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.