Am feeling smug, proud and exhausted from nervous tension: my House won the harmony competition, and really camped up the unison, getting better-than-expected comments from the adjudicator. This was followed by a party involving pizza, cake and Tangfastics... what more could any girl wish for on a Saturday night?! (Don't answer that, please!)

Tonight is the night of the house music competitions; nothing, of course, to do with house music, and all to do with singing in unison and harmony. Every member of the school will be representing their House in a unison rendition of a song of their choice, whilst a select, tuneful few from each House will be competing for the harmony cup. Every year this competition causes all sorts of stress; every year the performances in the unison prelim round are less-than-perfect; every year the kids pull out all of the stops and sing their hearts out for the actual event. I'm looking forward to this evening.

I feel as though a brick wall has jumped out unexpectedly and hit me hard. Bleurgh.

Drug of the day: Neurofen Cold and Flu tablets
Drink of the day: Tea, by the gallon
Delivery of the day: Learn to Love your Moles via Amazon

Bdoing!

Eurgh! (via me-ish)

I've been pondering the authorities' lack of foresight regarding this 'ere weather, and note that Anna expresses her thoughts on this matter far better than I could. This village is riddled with pathways and jitties, all of which have been covered in a thick sheet of ice since yesterday because no-one had the forethought to put down grit until it was far too late. The pavements were treacherous, and - whilst carefully picking my way down to my classroom - I overheard the following:

Girl 1: Look at all this black ice.
Girl 2: Isn't that the ice you shouldn't eat?
Girl 1: No - you're thinking of yellow ice.

Eurgh!

This morning the sun shone on the village, reflecting off white snow. Everywhere was bathed in the pale blue light that comes with cloudless midwinter days. I walked to my classroom admiring the effect of the snow on trees, roofs, hedgerows. Everywhere looked different.

It took me two minutes to realise that this was because I'd forgotten to put on my glasses.

The snowballs have started: teenagers shrug off their usual facade of cool and run squealling down the lane, gloves and scarves flying.

The snow continues to fall and shows no sign of abating.

Why am I stuck indoors marking?!

Good Idea CMT! So I'm guessing Mad's study will start in the metropolis of Burton... but where will be her next destination? Caz (who feels of the Pompey ones S/sea Waitrose top & Comm Rd Tesco bottom on the totty scale)

A mystery indeed. Am currently negotiating all sorts of jaunts to all sorts of places, both near and far, so will draw up a more detailed methodology as time progresses. After all, it's far more exciting than marking! :-)

Sensible suggestions of our time - am very excited about the prospect of this:

How about you do the remaining 83 miles in supermarkets comparing the talent. Your readers will wait eagerly for your conclusions CMT

We came 4th in the pub quiz, then walked out to discover snow! Am very excited.

Late night shopping at Tesco... you may as well hang a sign around your neck saying "Single and desperate"... I'm speaking from my own experience. Ash.

Oh. Is wearing that sign a bad idea...?!

Blimey - comments-a-plenty!

Agree with Mr Pink on the poshness of Waitrose shoppers (but they do good Carrot Cake, my southsea weakness). As for Mr Avacardo he may have a number from the original Mr Avagadro. Arrh the curse of the rest of my chem group was mole calculations (but I got them pretty much first time). Caz

So what is Mr Pink's view on Tesco/ Safeway/ Aldi & lidl? It sounds as if he's been going shopping for ladies! Caz

We don't have Waitrose up north. Do I have to move south in search of totty?

Perhaps this is where I'm going wrong too, although I'm not sure I could cope with being any further south - I thought that moving from Darlo to Derby was bad enough!

Pinky lives! And what's more, here's what he wrote:

Of course different supermarkets have different qualities of talent. Morrisons' is for a bit of rough, Sainsbury's, in my experience, is quite studenty and new mums, whilst Waitrose, posh totty galore! Pinky

I shall bear this in mind when planning the next shopping expedition!

Supermarket totty-spotting is obviously more common than I thought:

Don't forget the frozen meal section for eyeing up suitable males - Caz

I'm not allowed in the frozen food aisle: I drool too much when passing the ice-cream section. On a food-related thread:

6x10^23 bits thats avacardos number......................

Blimey. I didn't know anything about Chemistry at the start of this term, and now... why, my life has been revolutionised!

Sadly it's not snowed, and the sun is shining down, so I'm doomed to umpire netball this afternoon, followed by walking (gotta get those miles up soon!), a meeting, tea and then a pub quiz: busy, busy, busy!

The whole idea of supermarkets is to go through a checkout with a fit person.

And there was me thinking that supermarkets were the place that I could buy milk, ribena and Private Eye. Obviously I was wrong!

Tim writes:

A mole is an easy way of saying 6x10^23 bits. Thats a lot of bits, so mole is a good word.

See - if I were let loose on the sciences, I'd just be tempted to call it a whopper, or a squndlerun, or maybe a flibbletigrob; naming a big number after a garden animal is not something that would cross my mind. I suspect this is more evidence that I'm destined not to be a scientist.

From the box:

Walk him up the stairs...

I assume this refers to Fatso, not the Sainsbury's employee; chance of either would be a fine thing!

You know you're plumbing the depths of desperation when you catch yourself eyeing up the check-out blokey at Sainsbury's.

As I loaded up my blog page, I though, "Hmmm, better get walking: I'm falling behind." (and yes - I do use colons in my thought processes). And then, lo and behold, this appeared in my inbox:

Walk more miles!!! Then drink more port. Or can Fatso run your miles for you in his wheel? Love CMT

I consider myself told good 'n' proper, although I'm not sure I need any encouragement to drink more! Sadly Fatso-miles are unable to count towards the total, and I have netball every day this week, so quite when I'm going to walk is a little challenging at the moment!