January's photo-a-day

January photo-a-day, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

January 31st: diary cover, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

January 30th: eyes, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

January 29th: baking bread, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Yum yum.

January 27th: walking in the Peaks, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Walking in the White Peak.

January 26th: spring has sprung, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Spring has sprung.

January 25th: Burns Night, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

It's Burns' Night.

Sorry.

January 24th: Arthur, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Arthur, looking like the fine beast she is.

January 22nd: bitch and sip, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

This is what Tuesday evenings are for.

January 21st: my blog resurrected, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Photo-editing, oh yes. Will have to renounce my Luddite status.

January 20th: ionic columns, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Ionic columns in Nottingham

Fish finger sandwich, originally uploaded by Planet Mad.

Quick and dirty, but oh so tasty.

Favourite socks.

Rosie's nose.

It's clearly rained quite a lot.

The weather's rubbish today, although you wouldn't believe it looking at this photo!

It's been raining outside, and - in homage - the tap splish sploshed too.

We won the first match of the netball season yesterday, and I'm paying the price for it now. One too many pies over Christmas, methinks.

I got a remote control for the camera today, so I can rest the camera on top of a rubbish bin's curved lid and still use it as an effective tripod without wobbling the camera.

One of the best things about the photo-a-day challenge is getting to look at other flickr users' pictures on a daily basis. There's some real inspiration out there.

The chapel where I got married.

The chair has only been in the house 24 hours and My Cat has totally commandeered it. She's even worked out how to rock it. I don't know whether to be proud or cry.

My Our new gliding rocking chair. I eyed up a (pregnant) friend's glider chair enviously and - miracle of miracles - one magically arrived on the doorstep this morning. How DID it happen?!

My camera's new toy: a 50mm prime lens. It rocks!

Taken on a Sunday bimble to some local caves. (Sad confession: I love cooling towers)

This is next to my parents' house (it was a good chance to play with my new polarizing filter!)

Your Cat, looking pissed off. I tried to take a photo of a mug of tea, but managed to delete it before getting it onto flickr. I'm such a luddite.

RIP Mabel (on the left of the picture)

The bloody fox got another chicken. Even worse, she'd just started to lay the oddest blue-green eggs you've ever seen, and I was most excited about them. She'd broken her way out of the run and got caught this morning. Much sadness.

New kettle (hopefully won't melt the tile grouting this time!)

Photo-a-day challenge, laid down by a web forum that I read: throughout the whole of 2008, take one photograph every day (or maybe one each week if time's precious). I reckon that this is a safe enough way of resurrecting Planet Mad without incurring the wroth of the powers that be.

Oh yeah, nd I am thbe Dalai Lama in terms of myu policiatlal compas.. Here .

well, the boy rb's aay and I'm sl.oightly drubk. hope your qweelens'd gppd too.

Edited to add: "qweelens'd" can be loosely translated as "evening's". You wouldn't believe it, but it is.

Advice: when reading a recipe, be very careful not to confuse the words "chill" and "chilli".

Last night we had pancakes for pudding: half a pint of milk, 4oz of plain flour and a freshly-laid egg. Simple and tasty, and relatively healthy.

Tonight, in the supermarket, I found pancake mix. In a bottle. You simply pour in milk (up to the line on the bottle), replace the lid, and shake. The bottle contains a dry mixture that includes flour, dried egg white, dried fermented egg yolk, salt and two flavour enhancers. Wrong, wrongity wrong. I ranted for a good five minutes about it. No wonder people can't cook these days. As Rob said, it's like oven-ready jacket potatoes. Grrrr. I think I'm becoming more of a food fascist.

This weekend just gone, after a late finish at work on Saturday, I jumped onto a train and headed off for Reading for a goodbye party. The trains worked out fine, but the taxi driver looked very confused when I gave him the instructions carefully passed to me by Rob: the King's Tavern on London Road. It eventually transpired that the King's Tavern is on King's Road, but - that minor mishap over - the rest of the evening passed in a blur of booze, pies and drunken staggering. 'Twas grand. We've been off the meat and cheese since the beginning of January but both independently managed to eat both meat and cheese as part of the drunken festivities - I'd be a rubbish vegan.
Back on the wagon today, though. Can't wait to have a steak...

It's amazing the things that cause marital disagreements.

(Rob was the one who correctly identified the one belonging to Jesus)

Late last night, or maybe early this morning, I was fast asleep in bed when My Cat jumped onto the bed. She landed on my head. This morning, I looked in the mirror and saw that I have been branded by her claws. I now have the Nike Swoosh across the bridge of my nose. If only I could work out a way to get sponsorship for it.

I've just been sitting out on the garden wall having a tin of sweetcorn for pre-lunch (in other words, the food that you eat while you decide what to have for lunch). The chickens all came running down the garden, very excited and doing their best aeroplane impressions (they hold their wings out horizontal to the ground but never manage to take off, mostly because of the effectiveness of Julia's chicken wrangling back at the beginning of the holidays, where we caught them and clipped their wings). It turns out that chickens like tinned sweetcorn. In fact, they love it. They even do tricks for it. Mind you, today was a two-egg day, so they've deserved it.

I haven't played my viola since our Christmas concert last month. It felt slightly odd and unfamiliar opening my case at orchestra last night but, as I was running late, I just grabbed my stuff, pushed my way to the front of the section and sat down. It was only when I came to put my viola under my chin that I realised something wasn't right. I had forgotten to take my bow out of the case. D'oh!

Curry. Yum. Must remember to chew next time, though.

I've really spannered things up this time. Disorganisation has reached an all time low here. I spent an hour or so going through old paperwork last night - bills, bank statements, and the like - and putting it all through the shredder. Such fun! Imagine my gloom just now when I discovered that I'd managed to shred my current certificate of motor insurance. Pants. What's worse is that I'd forgotten to do the car tax last week, so REALLY needed that certificate TODAY. Granny pants. AND the MOT runs out on Thursday, so the replacement insurance documents might not be here in time to do the renewal before that's up. BIG BAGGY SAGGY GRANNY PANTS. GOING GREY ROUND THE EDGES.

The thing that's upsetting me most about all this, though, is that we're meant to be driving to Brum tomorrow night for a curry, and I might not get my popadom fix. Waaaah.

Updated: CMT has solved the crisis! She's a star!! OK, using online renewal means the tax disk may not arrive for five working days, but I'm going to have to wait potentially five days for them to reissue my insurance documents anyway. Hurrah! Things are looking more promising. Those granny pants are shrinking back to temptress thongs once again.

We've been getting one egg every other day or so for a couple of weeks (courtesy of Gwhenivere) but today was our first TWO EGG day! Let's hope it carries on...

I've been to a bona fide beer festival twice before. I can hardly remember the first (something to do with the continued drinking afterwards and falling bodily out of a pub, and I know exactly who to blame for that), but the second was far more staid, even if they did have morris dancers and a bloke playing the Wurlitzer. On Friday we headed to Derby for another attempt at beer-festival madness.

Given that there were thirty different beers on offer at any one time (and the barrels changed throughout the evening) "madness" is a bit strong a descriptor. Rob started with Beer No. 1, and dotted about drinking the stouts and porters. I started at Beer No. 30 and worked methodically downwards through the even numbers (although I did have two Beer No. 28 because they changed the barrel when I got to Beer No. 20, and I like the name of the new No 28). My favourite beer of the night was Ginger Helmet by the Leatherbritches Brewery: light, tasty and with a hint of - would you believe it - ginger.

Yesterday marked my last Saturday of freedom for a fair while and I spent most of it alseep. Rock and roll. And today? Who knows! The world is my mollusc...

Back from DOGS new year in the peak district. I'm going through my (ridiculously large number of) photos and have just rediscovered all sorts of things going on that I don't remember. Curse that demon drink!!

Christmas day was fab and, even though the eating was spread over six hours, I still ended up with a Christmas Dinner Baby. Actually, it felt more like twins. Luckily it's subsiding now, else I'll be in trouble when it comes to getting back into my work clothes!

Rob's taken holiday and is currently working on his dissertation. This leaves me free to slob around and play on the internet without distraction. Hurrah! I'm currently sitting in bed surrounded by cats: THIS is what holidays are for! (not to mention wireless internet connections).

The problem with not writing about work is that for weeks on end nothing else seems to happen in my life. Now, though, I am free of such drudgery and have finally got my brain to co-ordinate with my fingers to bring this (increasingly dusty) organ up to date.

We are spending Christmas day with friends, having a safari supper that starts in the pub and finishes with poker and silly games until late o'clock. We're doing the main course, so Rob has spent today preparing veg, weighing the goose and making minute-by-minute to-do lists. I made some chocolate cookies, which strictly speaking is nothing to do with tomorrow's food but seemed a good idea at the time. My contribution to Christmas has been a) making the sausages for pigs in blankets; and b) making mince pies. By the dozen. At the start of December I couldn't make pastry. It's taken several batches (all eaten by the long-suffering Rob, even the early attempts, bless him) but I think I've finally cracked it.

My normal, pre-Rob Christmas routine involved buying all presents on Christmas Eve. If it wasn't on offer in the local shopping centre, it wasn't good enough to be a gift for my nearest and dearest. This year, in growed-up adultness (seeing as I'm married and all that) I only had two presents to buy this Christmas Eve. I even started buying presents before the 20th December: something unheard of here on Planet Mad. Today's shopping excursion lead us into Sainsbury's, not because we needed to buy any foodstuffs but because we too wanted to join the ranks of panic-buyers: WE NEED EGGS. MILK. FROZEN CURRIES. A DUSTPAN AND BRUSH. SEVEN TYPES OF OLIVE OIL. QUICK. QUICK!! THE SHOPS ARE SHUTTING FOR A WHOLE DAY!!! WE MIGHT JUST STARVE TO DEATH IF WE DON'T STOCK UP ON THINGS WE DON'T NEED!!!!!

We left Sainsbury's with eggs, bread and a bunch of flowers. Sometimes peer pressure is too strong to resist.

I spoke too soon. Email collection is fine, email sending is not. Waaah. Will have to go and see the IT geeks tomorrow to get it fixed.

I finally got round to sorting out my email account (only coz Amy told me I was missing out on much gossip!). Having downloaded loads of emails that were out of date and - quite frankly - irrelevant, I've just deleted the lot of them! Welcome to the world of Extreme Decluttering: if only I could apply the same principles to my home!

After a weekend in which we made doughtnuts AND sausages from scratch, I'm feeling a tad on the bloated side. Why is healthy living never as tasty as 'bad' stuff?

Our boiler stopped working this weekend. Rob noticed this when I was at Guides on Friday, and we've been freezing ever since. The electrical display control thingy has given up the ghost, which may just been a blown fuse but might be signalling the need for a new heating system. Whichever it is, let's hope that it's fixed quickly - we're off to the pub this evening in an attempt to find somewhere to sit without wearing four layers of clothing.

Yesterday was one of the biggest food challenges of recent months. My parents held a family lunch - three courses of big-portion-no-messing food - to mark their joint retirement. No sooner had the second pudding gone down (it would have been rude to refuse it) then we were back in the car to get back home, so I could go to a black tie dinner in the evening. Pate, lamb, chocolate mousse, cheese and port later and I was at least 10 inches bigger round the waist than I'd been at breakfast. Unsurprisingly, I've not been very hungry today.

Well that's it - my husband has just pushed firmly at the culinary boundaries. We've just had Roadkill Casserole for dinner, and yummy it was too.*

Other food things of note in the last couple of weeks include:
* home-made salty snacks - healthy pumpkin seeds, albeit drizzled in olive oil
* steak and kidney pudding, in suet pastry
* home-made pork pies - with proper jelly this time
* scones - two batches made on the same day, following different recipes, just to see which were best
* merengue - melty chewy crispy bliss. Eaten with fresh raspberries from the garden. Yup, we're still getting fruit off those suckers!

* To be fair, it was a pheasant that was hit by a car and was still warm when we got to it. Still technically roadkill, though!

It's gone all autumnal here and our new flat has single-glazed big windows throughout... the global condensation convention is happening right here in our front room. The boiler seems to be a tad binary: off or on at the switch, and no thermostat or timer device. All in all it's making things a tad chilly round the extremities. At least it's not as bad as last Saturday, when Rob realised that he could see his breath when sitting in the living room. Waaah!

In other news, we've harvested the mammoth pumpkin (which is very aptly named if mammoths are mishapen, pale orange squished ovals) so I suspect that there's a lot of pumpkin products just waiting to be made. Hurrah!

I refer my learned readers to here for a bit of a giggle.

I have been instructed to write nothing at all about my work on here and - at the risk of being dooced - I have no real alternative but to comply. It's a shame because I love my job and now I'm not allowed to share that, but hey - a job's a job and all that.

Holidays, however, aren't part of work, so I guess I can whitter at length about that. And about chickens. And cats. Maybe children too (not just yet though - my bigger waist is more to do with cakes than anything naughty). In fact I might just rename this "Holidays and other animals".

Or maybe not.

The excitement never stops here - Rob took delivery of our latest kitchen gadget yesterday: this. I was so excited I nearly snotted all over it. Cakes, breads and merengues a plenty!!

I have turned into the snot monster. Waaaah.

My husband is sick, mind and body, although mostly body today. It's not just manflu either. Bleugh.

We're cheesed to the max, and the proud foster family to a large stuffed chicken. It's been an interesting weekend!

Rob's away down to Cheltenham at the cheese festival. He left last night, straight from work, and as you know, while the cat's away, the mice will play. Actually, in our case, while the husband's away the wife will sleep and the cats will have to paw her face to wake her so she can feed them. Curse these early morning beasts! The chickens aren't much better. There was an almighty scrabble in the eglu as I went to let them out: the sooner they can start letting themselves out the better.

In other news, it's quite sunny here and I finish teaching at 11, then it's off to Cheese Land for me too! Hurrah!!!!

It was D of E expedition this weekend, which is the subject for another post at another time, including the (not as thrilling as it sounds) tale of late-night rescues from hillsides and roadsides. We got back here at 6ish, and I was talking to Rob in the kitchen when I noticed it:

Me: Eurm - what's that?
Rob: [innocent like] What?
Me: That's a chest freezer!
Rob: Oh, that, well...
Me: How long have you been planning this for?
Rob: A while.
Me: And were you going to tell me?
Rob: I was looking for an opportune time to install it
Me: An opportune time? In other words, waited for a weekend while I was away? I'll give you opportune!!

It's a good job that buying and installing kitchen appliances is all he does at such opportune times. Mind you, this time last year he'd come home with a ling, so obviously September is the Boy Rob's month for silly purchases!

I wrote a post last night about being on duty in the House, and how it's different now I don't live there. The internet died just as I was about to press publish, which is a shame, as it was the most coherent writing I've done in a while. Maybe I'll try again later...

Avast me hearties, aaaaarggghhhhh!!

(here)

We have an egg, fresh from a chicken's bottom (or "vent" if we're using technical terms!) That's lunch sorted out!

The chickens have landed! We headed off this morning at ungodly o'clock to meet one of Rob's colleagues and her blokey somewhere over near Tutbury, the other side of Burton. We met their alpacas (very fluffy!) and their chickens, discussed fields and land management, and then got to choose our own cluckers. Now, at the moment, a chicken is a chicken is a chicken, so it caused a few moments of indecision when they asked which three we wanted. Luckily, they saw our confusion and chose three for us - a white one (a Sussex White crossed with a Cream Legbar); and two brown ones (one is a Buff Orpington cross, and the other is a Rhode Island Red cross). Luckily they all look different, so we can tell them apart. The only one with a name so far is the white one, who is Gwehenivere:



The oldest, and most adventurous, is this one, the Rhode Island Red cross:



The other brown chicken is a Buff Orpington cross, and she's younger (not yet laying) so has the potential to get bigger:



Clucks away!

It's now C-12 hours. The eglu has been put up in the wilderness at the end of the garden, complete with run assembled, and we pick our chickens tomorrow morning. Woooo!!

The next dilemma is what to call them. Let's face it, our name choices for the cats are bad enough! We've been toying with an "Arthur and Camelot" theme (Gw-hen-ivere, Sir Layalot, Eggscaliber, Arthur Hendragon...) but Rob's just suggested Fatso 1, Fatso 2, and Fatso 3, as an homage to the hamsters. I think there's a lot of milage in that! Or maybe Duck, Duck, Goose (a game much beloved by the Rainbows in the village). Any better suggestions from the audience?

Nice things about not being in the boarding house #475

I now get to have my lunchtimes to myself, rather than having to eat with the kids. Our kids are nice and generally very pleasant company, but lunch in the house takes up the whole of lunch hour. Now I have time to come home, eat, sit outside AND geek, all in the time it would take me to get through the first course in the House. Bonus!

It's been a tad damp here - so much so that the sky looked green, just at the moment before the heavens opened and the doors leaked - and I've a start-of-term cold beginning to creep in round the edges. It's much like Freshers' Flu, and is inevitable in a school where the kids come from across the world with such a fine selection of germs and diseases. All in all, it's not my most favourite Thursday of term so far. Harrumph.

Wireless is now back in place, and I'm able to sit anywhere in the flat - and even at the house end of the garden - and geek away to my heart's content. In other news, our eglu arrived yesterday, so just layers pellets to buy and we're ready for chickens. Wahay!

This weekend just gone was the debrief from GOLD (Guiding overseas linked with development). We got together with the other project teams (Fiji, Belarus, and Madagascar) and spent the weekend sharing tales, memories and photos. We also got to do some personal development work about where to go from here... I just wish I had more time (and was younger - so many things are unavailable for over 25s. Pah!). Photos are drifting onto flickr, but my favourite of the lot is this one:

WHEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Broadband at home back up and running,* and I've made the discovery early enough in my lunch hour to make effective catch-up for all the hours and days and weeks of internet-free-ness that I've enjoyed. Well, tolerated. Just.

Much has happened, including moving house, painting, unpacking, painting, more painting, Guide camp for a week on a canalboat, painting, shopping in Nottingham, painting, more painting, unpacking, desperately trying to find my school clothes in time for the start of term, taking up a "give up drinking for a whole half term" challenge, teaching a few lessons, unpacking, gardening.... and this weekend I'm off to London for a debrief from my GOLD trip to South Africa. Life never stops.

The start of term has been lovely - nice classes, a new classroom, not living in the House - and it has been bliss having a new house with a garden in which to relax. All we need now is a new wireless router (old one blown up by lightening!) and we'll be in geeky heaven.

That cats are both well and loving having a garden - My Cat has even been seen running, with stomach wobbling from side to side, in gleeful abandon. Your Cat has been spotted playing with furry squeaky things. They haven't even tried to run away home to the old place either. Wonders never cease!

Now, though, must go - blogs call (I've got weeks worth of people's lives to catch up on) and then teaching. Hurrah!

* But not email, not just yet. Soon, I tells ye, soon.

The move went fine, although it took a concerted effort on the part of my mum and Aims to get the painting done to a live-in-able standard (I was meant to be painting too but was too busy faffing round and opening boxes at random in search of things like toothbrushes, shampoo and clean pants - next time we move I'm packing an "essentials" bag that's easily recognisable!!) It's still nowhere near finished, but all of the rooms have had at least two coats (except the red spare room, which has been started but has a long way to go). The kitchen feels very much like home and, now I've unpacked the CDs and the curtains have been hung, the sitting room is feeling more homely too. The cats are loving having a garden, and the sight of them squeezing their fat arses through the small catflap has caused much amusement.

On a less good note*, though, we're still without internet at home and will be for at least another week if not more. To make matters worse, my ISP have cancelled my old account, so I can't even access my webmail via school. Grrrr. In fact, changing broadband from one address to another has been the most annoying and time-consuming bit of the whole house-moving thing. I suspect that the account cancellation means that all email sent to my demon address will bounce - sorry. Contact me for an alternative email address if you need one.

Off now to cut and stick wedding photos into an album. After all, there are UCAS references to write, lessons to plan and a classroom to get ready: why worry about school things when there are other activities in which to indulge?!

* Can you tell from my grammar that I've not been writing regularly or even having to form complete sentences? I've no idea how I'll cope next week when the kiddies come back and need teaching!!

Google says, "Major changes such as starting a new job, getting married or moving house can challenge our abilities to cope." Ah well, that explains a lot.

We move today. Everything is in boxes, apart from the computer (obviously, or I'd have to be in the box too, and they don't make removal boxes in my size), the cats and the kitchen. We ran out of time and into the "paint or pack?" dilemma: the kitchen was left to last because a) I don't know what's lurking in the depths of those cupboards; and b) there are more breakable things there that need packing properly, not just following the chaos technique of packing. All the stuff that Rob packed while I was in South Africa is neatly taped into boxes and labelled with its destination room. The boxes I've packe, on the other hand, were just filled with contents scooped off shelves at random and stuck in any available spot. No labelling either - I like to think of it as adding to the excitement!

Anyway, two nice mena nd a van are here - must go and pack.

So far I've painted two t-shirts, a pair of shorts, the bottom of both boots and the tops of my hands. I've also developed anti-freckles and have a far greater collections of grey hairs than I had at the beginning of the week. I ache like a bastard and I'm sure I'm hallucinating because of the paint fumes. All good clean fun, hey?!

(I've also painted a few walls and ceilings too)

The flat decorating is in full swing. Yesterday, two men from the maintenance department came to sort out the dodgy plaster; and my mum popped over to help paint. She also brought a stepladder for us to borrow, which is a good job or the new paintwork would only happen between ground level and six foot high. So far, the "completed" list consists of: the walls in the sitting room; and the bedroom ceiling. I've also given the bedroom a complete coat of Brilliant White - there's no way we're having a brilliant white bedroom, but no other colour would have covered up the garish yellow that was already on the walls. I think the builders have finished grinding bricks in our back yard, so my next job is to remove the brick dust from the kitchen and to give it a coat of brilliant white too. Before then, though, I deserve a bit of a sit down (I would have a nice cup of tea too, but the kettle's at the new flat - doh!) so I'm going to upload the photos from my phone... I've not done a phone-cam-dump since before the wedding, so goodness knows what's on there!!

I can't explain how lovely it was to sleep in my own bed last night, even at the moment when My Cat sat on me: she's heavier than I remember!!

The last two weeks of the GOLD project went just as well as the first week, although very different. We were mostly in the regions around Jo'burg, and the disparity between rich and poor is phenomenal: from the townships and shacks to the suburbs' gated communities with high walls electric fences, and armed guards. Some of the latter areas felt of little more than paranoia (although I met at least 2 people who'd been car-jacked on their own drives in these areas, so I can understand it in a way). In contrast, the townships we visited (Soweto, Kwa-Thema, Katlehong, Daveyton... and others than I've forgotten the name of!) all had a strong community feel and a real buzz, and the people there were really lovely. In fact, all of the South Africans we met were very positive about their country inspite of it's short-comings and told us to tell all of our friends how great South Africa is. In recognition of this debt I owe them: South Africa is fab and you should go if you get the chance.

The trainings themsleves went well. We worked mostly with Guides, Rangers and Guiders, although we also ran sessions for Brownies and for school pupils, both girls-only and mixed sex groups. Some sessions were short (just 30 minutes or an hour) but others lasted a whole day. As a team of six we got through 1,100 condoms! Given that we'd only taken 300 out to SA with us, we became very intimate with the clinics in the areas we visited!!

Now, though, GOLD's finished (just a debrief weekend in September) and it's time to think of the next challenge - moving house. We have a man with a van booked for next Monday but there's a huge amount of work to do before then. Many of the rooms have plaster lifting from the walls because of damp, and the previous inhabitants' choice of colours doesn't exactly coincide with ours. I'm off there later this morning to start washing down walls, polyfilla-ing (there are more nails sticking out of the walls than there's wall itself!) and generally stressing about the prospect. I'll get some photos of it all too, for some before/after action. New carpets have been put down already but the work on the kitchen and bathroom isn't scheduled to start for a while, so I'm not sure when it will all be finished. Now is the time for the Changing Rooms team to arrive!!

Back in the UK. South Africa was great, but it's nice to be home: I've stroked the cats, fondled the courgettes and pumpkins, and been to look at our new flat. To say that there's a lot of work to do is an understatement.

Well, we've just finished our first week of trainings in South Africa, and they all seemed to go well. The most successful were the condom games, but a lot of the more emotive sessions on prejudice and on people's response to HIV were also good - we were lucky to be working with a group of peer educators who had been selected as the best from their regions, and that certainly showed in the questions that they asked and their approach to trainings. Campfires South African style have also been fantastic - singing, clapping, dancing, harmony - all without obvious leadership or direction. We haven't been away from the National Guide Centre (in Jo'burg) since we arrived, apart from two trips to a local shopping mall and a brief stop at Makro to buy resources. As a result, I don't really feel like I've seen South Africa, but that will all change tomorrow, I suspect - we're off to Constitution Hill and the Aparteid Museum. We've been warned to take tissues: it could be an emotional day.

The weather has been great, although the Guides on the training course reckoned that it's really cold. Admittedly it's been clear and frosty at night, but it's been sunny during the day, and temperatures have been quite high in the sun. Certainly I won't be heading back to the UK without a tan (albeit a tan that stops at mid-arm and ankles!)

After this weekend of sight-seeing, we're off to Soweto for some trainings and home hospitality, and then on to Rustenberg (to the north west of Johannesburg) for more trainings and homestay. We've hired a Kombi (minibus) to get around, so that will make life easier. We've also been promised a real South African braai (spelling?!) on our last Friday night here - I can't wait! Let's hope that the next two weeks are as good as this one has been.

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....

My head hurts. Whose idea was it to go to a wedding yesterday?

It's a wonder at times that he doesn't dump me:

Rob: You know that plastic funnel, the one that's been by the phone since I moved in?
Me: Never seen it before in my life.
Rob: It's been here for at least eight months. You little liar.

Five days before having to fit into quite a fitted dress, the last thing one should do is to go to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet. I now have a stomach like a 6-month pregnant woman. What's worse is that I get the most vivid dreams after eating Chinese (probably a result of the salt and the MSG) and I know also have bags under my eyes that are large enough to carry a family of four's weekly shop.

In other news, it has been a bit damp here, but the potatoes should be thriving on it. Today, however, sees clear blue skies and sun... I wonder how long that will last?!

After hearing excited tales about planting cabbages in collars (which conjures up some interesting images, but is far more mundane than it could be!) I headed off to the garden during my free(ish) lesson this afternoon. Suddenly the garden has been transformed from empty soil to heaving beds in a matter of weeks. Everything seems to be looking ok, apart from one or two broad beans (slugged), one garlic (stunted and probably dead) and the blackcurrants, which have some leaves that are sporting a slightly worrying raised brown patch. I don't think it's Big Bud, but I've not been able to find pictures to be sure, so any blackcurrant experts out there, please help!

In addition to planting more veg than you can shake the proverbial stick at*, Rob and I built a proper fruit cage over the blackcurrants and the gooseberry bush. Girly-guidey square lashing seems to have come in useful, for once! The only problem with all this gardening is that I want to harvest the stuff NOW. NOW, I tell you. Harrumph.

* This sentence is a contender for the Crap Subclause Award 2006.

We were woken up by a bird cheeping loudly in the bedroom at 5.30am. Your Cat was to blame. We rescued it, and then collapsed back under the duvet. By 8.00am she'd caught it again. Or if not that bird then another very similar. Damn brute.

I've managed to break the internet and now (thankfully) I've fixed some of it, but there are still big chunks that I can't access. Like my email. Pah. I suspect there's another 45 minute phonecall to customer services ahead of me. Waaah.

It must be summer: Test Match Special is back! Hurrah for crickety goodness.

Last night was the annual CCF mess dinner. Like every other mess dinner that I've been to, the wine was flowing. However, the port got stuck at the other end of the table, so I did a commando roll across the floor (so I wouldn't get noticed by the RSM) to liberate another bottle. I've now got another drinking injury to add to my collection: carpet burn.

For those scientists out there, the evening can be summed up thus:

slight "dead badger" taste + wobbly head + drinking injury = top night out

Teaching this morning will be fun, though!

I got to go on a Gold D of E practice expedition this weekend. Yomping over Bleaklow and Kinder Scout was good fun, but I could now sleep for a year, if not more. Tomorrow is the deadline for internal 6th form reports, and I have rather a lot to write. Today could be a long day. Pah.

I'm sitting outside, on the small strip of grass that separates my flat from the carpark, enjoying a) the first day of REAL summer weather; and b) the delights of outdoor wireless geekery. The cats have managed to haul their fat bums outside and are now collapsed in the sunlight as a result of their exhaustion. This afternoon's excitement is "The Most Meanignful Of Sports: Rounders" (as it is officially known around these parts) which is a good thing, as today's weather is ideal for getting out first ball and then lazing in the sun in support of your team-mates. The only downside is the need to go watering things in the garden later on. Tough life, eh?!

For the first time in a couple of days I've broken free from the pile of marking and have a moment to myself to blog. Well, I say to myself, but I'm actually surrounded by my GCSE group who are busy tapping away at computers writing up some market research. It's probably as close to solitude as it gets this term!

I feel a bit adrift really - there's just so much to do that I can't cope with doing things on time. Wedding, GOLD, and moving house have taken over all the spare time that I used to use for doing Guide admin and general cleaning up in the flat. If it weren't for the fact that Rob does a lot of the washing (in frustration at the mounds heaping up, I suspect) I'd have to resort to the "turn inside out and spray with deoderant" style of laundry. There's also a good debate warming up over potential projects for next year, but I haven't had time to get my thoughts in order to contribute yet. Hey ho.

Anyhow, my moments of peace are drawing to an end - three minutes until the bell goes - so I'd best be off.

My pupils' little tests* draw ever closer and life has turned into whirl of invigilating mock exams and marking practice papers. I'm drowning slowly under a mound of stripy paper covered in scrawly hurried writing, and I'm almost doing marking in my sleep. Luckily Rob's not yet woken covered in red-pen ticks, but I fear that day will come, and perhaps sooner than he realises!

In four weeks' time, the bulk of the panic will be over and the kids will either pass or fail without my help. There's a grim inevitability about it all, and I still get wound up wondering how they will do. I think I might do something a bit different this year to take my mind off the worries of exams. Perhaps a party. Maybe I should even buy a new outfit for it. I might even make a cake for it. What a great plan! I reckon there's a weekend free at the end of this month....

a.k.a. AS and A-levels

When I first arrived here at school, there was a really good social aspect to life in the village. At my previous school, staff would get together on a Friday evening for a swift half at the end of a week's teaching; here, work never seemed to end, so we just drank on any old day of the week. This constant frivolity dropped off two years ago, to the detriment of general morale (but to the benefit of our livers, I suppose). This means that life is now boring. Last term we made a concerted effort to revive our social life with the invention of ImbSoc - "Imbibing Society". We meet on a Tuesday and Thursay at 6.00pm (in line with school's alcohol policy, which prohibits drinking before that time) for a quick cup of tea half or two. It makes life seem far more sociable, as we get to talk about things that aren't school related; we get to share all the scandal and gossip; and we get to have a good giggle about things that need laughing at.

It does make Thursday evening on duty quite fun though.

'Twas the second briefing weekend for our gOLD project this weekend, and also D of E expedition. Talk about torn between competing commitments! As it happened, I ended up at GOLD (not just because I fear the GOLD lady more than I fear the headmaster...) and had a good time. Am sleepy now, but that might be to do with the late night last night and the substantial number of pints that I drank this evening in the company of good friends. It might even be related to the hearty mutton stew I ate too. Best go and collapse soon, given that I'm meant to be teaching about the balance of payments tomorrow, and that subject scares me at the best of time. Hey ho.

I';ve just had some spam mail from a bloke called "Pythagoras Shoe". I'm now considering changing my name by deed poll.

School and lessons and things start again tomorrow, so tonight we went out for several pints and a big fat curry. At least, "big and fat" is how I now feel. Perhaps I ought to do some healthy eating for a bit, especially given the frockage that's due to happen in a few weeks' time. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the next few days: there's a lot happening that I need to deal with, and I'm not sure I have time. It will all be ok by Monday though.

I've just been cat-slapped by My Cat, and I wasn't even huffing her. She's a contrary madam at times. Mind you, it was a cat-slap with love - not a claw in sight - so I reckon I can forgive her.

Guide camp starts tomorrow morning. I haven't packed yet. I have found all sorts of other exciting things though, because trawling the interwebnet was more important than stuffing my sleeping bag. Harrumph. Will have to start early tomorrow morning instead.

Why is it, when I have two major loads of paperwork to do and a pile of coursework to mark, that I am so bloody good at procrastination? I hate being unable to prioitise. Pah.

I was icky-sick yesterday and instead of spending the day sorting out Duke of Edinburgh expeditions and Guide camp I spent the day huddling under a duvet (and sometimes under a cat) whinging and feeling down-ight sorry for myself. This morning I feel far more chipper, and also very very hungry - I've not eaten since Sunday evening. It may be good for my waistline but it's not good for the soul. Harrumph.

Holidays are such fun. I get to eat, drink, sleep and generally mooch around in a dressing gown all day, which manages to occupy my time quite nicely. Yesterday, however, Julia, Jerome and I headed to the hills, hired bikes and had a good 12-mile ride. My bum aches now.

Before then, we headed down to the big bright lights of Reading and London, where we went to various museums, gallaries, theatres and restaurants. We also did a survey of posh-shop food halls: I was disappointed by both Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, as there was nothing for sale there that we can't get in good local delis. In the end, we got to Borough Market and spent a very happy two hours walking, looking and eating: cheese; salami; bread; ostrich burgers; scallops; and Rob had an oyster. We bought an ostrich egg for Anthony (Rob's brother) which proved to be a good source of amusement at his Green Wing party on Friday night.

We're off digging this afternoon (compost to move, potatoes to put into soil, peas and the like to plant) and then I have a big pile of GCSE coursework to mark. I'm looking forward to that one!