Planet Mad

Sunday saw the arrival of The Repton Challenge for Prep Schools (overall co-ordinator and general stress-head: yours truly). 94 pre-teen kids descended, including two lil darlings who were suffering some form of contagious lurgy which involved puking and quick dashes off to the bogs. Nice. 8 hours later they'd all gone again, in which time they'd made fan-driven cars (very fast and scary), written a powerpoint presentation and accompanying music *and* done an art display for their product. 'Twas a tad busy. In addition, the other co-ordinator has been off school since the beginning of term, so I ended up doing two people's jobs... not good for well-being and general de-stressed-ness. Still, it seemed to go well, which makes up for the lack of sleep and the horrible "wide-awake at 5.30am fretting about writing to-do lists" feelings of the last week.

Yesterday saw me heading off to London to play background music with the string orchestra at the school's old boy/girl dinner. We had a great day, including a luxury coach trip, fantastic food (duck a l'orange, no less!) and great company from the kids. I have a nasty feeling that there are some dodgy photos from the back of the coach doing the rounds already, but for once I am safe, having spent the whole journey down listening to cool choons and pretending to do marking. On arriving in The Big Smoke I got far too excited to continue the pretence: I'm such a small-town girl that the scale of the place amazes me and I get a real buzz from seeing all the bustle and sights. Sad but true. One day I'd like to live in London, but doing a job that gives me time to actually appreciate the place... so that's teaching out the window then! We finally got back at 12.45am, which means I'm feeling a tad on the sandpaper-rough side this morning, espeically given that I've been up at 7 for the last two mornings so I could get my internal reports written. Bah. Off for a nap now, I think!