Speaking to people on my mobile recently has been punctuated with a hhhhssssssschchhhhhssssschchhhhhssssssssss sort of noise. Today, having got a last-minute pass-out from Rounders, I headed off in the Boringmobile to the bustling metropolis of Burtonibus On Trentorum and bought a new phone. The Boringmobile's heat-sensor-thingy was registering 28.5 (that's TWENTY. EIGHT. POINT. FIVE. Yikes.) and it was a tad chilly - I've still not worked out how to moderate the freezing effect of the air conditioning. The new phone, though, is whizziness personified. It's going to take a while to make it work, I suspect, but should have good pictures of this coming weekend to share on my return.

Tomorrow is 'ponce around in silly clothes and academic gown' day, a.k.a. speech day. If it's as hot as today, I'm considering going naked under my hood and gown - wearing anything more may lead to being baked alive. After the poncing is over, I'm running away to Cheltenham to help Wendy be young, and then the Boy Rob (as he's affectionately known in these parts, even by the girls in the House!) and I are off to sunny Devon to talk to mad dogs, read books, lounge about and attempt to catch crayfish. Hopefully the Boy Rob's attempt will be more successful than last time.

Until then, I've got an evening in which to tidy my flat, choose an appropriate poncing outfit, watch a couple of films, and get to grips with my new phone. Oh, and drink a couple of pints. Rock and roll.

Have a good bank holiday, one and all!

It's birthday season: last weekend was my brother; today is Wendy. She's old, although I'm not sure she'd appreciate me saying that. Unless, of course, she's just working backwards and is now 28. Damn, that makes her younger than me. Waaah!

This weekend was spent faking epileptic seizures, pretending to have massive internal bleeding, and generally being unconscious and then recovering miraculously. First aid courses have rarely been so interesting, well instructed and relevant as the one this weekend. What was even nicer was that many of the procedures and treatments were still nestling at the back of my mind from last time, and my braincell did me proud.

It's hot out here - the hotness-measurer in the Boringmobile was pusing 19 degrees C, which is really quite warm. What's made today even more warm, if not downright uncomfortably sticky, was the necessity of running everywhere to get D of E paperwork finished in time. That photocopier and I had something special going on during lesson four, I can tell you. Mind you, I don't think it can cook, so The Boy Rob's position as Man#1 is safe.

In other news, I've had confirmation of my place at INTOPS, which is the first stage for selection for a GOLD trip - Guiding overseas linked to development. This means that they were able to read my four-page scrawl of an application form, which is a wonder in itself. All I need to do now is practice not being a bossy cow in a teamwork situation; I've got unitl October to get it right, so there's a reasonable chance. At least it gets me a weekend off school! (Am I doing this for the right reasons, I ask myself!)

I've been trying to get my head round th green forms needed for D of E expedition this summer. It's nearly as bureaucratic as girlguiding uk's forms! Anyone got any ideas where to buy tracing paper from, or other ideas for doing route tracings?

I spent much of today officially teaching but unofficially doing marking and faking lesson plans for my dyslexing assignments. Tut tut. It probably didn't help that I was out last night until well gone pumpkin o'clock, and had been forced to drink bucketfuls of red wine. Tut tut times two. Now, I intend to catch up on some paperwork before this evening's staff meeting because I've cancelled D of E. I think that firmly puts me in the 'thrice tut' category. Hey ho.

I'm bored. Marking, tidying up and paperwork are the tasks for this evening, and not one of them inspires me. Pah.

Earlier today I did a bit of teaching (controversial!), including a revision session about elasticity of demand - a subject guaranteed to stretch the brain of the average recalcitrant sixth former. I'm not sure my brain was much better by the end of it. Mind you, they seemed to understand, so perhaps the knowledge travel from my brain to theirs by the process of osmosis.

Tomorrow, thank goodness, I'm getting my hair cut. Last time I made it to a hairdressers was February half term, and even though it was an annoying woman who cut off far too much it's now getting far too long and wild. This time, I've even managed to get pictures of my hair looking decent, and will be thrusting them into the face of my hairdresser so she actually knows what I want (normally I just go, "Yeah, whatever just cut it off a bit"). The only downside is that I'll have to endure 3 hours of dyslexing with itchy hair inside my clothes. Will be scratching like a nit-infested loon.

It's been a blissful Sunday so far: lying in bed reading a book about the trials and tribulations of running an organic smallholding; eating bacon and egg rolls; drinking lots of tea; kneading ten shades of hell out of some dough, which is now happily rising inside its carrier bag; watching my semi-resident chef make a tomato-y bolognaise. I'm looking forward to an afternoon of baking and eating, although it will be tempered with the marking of mock exam papers. It's just that time of year, unfortunately; luckily the results have been ok so far, so my P45 shouldn't be in my pigeon hole just yet. Phew!

I taught one of my dyslexing lessons today and we were discussing k sound at the end of words: is it '-ck' or '-ke' or even 'c'? We'd worked out the rules and I had a card with each ending. I'd say a word and she would have to point to the appropriate card. It was all going great guns until I got to the 'uck' family. I didn't say it, but we both fell about laughing. Good job I wasn't being observed!

Have just have a 20 minute phone chat with a lady moving into the area to take up a job at the school: she's a Guider with 30 years' experience and wants to organise a transfer to the district. It's a good job that we spoke on the phone: had we been face-to-face I'd have bitten her hand off!

I made the mistake of going out drinking without wearing my watch. It's now later than I thougt. Bollocks.

Wednesdays start with a free lesson. This is possibly the only redeeming feature of the day, which then contains 6 lessons, D of E, tea, and then duty in the House until late. Today, though, I have a reprieve: it's the CCF Mess Dinner tonight, which means poncing about in flim-flam-finery, and drinking lots of port. Now, I'm not too sure I'll cope with the former, but I feel more than confident about tackling the latter. Tomorrow's teaching may be fun...

D of E expedition: good.
Weather: mixed - from sun to hail.
Kids' attitudes: positive and pleasing.
Sleep: lacking.

Brain cell is all mixed up. Need a snooze. Instead will be studying the intricacies of exam special arrangments in dyslexing. Waaah.

Bloody typical. I lost my little whizzy headtorch ages ago. I searched high and low, but had no luck finding it. On Thursday I bought myself a new one. Guess what I've just found at the back of a cupboard?! Damnation. Oh well, I'll be the best illuminated woman on D of E this weekend!

Why is it, when there are a thousand and one things to do in preparation for tomorrow's little jaunt up some hills, do I end up faffing with pointless activities? Pah.

Have spent all day (other than teaching until 11am) dyslexing. Have written a big whopper of an assignment, although I don't really know if it says the right things. Tomorrow at 8am I set off on D of E. I haven't packed, haven't thought about getting kit ready, haven't got the stamina to start doing it now. Gah. I thought weekends were for relaxing in?!

Dear me, I wrote a lot of shite last night. Apologies to everyone's eyes. However, one little snippet of news that explains why the CGI Charles Kennedy looked so much better than the others can be found here. Interesting reading, I think.

Bollocks. Ruth Kelly re-elected. Yet another reason for remaining in the private sector of the education.

Bless. Cherie's crying. Perhaps it's tears of gladness that she's not having to move. Tony's speech was interesting: perhaps he accepts that there are serious issues with his leadership style and it's time to make changes. Time will tell.

No-one seems keen to predict result. I'm not surprised. I think it's probably time to go to bed and hope that they've fought it all out by the time I wake up. I also think I'm going to need to set two alarms if I'm to get up tomorrow mornining.

G'night.

Blair has been re-elected. You'd think that he'd look happy at not having to move house just yet. Seemingly not.

Thank goodness that Nick Griffin (BNP) got thrown out by the voters. Even so, it still saddens me that over 4,000 chose to vote for him.

The Blairs have won the prize for fake grins this year.

Welsh is a lovely language. It can make even election declarations and acceptance speeches seem sexy.

Jack Straw's speech is very boring. Although I don't agree with heckling, I can see why they're doing it. I would be. Either that, or snoring.

Gordon hasn't mentioned the word "prudent" once. Perhaps he's preparing for the PM's job, when he can hand Prudence over to someone else. I wonder if she minds.

Gordon Brown's been re-elected. I'm glad. Anyone who can get economics to work is worthy of credit.

John Prescott has been re-elected without hitting anyone. Shucks. There's nothing like a good fight for entertainment on a Friday morning.

The beeb now have Peter Snow with a CGI Downing Street. If the degree of real-life-ness* is an indicator of electoral success, tomorrow's government is going to be run by Charles Kennedy and the policeman. Blair and Howard both look slightly fake. Is it a case of art mirroring life?

* I know this isn't the real word, but I'm blowed if I can remember it. Maybe the word is 'realism'. Dunno.

Beeb man: "And there's George Galloway from the Respect party, er, being respected".

Cutting edge journalism at its best. It kind of makes me glad that I don't pay TV licence.

Conservatives have just got their first MP of the night. She's only 35. Blimey. I wonder if I'll be achieveing such things when I'm her age. On the other hand, I suspect not. I'd rather have a vegetable patch and some chickens.

They're back to the 'MPs round the table' discussion gubbins, but the lib dem bird has flown the nest. Shame, coz she was good at stirring up trouble. Mind you, Boris is still looking casually rumpled: he has such style.

Labour have just won their eigth seat, although the Lib Dems are swinging up all over the shop - 6% swing, 9% swing... more swings that your average playing park.

Ah, vindication - the main beeb man says, "Ah well, Peter Snow's always wildly excited". That is the only thing that Kenneth Clark has said which Beeb man has agreed with. What joy it must be to be a politician, to be sitting prey for sarcastic journos.

Now another journo has just described Ken Clark as "very good value for money". I have to agree, but with the caveat that you wouldn't get many of him to the pound.

Peter Snow has a big swing-o-meter. And a slightly breahtless, very excitable voice, as if it's all fightfully exciting, and he's got the hand movements to go with it too. Fascinating. Perhaps I should adopt some of his moves in the classrooms. Or at least in the nightclub.

Ooooh - arguement going on about postal voting. The man from the beeb is pointing the finger at the labour man, the lib dem bird is now having a go at him(there were questions in the House: she's got the bloody thing in her handbag, if you need proof the lib dems didn't want it) and it's nearly reached blows. Hurrah! This is what politics should be about. The beeb man is getting quite frustrated at the labour man's total refusal to admit blame. Am v. amused.

Boris Johnson has very cool hair. Shame he sounds like a blundering buffoon, albeit a very amiable one. So long as he's not a baboon and whips his red arse out.

Houghton and Washington - pronounced by the Beeb as How-ton, although as eny fule know, 'tis Hor-ton - also is labour too. More swings to the Lib Dems though. Why do the BNP candidates always look like complete thugs? Perhaps there's a correlation between appearance and policies? Who am I to comment?

The maccams* do it again - Sunderland North are second to declare. What makes them so fast? Do their vote counters have speedy fingers? Are they just very nimble? Do they employ far more vote counters than other consituencies? A puzzle indeed.

* I'm not exactly sure whether it's maccams or maccems. I'm sure someone will tell me if they're particularly bothered about it.

Didn't quite manage to get to bed before the election results started coming in, so I seem to be resigned to staying awake until even matchsticks fail to keep my eyelids open. To help me, I have a pot of tea, some hamster-smack to keep Fatso quiet, and a broadband connection. I might as well make use of my bandwidth to blog while electioneering: who says that tired women can't multi-task?!

Sunderland South got their result in first: no surprise there. That happened more than 30 minutes ago, so the commentators are trying hard to spin out this little tidbit, because every other consistuency is still counting and recounting and arguing over spoilt ballots. As a woman who once had to study psephology (I think that's how you spell it), it's interesting to note that some areas have had a turnout of 65 - 70%, which is heartening to know, provided they're not all faked postal votes. It all means that the couting's going to take much longer than usual, so the poor commentators are going to have to whitter on about bobbins for a wee while longer.

This is turning into a stream of semi-consciousness post, so I'll stop for the moment and drink more tea. Rock and roll.

My dyslexia course tutor has just been to observe another lesson: that's two in one week! She was impressed (but of course) and doesn't think that she'll need to come back and observe any more lessons. I'm not sure if that's because I'm unquestionably brilliant or because it's a loooonnng way for her to come. Suspect it's the latter, somehow!

I have yet to vote in the election, but will be mooching down the road in the next hour to put my X in the appropriate boxes. It's quite a nice evening for a stroll. I'm not sure I've got the stamina to stay awake to hear the results come in though: it's D of E expedition this weekend and I need to conserve my energy!

In preparation for D of E, and because I had lots of tidying to avoid before this evening's dys lesson, I bimbled off to the bustling metropolis to buy maps, compasses and other things walking-related. I'm not sure my flexible friend knows what hit it.

Talking of not knowing what's hit it, my braincell's about to die, so I'd best be off. I certainly don't want my brain exploding over my laptop.

And another thing. This weekend I head off on expedition with my wee D of E silver group. (It's not the group that's wee, or even their physical stature, but they're just generally lovely. They even profressed to like writing route cards. Weird kids) I have to go shopping tomorrow in preparation... and not just normal shopping but KIT shopping!! I get to rummage through the supplies of Burton's finest camping shops to my heart's content. I suspect that rummage-ability will be slightly limited, given the range of shops available, but it'll be nice to be away from the marking for a bit.

On Friday, the external assessor lady is checking out my dyslexia course. We've all had to hand in all of our assignments, assessments, lesson plans and resources. Today I got an email saying that the assessor lady has picked me as the victim she would like to talk to. I can hardly say no, but she's just going to think that I'm a jibbering loon. No change from normal, I suppose!

Election Schlection. This amused me. Bwa-ha-ha! (via A Beautiful Revolution)

The sun is shining, the temperature is soaring, and the whole world is on holiday, except for us. They haven't invented bank holidays here in the village. Saturday and Sunday were spent in Sunny Manchester, playing non-stop cricket, drinking mighty fine port and eating more food than you could shake a medium-sized log at. The DOGs were good company, as ever, and it was a bit of a wrench having to come home yesterday evening. I finally got the smell of wood-smoke washed out of my hair, and today has been fairly nondescript. At least I'm on holiday for next bank holiday!