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