Day 109 February 28, 2008

A busy work day in which  a “soon to return to work” Mum visited with her ‘new’ daughter. Freya, the baby, was in fabulous form: I missed the “pass the baby parcel “  with everyone else at lunch, but Claire stayed long enough for me to have catch-up conversation and a very therapeutic cuddle to see me through the afternoon.

I went tutoring and then shopped for things I’ve put off for a while; baby presents, birthday presents, school things, some things for Mother’s Day, a birthday present for Little Bro. All time consuming things I needed to put a little thought and emotion into. Feel better now that it’s done: in fact I almost feel like I’ve earned the pampering (fake tanning, nail painting, face masking) that tomorrow night’s school formal demands (to think I used to look forward to it…).

Day 108 February 28, 2008

This was the day when I had to attend a conference that was launching the new A-level specification for Drama and Theatre Studies. The 10am start meant an extra week day hour in bed: nectar to my still flu plagued bones.

I couldn’t find Corr’s Corner. Despite directions; despite being there before and despite it being very, very straightforward: I drove around South Antrim for an hour; finally ringing the hotel before making my way back to Sandyknowes. Made for a humiliating entrance. A great lunch soothed my soul (that had been further tortured by spending the day feeling like a ’stupid high school  teacher’, and realising yet AGAIN I know NOTHING about Drama.)

Wednesday night promised Westlife. Laugh if you will: be as scathing as all get out (YOU: Q Monkey). They are easy targets; but they never fail to deliver. Tonight, for me, anyway the boys from Sligo had a huge task: I was still annoyed by this morning’s travel faux pas, I’d spent the afternoon marking in an Odyssey coffee shop and the dinner Mel and I waited 45 minutes for bordered on the inedible. Yet for two hours I got to forget my job stress, got to spend time with a girl I adore and got to sing, dance and squeal with the best of them. A beautiful ‘You Raise Me Up’ finale reduced to me to tears: I needed the release.

Day 107 February 28, 2008

Getting through another school day.

I’m resenting the flu that just will not go away: and that my Tuesday night is swamped with work my very lazy Yr 14 girls FAILED to  move their butts to do.

Moment of grace:  a phonecall with my Big Sis who is boldly setting out in  a new relationship: you  GO GIRL he is lucky to have you!

Day 106 February 25, 2008

Yesterday’s minor delight at putting on makeup and clothes that weren’t pjs/ shoes that weren’t slippers didn’t have the same frisson at 730 this morning…

I’m not a morning person, I’m not a Monday person and given that I probably (ill health and good sense would suggest) should have taken another day to recover school was an uphill struggle.

But in the middle of my frantic: a very good looking man, who I used to chat with more often (for which read flirt harmlessly with over coffee every morning), pulled my hair, smiled, said he’d missed me last week and sat down at the computer beside me for a chat. His new son, his wife, Saturday’s Rugby, my flu, the musical, the new school, life, love you name it: for thirty minutes in which we each had a mountain of other things to do, we both made time for someone else. A worthy break from the gindstone.

 Of course it helped immensely that he is charm personified: does that very rare thing of actually listening to your answer when he asks a question: loves his job, loves school, utterly adores his newly expanded family.

Today quite simply: he was my saving grace.

Days 101 through 105 February 24, 2008

“Cheating” again but with ‘good’ reason…my cough turned out to be the flu. The real aching body, raging temperature to the point of changing your horribly clammy pjs in the middle of the night, cough so violent that you fear your ribs may be broken, unable to go to work for three days sort of flu.  My biggest adventure since Wednesday has been walking to the chemist that is just around the corner from my house. I hate being sick. I’m a bad patient. My dramatic temperament allowing my drug clouded imagination to take an even weaker hold of reality than usual.

I’d such high hopes for the days that have just passed: an actual list of things that it was quite important I get done. Maybe my body gave up in sheer terror of what it was being asked to do.

Its been a miserable few days. Food has been plain and company non-existent. That I didn’t take the time to even check my email or enter the land of blog is an indicator of how horrible I’ve been feeling. There’s been too much TV and while I rekindled my interest in both ER and The Wonder Years: such things alone don’t really add up to an actual achievement. That my cough and temperature are not yet entirely subdued is cause for a little panic. Facing work and the accusations of my seemingly “abandoned” Drama classes (and of that one member of SMT who sees illness as a sign of inner weakness and punishes you as such) will not make for a pretty Monday…

I have to resist the urge to ‘make-up’ the lost time: the curtain has come down; those moments are over. Instead I have to find someway of getting the most out of this week (that has the school formal at its end and a Westlife concert in the middle) without actually pushing myself back towards those clammy sheets for another few days.

As ever, I’ll use these five days as a source of perspective: a reminder of the blessings I have and as a not so gentle warning to take better care of myself.

ONE HUNDRED! February 19, 2008

Getting to my 365 century shows a discipline severly lacking from ALL other areas of my life.

A strange and work-filled day: most of our staff was off having INSET in a secret location: but through the good grace of Mrs W; myself and JC got the day to begin planning the Key Stage Three Drama scheme. Nothing so satisfying as beginnind something that has been terrifying you and actually getting something done.

And a work-filled evening: the list getting smaller by the milliestofmetres.

I’m a little worried that my irritating cough is now a hacking lung twister: now would not be a good time to be off school: I’m oh so arrogant and indispensible…to bath and bed with Beechums, Benylin and my Tigger hot water bottle. Maybe the cough will disappear overnight.

Day 99…. February 18, 2008

I swore to myself that as this was Monday, and first day back after half term (and its almost the century piece!) that I would endeavor not to spend today’s 365 moaning about work.

There was much to hasten my  stressed out despair…but I’m searching for the light: I’m going to make a ‘This is realistically what I can achieve this week’ list and tick things off with satisfied glee. In the midst of my shell shock I got a hug when I needed it most, made lunchtime chat with a girl I don’t really know at all (this is good for the little shy girl who lives in my head): and had an ‘in-school/ after-school’ coffee when the assembled trio entertained me with a ‘dramatic re-enactment’ of this morning’s crazy planning meeting.  Me face was sore from laughing.

Today’s confession:I had dinner in Mc Donald’s. In my defence: it was almost eight o’clock, I was weak with hunger and home is a twenty minute/ then put the shopping away journey. I totally realise that ‘beans on toast’ or ’soup and wheaten bread’ is equally fast, less poison fuelled and a little more ethical. I did eat with Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice was the only reading material I could unearth from my bag) and could see the disdainful looks emerge from the people within the novel; I like to think Lizzie Bennett might have reached for a french fry; even if only to annoy the dashing Mr Darcy.

Days Ninety Six through Eight: Half-Term Weekend February 17, 2008

Our trip away had been planned for a while: really two girls wanting to make the most of a short half term break.

I was so relieved when Sam said she would drive; I’m a nervous driver when I have passengers. That I was navigating meant disaster was bound to strike, despite my knowing the road fairly well: I chatting when I should have been giving directions. But we made it eventually!

The cottage was lovely (we were disdainful that we had to put the bed linen on our beds: ever the Princess), well equipped- but lacking enough peat briquettes and any real excitement. I was convinced that the website had said “within walking distance of local pub”: this would have been a journey that takes five minutes by car, along a pavementless/ lightless road. I don’t quite know what we each were expecting: and as North Coast veteran I should have known that the remoteness is part of the allure.

There are also no taxis in this particular, causeway adjacent, location.So Friday night, after sampling the divine food at The Bushmills Inn (a sandwich that must have had a whole smoked salmon in it, and a ‘hot bush’ that I embarrassed the very young waiter with: I laughed and laughed while I ordered it.) we stayed in by the fire, drank too much wine and caught up.

Saturday dawned and I made too much noise, waking my ‘housemate’. But we soon were pounding the sands of Portstewart Strand: If I had a firmer belief in heaven: it would look like a North Coast Atlantic beach. There is something about the ocean and those very dramatic waves that changes your perspective: there is something about feeling as if your at the edge of the world and that beyond the horizon opportunities abound.

We explored the shops of Portstewart, decided to learn the lesson of the night before and venture into the ‘big town’ of Portrush for dinner; and so headed back to Bushmills and this time for a very disappointing lunch in the bar we’d been hoping to walk to.

Dinner was to be the weekend’s highlight: I adore the Ramore or the Harbour Bar: but we arrived too, too late for any hope of a table at any of the four establishments. Instead we had to wait until 11pm (!) for lunch at the nearby restaurant that all the Ramore ‘overflowers’ had to go too. We met friends of Sam and therefore had impromptu company for dinner: it was lovely but wine fuelled and much too late to eat our chosen two courses.

We went home to dancing in the kitchen and chatting in the soft glow of the fire.

Sunday arrived and home beckoned. Sam was anxious to return to the charms of Belfast. We were home by lunchtime. I’m not convinced it was the weekend either of us had imagined it would be.

The North Coast has sentimental resonance for me: childhood Sundays spent on the beach (the closest we typically got to family holidays), my first vicarious taste of student life when visiting Big Sis while she was at UU, my own UU PGCE year… and it is still all that it was. And yet this blog reads as a weekend of missed opportunities. I feel horribly guilty, that I didn’t manage a visit to meet the ‘mini-dude’ at smoothstones place (but I will come some Sunday soon, or sometime over Easter: hoping of course that my invitation is always valid); equally I didn’t call to see George and Melanie, I even avoided dinner at ‘home-home’ tonight: chosing instead a manic house clean (it had reached dangerous levels of hygiene- or lack there of) and a quiet night in front of the box.

I loved tonight’s solitude; just as I had the companionship of the last two days. I like that my little house is relatively ship shape and that if I leave tomorrow’s ‘Baker Day’ on the bell: I can rekindle a little by the sea magic at home sweet home.

Day Ninety Five February 15, 2008

A Valentine’s Day spent with a truly gorgeous man: he lay on my bed, laughing with total adandon and contenment: we went for a walk along Donaghadee Harbour and the Commons each wrapped up from the cold and in each other…

Cathy and Ryan were here for lunch: and at three months he is indeed gorgeous content and like his fabulous Mummy, truly wonderful company: she is, as all had predicted transformed by motherhood: an absolute natural, who openly adores what are very precious and rapidly changes moments with her bubba. I love them both.

And then to the much resented theatre trip. The closing of the Lyric (for much needed refurbishment) means we gotta drag our culture starved asses to Armagh and their Market Theatre on the bus. My eight Yr 14 girls were less than enamoured at spending a night of the half term ‘doing school things’,  in the company of yours truly and William Shakespeare: especially given the night in question was one to be spent in the arms of their significant other or on the prowl to catch one.

It was an unusual production of ’The Tempest’ and one that would have greatly benefited from microphones and more pace (I’ll stop there before I launch into my ‘Theatre Criticism’ lesson) but I enjoyed the girls’ company: enjoyed the silly games and awful singing on the bus. Enjoyed watching one of them rush down the road dressed to the hilt to make last orders at ‘Cafe Ceol’ and that the others piling into ‘this is my car, when my Mum doesn’t need it’ asked me to go for chips with them. They’re not the stuff of Oxford and Cambridge nor I would think will our post-theatre discussion quite hit the literary heights but they are on the whole genuinely interested, they make the effort; and what’s more important they are lovely girls: I want to be a contributing factor to the success I hope they achieve. I’ll miss them when they go.

Day Ninety Four February 13, 2008

Hail half term and all who sail in her…

I can’t remember the last time I was so close to crying in work, can’t remember the last time that work (or rather one of the girls I work with)drove me to a place so far beyond distraction that I forced myself to find time to do lavender candles and yoga to a relaxation cd, before the hastily arranged dinner that was to be today’s four hours of grace…

I’m weak, I NEVER stand up to her. My Yr 14 saw the tears of anger and frustration well in eyes, as she berated me once more in their presence. I thank heaven for deep breathing and perspective (but pray for the inner strength to sometime very soon meet her on my terms.)

I thank heaven for tonight’s Pier 36 dinner: when the food was wonderful, the wine divine and the company to totally die for: yet again Jenny G (there are a lot of Jennys at work: we have to clarify) you are the saviour of my soul. I was determined to start half term in style. to recompense my masochistic booking of an A-level theatre trip tomorrow night and to let this morning’s colleague altercation, pale into the significance such belittling deserves.

I know my job is one of great privilege but today, this term, and maybe this school location is also one of massive stress, and a lot of demand: that I get a long weekend of “no-school” is a blessing in itself.