Swine Flu Free

Hello Loyal Readers
I don't know how many of you there are but I hope it is at least our families...
So Richie blogged about the dress up party in Sheffield. It was really fun, my hair is still rather on the black side, but it looks OK, I am channelling my 17 year old self.

I am now on Summer holidays - the best part of being a teacher :o)
I am going back to the same school in September and I will have the same lovely class for 3 days a week, then have a year 5 class at the primary site of the same school (where I originally worked for 3 weeks) for 1 day and then the other day will be a mixture of other Yr 7/8 classes at the secondary - modern foreign languages!! Hahaha but it could be fun! I am pleased about this because it will be quite varied, but I get to keep working with mainly the kids I already know and it will be good to see them make progress over a whole year rather than coming in 2 months before the end. I also get to keep working with the same TA, who is a lovely lady - we make a good team. :o)

So holidays are great, not that I have done much yet. I have slept in, and been to the gym, and hung out with Rachelle (my flattie) and helped Bruce (cuz) move. We hired a car and drove from North East London to South London, a total of 37 miles and we probably spent about 4 hours in the car - mainly sitting in traffic.

Tomorrow I am hanging with Stacey and Anne, both recent arrivals from NZ. We are hitting Greenwich, if it is sunny we will picnic, if not, there are loads of nice pubs and a market and interesting things to see there.

In the last couple of weeks of school we spent most of it out doing trips while the school was being packed up ready for a big move into brand new premises. We went to Hampstead Heath, London Zoo, the bank of England and the RAF museum. The kids were pretty good throughout and I really enjoyed the Heath and the Zoo. Actually the RAF museum was cool too. The Bank of England was probably interesting if I had been able to actually read anything instead of herding my class around. I did get to touch a gold bar worth a quarter of a million pounds.

We also went to see Harry Potter which was fab! I love Ron, he is so funny. And I dreamt about riding broomsticks afterwards. Then I went out with 'the knitters' to a club night in Angel called I love the 90's. They played cheesy (and not so cheesy) 90's hits all night - it was totally awesome. I definitely channelled my 17 year old self that night. Anne and I stumbled across Tower Bridge at 4.30 in the morning as the sun was coming up and promptly woke up Richie to tell him how fun it was. I think he was really happy with me that night...oops. So Anne and I got up at the (I thought) quite respectable hour of 10.30am, and Rachelle had already been for an 18km run that morning. I think she wins, though we did dance for a solid 4.5 hours.

That day Richie and I went with Bruce and John to the Lambeth Country Fair. Yes, a country fair in London. We saw Sheepdog trials, falconry, a goat milking demo and animals made of vegetables (Actually not only animals - there were 3 Vege Michael Jacksons too). Random and fun!

I also visited Tring, to see Emma, a friend from last time I was in London. She has left the rat race and lives about an hour North of London with her husband and 6 month old baby. The main attraction of Tring is an outpost of the Natural History Museum - basically one man's taxidermy collection - including 2 dressed up fleas! So strange! They were made/dressed in 1905, and you look at them through a magnifying glass, while surrounded by stuffed polar bears and zebras and wolves and any other creature you might care to mention.

That is about it for now. We are still Swine flu free despite Tower Hamlets being the area with the highest rate of infections... Eek I have become a hand washing maniac but it is hard to know if it is a media storm in a teacup.

We are off to Norfolk for a week of camping at the weekend which should be great fun, as long as the rain stays away!

Steph

London Weather

I don't know what all the fuss is about the weather in the UK. When not looking for a cup of tea, the natives around here are always complaining about the weather.

When we got here in February it snowed on the beach at Brighton which was awesome. I guess you could argue that that was bad whether, transport services across the country ground to a halt, and schools were closed. But it was the middle of winter and it did snow on the beach!

Since then however the weather has been great. Last week was particularly balmy with temperatures getting well above 30 in the capital. A heat wave apparently.

Today we got the first really awful weather. It started about 3/4 of an hour before I finished work and rapidly progressed from torrential rain to hailstones the size of your knuckle bones. And then it abruptly stopped. Everyone decided to rush to the tube and it started again, we only had a three minute break. Half way to the tube station there was a massive bolt of lightning that I didn't see but I sure did hear - it must have struck less than a mile away.

Safely at Kilburn Park Underground Station I made my way home. Paddington, my usual interchange, was closed because of flooding. The train got through and I got home only a few minutes slower than usual, but by then the rain had stopped.

It's not sunny yet but I reakon that's the last of it. 1 3/4 hours of crappy weather. The weather here is unbearable. Time for a cup of tea I think.

Goths and Pirates from 1969

Last Saturday we went to Sheffield to go to Mike's birthday. Steph knows Mike from her last expedition to the UK and from New Zealand. Mike and his partner Alex lived in Masterton for a year a couple of years back.

Mike was born back in 1969, the anniversary was on Sunday, I'll let you do the math. His party on Saturday night was a dress up party so we faithfully prepared costumes. We decided to dress up as Gothics/Emos, so we died our hair black, I bought tight skinny jeans, clip-on nose ring and a studded belt. Steph, well Steph surprisingly already had everything she needed in her wardrobe.

We turned up at the party and found ourselves surrounded by hippies. It turns out that it was a 1969 dress-up party. Oh well, we looked good, and it turns out we weren't the only ones who didn't know about the 1969 theme. There was a wizard and and elf queen and two generations of pirates.

We got talking to the pirates and were asked whether we were dressed up or if these were our normal clothes. Turns out, when not dressed up as pirates, the pirates were actually
Goths. Apparently we would have fit right into their circle.

Mistaken for a Goth by a Goth. Now that's a good costume.