allotment activity instead of 4, so we have high hopes for him sweeping the board at the Claygate flower show this year. Dad took me on a tour of some places nearby that I had never been to, including Hersham, which is the village next door but one to Claygate, that I had never been to before. How funny! it is very pleasant, and includes a Squires garden centre which my dad prefers to Garsons Farm and Whiteley village, an amazing self contained village for old people built in 1912 by a Mr Whiteley, who was shot by his nephew and before that had run a shop in London. In return for this cultural tour I introduced my dad to Aldi, in Walton, which has an underground car park which my dad had never been to before. I bought some running shorts and socks and some trainers for H ( £12, better than Clarks prices I thought).

2010-04-04T20:48:00.002Z

At the ATM today, as usual I clicked the 'No' to the question 'do you want an advice slip?' . I always click no, but am intrigued by what the advice might be. Is there a webcam and if you are commiting a fashion faux pas, is the advice on better colour choices? Does it tell you to put a tenner on a horse in the 3.30 at Lingfield? Or is it into bigger things - can it cleverly work out by looking at your bank details that you spend too much money in B and Q and on online cycling websites? I needed the cash in case of high expenditure at the National Trust Easter Egg trail we went on this afternoon, but I need not have worried, for just £2 per child we managed to get a Cadburys egg head each and did the trail along with half a trillion other families who had managed to find Hinton Ampner. I have been there a few times before, and as the crow flies it is not far from my front door. Every time I go there I arrive by a different and uncertain route, the second time I went was the first time I trusted a sat nav and I ended up in a field gate going nowhere, with it telling me to plough straight on through. This time, I cunningly did the Bishops Waltham route, but tried to cut some corners by taking the route I did last Sunday on my 28 mile bike ride. More on that later. Anyway, the corner cutting failed and we took a while to get there, but it was a pleasant day and the girls were great company. Unfortunately for me, the trail to get to the Easter Eggs at the end involved bird identification, we were ok with robin, pigeon, blackbird, but the national trust clearly assumes we all live in the countryside and know about these things when we had a heron and a nuthatch or something to identify. I thought the heron was a stork ( it has a fish in its mouth which looked like a flap, ok?) and A gallantly remembered that there was a bird called a chuffinch.

The other excitement of the visit was the lambs, whose field we walked through, and some were not even one day old. There were two being kept in a pen while some farm helping NT people drove around on a quadbike catching their mother, who was not in the mood for mothering lambs and had gone off to a nightclub or similar. The last we saw of her was on her side on the back of the quadbike being carted back to her offspring. But where are the fathers, I ask you??? Its alright blaming the single mums, but no sign of the dads. We managed some good puns on you/ewe/yew as we sneaked around under some yew trees nearby. H was a bit put off the lamb field when we spotted some bloody membranous item on the floor and she asked what it was, and I told her it was sheep placenta/umbilical cord and would soon be eaten by crows. She moved pretty rapidly out of the field, in fact climbing a wall to escape.

My exclusive blog starts next week. On Tuesday I had my first photoshoot for the magazine, and after a night of little sleep at the Holiday Inn in Bath I had to hang around a photographers studio for a hour, then be driven for an hour to hang around and then cycle a million times up and down the same road while we were photographed. Then an hour back to the studio, for lunch with posed shots, then shots of us being set up on our bikes and being 'massaged' by our cycling coach, Ben. It was lovely to meet Ben and the rest of Team Cycling Plus who are all much more knowledgeable and technically skilled than I am. Regarding bikes, that is. I am good at baking and pastry, I and the girls made a great French style apple tart yesterday, following Hugh Featherly Whippingspool's recipe in his Family Cook Book. I took my bike on the train to and from Bath, which was easy, and the journeys were ok, a delay at Bath but once we got going all was well. It was a change from routine but I am glad I am not a fashion model, all the hanging around waiting for photographers to be ready. I have been making a massive effort with my nutrition lately, eating a million different salad and fruit items per day, and cutting down on my bread. I need to up my protein levels though. Last Sunday I went for a ride with the tri training group at the gym, and found a banana was amazing at half time, when I was struggling up the hills, suddenly I was transformed and shooting off ahead. I was pleased that through the whole 28 miles I was never the one everyone was waiting for, which I had dreaded, and although my legs ached that day, they were fine the day after. It was a lovely route similar to one I had done back in the autumn with Rachel, and heading straight out from the club at West End to the lovely villages and countryside north east of Southampton, around the Meon Valley. I was really pleased with the fact that I had done it, and enjoyed doing it with a bunch of other nutters. Next Sunday I am doing a 30 mile Evans Ride It! on my own so hope I can keep up momentum on my own.

This morning I took a quick sneaky run, as Sialou and Digson were staying over and not awake, and the girls were reading in bed, and I felt strong and bouncy in my new trainers. Like Tigger. We had messy church this morning, with Easter story and crafts and I think it went well, we enjoyed it.

On Friday we dropped R off at his school to go skiing, and left before the coach arrived to avoid the busy bit and as he would be concentrating on the kids it made sense to say our goodbyes early on. H cried and is really missing him. We had got back to Fareham when I saw two missed calls - he had left his wallet in the car! We got back to school to see the students getting on the coach, and giving R their travel documents. Tee hee. We did a Easter Egg hunt in Fareham shopping centre to win some goodies, don't know yet if we have won... and got our faces painted for free by the best ever face painter. Beautiful. H felt a bit rough and has felt ill yesterday and today too, shes been keeping going but not her usual self. Yesterday we did a lot of reading, we have now both finished all the Little House on the Prairie books I got from the library, and I need to track down some more. They were a hugely big part of my own childhood reading and reading them again is a delight, made all the better for sharing the stories with H. Laura was one of my heroines, and she and Anne of Green Gables have a huge part to play in my becoming a teacher. The Laura books are so so powerful because they are autobiographical, the stories of simple pleasures, of hard chores on the farm and of the conditions her family lived through to get their claim on a homestead in the USA in the late nineteenth century. Her Pa is an awesome man, with skills as diverse as skinning a muskrat, shooting a buffalo, fending off a prairie fire and building a house - many houses in fact. He can butcher a pig, make hay, make doors, build a stable out of grass, you name it, he can do it. What a guy! She ends up marrying another bloke with similarly awesome farming and DIY skills, who owns the best horses in town. Her mum is pretty amazing too, being able to raise four girls and feed her starving family on potatoes alone. She can make dresses, curtains, mattresses filled with hay, dinner for 18 men with no notice and keep a vast garden, make preseves and sweetmeats and teach her girls their grade books when they can't go to school in the snow. It makes me want to head to Dakota and start farming, though I guess things have changed a little in the last 120 years there.

I have realised there is a problem with the new car. It seems to not be able to park. Honestly, it is an embarrasment to me, the way it leaves itself half up on the kerb and half out in the road. Our road has really gone upmarket, I always said we were at the posh end of Thornhill and now we have 7 little trees along the verges in front of our row of houses. We have rechristened it Hinkler Avenue.

So much to tell you! Yesterday morning the girls and I did some errands in Bitterne, which was lovely, as the girls don't go there much anymore, and yet it was a huge part of their early life. We walked down an alley and H said ' I can't smell baking bread' and despite the supermarket not having sold bread for about 3 years now, I was touched with the association she had with that place. I know I go on about Bitterne, and you may be thinking it doesn't deserve such good press, but it is a child friendly shopping centre like no other, with little pieces of play equipment down its pedestrian precinct. H is too big for the slide now, and it was weird to remember when she was too small for it and I had to help her on to it. I will try to take them more often, they really enjoyed the trip!

Matthew, I know there are not enough paragraphs in this one.

2010-03-27T19:04:00.002Z

Bitterne precinct is home to an alarming mini Natwest bank that has sprung up right in the centre of the landscaped grounds, in front of the current bank, like a monstrous spawn of banking. Go and see for yourself this shocking carbuncle on the delightful facade of late Georgian shops that is Bitterne.

I was in another precint today, a rather sad little place in Chandlers Ford, with no soul, but plenty of sole - as in feet, not the fish. I was there to buy some new trainers at a shop with the punning title of Up and running. I told them that my trainers that I walked in wearing were purchased from their main competitor in Eastleigh and that I had blisters every time I ran, and could they do better. Well, yes, it seems they can. I had to try on two pairs and run on their treadmill and then have my strike analysed on the video computer, and it seems I need a bit of support as my left foot slips inward a bit, and the old shoes were probably too wide so my feet could slip around. So, we shall try these new ones out. I went for a great muddy run today, it was the Bolt round the Holt, which hardy followers will recall I did a year ago, my first ever event, a 5k. This year I did the 10k, and it was hard work at times, some good bits and some bad bits, it was extremely muddy and that meant for some very slow pace up hills as you had to slide and slither around. I haven't done as much running as I would like, what with having a million other sports and a family and a job, and I struggled with the last km, and the first km, and some of the km in between. R got a better time than me which is devestating. Sarah and Chris Gale did it too, Sarah coming in first and Chris coming in last, and Adam also came with us and did the 21k ( half marathon) as a little walk in the park compared to the mighty London marathon which he is doing next month. The weather was nice for running, sun and cloud, and then suddenly a rain storm just as we were hanging around the finish line to cheer Adam over it.

H had taken her clarinet, so she spent the entire time we were running busking, with Katie holding the music. They clearly made a little cash, as H gave K £1.20.

This week I have confirmed my celebrity status in Hamble with a impromptu assembly to the infants on my appearance in Cycling Plus. Yes, the first edition with me in it is OUT NOW! I turned up with my class to assembly, and always it is me who is leading it, and I always assume it is someone else. The thing is, the other two members of staff who do it seem to have their PPA time or be on courses every Thursday morning, so I really should have caught on by now to the fact that it is me or nothing. Anyway, I talked about cycling and took questions, and then stories about their cycling adventures, and promised to bring my new bike in and cycle round the hall for a assembly treat. After school I went to the secondary school to book the girls in for a couple of sessions in their holiday playscheme, and found that most of the infants have swimming lessons there on a Friday, so I had a deluge of fans admiring my bike (the old new one Rob made me) and asking me about my riding.

Seeing as I have not started my official blog yet, I guess I can still tell you that I went for a 21 mile ride on Monday with Lou, it was a great route from Cycling Active magazine (the competition) and was north of Winchester, along very quiet lanes with very few hills to speak of. Lou had not cycled for 2 years and was nervous about it, but she only fell off once ( into a bush)and did really well. I loved being on my RJB road bike, don't tell Lou but I could have done it in half the time or less, on my fab new bike. On Tuesday I went to see my nun but she was in Liverpool (seeing her long haired lover, perchance?) so I cycled to Fareham instead. I cycled down to the sailing club and walked along the beach and then down to Hamble and got the pink ferry to Warsash and then slogged through the neverending suburb of Locks Heath to Fareham. Walked up a hill. It was cold and drizzling and I was in need of sustenance. I was going to Fareham to see R's osteopath, as since my bike fall my neck is still not right. After some of her deep tissue work I could feel how I was sloping and curved like a banana, and holding my head right of centre. Of course, she found so much wrong with me that I have to go back next week.

I have rekindled my entering of competitions after seeing one in Fareham shopping centre to win a grand to spend there. Whilst there I also entered one to win a spa break in cornwall and have one more to win a trip to Brazil. We'll wait and see shall we?

2010-03-20T20:07:00.003Z

This afternoon was spent in Thornhill Baptist Church, taking part in a voting activity to decide, as a community, how £100000 was to be spent on projects in Thornhill. I and R had both put in bids, and it was a long and stressy afternoon listening to the 25 proposals and then finding out whether we were successful. The whole community are invited to come and vote, but you have to stay for 3 hours and its a big ask of people with families. Consequently, the turn out was skewed towards the elderly and disabled, which is great, that those often isolated people are involved, but meant that the successful bids tended towards meeting the needs of the elderly rather than the young. Which meant some great projects did not get funding, and a lot of repetition of taking people out on bus trips. But R got some cash for stuff for his bike project, and I got cash for some after school sports clubs at Kanes Hill, which hopefully will be on my work days and help with my childcare bill!

The morning was kind of ruined by the afternoon to come, and by the rain, and by H feeling really ill and the rest of us not being quite right, with various aches and pains. The car seems to be aching as well, as last night it displayed two warning triangle signs and a ABS light on, and a message - Brake Failure - Stop Safely being displayed. The brakes seemed fine, and I did wonder how to stop safely without brakes, seemed an ambitious task to undertake. R took it back to the garage and to another garage to be looked at, and of course, by then, it was not doing any of these messages or lights.

A really good thing about this morning was the marking of the recent assessed writing that my class have done, where nearly all of them have made a lot of progress, some absolutely heaps - when you are banging your head against the classroom wall and gently moaning and sipping gin in the cupboard at play time you can be close to despair, but then you see this kind of progress and go 'WAHOO!' as opposed to the wrist slitting which you come close to when you are up close to the chalkface, as it were.

Last night was R's school Year 11 prom. It took a lot of complicated driving ( complicated by the brake failure light). Here goes. R leaves school and goes to pick girls up from Libby, and buys them KFC for tea to eat in car on way to pick me up at 5.30pm. I drop R H A off at Botley Grange Hotel ready to be on the welcome red carpet to watch the beautiful girls in their ball gowns, and the awkward but loveable boys in their suits. I drive to Rob and Judi's for 6pm to pick them up and get changed. Back to hotel, for 6.33, to join red carpet welcome team. I depart with girls at 7.15 to take them home where Libby waiting to babysit. I return to hotel for meal and disco ( teachers out in foyer/bar drinking). 11pm, R takes me home to relieve libby, and then returns to prom as has to be there til chucking out time. R takes R and J home and gets home at midnight. The food was nice, with a lovely raspberry creme brulee. I and Judi were sat together, on a different table to to two Robs, and we were lumbered with the entire senior management team. Nice to put names to faces, but hard to remember which names were the ones R generally prefaces with a swear word, and which ones he likes and respects. I mean,obviously he respects all his senior management team 100%. I really don't know why he isn't more senior, he is getting paid peanuts for the work he does and he could do their jobs standing on his head. Two avid cyclists on my table, so talk turned to cycling rather than the awkward bits of me trying not to drop R in it. Phew. I always say that R and Rob G should be married and I should marry Judi, it would be a lot easier on understanding and communication, and so for one night only, we were!

The prom is clearly not a place to go to feel young. No - the Thornhill healthy vote afternoon leaves you feeling like a spring chicken if you don't have a catheter and chronic liver disease. No, spending an evening with nearly 200 16 year olds is going to make you feel old. But the worst bit of the evening was the number of members of staff I mistook for students. Some of the teachers so young it made me feel old! R pointed out that a few of the younger teachers could technically have been at Cams when he started teaching there. In fact, the first Year 11s he taught at Birley in Sheffield would now be 28. Twenty eight!!!! I could be teaching their children! I don't know what all the !!! are for cos it is clearly not funny when you do these calculations in an ageist society. So, lets stop worrying about being so old I could nearly be teaching the grandchildren of my first class and enjoy the delights of age and wisdom.

Friday, I went to school and had a nice day, thank you. We finally got around to teaching the controversial subject of Jesus, two parents in to see head concerned that we would be indoctrinating the kids. We are teaching an enquiry based model, and teaching the skills of doing research and finding out answers to our own questions, and the children were brilliant at thinking up questions - why did Jesus wear rags? Was he rich? Did he disagree with anyone? Why did Herod want to kill him? did he have any sisters or children? Was he married? They came up with their own ideas on how to find out the answers, including ask a priest, ask a Christian, and only after me prompting them, looking on the internet! I trying not to feel that my professionalism being called into question by parents, who are essentially not trusting me to do my job. I can't help feeling we would not have had the same furore if we were studying Vishnu or Krishna or Budha. Which begs the question, why the animosity towards Jesus and tolerance to other religious figures? Anyhow, one of the children asked the question ' Why don't I believe in God?' which I thought was a good one and difficult to research but worth asking. The kids were gripped by the work, and it was a great morning.

I finally got a case on Tuesday, which went on to Wednesday, and was short and fairly obvious - in a kind of 'if you are going to nick a few grand from a till, don't do it under the CCTV camera' kind of way. It didn't take us long to reach our verdict, and then we found out the guy had over 100 previous convictions. We had heard about 68 of them that were relevant beforehand, which helped to confirm our verdict, but did not dictate it. It was very interesting being in court and listening to all the evidence (not much of it) and much much better than sitting waiting. Thursday I went in and spent 2 hours waiting for nothing to happen. But that meant I got time to have lunch and read Mark with Sialou, which was fabulous, she is seeing some amazing transformation in her life and prayer really working for her. Great to see her, always an encouragement.

I did a bit too much exercise one day this week, with my cycle, plus a gym session with H, and a tennis session with R - my legs were shaking and I could hardly walk that night. This week's exercise has mainly consisted of cycling to and from court.

Granny Mary was here for a few days to cover for me when in court - although it turned out I didn't need much cover. Granny Mary very industrious, mending, ironing, cooking, cleaning, potting plants and digging over the garden, plus buying shirts and doing crosswords. She is like a whirling dervish.

I have been re reading the Laura books - the 'Little House on the Prairie' series, and am delighted to announce that H is loving them. They are my top favourite book series from my childhood, well, along with Malory Towers and Anne of Green Gables, and I was delighted when H got her nose into one and couldn't get it out. Her words!

Dippy the Dinosaur has come back home from his holidays, with a green hat and bag. He had sent A three postcards from his travels this week and then just turned up on Friday morning. A very happy and put a sign up in the playroom window, annoucing 'Dippy is back' to anyone who wanted to know what had become of the exploring dinosaur.

R is watching the rugby, which is bewildering for me - way too many people to keep track of. I liked the Famous Five, but could never get on with the Secret Seven, too many of them to keep tabs on. Same with rugby, way too many men running around. And all that bunching together. I had to teach rugby last year, to year 3. No wonder the state system does not contribute much to cricket and rugby at a national level, if the government expects me to teach it there is no hope for UK sport. Public ( private) schools have proper coaches, whereas the state schools have me. Heaven help us. What do I know about rugby? I find you just have to keep one page ahead when it comes to those kind of lessons. My current class have done some great Monet art work, it is as good as I would expect from upper key stage 2, ie kids 3 years older than them. I can teach art but rugby is pushing it. But that it what makes it so much fun! One minute you are painting landscapes, the next minute you are out doing a line out or whatever its called. Country dancing one hour, french the next, then a bit of coastal erosion and deposition. There is never a dull moment!

2010-03-11T18:57:00.003Z

There used to be a shop in Bitterne called Babyneeds, and the strapline ' Everything you need for the modern baby' is still up above the shop front. Unfortunately, the shop is now a charity furniture shop, for a local hospice, so under the strapline are the words 'children's hospice'. I really think they need to sort that out as it gives the wrong impression in all sorts of ways.

I have cycled past it 6 times this week, hence my observation. I have been cycling to and from town, where I am serving as a juror (not a conjuror) in Southampton Crown Court. So far, I have spent a total of 5 mins in a court room, and a lot of time reading or mooching about the city centre. Or meeting friends for lunch. Today I drove to Woolston and got the bus into town, as I was picking the girls up from a after school club in Weston. Getting the bus was so stressy for me compared to cycling. Tomorrow I am going back to work for a day and finding out whether they want me back at the court next week. I have read the Prodigal God by T Keller again, a book from the library by Libby Purves, a book of H's called Kazillion Wish. I have read 4 copies of Marie Clare and 2 of Good Housekeeping. I started today on the Big Issue, while doing Press Ups.

Our new car! Is big and black and looks a little like a hearse. If you have need of a mourning car, call me. The thing with this whole automatic thing, is that it is a doss. I mean, anyone could drive one! Its a cinch! You have to do almost nothing, and if you use cruise control, you can get away with doing nothing, literally, I am sure. Every junction I come to I grab for the gearstick to change down, and am convinced that I will stall at all times, but no, it all just does it for you. Why doesn't everyone have one? I wish someone had told me about them years ago. They are so easy peasy, as H said, she could drive it. And she could!

Today before I got to court I went for a run and cooked tea and cleaned the fridge. Not simultaneously, that would have been a feat! I did some hill climb reps in the woods, which I was pleasantly pleased with as the last time I tried them it was truly awful. This time, not so bad. If I had been carrying a fridge and a pasta bake it would have been something worthy of a headline.

2010-03-07T20:03:00.002Z

Why we don't need a wee.

Because the Clarks have got one.

H has just found out today and spent all afternoon there, bowling. Why buy one when your neighbours have one? R commented today on the other neighbour, with the barking dog and 3 sons, who seems to burn something very toxic on a bonfire in his garden most weekends. We are wondering what it might be.

I start jury service tomorrow and am feeling quite tense and irritable tonight, fear of the unknown. It says there is no dress code, but dress appropriately. Surely that means different things to different people? I mean, a bikini is appropriate at times.

The other day there was a police presence and a lot of litter outside one of the big blocks of flats up the top of the hill when I cycled past to work. I saw in yesterday's Echo that a woman had committed suicide (well, they not got a verdict yet but most likely) jumping from her balcony on the 13th floor. Well, the newspaper report says she was in the D O P and did not want to leave but was sent home by Doctors against her will. Presumably because of money pressures. And that same night she jumped off the balcony. Now, I don't imagine the D O P is a 4 star hotel, so to want to stay there you must be feeling low. I bet someone is kicking themself for making her go home. I don't know why there was so much litter though.

I read the Thornhill Plus You Final Delivery plan, as we near the end of the 10 years of New Deal funding. When we moved to Bitterne Park, suddenly the house prices rose and everyone from church was moving to B P - we called it the NTB effect on the housing market - Near the Bowens. Well, we seem to be doing the same for Thornhill. People want to stay here and there are heaps of new housing association houses being built with priority for local people. The delivery plan is an encouraging read, Thornhill has the lowest crime rate in Southampton and is the cleanest greenest estate in the city. It is a fabulous place to live. Within 5 minutes of my house I am running in woods and in fact had a great run today, just a short one up to Netley Common.

Once I start blogging for Cycling Plus magazine, my blog for them is EXCLUSIVE, so I guess I won't be able to tell you anything about my cycling or other sporting pursuits. So will get some in now, and tell you the web address when I know it so you can follow my Olympic career there. After finding out I had got this opportunity on Wednesday, I cycled the long way round to work and struggled along the shore road and through the Country Park, and regretted taking the long route. Great views, but very windy day and a windy road. I am slightly panicked that I won't be able to manage a 20 mile bike ride on my next tri, let along the Tour de France or whatever they put me up to. I would like to do Alpe DHuez, so maybe this is my moment. We are going to Disneyland Paris in October, but not sure I could pack it all in - Monday - drive to campsite. Tue Disney, Wed Disney, Thur forget the sights in Paris and head for the hills, Fri come home.

I have just been talking to my brother, who went to a Cafe church in Dorking today. Ang is on the steering committee at their anglican church in Bookham charged with modernisation, so they went to see what a modern church service looks like. They really liked it! We had Messy Church today, I did the Light of the World Godly Play story, and we had lovely soup and some DIY trifles that I had made. There was jelly and fruit and a blob of dream topping (I was so excited to find they still made it!) in a plastic cup. I had made fairy cakes, so you plonked one of those on top and dribbled on icing and sprinkles to your own taste. It was fun, but a low turn out this week so we have a fair few trifles to get through in the fridge in next few days. We and the Crandons are on catering together ( each month a different set of two families do the cooking). Its a dream team, as both Josh and R love mass catering.

I swam at 8am this morning which I haven't done for weeks and weeks, it was lovely to be there when it is quiet. I was not quite brave enough to go in the outside pool. Not quite yet. April. That's my goal month to get out there and be brave.

Cat is trying to eat one of the spare fairy cakes. The therapeutic drops on her food seem to be working as she has not done any misdemeanours in the lounge lately. I have the phone number of the dog whisperer, recommended by two friends, who does cats too, at £25 a throw. Cat now got the fairy cake as I just went upstairs to say goodnight. We are thinking about putting the cat in a cattery rather than leave her alone when we next go away. She is eating a fairy cake. Is that normal?

Yesterday I had my first drive in the new car, which R collected on Friday. I did it ( the drive) in Eastpoint car park, along with another woman having a go at driving a van (I imagine that is what she was doing and she wasn't just lost). It was fine, it is a big car with a turning circle like a lorry, but I can get used to that. I drove home and parked. Phew. R spent the afternoon cleaning and scrubbing the old car and put it on Autotrader at 6pm. By 7pm he was inundated with calls, and they kept coming till he took it off after selling it this afternoon to a nice couple from Reading. They got a bargain decent car with low milegae and long tax. We were glad it went to a good home and not a dealer, which seemed to be most of the people ringing up.

Had a quick game of tennis yesterday afternoon too, with R and H, and I did ok, got a point off Rob! A went off to play at a friend's, which was great, as she usually spends the time on the tennis court rolling around and making patterns with the balls.

H is getting to an age and stage of independence. She goes round to her friend Abi's on her own ( one road to cross), to the Co op on her own, has cycled back from Crandon Towers on her own, and today for the first time she cycled to church at the Youth Centre on her own. She went up the main road way, and caught up with some friends who were walking up, and only had two side roads to cross to get there. It is difficult knowing how much to let her do and how much not to, I hope we are getting there with gradually increasing the boundaries and level of responsibility.

At school ( Kanes Hill - the outstanding one -did I say?!) on Thursday night the Year 5 and 6 children organised a auction, and it was brill. There were loads of cakes on the cake sale, a great turn out of parents and other family members and lots of good things to bid on. The children had been taught by a proper auctioneer, a lovely old gent, who sat in the front row and bid £105 for 2 rods fly fishing in the Test near Romsey. Which was a good thing, as no one else in Thornhill was likely to. I did lots of bidding, but had limits and came home with nothing. The children had done all the organisation and did the welcoming and everything. The money raised was for them to go to Paulton's Park as part of their current project, gadgets and gizmos, which includes creating a new ride. They also said they would use some of the money to support their Action Aid child. They made £900, an incredible total. Well done to them!

2010-03-03T21:28:00.002Z

I have lots of sports related news, I will start with the least exciting. I won 2 tickets to Wimbledon second Wednesday, which should be mens quarter finals day. I am taking Jo Hayles, who is changing her flight home from Bangladesh especially. General sport news - I played tennis badly with R on Sunday, and then quite well with Sarah on Monday, despite being hampered by having to use Adam's racquet which was produced in the 1980s. I did ok with it. It was my birthday on Saturday, and I had a great run in the mud/wind/rain with Sarah G. Despite being a fabulous runner, Sarah does not like mud etc, so my choice of route which involved getting lost twice in West Wood ( near Weston Shore) was not her thing at all. I had another marvellously muddy run on my own yesterday around Botley and Manor Farm. the weather was so hot I wished I had gone for shorts, and wished for sun glasses too. I hardly saw a soul and most of my route was just me, the fields and the river Hamble, looking stunning in the sunshine. I not looking so stunning in the sunshine, as a bike fall, week skiing and week post skiiing recovery mean I am not match fit for running, so back to it with determination as have a 10k coming up on March 27. I have done 2 swims the last few days, having bought some replacement goggles in a sports shop in Winchester, which was the lunch date choice of my family for my birthday. Winchester, not the sports shop.

We went to Buddies diner, and then the girls wanted to buy me a teapot and a dress. Buying a dress is not my favourite thing to do, I am not a great shopper at the best of times, let alone with two eager girls wanting me to buy something suitable for Strictly. I ended up in a heap in Jigsaw, and was attended to by a lovely assistant who got me to try on a pretty dress which I bought without looking at the price tag!

Tea pot was easier, nice shop called Dingles or similar near the cathedral, I asked if I could try before I bought and they brought me a jug of boiling water to pour. I also bought a groovy set of colourful plastic kitchen bowls and utensils. While in a shopping mood, on Monday I bought a car! Not entirely on my own, well, I saw it and I NEVER look at cars, in fact had driven/rode past this garage a million times and never seen there was a garage there. I texted R to tell him price and mileage as I thought it sounded reasonable. He texted back that he had noticed the same car yesterday, but not told me as we were not looking to buy a car and I glaze over if he talks about cars. So. We bought it. Getting it on Friday. It is not a Capri, which we would like but which is not pratical for a shooting and fishing lifestyle such as ours. no, the other end of the practicality spectrum, a Volvo. Now all we need is a dog.

Nice day at the office today, a long parents evening but they are all pleased with their children's progress and so am I. We are studying Monet in art and the children are all really keen on Monet pictures, we are doing a colour wash tomorrow, last week we mixed yellow and blue powder paint to - wait for it - make green! It was a revelation to some of them.

Other birthday news - we went to see Chicago, starring Marti Pellow, at the Mayflower in the evening. What a show! It was awesome - the musicians are on stage and are fab, the singing was great, the dancing amazing - it was a real WOW and totally worth going to. I know R and I are suckers for a good musical, but really, this was something else. I loved everything about it and had a fabulous evening on a lovely day, with lots of treats and suprises from lovely friends and family.

I have been selected to be on the Cycling Plus Magazine team of the year. They take on 4 cyclists at different levels of their training, and give you a bike, team wear, gadgets, and entry to any cycling events of your choice. In return, you write a weekly blog and get the odd photo taken for the magazine. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!!! At last my blogging talent will be recognised by the national press, before long I will be an Olympic medal holder in the pursuit or the pelaton, I will go up and down AlpeDHuez without batting an eyelid. At present, my cycling plans are for a tri on 16 May and a jolly round the Isle of Wight in June with two of my NCT mates, Rachel and Vicky. Bradley Wiggins, Lance Armstrong, move over, coming through!

2010-02-22T19:59:00.003Z

not sure if that is a video you can click and watch or just a photo. It is H and Freddy Flyer, the school teddy who goes on holidays. Today I did 8 loads of washing, and have it all over the house, and R is going to the launderette after bike club to get some tumble dried before it rots. I also cleaned a lot of the house and cycled in the rain to an osteopathy appointment in Northam, but the osteopath was late ( I gave him over 5 minutes and was just leaving when he arrived). I told him that I was not interested in doing business with him, very nicely, and wished him good luck. If my class turn up at 8.45 I don't rock up at 8.50 do I? No! Indeed! Cycled all the way home again in the rain.

In my quest for good library service I cycled to Thornhill library and gave a furiously positive hello to Librarian Surly, and got a positive reply from the lovely Librarian Jolly who snuck out of the cupboard behind LS. I bought 13 children's books for 65p, the girls are getting through them and then I will take them in to supplement my class's kinderbox until the end of the year. Supplementing the education system through my own money again - I don't do it at all compared to some teachers. We have run out of Pritt Sticks till April, will have to mix flour and water together soon.

After school, A and I made some banana cupcakes, and then during Rainbows, H made the cream cheese frosting and decorated them. Very tasty and good way to use up manky bananas.

I read Sarah T's comment with interest and wonder if Year 8s would like to dress up as German fairy tale characters. Sarah could, maybe, go as Rumpelstiltskin or an Elf. Or Gretel. I think 12 and 13 year olds would relish the opportunity to dress up. My own acting as Snow White's step mother went very well, perhaps too well as the boys with swords all tried to kill me.

2010-02-22T19:58:00.000Z

2010-02-21T20:54:00.002Z

Thank you to Nid, for comments suggesting my library situation at school not a one off. Granny Mary took the girls to Thornhill library last Friday as they had an INSECT day off school (A thought the teachers spent the day checking for spiders' webs and shooing off little bugs in the classrooms - if only). Granny Mary endured the usual snotty service from librarians - she was returning books and the gruff one wouldn't let them take out any as they didn't have their cards - this is despite being able to look them up and having known them since they were two and zero. GM pleaded and they took home two books each. G M was very busy last Friday, as she did ironing, washing, a trip to Sainsburys and the launderette as well as the library, and gave the girls lunch, all before noon. The reason being that at noon, R was fetching me from work and we were off on our road trip! We got to the check in at Eurotunnel at 15:12, the last minute we technically could check in for our departure. Things were a bit delayed there anyway, and with the Tom Tom struggling to find the Hotel Balladins in Arras we endured a fractious evening before finally enjoying the comfortable bed and nice sized family room. A loved the shoe shine wipes and the shower gel! Generally, I could not fault Mr Tom Tom. He was calm throughout and didn't get too shirty when I spent another half an hour (on the way home) trying to get to IKEA in Strasbourg. We since found out that the owner of the TT has put IKEAS in as points of interest and it would have got us there just like that. For future reference, come off at Cronenburg. We were only going for lunch, not buying flat pack long distance.

For those of you wondering why I was touring the cities and towns of eastern France, we were en route to and from the lovely Engelberg in Switzerland, where we once again enjoyed a week of skiing. The snow was not as deep as last year, which helped as no drifts to lose A in, but plenty enough snow for fabulous skiing, and 5 days of blue skies, and snow on our last day, when we had had enough anyway! So the conditions were excellent, R and I felt we had a week of consolidation, and actually, when I came down the easy slope next to the chalet for the last time, I could see huge progress from the end of last year - I am swishing towards being able to do parallel turns. The girls did brilliantly, they are so confident and A is putting in some turns now so won't be hitting the land speed record this time around. She looks like a little Swiss child now, whizzing away and going up the button lift and the T bar on her own. We did one stretch of a red run, with me tailing the kids on their lesson, and it was horrendous, I ended up crawling back up the slope as a kind passer by had taken my skis up to a ledge for me to ski down the easier side, but I was slipping down the slope and had to use every muscle I had to stay up and get to the edge and crawl up. My heart rate must have been over 200bpm. The next day I had aches everywhere! Unfortunately no one learned from our mistake, and intending to take the long blue run, R and H ended up in the same situation in the afternoon too! We met a lovely family from Nottingham, and hung out with them a lot, with the girls all ringo-ing together after lunch every day while we ate chocolate and drank expensive drinks very slowly on the terrace of the Berg Hotel. Easy rule of cost in Switzerland - the higher up the mountain, the more it costs - fair enough really as someone has to lug it all up there for you to consume. R managed to work a trick on the hot chocolate machine for 4 days but was sprung by the lady on the till on day 5.

I loved just being in the mountains and seeing the views, and I love what we affectionately know as 'The Narnia run' - its so peaceful amongst the trees and you can go fast without worrying about other people. Because there are none, not because you have ignored them. The bottom half of it, you meet up with all the better skiers and boarders doing the descent from the top, and it gets a bit busy and there is a double hair pin bend which we affectionately know as 'Death Bend'. Not so fun, but the bottom bit back to the lifts, which is really steep is fab as you can swoop back to the base station and stop just in time before the orange fence.

The downside of Oak Hall is having to listen to a talking head drone on each evening, or hide in your room, and last year the guy was boring and I wasn't in the mood. This year, R took his guitar and played so the worship was a little more accessible than last year. The speaker was fab, he works for Cornhill and is called Stuart, and he was speaking on Luke 15, which has been very telling for me lately, and I have just read the book Prodigal God by Tim Keller, which he refered to a lot. I went to every meeting and listened to every talk. Get me!! I found the mix of people there this year to be interesting and fun, we sat with lots of different families over dinner and there wasn't a clique in sight - well, there was, but I made it my mission to infiltrate them and it worked. One night I was playing a game called Jungle Mania with them and some other people. Its a complicated version of Snap, and if you have good spatial awareness and quick reactions you will be good at it. I was playing it with a bunch of teenage boys so quit while I was ahead, which was fairly immediate. On another evening there was a table tennis competition, and I persuaded R to enter and paired him up with a chap called Colin, from Farnborough, known to me as a marathon runner and actuary. They got through the preliminary round and made easy work of the quarters and semis, and won in 2 sets in the final. It turns out that the very modest Colin had played table tennis to county level!

I hope I have painted a great picture of the trip. The girls had lots of fun in the kids club and at their lessons, and generally running around the chalet being excited. They were incredibly patient passengers in the car and A did not mention feeling sick until we were on the M25 on the way home, 10 minutes from my brother's! She used to be sick every time we went from here to Surrey, so to do such a huge road trip without sick is awesome. The thing that I despaired about was the French road system, we went on the toll roads and they are so expensive, and involved such long queues to pay for the priveledge of queueing! Grr. Also there is this ridiculous situation near Strasbourg, where the two lane motorway disappears and you have to travel along a normal one lane each way road and go round two roundabouts to get back on a motorway - and this is all the traffic on a major road network! A bit like Winchester before Twyford Down. And the motorways seem to go through cities - well, Strasbourg and Rheims, rather than past them, as tends to happen in England. Which means the road becomes really busy with people popping to IKEA, for example. Its not like the countryside is so beautiful you couldn't run a bypass through it, its all same old same old fields really. Sorry, France, sure there are some lovely bits but not the bit you see from the Autoroute de l'est.

Interestingly, I noticed today, in my life I have known a Sam West and a Sam East. If any of you know a Sam North or South, will you introduce us? I would like a whole set.

Back to France, and I am afraid H has picked up some of her grandfather's attitude to the country, complaining about the toilets ( some were a bit whiffy) and the fact that no one spoke English. She was horrified that someone might insist on her eating Frogs legs and snails. We worked hard on explaining that French people are allowed to speak French as she is allowed to speak English, but she will take some convincing. She loves the holidaying we have done in German speaking countries, and will have a go at a bit of German, but despite our positive efforts to model 'having a go' in french, she was not keen. Croissants might be the key to her heart, and 4 days in Disneyland Paris will give her an authentic experience of the culture.

The novel I read on holiday was set in Paris, a Rose Tremayne tome called 'the way I found her.' Gripping stuff and very clever, with lots of unanswered questions, and all told from the view point of a 14 year old English boy left to his own devices in Paris for a summer. I read her ' The Road Home' and feel sure that the next offering of hers that I find in the library will be just as good as those two have been. If I can persuade the librarian to let me at the books. Interestingly, for those of you following my threads on libraries, I just renewed my books on line with considerable ease. Much better than ringing them, now I have a pin number.

2010-02-09T14:51:00.003Z

Today I fell off my bike, so think it is worth telling the world. the last time I can remember falling off my bike was in 1993, so I should be safe for another 17 years, unless I take up BMXing. Actually, a year ago I did a bike ride with Ang and I did fall off then, and once more recently on a bike ride with Rachel, but they were both off road falls on soft ground so don't count like today did. It was a proper falling off on a road and if a car had been coming the other way, or from behind, I would not be in such a good state as I am. Which is fine, since you ask, I have a bruised leg and a headache and tense neck and shoulders and a bit stiff, but all vital organs seem to be working ok. It happened on the same bend that I stopped at a few weeks ago to help a lady push her car out of a ditch. Well, she drove and I pushed. Today, I saw ice on the floor and thought 'oh there's ice' at the same time as I slipped on it and sprawled across the road. I was wearing gloves, a helmet and, for the first time ever, I had borrowed R's winter cycling leggings, so was well protected. My bike was damaged, so I walked the rest of the way to school (worked this morning, doing a meeting to talk about the year 2s progress - or lack of...). then I got a bus to Tesco - I was very blessed as literally 2 buses came at once, giving me the option of Tescos or Woolston. OK, so not that blessed, it could have been St Tropez or Nice. Anyhow, after a quick mooch around Tesco to buy a birthday present for one of A's friends, I walked the rest of the way home, feeling dizzier and more tired with every step - and I could normally run that easy peasy twice! So clearly, I need to listen to my body and heal, hence having just had a bath, and texted R to ask him to come home early ( he is on a boring course so I knew he would like a get out clause - in fact, when I rang at 8am to tell him of my plight, he offered to come and get me then, before the course even started!).

Have finished reading Adrian Mole the cappucino years. A bit behind the times but a great comic read. Am reading Mr Gum's dinner by Andy Stanton, my vote for the best children's author of all time if he continues to churn out such great stuff as Mr Gum.

We have given Amanda all her belongings ( except one carrier bag of toiletries which I hope she realises she needs at some point!) and got our key back from her. It is very peaceful at home now and less noisy and just calmer in every way.

While I am here, I'll tell you a few other things going on - yesterday I played Sarah at tennis, we did well, she is good and I am improving and we are well matched. I also had a coffee date at M and S ( Ang was paying, so I didn't feel it broke with my principled stand against them). Last night I had a washing up and planning meeting for our 'Messy Church' which is getting to be such a slick and organised affair that it will soon need to have a new name. There is a facebook group you can join for our messy church, I know nothing of these things, but good luck to you if you want to have a rummage through the net for it. the meeting was fun, I feel purposeful and part of a team. Hallelujah.

Sunday we played family tennis with Chrissie and James Fryer, our new tennis pals, who are long suffering with our children's lack of attention span and forgiving of my poor quality tennis. The girls had swimming lesson and then tea for all at Whitmore Towers, we have enjoyed our Sunday tea time dates together, we have taken it in turns to take the swimmers swimming, or cook the tea. Girls also cycled to church that morning, so they settled down to sleep pretty quick Sunday night. I did a tri training session with Sarah Gale on Sunday morning. We met at Bitterne Library at 7.30am and went on our road bikes (Sarah's first go) to Horton Heath and back to West End, then did a short run around Harefield (I was pathetic on the hills) and then home.

On Saturday R and I played tennis for an hour while the girls went to club, then R took them swimming while I ran a slow and short run to test out my hip/back which I damaged a fortnight before, picking up a tennis ball. I had found it painful and irritated by walking but it was ok on the cross trainer. It seems fine again, I just badly out of running form and have a 10k in 6 weeks time so hope I stay injury free. Me and Paula have similar problems. I ran to Haskins, so then sat in the cafe with a packet of crisps and a scone which possibly evened out the benefits of running there. If you ever want to feel young, go to Haskins cafe. I guarantee, whatever your age, that you will feel sprightly and youthful compared to the rest of the clientele.

I managed to cram two trips to Bitterne in on Saturday, one in the morning to get things for the evening, and another one at 4.40pm to get the things I had forgotten. I bumped into an old neighbour and had a lengthy chat, in Sainsburys. I didn't know her well, but she always smiled at H and chatted and once we went in for a cup of tea, and she just strikes me as a kindred spirit. One particulary exciting thing about Bitterne is the new system for taking books out of the library, you scan your card, then just put the books on the desk and the machine somehow, knows what books you have put down! You can try and outwit it and trick it, but it just knows! It is just a circle of wood. It truly is amazing, and in the case of Bitterne library, I am all for increased use of computers if it means less withering stares from the staff who clearly avoided the customer service training day. In fact, some of the staff there are perfectly pleasant, for librarians, and were able to do things like stack and tidy books, and answer my query regarding where to look for books on a certain topic, for example. Do you know, in 4 years at secondary school, I never used the library? It was never open, no one ever suggested we could go in it, it was like a fossilized remnant of some grammar school past, uncomfortably positioned between Home Ec and the staff room corridor which was forbidden. I was sick once in the staff toilet ( next to the medical room - I thought it was a wise choice as the girls loos were miles away and locked) but got shouted at for my efforts. Next time, I vowed, I would be sick on the floor and Mrs Thornton ( evil deputy head) or Mrs Gough ( evil school 'nurse' ) could clear it up.

2010-02-04T22:02:00.002Z

With suspended disbelief I can say that Amanda has moved out. She still has a key for another week ( a concession from R) and her room is a complete junk yard of smelly clothes and the like, but I have not seen her for two days and when I wake up in the morning there is a different atmosphere in the house. She made us a lovely card with a butterfly coming out of a cocoon - hold it there, the cat has just wee -d on a carrier bag right in front of my nose. The impudent beast. She is next out the door. Its like Big Brother here, I am evicting anyone who sits still or pees on the carpet. Won't be long before that's my parents and in laws then!

We had the girls' parents evenings tonight, and both of us coud go, it was a bit of a rush with R having to go back to work for a meeting, and H having Brownies, so we stuffed stew down their necks in between events. Anyhow, isn't it lovely when someone else without a vested interest or bias tells you how much they like your child, how clever and independent and kind they are and how it is a pleasure to know them? Both the girls had done some amazing writing, and they are both mathematical whizz kids, and it is lovely to go to school to hear such great things about them! They both have intelligent and thoughtful teachers who are bringing out the best in them, so I was complimentary back too!

The stew was a great meal, R made it last night and it was in the slow cooker. Beef stew is a big hit with the girls and I remember it from my childhood as a favourite before school dinners put me off meat for life. R was brought up on raw steak ( real steak) whereas I thought stewing steak was steak, and have never eaten a real steak, and probably never will.

I had a lovely 2 days at the start of the week from a social and lunching point of view. I had tennis lesson ( have been kept in the first level group, despite having played against 3 women who are moving up and being equal to them. For example, I and one of them played doubles together and none of her serves, first or second were in, whereas all my first serves were in. I was, as you can tell, a bit disgruntled but am sticking at it and will show em!) Suzanne Baker met me for my regular slot to catch up. She bought me a glass of wine to celebrate our success with Amanda moving on, this is me, who before Christmas didn't drink for 6 months and there I was drinking at lunch time on a school day! Tuesday, I met my nun, Winnie, which is always a blessing, and I recommend everyone get one. After seeing her and praying, I met Andrea for lunch, at El Sabio in Winchester. I have raved about this eaterie before so won't go on. I am still full. Like Winnie, Andrea is a positive presence in my life and always good to spend time with. Like Winnie, she is also in the Roman Catholic tradition, so look at me the old Anglican with all my Catholic mates! Maybe I do have hope for next time around getting a call up to become the Pope. Never say never!

My class are writing stories using the plot of Jack and the Beanstalk and changing the elements of the story - eg throwing magic seeds, not beans, meeting a fairy, not a giant. That kind of thing. I have some great imaginative minds - one hero goes up the apple stairs to meet a giant evil squirrel who has captured a hedgehog that lays golden eggs. One hero climbs up a slab of bacon and slides back down by holding on to the fat of the bacon - which is too slippery for the giant. Lots of axes and death to villains all, I am looking forward to reading the stories when they are completed next week. On Friday we are going in costume as fairy tale characters, so don't be scared if you see a wicked step mother in ball gown cycling to Hamble. Its just me. If you see a giant evil squirrel clutching a hedgehog, do be scared.

2010-01-31T12:05:00.002Z

I write from Claygate, where we have just returned home from an uplifting and empowering church service of covenant Sunday, of making promises to love God and live with him through the year to come, particularly, and in your life, entirely, as I understood it. Two songs written by women, and two by Matt Redman who sings quite high and so gets in on a technicality. Matt Redman came to Southampton University a year after me, me being a couple of years behind Matt Hyam turning up at the CU there. There was not enough room in the CU for two Matts, so the weaker song writer left. Or maybe it was arm wrestling they fought it out with? I was not sure, I was too busy trying to find Nick Treby things to do to prevent him playing his trombone in public. Anyway, Matt Redman couldn't take the pace of the fast moving tempo of Nick's trombone playing, couldn't keep up and that's why I think he left.

Yesterday I had a marvellous day out with Jenny Alibon, famous for being my right hand girl on our trip to Bosnia in 2007. We meet annually now, and have a great time! We 'did' the National Portrait Gallery, which I had never been in before. There were some modern photographs in a competition, and some modern paintings of scientists and business people which were interesting, then we went and trooped around the famous men of old, with heaps of paintings of old men so ugly they would have done better to say to the artist: 'I'll be honest. I'm no oil painting. Forget it.'

After a walk in St James Park (why do tourists cross the globe to go to London and then take photos of vermin - pigeons?) we had tea and cake at the Royal Festival Hall, a lovely space, much better used since the re-furb a few years back and now full of people drinking tea and eating cake. R and the girls had spent the day at the Natural History Museum, as A is doing dinosaurs at school and was eager to go and see the bones. I was on the train after theirs, so got back and had a relaxing evening eating chips while rest of family Bowen were over at Family Gibbs of Little Bookham. H has stayed over, and was looking forward to it, being the especially big cousin of two little boys who she adores. We hear that she organised Angus into making A and A breakfast in bed!

I had a observation of my teaching on Friday and my feedback was all good, which is nice. The only problem I had was with one of the boys trying to get under my chair while I was discussing puppets with the whole class. The children were as well behaved as always and I was delighted with how well the lesson went and how much they have learned in this DT project on making puppets, they can now use double sided tape, and as R pointed out, at the start of the year some of them struggled to use single sided tape. They have also all sewed something on to their puppet, and I was blessed with 4 parent helpers to get the sewing underway on Wednesday. I have had a good week teaching, with some fabulous writing being produced by children about giants and great use of vocabulary and compound sentences, with 'and' and 'because' appearing in lots of their writing. I also assessed my reading groups and have a handle on where they need to go next which is a great feeling!

On Tuesday we had Steve and Elaine Jones over for dinner, and in the hour before they arrived I cooked two types of soup, gave the girls tea and entertained 3 angels. Steve and Elaine are thinking, godly people and amongst the few who I can be honest with without fear. They charge reasonable rates and I recommend them to you all.

Housegroup on Wednesday was somehow led by me, Josh FORGOT he was leading the worship but mercifully I had already decided that we would go and pray at Amanda's new flat so he claimed that as his own idea and we all had a cup of tea and prayed for her, at her new flat. It seems very clean and decent, with brand new kitchen and bathroom. Hey. Josh, don't worry, I won't tell anyone you forgot you were on the rota....

Sialou and I have managed 2 weeks in a row of meeting and reading Mark together, so 2 chapters down. It is fantastic to read and discuss the bible with someone who has such a hugely different culture and history to me, but essentially who meets the same Jesus on those pages. I come home really built up by the experience, and can only despair that it has taken me two years to get around to it, and rejoice that despite my slowness, Jesus is waiting for me always.

2010-01-25T21:37:00.002Z

One of my favourite signs is the one that says 'in emergency - break seal' as I always see someone snapping a cuddly fluffy little seal in half.

Well, we have an emergency on our hands - but more of an emergent - cy - as Amanda is emerging from the protective cocoon of our family into the big wide world of living on her own in a flat. It is a miracle beyond all comprehension. We had given up on the council as it would be at least 3 more years before she was anywhere near the top of the points system for getting a flat. So we had looked at a private flat and R had figured out the finances and so on, and despite his increasing unease, had committed to a course of action and was up for supporting her to move into a flat a 15 minute bus ride away from thornhill. She went to accept and was told she was 10 minutes too late and they had given it to someone else. Big gloom, until, a couple of hours later, R happened to check her bidding status on the council system and found a message sent that day which said she had been offered a studio flat in Thornhill, a 10 minute walk away, and literally a roll down the hill from her flat to some of our housegroup members' houses. She went to view it today and is signing and getting the keys tomorrow and moving in on Monday!!!!!!!!! Iknow it is wrong to do lots of !!!! but hey, you get my ! The girls are excited for her and desperate to help her pack her bags, but in a nice and loving way. She is so motivated and full of life it makes me want her to hang around, she not only viewed and accepted a flat but made and attended doctor and dental appointments today. This level of activity is unprecedented. H has made a list of everything you need for a flat, and we are circulating the church a list of assorted items she needs. She also has some funds that she has saved up ( my idea - good one eh? ) so she may be able to buy some of the white goods/carpet etc. The flat is in dencet condition with a recently installed new kitchen and bathroom, thanks to TPY's Better Homes project, part of the way they have spent the £50 million that Thornhill got from the government back in 2002 or whenever the 10 year project started.

So, that was exciting wasn't it? If you ever wondered if there was a God, here is the dramatic proof that there is. Even I was wondering at times. We are incredulous, especially when we have had some desperate times lately and felt really low, it is amazing to have such news and see, hopefully, the fruit of our labours.

2010-01-21T19:33:00.002Z

Advert for a 8 hour a week guitar teacher job with Hampshire County Council:

(8 hours a week, maybe increased to 14, to cover sickness for 9 months)

Are you ambitious? ( No, clearly not, if I was I would be Eric Clapton by now)

Do you want to impact the education of 150 000 children ( not in 8 hours a week, no! That works out at mighty big clas sizes, and do they really have that many kids in Farnborough who want to learn the guitar? Are there that many guitars in Farnborough? would there be space for people to move around safely if there were that many guitars littering the place, being lugged to school by poor kids who are looking forward to their millisecond long lesson shared with another 1000 pupils taught by a not very ambitious guitar teacher?)

People should think more about their USPs. I broke the unbreakable USB key today, but managed to mend it again. Phew. The story teller went well, we really enjoyed it, the children were so involved with the whole thing and using their imaginations brilliantly. I taught two maths lessons this morning, we are way behind due to snow, so I enjoyed getting back into the groove with maths. I like maths, and I was a bit worried with the level of some of the children and have a lot of work to get them up to speed! Everything went well with the mayor yesterday as well, and my big week is nearly over!

2010-01-17T19:36:00.002Z

Spent a quiet day yesterday with the Sisters of Bethany who live, not with Lazarus, but in Southsea. They are mostly elderly and there was a waft of eau do urine about the place, and mixed with incense in the chapel that makes for an assualt on the nasal cavity. The priest leading was called David Lindsay, a gifted and engaging story teller who used Pooh Bear and The Shack in his addresses. I cycled in the rain to Fareham for training purposes, and then got the train to Fratton, and was then disoriented and shivering as I navigated the back streets of Fratton to find the Sisters. The best thing about going on Quiet days and so on is that you are often the youngest person there. I took along a friend who is younger than me, and who wisely got the train the whole way and arrived dry, not literally dripping on the door mat. the youngest nun ( 50 ish - maybe I'm being harsh) came over and said ' I always say a special hello to any young faces we have here.' Hooray!

At lunch time I went into Southsea to buy some emergency boots to warm my feet up, and some emergency socks, and then a paper and had lunch in the pub on a comfy sofa. So it turned into a rather costly quiet day, but fun and I have felt refreshed and enlivened by the experience, even if it were rather a soggy one. Travelling home with Elaine was fun, she is a very lifegiving person and I was pleased to have her along for the ride. Not on my bike.

Today I saw a couple on a tandem with a trailer on the back with a dog in it. they should call those trailers 'tailers'. Did a nice run all along the beach from Weston pitch and putt to Netley Sailing club, then a small lap of the country park and then back again as the sun was setting over the water. i have a new gadget, well, its a head thing that you wear to keep your ears warm when you are skiing and I wore it for running. It is fine, apart from with my hair being short and curly, it sticks out on top and I look like a pineapple on a bad hair day. But my ears were happy, and I hate having cold ears, so that was a good thing. Played a bit of tennis today with Chrissie, a teacher from Berrywood who has a husband who is good at tennis, so he played R.

Last night we went to some strangers' house for a dialogue group dialoguing about how to dialogue. It was a hotch potch of people and very random, a bit like turning up for a murder mystery, they lived in a huge old house as well. There were 13 at the table, and not being superstitous that did not bother me at all. There were some interesting comments, like ' Do we communicate with language or would we also be communicating with vibrations?' It's a good question, none of us knew the answer, and R nudged me at that point as my face was clearly saying what I was thinking. I would be no good at poker.

Today we went to the big Vineyard and I had the opposite experience from the nuns day, when I calculated that I was the 20th oldest person there.

2010-01-16T07:29:00.003Z

Thrilled to tell you that I cracked the code on the holidays in the Sun website to book the dates we wanted to go to Disneyland Paris. I had priority booking as had gone on a holiday before,with the Sun, and I have dutifully bought the Sun every day for a week and taken out certain pages before despatching it to school for painting duties. So I have all the tokens if anyone of you has started collecting a bit later than me, ask. I was at the Coop at 7am in the rain to buy today's comic, and then logged on straight away. I recall from last time, you see, that you don't actually put your first choice at first choice, but subtly slip it in amongst other dates that you are not interested in, in a variety of combinations, and eventually (took about 10 goes) your actual first choice ( they don't think it is, you see!) is offered to you. Seems a bit similar to the travel agent who suggested Goa when I said I wanted to go to Mexico.

So, I have booked caravan accomodation on a nice looking site about 20km away from aforementioned site of cheeriness and 50km from Paris as we are intending to have a day of culture to cancel out the plastic tastic, and the ferry crossing for UNDER £120! I have booked hundreds of holidays this year, I ask R about the money and he just shrugs, so I will keep going until he looks panicked, or suggest I find myself a night job. We managed to swap our Eurotunnel booking (this is amazing!) for free, for an earlier train, as I have a half day, the girls have a INSET day, and R was chatting to his headteacher who offered him a half day, so we should get to Arras at tea time and not at midnight, and on the way home we will stay an extra night in Arras and not have to have the pressure of driving solid all day and HAVING to get to Calais no matter what. Long sentence I know, but basically we get a longer and more calm holiday. That is the skiing I am talking about, btw. R is also skiing by coach with 40 teenagers but more about that after. Not actually skiing by coach, skiing on skis, not on a coach. I went to Hedge End library and stocked up on CDs for the journey, so far I have 10 hours listening time, including the Famous Five. H is really into Jacqueline Wilson, who teachers will know as the most popular author for girls aged 9-12 ish, and she touches on difficult subjects, with divorce, adoption, bullying etc all covered in her books. She is an engaging writer and incidentally lives in Kingston. I found one J Wilson CD so hopefully we will find a few more as I scour the libraries of Southampton and Hampshire in my quest to stave off boredom and travel sickness across France and Switzerland.

That sounds like I am taking on the whole of France and Switzerlands' ( is that right place for ') problems with travel sickness and boredom. No, I am just thinking of A who recently has shown great fortitude in making it all the way from home to granny's without being sick. Usually she got to Farnham/Guildford and I was thinking that Granny would have to move. Now, with some magic pills from the homeopathic section in the chemist, she is doing the whole 70 miles, so we have some hope for a mega crossing of Europe.

A went for tea at Duncan and Emma's last night and came home like Kim or Aggie. First she offered to clean the house for payment ( Wendy has been ill/snowbound for weeks now) and I said no, the house is clean enough, as I had raced around and done as much as I could on Wednesday and it doesn't need cleaning. So, she offered to spend today cleaning for free, to keep herself busy. R and A had the chat last night about moving out, we seem to have found a solution that doesn't involve waiting for another 3 years for enough council points. When I have been getting stressed thinking about how to move her on, into a more positive situation and not back to a hole like the YMCA, R has been really calm and focused and come up with what we all hope is a winnng combination. A insists that she will get up at 6.30am and come here to look after the girls for me on my work days from 7.30am. She failed twice to get up and look after them when she lives here so my expectations are low. So, the tentative plan is that she will be in her own studio flat ( probably in Sholing) by my birthday.

Yesterday we all watched HSM 1, which R and I have not seen before. It is by far the best of the 3. You have to watch it - even if you are a Sci Fi fan. Such a feel good film! R is a huge fan of HSM, and told his tutor group, who are 15/16 year olds. They think he is mad.

Funny story from R. He was helping a girl with her work, and asked her -'where is the sudoku spreadsheet saved?' She replied with 'Ummmm...'. He looked up at her, waited for a proper reply, then looked at the screen,where there was a folder labelled 'Ummm' where she put all the things she wasn't sure about.

2010-01-15T18:35:00.002Z

Is there nothing sacred? It turns out that the essential toolbox of every teacher in the UK, Sparklebox, is banned by Hamsphire County Council - its a kind of one stop place for freebie display materials, flash cards, that kind of thing. It has come to light that it is owned by a convicted paedophile who has served a prison sentence. So we can no longer download and laminate to our heart's content - and I had just before Christmas ordered 1000 laminating pouches.

This morning, H banged her arm in the bathroom and I ignored her yelping and groaning and told her to talk in proer words if she wanted help. When she quitened down and I went in to see her, she started the conversation with this opener: 'It's obvious you have not had any training in how to be a mother.'

Happy Friday, mum.

2010-01-14T23:11:00.001Z

The heating engineers could not do anything today so they patched up the hole and we were in the classroom in the end.

2010-01-13T21:26:00.002Z

I am the proud owner of a bullet proof computer memory stick. It is not so much a stick as a bullet shape, and is attached to my keyring to avoid loss. It is waterproof, shock proof and bullet proof and has some software or something on it which can encrypt to a level that the US forces are happy with. Probably about the same as my literacy planning then. R bought this item for me, and I am worried he has plans for me I know nothing about which involve me signing up for military service. One of the USPs ( is that right - unique selling points) on the packaging is the totem pole design it has etched on it. If I was buying a memory stick for its ability to act as a bullet proof vest I don't care whether it has etchings of Winston Churchill, a dancing ethnic figure or Nigella. Can you imagine the talk in the trenches in the first world war? Ah, you'll be alright, mate, yours has got a dancing aborigine on it! and its bullet proof. Hold it over your head!

I was intending to cycle to Sainsburys today to be picked up by a colleage to go to a course and the two Robs swapped my tyres over for my bobbly ones to help in the slush and snow and ice. I suggested that they could be in a Tour de France back up team, but they were on a go slow and suggested that the Tour would be won before their guy had got back on his bike if they were involved. My neighbour then kindly offered me a lift to Lord JS and so when R got home tonight he took my unused bobblys off and put the road tyres back on. I seem to have suggested to a good friend that we do the Round the Island cycle ride for fun in the summer. What was I thinking? She called my bluff and said yes! Anyone else up for it? Girls only, boys welcome in support vehicle with Lucozade.

I was over excited about going on a course, as a part time and temporary teacher on lowly cover contracts and supply you don't really reach the top, or even the bottom of the list for when courses are being doled out. I had not been on one since 2000. So I was way too excited to be getting a free lunch and doodling in the sides of a handout. Especially a handout about statutory testing of 6 and 7 year olds, a practice I find immoral but armed with the facts and information, I can see how it is easy to make it part of the everyday life of the class and not a term and a half of practising. So I am looking forward to getting stuck in to reading conferences and fun work based on the topic we are doing anyway. The course was condensed ( demonstrating that it was too long to start with) and I got home by 2.30, so could pick H up after all! Of course she was disappointed to have me and not be going to her friend's as planned. A had her first craft club after school, run by Chris Davidge, who is a playworker in Thornhill and tasked by Southampton City council with helping Thornhill children happy through play. She came home very hyper and happy so he can tick that box!

H is just getting interested in texting, and has a conversation going with my brother about her upcoming trip to stay the night with them. She has found out how to swap the writing language to Spanish, much to my dismay when everything had a q in it. Like me, she struggles with predictive text, and for 'Angus and baby Niall' I showed her how to write N I ALL instead of the option of Nick, and A N G US instead of bogus. Bogus and Nick, her new cousins. She had given up on Niall and written 'and the other one'. On one of my memorable first texts to R, I wrote ' on the cup on way good'. I also asked Mark Robins if Ali was interested in buying a sex machine. If you know Ali, you know the answer. I was trying to sell her a sewing machine.

There is a huge hole in the floor in the corridor outside my classroom so tomorrow I am teaching in the hall, and have rearranged my curriculum to make the most of it, so we will be doing the measuring in metres objective, throwing beanbags and then seeing how far we threw them. We will also be doing dancing and gymnastics. I am quite optimistic about the outcomes of the day having given it some thought and worked out what to bring from my classroom to the hall and what to forget. Sadly can't bring the interactive whiteboard with me so will be working on a flip chart like the olden days.

Sometimes I think of my first teaching job, my first year, and just cringe - some of my lessons were awful, and I had a blackboard, for heaven's sake! And I can't sleep at night if I think about my teaching practices, especially the first one, where the children learnt almost nothing - as in, they almost learnt nothing - we were in the negative. Poor kids, probably all in prison now, I failed them so badly. Well, I was only there for 5 weeks so a little harsh. There was snow on the playground every day of that teaching practice and we went in every day. But that's Sheffield for you. Used to the snow up there, they are. Not like us southerners who have never seen it before.

We had another day off school on Monday and went into town and did the IKEA creche again - an hour of free childcare - man, if only they had opened 9 years ago I would have been down there every day with my children! On our last visit on Friday, the lady in the creche asked why they not at school, and she asked again on Monday - I expect the EWO to be banging on my door next time I take them. The girls were great in town, relatively patient and fun, spraying perfume samples in Boots, that kind of fun, and we had tea at Pizza Express with Tesco vouchers. We planeed to go in the holidays but the sickness meant that was not an option, so R met us and we had a family tea out, a bit like Sophie in The Tiger who came to Tea. It was a close thing, being a family tea, as R had got his Italiam restaurant head in a muddle and went into ASK, and then did not have a clue where P Express is. It is in Oxford Street, and you can use Clubcard deals to pay for food, so our meal came to an appetising £8, which was the drinks bill.

I went out eating on Saturday, to El Sabilo in Winchester, a tapas place which we first went to for Andrea's 40th birthday Salsa night. We took the Gales, and had a fun evening eating loads. I have booked a lunch date with Andrea there in February and so will soon qualify for a loyalty card. If anyone wants to take me out for lunch, or dinner, just ask and I'll be there.

2010-01-07T20:09:00.002Z

It's not called ThornHILL for nothing, we have a great hill in our midst and in fact people denote themselves as being up or down hill dwellers. So yesterday morning ( was it only that long ago) while R set off in the car for work, getting there with no problems to find it shut, A and H got up too early and were too excited, so before 8.30am we had left the house and were heading for Hannay Rise. Us and one other family, who bizarrely were building a snowman on the steepest slope for miles around. It started snowing again and we were joined by Family Davidge and Whitmore, and had lots of fun on our tea trays. One, a metal one, was a wedding present from an Austrian godfather of R. It did good service as a sledge. At about 10am the piste started to get crowded and I wished I had put my salupettes on after all, so we retired to the Whitmores for hot chocolate. Then trudged through the thick drifts ( ok, a little poetic there) to the Taylor family for a play and a cup of tea before finally reaching home, alive. We spent the afternoon cleaning, as Wendy Wednesday was not happening so we all pretended to be Wendy instead. I scrubbed the new kitchen tiles as you only do once when they are brand new, and also had another go at the floor in the lounge which still smells of cat wee. Today I found cat wee and a cat poo in the lounge. She is going to have to go.

Today we had perfect sledging weather, blue skies all day, stunning views and if I had a battery in my camera you would by now have shared my nature photography. We walked over to Telegraph woods, and just tumbled over a gate into the golf course which has undulating terrain and a picture postcard view - looked like Austria, were it for the big industrial estates in Hedge End in the foreground. We had some great sledging on some bits of black plastic that had been left there. There were a couple of other families who had bothered to make the walk through the woods to get there, including a few snowboarders. It was amazing to see so much designer ski gear in West End! And proper sledges, we were the poor relations with our trays up there, whereas on Hannay Rise the day before we had been at the top end of technology, above the Quality Street lids and bin bags. After shivering yesterday, I wisely wore my full ski wear today and was toasty. After a detour to buy chips for lunch, the girls and R spent the afternoon making a sledge, so we trotted back 'up Hannay' to try it out. By now, Hannay Rise was a sheet of ice and only the brave and foolhardy of Thornhill were out. One of the things which makes Thornhill fun is times like this, and seeing the resourcefulness of young people, who get a bad press, but had pressed into action as sledges items as random as an inflatable dinghy, a road sign, a car bumper ( that was in bits at the bottom) a freezer door (one very annoyed mother at home wondering why the freezer has no door), a sofa cushion ( someone wasn't listening to that Science lesson on friction) and lots of signs from the Range. Some kids I knew were proudly telling me 'I nicked this from the Range' and another boy who had clearly been primed by his mum said 'I just found this on my balcony'. Despite starting very low down the piste we still had casualties early on, with A and Matthew wiping out the rubber dinghy lads, so we all came home for pizza and chips. R's sledge is not bad but needs some modifications and the children found the Whitmores' pieces of damp coursing plastic better fun.

I noticed today a plumber's van with 'Flood the plumber' written on the side. You couldn't make it up could you? Well, you could but it wouldn't be so funny.

R is, at the very moment, helping Amanda bid on council flats. It seems she had not got the idea at all on her own, and somehow had managed to not bid on anything. So he is 'helping her'. We have had some good conversations lately and she seems to be realising the huge debt of gratitude she should be showing us, and have a better attitude towards us and towards herself. She has also spent 2 nights at Ang's 1 at her mum's and she tells me she is spending a night at someone else from church on Saturday, so we get to have some time alone. Hooray! It feels great when the load is spread out a bit and other people are pitching in a bit and doing things without being asked over and over again. Well, I have asked over and over again, but clearly it is going in and people are caring and trying to help and recognising that we need some respite.

Ah, probably obvious but none of our schools open today, yesterday or tomorrow! So, I will be a week ahead of myself with planning, and as I am on a course on Wednesday, I won't have seen my kids for almost a month by the time I go back on Thursday. I am actually missing them - when you spend your working life with 30 engaging and fascinating people you do miss them a bit....

2010-01-02T22:44:00.002Z

Have just entered for a 10 k, a 10 mile and a tri, in Mar, Jul and May in that order. Fans will be held back by my security staff near Farnham, Brokenhurst and Salisbury, again, in that order. I once had a near miss with Fareham and Wareham, getting onto the wrong platform at Southampton and nearly heading the wrong way along the south coast. It's odd how I never knew anything about Fareham when I was at uni, except for seeing a road sign to it, and nearly accidentally going there, and now R works there and has done for nearly 10 years, and I used to work there and have a soft spot for it as a shopping centre, with its lovely Christian cafe and all under one roof handy shopping centre.

In case you needed more inspiration to save the planet and have been hibernating, I will tell you about the 10.10 idea which the Guardian dedicated a supplement to this week. I think the idea is that you reduce your carbon input/output/use by 10% this year coming. By, for example, turning off one of the ten lights in your house, or reducing your wattage of your living room light from 100 watts to 90, just as an example. There was an article about a man who is not going to buy any new clothes. I don't really like buying clothes much anyway and tend to do it in desperate times - ie on the way to a wedding when realise only have jeans with hole in - but I am going to try not to buy any clothes for myself this year. Although I already have failed as been intending for ages to buy some new running shoes for new season as mine smell and have probably had their day in terms of mileage. I realise that having 2 children of the same sex is environmentally friendlier option as the clothes are easy to recycle for them. Converting flowery skirts into shorts for boys would be a challenge to even the most green goddess of a mother.

Am writing from the comfort of my kitchen table, looking admiringly at my new cupboards that R has worked so hard to put up. The girls helped him loads, in fact, one of the cupboards was entirely constructed by H, so if you have ever been beaten by B and Q flatpack in the past, you could feel completely demoralised at this point, knowing that an 8 year old can do it and you can't. Or you could put it down to R's great parenting skill and patience and realise that if you had done the drilling on the other 5 under his careful tutelage you too would have safely been able to do that last cupboard yourself. We are recycling the playroom worktop into a new kitchen worktop, and then going to the tip to get a new worktop for playroom - unless you have one lying about - 1.5m would be nice.

Today we played Star Wars Monopoly (yes, it pains me to tell you it was the Star Wars version) and despite being really rather ill and not in this world, R managed to win really well, with 2 boys we played against going bankrupt. I came a comfortable second but had not managed to buy half the board as R had. The family we played had great rules which made things a lot faster and more interesting than we had previously played. Move over Scrabble!

Played tennis today, had our family half hour practice ( A's hands were too cold to hold the bat) and then R and I were signed up for an hour, but in his ill condition we only managed half an hour before retreating to the bar. I did my 20 lengths while the girls played mermaids and R continued to hog a whole comfy sofa in the adults only section. Of the bar, not the pool.

We were up in Claygate for a few days in the week, and we had a tasty meal out with ma and pa and the Little Bookhamers in Leatherhead, at Caesars. The portions were truly fit for a king, next time we go we will order one meal for the four of us. My meal included 2 jacket potatoes which were taken home to feed the chicken. We took in the delights of Leatherhead town centre in the rain, and what a spectacle it is, a kind of Surrey version of Bitterne, with a Next and a Dorothy Perkins and a Currys where you would expect to find Peacocks, QS and 99p store. It has a theatre, where we used to have a Bowling alley.

Running around Claygate is fabulous because it is flat. And there are loads of woods and fields and you only get people with nice dogs like labradors, not any rough old Staffies or Pit Bull terriers or other similar dogs that snarl at runners around Bitterne.

Nearly forgot, yesterday was new year's day and R went to do the sailing race. It was a beautiful sunny day and despite my feeling ill and A having been sick that am ( I don't drink alcohol any more so not a self inflicted new year's day illness, thank you for asking,) we loved being in the sun and H had a good go at climbing lots of trees before we retreated to the club house to do crosswords and eat chips.

2009-12-28T21:23:00.002Z

Lovely to have Nick Treby on board, despite his penchant for Martyn Joseph. I expect you will be following my running career with interest, Nick, and I yours.

So far, M and S have sent another gift card for £2 to cover the postage, but no flowers or manager on the doorstep.

On a much more positive note, I had fabulous customer service today, a bank holiday, from Lakeland. I emailed to say my 18 month old kettle had broken (the lid hinge broke and it is unopenable) and could they repair or send a spare part in preference to a replacement. They could do neither, but are sending a new one and then sending a courier to collect the old one. So, buy your knickers from Lakeland, not M and S. Except they don't do knickers so you would have to wear sandwich bags or tupperware equivalent, which would leave you with an interesting profile.

Now, the real meaning of Christmas, of course, is more free time for DIY and exercise. After my rallying (geddit) from my virus and playing tennis on Tue night, mid housegroup 'Share the spare' evening, I went to the gym on Wednesday, for a freezing cold swim on Thursday, for a 8 mile run on Friday, for a 10 mile cycle ride on Saturday, for a re program at the gym and an hour of tennis yesterday and another hour in the gym and hour of tennis today. Yahoo! Feel great! R and I have invented a great new version of the rules of tennis to mean that I get to practise what I need to and he does too. Here goes. Its complicated, but means we end up playing really well matched games, today I beat him 4-2, games take ages and we are always doing the deuce advantage dance over and over again. The rules are - I can win points any way I can, if I win it, I get the points. I can also lose a point by double faulting on the serve. Got it so far? R, who is way better than me, can only win a point if he hits it at the net and wins it. So, he works hard on coming to the net, which is what he needs to work on, and i work hard on trying to keep him back, which is what I need to do. Oh, and he doesn't do proper serves. Else I would have no hope and may as well sit in the bar. It's so much more fun and I feel like R is getting something out of us playing together rather than just feeding me backhand practice. I am much better now too and feel really positive about 2012. I do not understand the coming to the net thing at all. If I ever did it, I would just stand there and watch the ball sail overhead.

The run on Christmas day was fab - great weather, went with R and showed him my long run over to Manor Farm and back, via mud and thorns and freezing cold puddles. R likes running on flat roads, so it wasn't his favourite ever run. It was possibly my favourite ever run, went there and back via Netley Common as well so lots of time off road.

As well as the exercise, we have been busy renovating our kitchen. Due to a clerical error at the tax office, they sent me a cheque, so I have spent it on new floor tiles, due to come tomorrow at 8am. So we had to rip the lino up, and used it as a good opportunity to have a big clean out and also to repaint the dining area walls and gloss, and you know how these things go, we ended up working out some new storage solutions and R did a few trips to B and Q ( buy buy buy!) and we hope to have a much smarter and cleaner space for Wendy the cleaner to clean every Wednesday, by next Wednesday. The whole thing is purely for her suprise when she walks in the door. We arranged for the fitting to be done tomorrow and Wednesday, hence sending the girls up to mum so they are out of the way, but today Craig, the tile man, rang and said he wouldn't be able to start until Thursday. I was assertive and said that we were living in a campsite, all the appliances were unapplied and the children had been sent off for a very specific interval of time to allow unhindered access to the kitchen, and that we needed it started tomorrow. He rang back later and said someone would be with us at 8am. Watch this space. Interestingly, when he said his set piece about not being able to make it, in my head, I said 'oh, ok then' but kept my mouth shut and just stood in silence for ages deciding how to best put across how much this inconvenienced me without sounding angry. Good huh? For someone who has a MBE for services to the 'open gob before thinking' industry I am proud of my assertive silence.

The girls went home with Granny M to Granny B's, yesterday, hence us having time to do DIY and play tennis and eat ready meals cos the cooker is disconnected. Poor H was the last of the Bowens to come down with the dreaded virus, suffering with vomiting on Christmas eve at about 1am, AFTER Santa had visited, with A therefore waking up with all the cuffuffle and rustling papers continuing until I think I said that Santa would come back and take it all away again. They are cute, we have always told them that it is a fun pretend thing that we all go along with, and they love it, not minding at all when, for example, I told them that Santa had asked me to go and do some shopping for him as he was busy. I had a very technological Christmas, with a new computer that I didn't even open, too scared and amazed, a pedometer which can tell me how far I have gone, and a Digital Radio for the kitchen. The radio seems to be adverse to BBC channels, so we have listened to Wave for two days and know the adverts off by heart. Where would you go to get a new Renault? R threatened the radio with a knife and plugged it in to a different plug and it seems to be ok now with Radio 4.

Christmas was also a bit of a towel fest, as I had asked my mum and she had sensibly bought as requested - so R and I both got big towels, and the girls got those ones you put on your head and look like a monkey or a cat. I also have ordered some travel towels for gym use which should come soon. None too soon, as you can never have enough towels! Just think how handy it would have been for Joseph to have had a lightweight travel towel or two in his knapsack to pop in the manger at the crucial moment.

In the few days before Christmas I tried to renew my library books by phone as they are due back tomorrow. On the first day, the recorded message said they had trouble with their phone system and to try again later, I did, same again. Day 2: They had all evacuated the building, said the message. OK. Day 3 - due to the bad weather all the staff are busy taking calls about snow and ice and not renewing library books. I didn't bother calling on Christmas day, I had a feeling they would have a recorded message for every event.

2009-12-21T20:32:00.000Z

Aha, Sarah points out that if you click on the letter from Lord Coe it gets bigger and you can read it.

2009-12-21T20:08:00.002Z

Everyone else in family watching HSM 3 in front of the fire. Which is what Christmas is all about isn't it? I know the film off by heart ( I was Gabriella in a former life) so have snuck off to tell you, as is my annual tradition now, about the great panto at Ferneham Hall, Fareham. We go on a coach from Thornhill organised by Sandra, one of the great and good of Thornhill. The Rainbows were looking for a panto so I suggested they come along, so 12 Rainbows came too which was fabulous. We all get a free ice cream, coach trip there and a ticket for £6, as Sandra always gets a grant from somewhere to allow impoverished oiks like me to go to the theatre. Abi from next door but one was 4 today, and came with us, minus mum (HATTIE - sorry, not intentionally shouting at you) who was sorting out her son's suspected broken hand. He's fine. Anyhow, I mentioned to the steward that Abi was 4 today, and they arranged for her to go up on stage and sing a verse of Old Mc Donald, which she did beautifully, she chatted into the microphone with no qualms at all and I was so proud of her! What a special birthday to remember! The show was the usual couple of hours of coarse jokes and slapstick humour which appeals to all ages, even without Orville it was a great show and I recommend it to all - even miserable old muppets who don't like panto. You know who you are!

Came home and had a balanced diet tea of pizza, chips and nachos. The plates were well balanced, and the chillis were green and count as one of your five a day. R did a stunning job of getting up at 6 something this morning and going to Tesco before it got busy. Hence the supply of tasty morsels for tea. When I and the girls woke at 8.30 he was back and unloading the car. What a husband!

I went to see my nun this morning, its been a long time, August in fact, and I needed it, when I was working through the retreat in everyday life I saw her every fortnight and she is a great spiritual director, I just rant on at her and she nods and then we pray and go home. Well, she stays put because I go to where she lives, which is a retreat house in Netley Abbey - how convenient a nun can you be? She does the shopping at Tesco, which seems wrong, shouldn't nuns be growing everything in their own field?

I think I omitted to tell you that last week I attended a bus user group meeting in Thornhill, I have been going for a couple of years, but for the last year, I have hardly been on a bus, as I tend to cycle or run or drive places, and rarely go into town which is the only place I would go on a bus. The group is small, about 4 residents and then a few people who come from various bus companies/the council and talk about why they don't put on more buses. The relationships have strengthened over the years and now from a place of trust, people can understand the bus companies' view points and appreciate that they are not deliberately making bus users' lives difficult. The transformation of Thornhill over the life of the New Deal money has been miraculous, crime is a fraction of what it was, people want to live here, everything looks cleaner and smarter, and people have been empowered to make changed for the better in their community and be proud of living here.

My relationship healing with M and S goes on. I got a gift card for the price of the trousers in the post but emailed again asking for the postage and Sam is sending me another gift card. I also asked Tom (my first email friend at M and S) to send the store manager round with a bunch of flowers, singing 'I want you back for good' but it is a busy time of year and he is probably round the back plucking turkeys. Or pheasants, seeing as its M and S. Also pointed out an error of grammar, and the person who emailed me back ( Sam - Tom is on holiday) said he would draw it to Toms attention. So, I had to tell Sam that he had missed an apostrophe. Honestly, Sam and Tom, were you paying attention in literacy?

Yesterday we did a family panto, there is a website called Put on a Panto.com and you can download easy scripts for lots of fun. We did Cinderella, R had to be the ugly sisters and the prince but he coped well with the quick costume changes. If you like panto, you'll like the site. If you don't- you won't. Dave, Matt, Pam and Steve, you guys would LOVE it. You two young uns could be the ugly sisters, Anna would be perfect as Cinderella and Sarah would be good as Buttons. That would leave Steve as Prince Charming, a role he would fill effortlessly, and Mrs E senior could do the Cecil B de Milne bit from the sofa. How about it guys, stick it on u tube, in fact next year Ant and Dec could be on your doorstep. I am going to inflict it on the Gibbs family and Granny Mary won't leave without one run through!

Tis the season to be merry.

2009-12-20T13:06:00.003Z

Somehow, in some freak of IT trouble, after I bagged a great pre Christmas slot for the Sainsburys man to come, and R added some things on to the order last night, Sainsburys tell me the order was cancelled. I have rescheduled it for New Years Eve and it serves me right for being so organised. Now, like everyone else, we will be in Sainsburys this week rather than lounging around smoking cigars and waiting for the van to arrive. I am still struggling under a cloud of illness. Yesterday, in no particular order, read the Guardian back to front - thats Naidraug to you. Watched Take That and remembered just how hot the weather can be in England. Took a short walk in the sunshine by the sea at Hill Head. Drank tea and looked at gifts at Garsons Garden Centre in Titchfield. Cut out blobs of colour and french words for the new display. Slept. Rob spent hours cooking huge quanitities of vegetables for the church messy lunch, house stank of leeks yesterday. In the morning, H attacked me with an air freshener spray. I am not a great fan of them at best of times, less so now, after she unintentionally sprayed it at my face and I hollered - thus starting her off on crying.

I hope you get the idea of the letter, signed Seb Coe, from 15 Tennis Court, London, asking me to be the face of women's tennis for 2012. Maybe you have a magnifying glass and can read it?

2009-12-20T13:03:00.001Z

Well, that didn't go very well did it? I told you I was not good with IT. Anyhow, those of you with bionic eyes will be able to read it. The first effort even worse as in following the wizard, it didn't say anything about putting the piece of paper on the scanner.

2009-12-19T13:04:00.002Z

I cried listening to Wogan yesterday morning. I only started listening in September, on the one day a week I drive to work, with a journey time under 15 minutes, and if I was crying in the car, what of the people who have listened for 27 years? I do like having the car on Thursdays so I can also listen to Chris Evans on the way home, which tends to be a longer journey. It's uphill.

In a Christmas card this year, Tash ( a mention! - that'll be fifty quid please) said she was a newcomer to my blog and found it 'tremendous value'. I should think so, seeing as, like the NHS, it remains free at the point of use. Maybe Matthew could work out some system that is means tested and takes out a certain amount of cash from someon'e account when they read. Or, even better, when they don't, to encourage them to do so! Aha!

Its the day after the last day of term, and predictably in a household of two teachers and two school children, we are all ill/exhausted. Amy has vomiting last night, diarrhoea this morning, so she has eaten nothing and lounged around doing mindless tasks - blowing up balloons, making a pass the parcel, getting me to sew patches on to a piece of fabric to be a Cinderella skirt. I have a sore throat - unsuprisingly at the end of a term of 6-7 year olds and have found Immodium to be a great invention. H and R have just come home from tennis, swimming and cutting holly and ivy down from in the woods for a craft activity at church tomorrow. R was going to BUY holly from the farm shop! Such a city boy, he thought it was immoral and or illegal to cut holly down from trees in the public domain. The ethnically Romany people who run the farm shop would only have cut it down themselves and charged a fiver for the service. Packed him off with a pair of secateurs and a carrier bag. H is now putting her clarinet together to practise Silent Night which she is playing tomorrow with R accompanying on guitar as part of our Messy Nativity. We are having a roast dinner, and seeing as some members of our housegroup struggle to manage french bread or cheese when we have a ploughmans, I dread to think of the logistics of serving a Roast to upwards of 25 people in a youth centre with one domestic oven. I will get some mulled wine in a flask and lie down under the pool table until someone says dinner is ready. I have a tennis date at 2pm, so lets hope we're not waiting for the turkey to defrost all afternoon.

I drove home through horizontal snow on Thursday night from the works do, which was held in a De Vere hotel in the middle of the countryside not far from Curbridge, home of the murder mystery production of a few weeks back. The hotel was lovely, we were in the old manor house bit, and the service was excellent, food fine but the portion control was so tight they counted out the peas. You know how it is, the more you pay for food, the less you get on a plate. I left at 11pm and heard the next day that some of our party remained til 1am - no wonder they looked a bit worse for wear on Friday.

Friday was a nice half day at work - nice to get lots of chocolates and a couple of bottles of wine and let the children go home at 12.30. We did fraction baubles and they really liked it, and it gave them a chance to show off the skills they have learned in 'Clever Hands' sessions we have had for the last month - cutting, colouring, using a hole punch, still need to work on tying knots. We finished our third of the Allan Ahlberg Gaskett family books, they are great fun books for around 7 year olds, still nothing as good as Billy bonkers by Giles Andreae or Mr Gum by Andy Stanton - if you not yet bought my Christmas present, Amazon vouchers will be great thanks.

Nick Sharratt is our new author focus for next term, the display is up, along with clean backed boards ready for next term, a new Maths display area and a French board in the pipeline. Being in H's classroom for a few minutes yesterday inspired me, along with the extra money we have been allocated to spend on stationery, my lovely LSA went and ordered £50 worth of laminating pouches, so finally I will be able to create some more learning displays to make the classroom a better learning environment. I was so inspired that I went on to Sparklebox and cut out little hands to help with handwriting while watching Jonathan Ross getting nowhere fast with Hugh Grant who came across as being very dull and having no life.

I got a great Secret Santa present, I got the comedy present from the resident joker, I will try to work the scanner and scan it in for you to peruse at your leisure. May be some time, as involves leaving the warm fire in the lounge with the Christmas tree and laptop. I intend staying put for next 14 days and nights. Have done the online shop for food so should technically not need to go to the Co-op even. Amanda has gone out sledging with Ang. She was excited and then told me she did not know what sledging meant. Surely no one is that deprived and uneducated? She must be extracting the michael, right? Everyone has heard of a sledge! Well, clearly not. Despite my motherly advice to wear a coat ( it being 0 degrees) she just in a tracksuit. Ah well. Rome not built in a day.

Got a new phone, finally parting with my beloved Nokia for another Nokia which is shinier and more complex. R has set ' We built this city' as the ring tone. Good eh?

2009-12-18T17:38:00.002Z

That's Amanda's sister in the piece below then. And her nephew. yikes. No wonder she didn't get up this morning as she had promised she would to take girls to school.

Two parents were today found guilty after their baby was found with a catalogue of injuries in Southampton.
Jurors at Southampton Crown Court were out for about four hours before convicting father Luke Lock, 23, of Albert Road South, Southampton, of causing grievous bodily harm and causing actual bodily harm to his five-month-old infant son.
He gasped when the foreman announced the verdict and looked toward his mother and step-father sitting in the public gallery.
The baby's mum Charmain Rippon, 21, of Wavell Road, Southampton, who was found guilty of neglect, showed no emotion.
Judge Peter Ralls QC said they were serious offences and in themselves justified a prison sentence but he was adjourning the case until a date to be fixed for probation reports. He also ordered a psychiatric report on Lock.
Both had bail extended with the condition they each reported to the central police station once a week.
As he was addressing barristers, Lock launched a verbal outburst.
He stormed: "This trial has been unfair, that's all I'm going to say. I would never hurt my son."
The pair were charged after the baby, who has made a full recovery and is now in foster care, was detained in the General Hospital with severe bruising, multiple fractures and in an emaciated condition.
He was also suffering from bleeding behind the eyes and on the brain. Two parents were today found guilty after their baby was found with a catalogue of injuries in Southampton.
Jurors at Southampton Crown Court were out for about four hours before convicting father Luke Lock, 23, of Albert Road South, Southampton, of causing grievous bodily harm and causing actual bodily harm to his five-month-old infant son.
He gasped when the foreman announced the verdict and looked toward his mother and step-father sitting in the public gallery.
The baby's mum Charmain Rippon, 21, of Wavell Road, Southampton, who was found guilty of neglect, showed no emotion.
Judge Peter Ralls QC said they were serious offences and in themselves justified a prison sentence but he was adjourning the case until a date to be fixed for probation reports. He also ordered a psychiatric report on Lock.
Both had bail extended with the condition they each reported to the central police station once a week.
As he was addressing barristers, Lock launched a verbal outburst.
He stormed: "This trial has been unfair, that's all I'm going to say. I would never hurt my son."
The pair were charged after the baby, who has made a full recovery and is now in foster care, was detained in the General Hospital with severe bruising, multiple fractures and in an emaciated condition.
He was also suffering from bleeding behind the eyes and on the brain.

The Echo also has an article that says that vigilante attacks have taken place at Charmaine's flat. Lumps of concrete thrown through windows, graffiti sprayed on door that kind of thing. And this whole bloody episode took place in my beloved Bitterne.

I think I may move to Curbridge and spend more time at the Reading Rooms watching plays.

2009-12-11T23:31:00.002Z

H and A have friends in their classes from the same family who do not have any belief in God, to such an extent that they are not allowed to go to assembly if God is mentioned, or to take part in the Christmas play. But, this really gets me, and I don't understand at all - please help. One of them was in the clarinet concert, but she wasn't allowed to play Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells has got so little to do with Jesus that it seems only to be a bizzare indictment of the state of the role of Christmas in society that to protect a child from exposure to the idea of God they can't play a tune that has words to do with sleigh rides. We had an interesting conversation at tea time today about belief, and how the idea of not believing is as ludicrous to us as probably the idea of having faith is to others when they look at us.

Meanwhile, the nativity play at Hamble went well in the end, with a star and a king who belted out their lines and everyone rose to the expectations of the director and did their best with their bit of the show. No disasters, no You've Been Framed moments with Mary and Joseph fighting over the baby or similar. Shame, a £500 bonus shared between all the staff is a great idea.

I went to Tescos tonight, sorry everyone, I rarely do it, and was in a bit of a stupor and found it so overwhelming it will be a while before I do it again. Did one of those shops I am so good at, where you spend £100 and come back and don't have anything to eat. The good thing to report was that there was no queue for the till. It was busy, but no queues. How do they do that?

I am avoiding thinking about Christmas, people who are more organised are sending cards and letters and photos of their family and I am just leaving them in a heap and hoping they go away. Have bought almost no presents, so if you don't get one, its not personal, no one did. Same with cards. In fact, assume you won't and here's a Happy Christmas. Its not like me, I am usually all bought and wrapped by end of November (as a child, I did my Christmas shopping at the scouts summer fete) so I have to blame the pressures of my job, or some other ill. Am hoping to find a great ski deal on Last minute.com which I can justify as being cheaper than staying at home. Might go on my own if necessary. Oh, I did buy and freeze the Chinese snacks and bought some chopsticks didn't I, so I am not so far behind after all. Wrapped up the Secret Santa presents for both R and I's work things. R always brings home some novelty shaped chocolate items, however much care he puts into choosing something thoughtful and nice for his person. So this year he assigned the job to me, and I had to choose for a 'middle aged female PE teacher'. Had a look at footballs, whistles and universal ball pump attachments, but went for a Christmas pudding which I hope will be both useful and hysterically funny in a post modern way. Worst case scenario she can let them use it for netball practise or whatever they do at big schools.

2009-12-08T19:53:00.002Z

A most odd domestic scene today unfolded before me. Got the bus from Bitterne to town today. As bus paused in traffic nearly in town, I saw a couple walk up a side way and the woman opened a wheelie bin. The man carefully placed a hamster cage therein. Then they carried on.

Quite surreal. Popped in to Lush and came out with a headache and less cash, nipped in to look at my favourite pictures in the art gallery - if the bloody council try to sell them along with the Rodin sculptures I will strap myself to the front of the art gallery like a suffragette. A great God moment looking at my favourite picture - the Jesus and Mary altar piece.

To the Art House Cafe, a funky vegan veggie style place with eclectic furniture and art for sale and board games, run by volunteers etc etc - just my kind of place. Shame the builder's tea tasted of jasmine and its just across the road from the art gallery, my fave cafe to eat in town. Not that I go into town often. I will try out their food next time though - today it was just tea and cake with Suzanne, the great guru.

Got a number 3 bus home and walked from the main road in the rain, saw our postman who calls me Kay, which I think is a nice touch. Got a Christmas card from our milkman, Jeff, who I still have never seen, but I trust that he exists cos there's milk on the step on Mondays and Fridays. Umm. Bit like God really. Ate a samosa from Laly's ( the shop where the gunman used customers as weapons on Friday) and a chocolate bar for lunch. Met up with Hat for our weekly chat through the chapter of Margaret Silf we are reading together, wrapped up 20 books for her toddler group at the same time as chatting about 'Deep Desires;' Chapter 7.

Was Mary Poppins after school, picking up 3 extra children, all accounted for. Emma, the new hairdresser, came round and cut the girls' and R's hair at tea time, which went well too. Very quick and painless experience for all.

I am not sure if I told you I went to the cinema on Saturday? To see The Box, which is a science fiction kind of clever film - the basic question in it is - if you press the button, you get £1 million, but someone somewhere in the world dies. Would you press the button. A massive message film, had me literally on the edge of my seat, really scary in bits despite being a 12, not gory or anything, just the question and the outworking of the consequences. A real challenge of a film, I loved the whole experience and afterwards wanted to talk about it - would you or wouldn't you ? But the people I went with just thought it was rubbish and didn't want to talk about it. I think most people go to the cinema to be entertained, not challenged. I like both. The film was busy and I hope it made people think about the consequences of our actions, and I would recommend it, but won't cos that is always the kiss of death for films with me. Just go and see it and then pretend you went before I said anything about it.

Had to go to M and S as Sainsburys did not have the bright tights necessary for H's school play. Grudingly handed over £3 into their coffers. Have not heard back from Tom in Chester yet, nor from the man at Sainsburys who sent a very unsatisfactory response to my letter complaining about enormous poster of soldiers killing each other in a X box game emblazoned over a railing in Bitterne. Its an 18 game, and I don't want my child seeing such images at their height as we walk through a shopping street.

Made mash for tea with Sainsburys Value potatoes, which were great, I won't ever buy any other kind again! Popped into Asda in town, Inever go to Asda, but Suzanne wanted some electrical energy saver thing, so went with her. Remembered instantly why I never go to Asda. Urgh.

2009-12-07T19:07:00.003Z

Just pinched some planning for next half term from A's teacher, as we are doing the same topic. It is the most fantastic, thorough planning I have ever seen and I am in awe. Can't wait to do the topic!

Yesterday we went to St Christopher's for their 'Faith Alive' all age meeting, which was ok, they try really hard to include the kids but the congregation tends to be a sea of grey. Which is good in lots of ways. The girls read lots of books from their childrens' book corner and were interested in the Advent candles and the communion business with the wafers.

We walked up to the zipwire park after, but it was a bit muddy and wet, BUT, we saw 8 serious young athletes out training. I was in shock as never see other people running in Thornhill, they were from Team Southampton, ( I asked). They were running over and over again up the short steep path to the crossing at the top and then walking back down. I only mention it to show how exciting it was to find young people in Thonhill exercising.

Today I went to H's clarinet concert, and played just over 2 hours of tennis. I went to a tennis class, which was fun, nice bunch of people and I was not the worst player by any stretch, I would say I was middle of the road. Which is incredibly nice for the ego when you are used to being dire, its nice to play someone more dire than you. Also had A's Rainbow nativity play and parents' evening, with a raffle and mince pies and singing songs. It was lovely, her Rainbow leader, Pink, is really good at the job. A was Joseph and was dragged around the hall by Mary and a donkey, wearing a handy shepherd outfit made by Kim a few years back, and a teatowel, neatly attached with a piece of R's boating elastic rope.

Such is the life of a socialite like me. Non stop culture. Concerts and high brow nativity plays.

2009-12-05T13:18:00.003Z

Forgot this from the Echo:

Armed police hunt for knife man - at the Bittern pub on Thornhill Park Road. After a knifeman held up the local Laly's store at the corner, near Blockbuster and the fish and chip shop - know where I am?

but this is the bit I liked:

'He threatened ownder Balvinder Laly with the weapon as well as two customers who were inside the store at the time.'

Now, could that be interpreted as the knifeman using the two customers to threaten Mrs Laly, or is it just me? I like that they describe the store as being in Bitterne, when it is in Thornhill Park, but it makes Bitterne sound like a den of thieves doesn't it?

Where we lived in Sheffield, knife and gun hold ups at the corners shops were fairly frequent events, we knew of 3 in the two years we were there. But don't tell my dad! Well, you can now.

I didn't tell you about my other Granma, Ivy. She lived in Oxshott, which is the village next to Claygate if you go across the woods and the A3. She was the youngest or second youngest of about 12, born and christened Ivy Christabel in 1911 I think, I could be wrong on that, my dad will correct me. I don't know much about her life, apart from that she lived in the house my dad still lives in from 1945 until about 1978, when she moved to a council sheltered housing flat in Claygate, in the same complex that Granny Alice lived in, which made visiting grannies very handy. One famous anecdote is that when my dad was a baby, her mum, his granny, took him for a walk in the woods and left him on the path next to Oxshott railway station, and Granma Ivy had to go and find him, luckily still there. So when I was born, until I was 5, my granma lived with us, and it was hard work for all. We had the front room and she had the back, we had to share the kitchen and bathroom She used a mangle in the back garden and I think it was very trying for my mum to have 2 small children and a mother in law constantly around. She was very opinionated and had lots to say on all subjects, rode a bike and did like a laugh. We never felt as at home with her babysitting as with Granny Alice, but she was not a bad granma, very generous with pocket money and delicious home made cakes, and shop bought ones too. Both my grandmothers died in the same nursing home, so be warned! Its not got a good track record! It's called the Home of Compassion, a name I like and might use to rename my own home if we find that 'Hinkler House' is a bit OTT. Home of Compassion, sounds classy, does it not? No?

2009-12-05T12:47:00.002Z

Hello! In buoyant mood, having fired off a letter to the Echo after reading a guy who reckons KS2 SATs attainment is entirely linked to economic level of the area around the school. We all know that schools in rich areas generally do better in these tests than schools in poor areas, just like people live longer in Brockenhurst than in Bootle. That was in the paper today too. But, its not just about the economic area of a school, as shown so fabulously by Kanes Hill, which came 7th from top in the Southampton league table, just above the two Catholic schools which generally do well as people self select to go there. Oh, and above Bitterne Park. Did you just hear me laugh? Nope. Not me. So despite being in a economic area very similar to the other schools in Thornhill, it gets results that are way above them, despite sharing the same kids (lots of swapping goes on), the same problems and the same attitudes to education in their parents. So, hooray for our fab school that does amazing things with its children - not just academically, but with the social and emotional learning that goes on, and the amazing commitment to the arts.

Only problem is that the local secondary is currently the sink school for the whole of Southampton, with all the oiks chucked out of other schools getting sent there. So, fab kids who have 7 years of great education at Kanes Hill then get delivered to Woodlands, where they don't do as well as they should. Talking to some of the Year 6 girls I know, none of them have put Woodlands as their first choice, prefering even to go to the Oasis Academy in Woolston, which was in the national press for the anarchy at the beginning of last year.

Just you wait til I'm director of education for Southampton.

In the meantime, I continue to provide meaningful opportunities for independent learning for the adorable children of Hamble, and they have risen to the recent challenges of a nativity play to reherse, moving Christmas cards - levers, rotating pictures, that kind of thing and me not having a voice for 2 days and croaking at them like Marg Simpson.Turned the lights on and off to get them to look at me, then did sign language to get them tidying up.

Continuing in my quest to provide enriching experiences for my children, we went along to Forest Forge play of Ashputtel- a Cinderella story, but not a panto! They were showing at Thornhill Primary, arranged by TPY, with the usual sparse attendance despite the bargain ticket prices of £2.50. There were 5 talented actors, who also played musical instruments as part of the show, and it was one of the most well told and beautiful plays I have seen for a while. Took my 2 girls god gangers, plus an extra one, and they all enjoyed the play.

I have just finished the book 'A short history of tractors in Ukranian' which is funny and sad in just the right protions and is recommended for an easy read on a train or something. Am now reading '9 ways to go around a boulder' which isn't as dull as it sounds. Mind you, the first title sounds dull but isn't. Don't judge a book by its cover!

When I get around to publishing 'I still have more washing than line' it will not sound exciting, will it? It will appeal to people who like doing laundry, I expect. Let's hope they have a more reliable source of pegbags than I do. Old Ma Crandon has not yet pulled a peg out of the bag for me, as it were. Really don't want to press my limited edition pristine Claygate peg bag into use but might have to, as had to pick pegs up off floor today. Come on, Libby! Get sewing! You could be the next Cath Kidston, or Kath Cidston, or whatever her name is who makes flowery bags.

Last night we had some fudge and a family time watching an amercan DVD of the nativity story, which featured a very muscley Joseph and a Mary with milk white skin. Despite this, it was very accurate to the bible narrative, and started from the viewpoint of Simeon and Anna, who had been waiting so patiently for the Messiah. I was intrigued by how they knew - that gut feeling you get, God's voice, a nudge? Its not just for prophets, is it? We can all hear God's voice, if we turn off the radio and listen. Or indeed if we listen to the radio with open ears to hear what he says about what is going on in the world.

Sorry, will never get on Thought for the Day if I suggest turning off the radio. Am tuning in to Sir Terry as often as I can, never having been a big Wogan fan I am making the most of his last few weeks on air on the breakfast show. He is in a class of his own. The music in entirely incidental to the chatting about almost nothing that goes on for many minutes at a time. What fun!

I am glad I decided not to go for that xtraining challenge, as sitting at home with a book, a paper, a cup of tea and a throat that doesn't work is much more what I need today than pounding around a gym with a load of bodybuilders. Saw some of them as I took the girls to tennis, it all looks like a serious business and I feeling very limp today, physically.

2009-11-30T19:18:00.002Z

Friday night was a game of two halves. One half ridiculous, the other sublime.

Amanda announced that she had met one of her brothers and lent him her bus pass. She agreed that she was an idiot to do this, as he is not known for his word being his bond, and a 'lend' and a 'steal' are closely linked concepts in Family Fagan. Anyway, she hassled her mum who hassled brother 1 who sent brother 2 ( aged 13) round on his bike with a fiver and some tobacco. Not a bus pass. And a flat tyre. R mends tyre in hall while Amanda hassles her mum a bit more to hassle her bro no 1. Bro no 2 sets off home on working bike. R and I set off for a am dram play in Curdridge Village Hall called A Tomb With a View. It starts at 7.45pm.

We get there at 7.45pm (being held up by bike repairs and various stresses of a Rippon variety) and find we are late - ie the lady is on stage introducing it, and has sto stop and say ' Oh, lets let these late comers in' before we creep from the door at the front by the stage to the back row. Then we sing the national anthem before the proceedings begin. For am dram it was excellent, it was a murder mystery and I guessed correctly! It was a different world from the one we had left 10 minutes away. Literally, that is all it takes to get from the bizarre world we inhabit here to a genteel, country life existence where the good and the great of Curdridge get together in the Reading Rooms to watch a play. It was a sea of grey. We were the youngest people apart from one youthful cast member who stripped down to his pants in a rather untoward twist in the play. No twists in his pants, as far as I could tell, and I was at the back. At half time we could buy a packet of crisps and a glass of wine or a cup of tea. The only thing was that it was 2 and a half hours long including an interval, which is a long play, you get your money's worth in Curdridge!

It struck me very much how most of the people in that room had probably never been to Bitterne, and probably didn't know where Thornhill was. Despite it being less than 5 miles ( crow measuring) it really is in another universe, and I seem to be inhabiting both of these worlds. Which is odd.

AJ moved house this weekend, and it is a beautiful new 3 bed end of terrace, really spacious and just a fabulous move away from the stress and being cooped up of a 2 bedroom flat for 5 people. I am so pleased for her, and for myself that she is hanging around Thornhill for a long time now. If I lived in that house I wouldn't be going anywhere fast.

Today I jogged to the Post Office and then through the woods to the gym, where I swapped my wet trainers for my tennis shoes and had another lesson, during which I learned how to serve and how to do better footwork to be balanced for my swing. I feel greatly encouraged and am going to try out a women's class where there are about 8 people learning at a variety of levels, mostly just beyond beginner like me I hope. He said nice things about my natural serve and good progress, but then he would wouldn't he?

I spent the morning catching up on various home admin things, like doing the online shopping for tomorrow and for the week before Christmas, to avoid that awful having to go shopping on Christmas eve thing, hopefully. We are planning chicken nuggets and chips and Chinese for our Christmas dinner this year.

Yesterday we went to Vineyard church, for our stint at leading the first half, which we are getting very professional at, and miracle of miracles, everyone arrived at or within a few minutes of 9am! And we are so good now that we are all ready by 9.30 and then get to stand around and wait for the catering team to make the tea. There are lots of young people there these days, think its the student influx, good on them, make me feel old having them around and that's great. When I drove past Wessex Lane Halls of Residence a few weeks ago and the new students were going around with their mums, I identified more with the mums than the students. And I could, as Amanda loves telling me, just about be her mum. Yipee!

On Saturday we popped to the Berrywood School Fair and I had lots of mums and teachers and LSAs and dinner ladies waving and smiling and generally being lovely, and it made me miss it more, in that I had been there for a long time and was well known, even had Year 6 children smiling and saying Hi, who had been in my class in Year 3. I felt a bit sad at all the good friendships you get working somewhere which can't be sustained when you leave. Other things on Saturday were a run with Sarah, same route pretty much as last week, a Pilates class and 40 minutes of tennis practise with R. Hope Pilates, tennis, running and swimming are OK sports to partake in with you all? Phew. I thought as much. You are thinking that if I do two people's exercise, that saves you doing any! R also took the girls swimming, oh and I went to Hedge End library, finally coinciding my visit to Hedge End with its opening hours. Read the Saturday Guardian which is becoming a bit of a habit, my favourite section is the Family bit, then the money problem page. Bought the paper, didn't read it in the library as they didn't have it.

H wanted to do some pottery painting with me yesterday, so we went to Crockery in Eastleigh which is very spacious, but the cost of the £4.50 studio fee makes even the smallest coaster weigh in at about £9. We made 6 tree decorations, at £3 each they are probably the most expensive we have ever bought. We have advent calendars and nativity set and Christmas books out, and A is practising her carols for the Rainbow Nativity next Monday. She is Joseph, and is wearing the Shepherd outfit that she is wearing next Wed and Thur for her school nativity play. Tomorrow she is singing songs from the show to the mayor, and on Friday to the unsuspecting public in West Quay. So if you are in town on Friday, head to M and S and Gap at about midday to be serenaded by a lot of 6 year olds. She goes to choir and really loves singing, H will be joining choir as soon as her street dance class finishes, as they clash. H is also in the school orchestra - I just love that our school has an orchestra! When I worked at Crofton Hammond it had an amazing orchestra of about 12 or so different instruments, I don't think Kanes Hill is quite up to that level but still awesome to have an orchestra.

Just watched Robots. What a great film! 'You can shine, no matter what you are made of' - hey - isn't that straight out of Romans? A great message film, I loved it, very funny too and straight into my top ten films of all time. You recall that I only own two DVD that are all mine, so not much competition. I looked at our DVD collection, it is Moulin Rouge, The Miracle Maker, Mary Poppins, HSM 3 , The Sound of Music, Enchanted and Mama Mia. Finally had a lesson from R and written down instructions for how to play a DVD so might watch one or two of them now!

Am reading 'The History of Ukranian Tractors' and 'How to build confidence into girls'. Will let you know how I get on.

Made a fire the other day, and as I was screwing up newspaper remembered my granny, who would be 108 this year if she hadn't died in 1993. Alice, who H is named after (her second name, not her first clearly). Anyway, Granny Alice was born in 1901, lived in the countryside in Sussex and at 14 had to go into service and get up and make the fires at 5am and all that kind of thing, in Brighton I think and then in London, where she did the shopping in Harrods. She got married when she was 30 something and had her two children, my mum the youngest, a war baby, born in 1943. Family legend has it that Fred (my grandad who died in 1967 so I never met him) sold his motorbike to buy a pram. Fred was a cow man, and by this time they were living on a farm in Woking, Surrey, and then to another Woking farm, where my mum set light to the haystack and they didn't have electricity, and then to Claygate, where Fred got a job at Loseberry Farm. My mum drove a tractor when she was a girl. Anyhow, my points are:

1. There was no Income support in 1915 and if you left school you got a job or starved I guess.
2. My granny worked incredibly hard doing housework and then bringing up children and doing farm stuff and then she used to clean other people's houses til she was 80
3. So you wonder where I get my work ethic from? Look no further than Granny Alice. I'll tell you about the other one another day. Now, she never stopped talking....

Oh, and a PS about my granny. She played with children at their level, she would play with us for hours and nothing was too much for her to provide us with the best she could. We were utterly loved by her. She was a natural, gifted with children and would have been a great teacher, had she been born in a world where social mobility was a possibility.