Weeknote 6

Working:

Honestly, this week has been really hard. It's the slightly harder timetable week and then there was a parents' evening - my busiest since pre-covid, fully booked with a waiting list of 12 - on Thursday. I went in on Friday having had to talk myself into it, because I was not sure I had three lessons in me, and got clobbered by a cover. I had to go to the reflection space and just be alone so I could smooth my emotions. It was messy. The post-Friday planning of the ski holiday and catch up with friends not seen in a long time was happily a tonic. 

On top of that there's the setting, which is going OK, just a bit left to do. 

On the plus side, the 20 minutes of marking a day has put me in a really good position for half term. I have two class sets of things left to clear, with another class set coming in on Wednesday, and that seems doable in the week ahead, along with the odds and ends on my list. This might mean I go into half term with no marking left to do! An absolutely unheard-of situation. It doesn't bode well for my resolution but it will be a treat not to have to take any marking away with me, assuming I actually get to France, please covid. 

Exercising:

I did my usual PT session, plus yoga on Wednesday which I weirdly enjoyed a lot (I don't really like yoga much unless it's bikram, is the sad fact of the matter) and then went to the gym yesterday. I was having my post-leg raise stretch in front of the machine and some kid on the machine next to me decided to come and ask me to move so he could use the machine I'd been on. I was incredulous. I was 10 seconds away from being finished. He was on the same type of machine I'd just vacated. Bad gym etiquette. I wish I had told him to wait. 

No gym or walk today because the weather is utterly dismal. 

Hobbying:

Some more Milou, though not much. Knitting is not happening very much because of all the Switch we're still playing, but the Luigi version is now almost complete so that might change soon.

Cloud Atlas has now got really good so I am going to sleep too late due to reading it, something that is likely contributing to my low mood and general malaise. I am about halfway through. It took a while to get into it but I am really curious to see how it now works backwards from the end. 

Entertained by:

I finished watching Maid on Netflix - again, something else that might have contributed to feeling a bit sad this week. It was pretty harrowing stuff. 

I went for tea and cake with my friends Kate and Rich on Friday after school, which was great. I see Kate most weeks when she comes to do a bit of teaching at my school but I haven't seen Rich since May last year. Normally we meet at 7am for breakfast but, post-pandemic, none of the cafes near school open before 8 now. So, tea and cake it was. 

We also did a little ski trip planning in the pub on Friday, getting everything ready for the alleged trip next week. Everything is now booked and Kate and Rach went to their dry slope lesson after the pub, so get some practice in. I am just praying and crossing everything that I get that negative test next Sunday. It would be devastating to get this close and have it disappear. But on the plus side, the next trip is planned for the first week of the Easter break and at least if I got covid now, I would be very unlikely to get it again 6 weeks later. So all would not be lost.

I will keep telling myself that. 

Baking:

I found this jar of cherry curd in Whole Foods when I was in London in October. Today I have combined it with Dan Lepard's chocolate custard muffins, a recipe I had completely forgotten about. 

So good. Like some kind of Black Forest dream. I will add chocolate ganache and a fresh cherry dipped in chocolate. Winner. 

Feeling:

It has not been an easy week. I have felt weirdly low and struggled to stay positive, which is most unlike me. The weekend of sleeping and doing very little seems to have helped, though. One more week until we get a break, and next term is shorter and will be lighter, and has four weeks where, for various reasons, I am not in every day. So, bring it all on.