Busy week!

I'm not quite sure where the time has gone! Thursday was the teachers' strike: I wasn't on strike - different union - and was lucky enough not to have any lessons to teach that day (only Year 11s were in, in common with many other schools in London, I think). H arrived back on Wednesday (minus hand luggage, but he caught up with it later, so it was okay!) and before that I was busy filling in application forms. On Friday we spent the day interviewing pupils with their parents, and at lunch time I got called for an interview (have had it, didn't get it, but was relieved because I spent the last task wondering whether or not I should withdraw, so it obviously wasn't right, but was a good experience and also made me think about the good things about school). Anyway, I didn't know all that then, so the afternoon was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to organise things! Then went home, packed and drove north because we had a wedding the next day!

It was a beautiful wedding. The weather was perfect, dry, sunny, not too cold, not too hot, and we arrived and pulled over just as the bride arrived in her horse-drawn carriage! We met up with some of my uni friends (one of whom was the bride, another one was in the choir), which meant that it was an extra special day. Took loads of photos: the church is a beautiful old one with lots of interesting history and stories, and a lovely big churchyard. The reception was in a marquee in the Bride's family garden, and it was beautiful as well. We had a roasted pepper tart, lamb shanks with mashed potatoes and veg (my favourite!) and a deliciously creamy cheesecake. The speeches were excellent and very funny - discovered that the Groom went to school very near to my present school - and then we danced to a ceilidh band that played sort of French type music, with a hurdy-gurdy and some interesting pipes (Aha! Perhaps they were those French ones we learnt about in school ...). As well as dancing, we talked lots, which was great.

We stayed in a nice hotel, meeting up with my friends in the morning for breakfast, then had to rush back south to prepare for the interview. But first we visited the school, and first impressions were ... not too hot, shall we say, which worried me a bit but also relaxed me. So overall, as I said, I'm not upset about not getting the post, but am now not too sure what to do! I don't want to rush into anything, so, we'll see.

I am pretty exhausted now though, so I think I'll head off for a bit of a rest before facing clearing up, dinner, and planning for tomorrow! And there seems to be a good programme on BBC4 tonight as well. So maybe I'll watch that ... !

Updating my list ...

1) Watch London marathon (want to get pics of the Maasai warriors that are running)
2) Visit our friends with a newborn baby
3) Plan a unit on the Holy Spirit that involves art
4) Mark another set of books (and possibly pop in to school to pick up some more sets of books, and the two sets of year 7 assessments that I left at school by accident)
5) Buy an outfit for my friend's wedding, and a present
6) Buy a present for our nephew's first birthday
7) Plan the forthcoming lessons
8) Tidy the house!! (I've done it, but it has to be continually kept up to date!)
9) Sort out the car insurance stuff following my accident the other week.

So, as far as school goes, I still need to:
1) Mark the other half of Y9 books
2) Mark the other set of Y9 books
3) Mark the two sets of Y7 assessments
4) Plan lessons for Y9 assessment
5) Plan lessons for Y8 assessment
6) Plan lessons for new Y7, Y8 and Y9 schemes of work
7) Plan LOTC scheme of work on religion and art for Y9
8) Arrange times for Parents' Day
9) Complete Risk Assessment for school trip

Also need to:
1) Send off car insurance stuff
2) Get the car keys back
3) Possibly buy coat and gloves for wedding outfit (Done - Sunday)
4) Complete at least 2 applications
5) Arrange graduation stuff (at least I've started on this by asking for time off!)
6) Bind my dissertation

Hmmm. So I still have quite a bit to do tomorrow ...

PS GREAT NEWS! I got the car keys back!

What a day!!

I was still tired when I woke up so I stayed in bed for a while, before eventually thinking I better get on with everything. Phoned the garage - the car was ready - and the best time to bring it back was 3pm. Which was annoying, but had to be done, so I got up and ready and planned to go shopping and get back from there by then. So off I went.

Arrived at DLR - no train. Had to wait for replacement bus. Eventually, it arrived, and I got to Canary Wharf around noon. So I had about two hours to shop. Quite a few things on my list, but the two main ones were shoes and wedding present.

First shop, tried on nice pair of shoes. But I like to look elsewhere ... so in the next hour or so I tried on every other half suitable shoe in every other shop in the Wharf - well, there was only one other suitable pair, as it turned out, but I had to go through every other shop to find that one - and eventually had to head back to the original shop to get that first pair! Could have saved myself an hour ... ! Also managed to get the present, which was a funny story in itself ... basically I was trying to make a choice and work out the prices, when a couple came along and took them all from under my nose! So that was a bit annoying, but not a lot I could do about it. So I had to get something slightly different, but perhaps they can change them later if they want!

Went to Itsu for lunch, in empathy with H. Had miso soup, chilli salmon with obe (?) leaf, rice, spicy vegetable dumplings, and Valrhona chocolate mousse with pomegranate seeds, with an Itsu zinger on the side (ginger, lemon and mint juice). Very nice ... but more expensive than I had expected!

Got home in time for the car man. Got the call, man on his way; turned out that was the courtesy car man, but the garage man arrived just as I was about to go and get the courtesy keys, so I waited to pay the garage man first. He had the pin machine with him, so I paid for the car, he gave me the documents and explained a few things, I headed back indoors for the courtesy keys, signed for that, saw that man off, went upstairs - and realised I didn't have the car keys!!! Phoned the courtesy car people and the insurance company, but neither of them had a mobile number for the garage man. Remembered that there must be a spare key somewhere: turned the drawers inside out, found a few interesting things and discovered where the odd socks disappear to, and eventually got the key. However, the man has still not returned with my key yet ... !

All in all, I have a headache, and haven't managed to get very much else done. Still haven't got a coat and gloves either for next weekend. Oh dear.

Right. Glad to have written all that down. Let's see what I can get done before bed ...

ADDITION: 12.40am The garage man has brought back the car keys! He eventually discovered them in his pocket and has returned them! So now I can go to bed ... a bit later than planned, but at least happy in the knowledge that I can drive to work easily on Monday, and maybe even go shopping tomorrow!

Nostalgia

There was an article on The Message (Radio 4) today about children's TV programmes. It featured a Wombles' viral to illustrate the fact that only 1% of children's TV programmes today are made in Britain. A number of children were interviewed for the radio programme, and only one of them mentioned a British programme as amongst their favourite programmes (Tracey Beaker) - all the rest were American (Eg The Simpsons, Sponge Bob Squarepants, and others that I hadn't heard of).

It got me thinking about my favourite programmes as a child, so, in no particular order, other than the way they come to my mind, here they are (well, some of them anyway!):

Mr Benn (YouTube link)

Bagpuss

The Flumps (YouTube link)

Let's Pretend

Button Moon (although I associate this more with my sister, for some reason - she's younger, so maybe I watched it with her or something) (YouTube link)

Bric-a-Brac

Grandad (YouTube - Clive Dunn singing "Grandad")

Chock-a-Block

Watch

King Rollo

Rhubarb and Custard

Thimblemouse

SuperTed (YouTube link) (The Official Website)

Pigeon Street

Sesame Street

Sooty and Sweep

Trumpton

Rentaghost

Playschool

Bertha

... and many more! And I think that most of these are British ...

To teleport or not to teleport ...

Just recalled a conversation I overheard when H and I were having lunch in between trying on dresses. (Me trying them on, not him, obviously...)

A man and his nephew (I presume - they looked fairly alike, and the teenager spoke about his mum and dad, so it was not his father) were discussing whether or not people would want to use a teleporter.

Now, the reason my ears pricked up at this (other than the fact that we were right next to each other, barely a gap between tables; you can't have a private conversation in London, I think!) was that I have recently started reading another Man Booker nominee, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (I'll put the review on my other blog when I've finished it), and in that book, the narrator is asked to value a company that specialises in travel - using a teleporter. He works out how much people are prepared to travel by Concorde, thinks of the amount of time saved by being able to go from New York to London instantaneously, and values the company at a couple of billion dollars or so. The interviewer then points out that he has greatly overvalued the company because there is one factor he has not taken into account: whether or not people will actually feel confident in using this means of transport, which would somehow require their atoms to be dispersed and somehow reformed elsewhere.

And this was the topic that the man and teenager were discussing. What were the odds of someone dying using this machine, and what did the odds have to be before people would actually want to use it. The boy suggested if the machine was 99.9% safe, then that was quite good. The man then worked out (and forgive my shoddy maths, the following figures might all be completely wrong, if so then it's because I can't remember what he said so I'm making it up - his figures sounded quite accurate) that if someone was using the transporter roughly three times a day, then they would use it about 1000 times a year; at 99.9% this would mean that ... Sorry, I can't even begin to make those calculations just now!, but let's just say that he worked out that you would be at quite a high risk of dying ... The two recalibrated the figures until they got a percentage they were happy with, where you might by likely to die once in fifty years or so ...

Then there was a philosophical discussion of how someone might die. If it was known how you would die, ie if when you used this machine, the manner of death (on those rare occasions when it malfunctioned) was always the same (eg the box you were sitting in would fill with smoke, the walls would begin to collapse, you would ... ), would that make you more or less likely to want to use this form of transport? The man proposed that people don't mind travelling in cars because they wouldn't necessarily know how they might die if they were in an accident, there are so many different ways.

Finally, there was a discussion on whether or not people would choose to use a manner of transport that they didn't understand. The boy thought that it could be frightening if they didn't understand how the machine worked. The uncle pointed out that by the time such a machine was invented, we would understand how it worked - no one understands anything that hasn't been invented yet. Other than me curiously wondering how that statement would apply to Jules Verne or Leonardo Da Vinci, the boy contemplated the thought that people wouldn't have understood that rubbing two sticks together would make light (and heat) until they did it.

By now the time was passing on, the ice cream sundae had been devoured, and off the two philosophers went.

Travelling

All the excitement recently has been around H's trip overseas. It was a bit last minute, but he managed to get a ticket and got on the flight in time. Just! I've been finishing off some form filling for him, and have posted two parcels this morning. So now I have some forms to fill in of my own, as well as trying to tidy this place up.

Let's review that list from earlier this week ...

1) Watch London marathon (want to get pics of the Maasai warriors that are running)
2) Visit our friends with a newborn baby
3) Plan a unit on the Holy Spirit that involves art
4) Mark another set of books (and possibly pop in to school to pick up some more sets of books, and the two sets of year 7 assessments that I left at school by accident)
5) Buy an outfit for my friend's wedding, and a present
6) Buy a present for our nephew's first birthday
7) Plan the forthcoming lessons
8) Tidy the house!!
9) Sort out the car insurance stuff following my accident the other week.

Hmm. I thought I'd managed to complete more than that!! I am very happy with my outfit, which we got a couple of days ago - I'm just hoping that none of my old uni friends have made the same choice as me! I imagine it would look very good on any of them - that could be interesting! I still need to get shoes. And the presents ... so it looks like a day's shopping in London is in order at the weekend. I think I'll concentrate on number 8 (again!) for the next hour or so, in order to have some space to complete numbers 3, 4, 7 and 9. Unfortunately I think number 2 will now have to be put off for a couple of weeks, until H is back and after the wedding. Fortunately my friend also has a blog with some great photos of the newborn - not so new now, he's a month old! - so at least we're keeping up to date with his progress that way!

Right. Tidying, while listening to the Elgar Enigma Varations. Great!

London Marathon

We made it to the Marathon again this year! Armed with a map to get us to our first destination and a print out of the expected times for each set of runners - Wheelchairs, Elite Women, Elite Men, 2:30 pace, 3:30 pace etc - we managed to leave only about 10 minutes behind schedule. Warmish jackets, handbag emptied to make it as light as possible, umbrella dangling over arm, we made our way to the place we had stood at last year. The first wheelchair athletes had passed by only two or three minutes before, according to the friendly policeman, but no women had arrived yet. Music was being played and the St John's Ambulance Crew was standing around at the ready.

We did not have to wait too long until a few more wheelchairs arrived - and left pretty quickly! I managed to get some photos and video footage, but it's hard when they move so fast! Eventually there were a few more police outriders and a van came into view; straining into the distance I could just about make out the first of the Elite Women running over the hill.

We cheered on quite a few, including the eventual winner, then decided to head back along the road that the runners had come from. We eventually arrived under a bridge beside a large group of young people dressed in blue. As we walked past some older leaders I immediately recognised the anchor on their badges - it was the Boys' Brigade! (I used to be an Anchor Boy.) (Sort of.) We waited under the bridge, cheering on the women and the wheelchairs as they passed by, and then the band started up, all drums and bugles. I got excited by this, and turned to take their pictures - almost missing the Elite Men whose arrival the bugles heralded! Well, we managed to get some pictures of them, then the heavens opened, so we sheltered under the bridge for some time, enjoying the music, watching the MS volunteers handing out balloons and noisy things, taking pictures and generally enjoying the atmosphere, then we decided to move on.

The rain had stopped while we walked up towards Canary Wharf. We took that walk slowly, stopping to cheer on the runners every so often.

It was a great day out. And now I'm off to bed!