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.

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.

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.

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...

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.