Am having a hideous time at the moment: good job school finishes tomorrow. Normal service to be resumed shortly, I sincerely hope.

Eleven o'clock last night, the phone rang. It was a colleague, desparately seeking a "competent female" (his words!) to cover for an ill colleague on the Biology fieldtrip that is happening all of this week. Cue lots of late-night packing and stressing over lessons. I'm hoping that there will be internet access at the place we're staying, but there may well not be. You'll be able to tell pretty soon, depending whether I post again or not! Either way, I'll be missing Rob and the pointy-pawed cats... harrumph!!

Only a week back at school after the honeymoon and it feels like I've never been away. The wedding was fabby (well, *I* enjoyed myself!) and we spent the week in Cornwall in this lovely cottage. We did a one-day course at the Rick Stein school, learning how to cook shellfish and how to fillet and cook fish. My cooking repertoire has just widened considerably! The next day, we headed out to sea on a little fishing boat and caught lots of mackeral, some dogfish, and Rob even caught a whopper starfish. Plenty of booze, good food, and plenty of salty snacks (not to mention the BBQ in Cheltenham on the way home) all mean that my clothes are just a little snugger than they were.

This last week has been the main exam week for the lower sixth. The papers that my kids sat seemed fair, although the results won't be out for months yet. the upper sixth have done resits, but still have their exams to come: fun and games!

The weekend was spent on our final briefing for GOLD - we've got a much clearer idea of what's happening, and we even have a rough itinerary! We're doing most of our training not far from Johannesburg, including several days in and around Soweto. We're focusing on HIV/AIDS, the prejudices that exist, and the reasons why this preventable disease is such a major problem. It's quite meaty stuff, but should be good. Mind you, in a month's time we will be in Johannesburg on day 2 or 3 of the training schedule... it's getting scarily close! Before then, there's just exams, end-of-term reports, DofE expedition, organising Guide camp, packing for moving house, and packing for south Africa to go....