Snow Day

I know I said I'd be back during the mid-term break to regale you with tales of daring-do in "the big city school", but after two days of full-time work I've got a snow day! You're probably quite pleased to know that so far I've been using this time off effectively: planning for future lessons; updating my teaching skills; going on the Teachit website and so on... Oh heck, like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie! I've actually been looking at old pictures of Warwickshire in the snow on the Windows on Warwickshire website and eating peanut butter out of the jar with my finger. Simple pleasures for a simple person.

You know, I don't want to say it too loudly, but I've been very much enjoying my job so far. The kids I teach are genuinely charming: they actually thank me after the lesson for teaching them; they say I have nice hair! My colleagues seem friendly and I've made a chums with the maths teacher who has a room near me, we share flasks of coffee during breaktimes and talk about Pashley bicycles. I do, however, have a permanent headache. I haven't been able to shift it since I started work, it's all of the thinking I'm doing. There's a lot of thinking in teaching, not just about your subject, but about how to handle the various personalities and learning styles of the kids you're responsible for, also I'm having to think about home organisation much more. I know I won't shift my bad head until I'm used to my routine.
My only grumble is that I do not like the city I work in. It is not the city's fault. It got hammered by the Luftwaffe during the war and never recovered, the horrible 1950s town planning and bloody awful corresponding architecture just made the city centre grim: grey and grim, particularly in the slush. I don't like walking through the various underpasses and overpasses in the dim morning light, you get quite a vulnerable feeling. It's one of those cities where idealistic architects built living spaces according to academic and experimental principles, but never thought to ask the bombed out citizens how they would want to live.

My own children seem to be quite happy(ish) with our new family arrangements. For my eldest girl, very little has changed. She was always home around 4:00 and now lets herself in and watches "Come Dine with Me" in peace and quiet until I'm home with her little sister at 4:15. My youngest really enjoys her after-school club, and complains that I pick her up too early "I was in the middle of building a Lego tower with..." However, this morning when I was gettting her ready for school (which has been her dad's job since I started work) she complained that she wants me to work at her school. "You're a teacher, you can work at my school, not the school for big kids!" She has also said that she misses me walking her to school, her routine has been disrupted and she's feeling it. Not too much, she's quite tough, but enough for us both to feel a bit sorry and sad. I hope that when her new routine is established she enjoys her dad taking her to school, I know that he's enjoying more practical involvement with the girls and is making a real effort to keep them happy and buoyant and not missing mummy in the mornings too much.

Well, I suppose I really should adieu. I'm going to mop floors and prepare a proper roast dinner whilst I've got the opportunity...oh, and eat a little more peanut butter form the jar. Anon, goode huswives, anon!