2024 Round Up: Reads

A year in which I just surpassed the number of books I read last year. I was well ahead of myself after the summer holidays, but then that all stopped when I had to start reading for the Masters. I could have added a large number of academic articles and books about assessment to this list, but I don't think anybody is going to be superkeen to read about the finer points of validity. 

Fiction

The Vanishing Witch - Karen Maitland - I fear I might have run out of Maitland books to read now. They are deliciously creepy. 

The Ottoman Secret - Raymond Khoury - love a bit of Ottomans but when I got it home from the library and realised it had a commendation from Lee Childs, I nearly took it back - not my sort of thing. But it was pretty good. I do like a counter-factual. 

An Inspector Calls - J.B.Priestley - we dressed as characters from this for World Book Day so I thought I'd better read it. Meh. 

Lone Women - Victor LaValle - not at all what I was expecting but very enjoyable. Horror set on the American plains. 

Copper Sun - Sharon M Draper - teen fiction about American slavery. Jarring because the ending is not miserable and therefore feels ahistorical. But it is for teens, I guess. 

Still Life - Sarah Winman - this took me a while (followers of my weeknotes might recall) but once I got going I loved it. I still think about these characters and it gives me a strong yearning to see 1950s Florence. 

Stormbird - Conn Igulden - I enjoyed this more than I expected to. It was given to me by a tutee way back in 2015 and was packed into a crate of books I brought from my last job, that still languish in the garage, 8 years later. I picked it out and thought I'd better read it or get rid. It was a good story of the early reign of Henry VI but it wasn't exactly gripping - I started reading it in May and put it down numerous times to read other things. Still, Igulden has written a lot of historical fiction so it is good to find a new author to work through. 

Wild - Cheryl Strayed - a reread of this one, I really like it. I know it's not fiction but it didn't quite fit on the other list. I've visited a fair few of the places on the PCT and the reread just makes me want to pack a bunch of stuff and give it a go. I'm not kidding myself that I'd make it even more than two days, but it is a nice dream. 

The Family from One End Street - Eve Garnett - a childhood book I wanted to reread. I remembered a section of it where the oldest daughter irons a green silk petticoat and shrinks it but for the longest time, that was all I could recall. Eventually the internet caught up and I was able to find the name of it through searching the story I remembered. 

An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears - this took me a while but I really liked how the story is expanded in each subsequent retelling. In the final section, there's some consideration of how history is told with a strong nod towards Thucydides, that made me think - if I was cleverer, would I recognise that each section is told in a different historical methodology? 

Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfield - another childhood book I powered through in a few hours. Then Facebook started serving me ads for Ballet Shoes on stage this autumn. I really do find this level of knowledge about my life pretty creepy. 

The Wolf Den - Elodie Harper

The House with the Golden Door - Elodie Harper

The Temple of Fortuna - Elodie Harper - these three make up the Wolf Den trilogy which is set in Pompeii in the years leading up to and immediately following the 79 eruption. It was pretty atmospheric to read them with a view of Vesuvius. 

Weyward - Emilia Hart - I read this in a day, on my way home from Amalfi, and I really enjoyed it. Three lives and how they intertwine. I went back to bits of it to reread in the subsequent days. 

Act of Oblivion - Robert Harris - Harris never misses for me but it was particularly interesting reading this shortly after the Fingerpost book, because both are set after the Restoration. There was some character overlap. I've struggled a bit with a paucity of 17th century contextual knowledge in my A-level teaching, so these books are really helpful - this one particularly provided some good insight into why the relationship between England and its colonies was already a bit stale even in the 1660s. 

House of Odysseus - Claire North - Ithaca was one of my favourite books of 2023 so I was delighted to find it was the first in a trilogy. I haven't got more than two chapters into it yet, though. 

Salt to the Sea - Ruta Sepetys - the story of a group involved in a real-life naval disaster in the Baltic, towards the end of WW2, told from four different points of view. I found the jump in narrator a little frustrating at times, as the chapters were sometimes incredibly brief, but it was a good story. 

A Little Princess - France Hodgson Burnett - a comfort read when I had toothache. I got through it in one evening. I think it's interesting to return to these books now that I know more about the history of the time in which they're set. A dashing young soldier, a diamond mine, brain fever, exoticism from India, etc. 

A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles - there is so much to love about this book. It is taking me a long time to read it but I really dote on the writing, sometimes rereading pages just because I think it's so beautifully phrased. I had it from the library and then had to buy it on my Kindle because I couldn't read it quick enough. 

Non-fiction

The Witness Wore Read - Rebecca Musser - started off the year with a religious cult memoir. Mormon ones always make me think of the series Big Love and this makes me want to watch it again. 

Fearing the Black Body - Sabrina Strings - quite high brow but an interesting glimpse into the way that what is desirable about someone else's body changed as a result of empire and slavery. 

How the Word is Passed - Clint Smith - I think this was the best audiobook I listened to all year. I bought it in hard copy afterwards. If you pick one from my list, make it this one. 

Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshall - I wasn't really a fan. Some good bits, some bits I didn't really agree with. I guess it is quite old now. 

Uncultured - Daniella Mestyanek Young - I'm running out of books about women escaping from cults (my favourite genre of audiobook) so was pleased to come across this one. She narrates, too. I love those in particular. 

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain - a bit like listening in to some drunk guy's conversations in a pub. But an interesting drunk man with a lot of good stories to tell. 

Ultra-Processed People - Chris van Tulleken - not preachy at all, in my opinion (though a colleague saw this in my email sig and told me she did not agree). Just common sense and a good advice. 

Leaders Eat Last - Simon Sinek - I should have known better, really - I can't really be doing with these silicon valley self-congratulatory sermons, but since this stuff has leaked quite heavily into educational leadership, it is probably better to read what your leaders are reading, so you know what to expect. It was OK. It sort of fitted what I thought about leadership anyway. 

I will say that I blame Sinek entirely for the current craze, at conferences, for starting keynotes or workshops with an extended explanation of the rationale. Yes, fine, start with why, yes, Sinek is a genius, yes yes yes. But in education, we all know the why already. We are already convinced. That's why we work long hours for meagre pay. Just hurry up and get to the what and how, it's what I came for. 

Exam Nation - Sammy Wright - I thought this would be more about exams so I listened to it in the run up to my first uni week. It was a bit broader than that. He was an engaging reader of his own work and there are many good anecdotes in this book.

Our Island Stories - Corinne Fowler - I've been familiar with Corinne's work for a long time as her interests bump up against mine in the teaching world. This is a real treat. She narrates stories about different areas of the country and their connection to empire - she walked around each one with someone of note, so the audiobook contains clips of her voice recordings of those walks, which is a nice touch. Not finished yet, I am savouring it. 

Fave Friday

Five favourite things I saw in London

We broke up on Wednesday, so I made myself some nice plans in London for Thursday and Friday. When it came to it, I was somewhat overwhelmed by how many nice plans I made, but in the end I found the trip invigorating rather than exhausting - so much so that I wrote this post on my phone on the coach home, after almost a month of not being able to muster the energy to update. 

The lights were, of course, beautiful. London seems to have a thing about doing big decorated doorways that I haven't noticed before and I appreciated that a lot too. I stayed near Kensington Palace and I'm pretty sure I saw the king driving past me - at least, if it wasn't him, it was somebody important enough to warrant 8 police motorcyclists blowing whistles and an accompanying 4x4. And yet these didn't even make it into my top 5, so crammed was my 30 hour stay!

1. The Medieval Women exhibition at the British Library

This one is called 'Medieval women in their own words' and focuses specifically on works that were created by or about women, on the basis that much of this is lost or ignored. It was a very interesting walk around and, even though it is not very large, I still spent the best part of two hours reading through everything. It never ceases to amaze me how long the middle ages went on for - this exhibition covered all the way up to Margaret of Anjou. I was also pleased that there seemed to have been an effort made to include women from Wales and Scotland, as well as England.

Illustrated women's herbal. There was a lot about medicine. 

2. The Mughals exhibition at the V&A

This exhibition covered the golden age of the Mughals, from around the mid-16th century until the early 18th century, which coincides nicely with what I teach at A-level, coincidentally. There were some beautiful examples of calligraphy, jewels and jewellery, glassware and textiles, such as this huge cotton drugget that would have been laid on the floors of the palaces in the summer. 

A lot of this was simply marvellous to behold and I particularly liked the many examples of flower motifs and tiny birds included in a lot of the calligraphy. However, it did make me feel liberal unease. Many of the exhibits, such as highly illustrated texts from the early 17th century, had notes on them such as, 'Donated by Miss Constance Smith, 1921' (I made that name up) or similar. How did a Miss Smith end up with such a priceless artefact, I wondered. Granted, I did not read every word of the exhibit, but there didn't seem to be any effort from the V&A to explain how any of these objects had come to be in their collection. Maybe that would be too much to expect, but it did nibble at my conscience, a bit. 

3. Burhan and Stewart Lee

I met Burhan in 1999 when we were both working the same miserable summer job for the exam board. I see him too rarely (the last time being in 2019) for somebody that I get on with so well. We went for Korean food (excellent restaurant, plus, when I told the waitress in somewhat panicked tones that my phone was about to die, she took it from me without any further questions and charged it, thus saving me from an hour's sad walk back to my hotel later in the evening) and then to see Stewart Lee at Leicester Square. Lee was extremely funny, as I had expected. I booked those tickets when the clips of him ragging on Russell Brand resurfaced over the summer, something he referenced in the show. 

4. My hairdresser

I think I must be approaching 15 years with the same hairdresser, who now occupies a chair at a salon on Park Lane. This makes me feel extra fancy, though tbf I don't really rate the salon. His cuts are second to none, though, and somehow he manages to blow dry my hair so that the grey falls evenly, as opposed to in two semi-transparent stripes. A true artiste and worth every penny. 

5. Two dog owners with their golden retriever in Hyde Park. Said golden retriever was the proudest doggo ever, having caught (or hopefully picked up already dead) a bird. He was studiously ignoring his owners' every exhortation to drop the bird. They had all the treats out, but he was staring into the middle distance with an inscrutable expression that anybody who has interacted with teenagers would recognise instantly as a clear sign that a change of tack is required to move the situation forward. I commiserated with them. 'He had a parakeet last month,' said the man, ruefully. 

I also observed a tourist (I assume) trying to get a couple of well-fed squirrels, spread eagled upside down on a tree trunk, to eat out of his palm while his girlfriend filmed him. I wanted to stick around until he got bitten, but I had to get to my hair appointment. 

2024 Weeknote 47

November has been something of a tricky month, hence my radio silence. I came back from half term with a lingering and a toothache, which absorbed two rounds of antibiotics and now no longer hurts, but there is still a swelling and I'm therefore left with a low-level persistent nagging concern that it's going to resurge at the worst possible time, such as on Christmas Eve or the plane I'll be taking to Kazakhstan for new year. 

Toothache is so debilitating. One evening I just sat in bed from getting home at 6pm, reading The Little Princess in the dark on my Kindle. Other evenings were not quite as dismal but I was not capable of doing anything at all, really. I have to shout out to my amazing dentist, Bianca, who did a big filling repair in the summer that I thought was the cause of the pain. She saw me quickly, gave me antibiotics and insisted I come back in for another appointment before the weekend, just in case there was any pain, then prescribed more antibiotics remotely and followed up with a phone appointment. She would not charge me for any of these appointments because the filling is guaranteed for a year, even though the x-ray suggested that the infection was on an adjacent tooth. 

I think I should probably go back in for the root canal she suggested, to be on the safe side, but I am full of overwhelm at the moment and I just can't envisage how I would fit it in over the next five weeks. 

I spent last week in Oxford, which was dreamy. It was mostly bitterly cold and snowed overnight on Monday night - I thought I had packed enough warm things but it turned out, I had not, so the week was chilly. My coursemates are all really lovely and we had a few dinners together in college. I hadn't quite managed all the reading, on account of the tooth, but I had definitely done enough to get the most out of the lectures. Some of it is a bit over my head. I'm not sure how I am going to manage the essay by Jan 7th, but I guess we will just see how that pans out. 

Really, I think I am worrying too much. I do have other things to do, namely my job (obvs) and also writing the next round of exam papers, but my job has been doing a good job of staying within work hours so far this year and I am almost done with my exam papers, just three more Q markschemes to write, which I might finish today. It's worrying me because they haven't sent out a schedule yet, in spite of contracting us in July, so I can't get any sense of when the pinch points are going to be. Also I am just counting available weekend days as possible essay-writing time when, realistically, I can work on it some weekday evenings as well. I'm sure it will be OK. It's just been a while since anybody gave me an essay title that I just didn't know how to answer. This happened all the time as an undergrad and rational me knows that I just need to read until something coalesces. 

What else has been going on over the past three weeks? I have been listening to Exam Nation by Sammy Wright, which is very funny and a nice foil for the heavier academic course reading. I've been very slowly reading A Gentleman In Moscow, which is truly delightful - one day this past week, I ran a bath and lay in it for 40 minutes reading before lectures started. I love a morning bath. The room I've booked for all the college weeks is cheap because the bathroom is on a different floor, rather than being en suite, but as a result it contains a bath, as well as the main boiler for the whole house, so it is really warm and not one of those dingy plastic cube bathrooms beloved of university accommodation. So, on Wednesday when we finished early, I walked to Lush and got myself a bath bomb. Next time, I will go prepared. 

I've been a bit neglectful of the gym. I am currently sitting in my gym clothes, which I put on as soon as I got up in the morning, but don't seem to be any closer to getting to the gym. The weather is howling today. Yesterday, on a whim, I went to Easy Runner in Bristol and had myself fitted for some new running trainers. I used to do running and I really enjoyed it; now the elliptical has started to get a bit easy, I thought I should graduate to a treadmill. I also really wished that I could go for a jog around the park in Oxford, but was stymied by my lack of suitable footwear. Now I have trainers. I need to go test them for a longer run on a treadmill, though. 

In spite of this, however, and all the toothy troubles and multiple colds (I caught another one last weekend, though it abated quickly), weight loss still seems to have been occurring, much to my delight. I had a little preview on the scale yesterday morning to check that the enthusiastic reintroduction of desserts into my diet whilst in Oxford had not 'ruined everything' and was pleasantly surprised to see that it had not; if that number holds until tomorrow (I do usually gain a little weight over the weekend, hence my usual practice being weighing just once a week on Mondays, but if it does...) then I will be 29lbs down since the start of the new school year. I tried on my old favourite ski trousers yesterday and they are the most comfortable they've ever been. I remember taking them on the school trip in 2020 and being unable to get the poppers to meet, let alone close. 

In fact, there are lots of clothes I can now wear that have not seen daylight for many years. If I thought I had a lot of clothes before, we are now reaching an embarrassing opulence of riches. 

What else, hmm hmm. My friend Kaff came over last Saturday for our annual Strictly and Chinese night. She told me about my old friend Tutt's wedding blessing, and how Tutt essentially seemed to make Kaff her bridesmaid without actually asking or telling her until the last minute. We haven't spoken in a number of years. I'm still sad at the loss of the friendship, but happy she's happily married now. 

I travelled to Oxford last Sunday in the company of my friends Jo and Kath, so that we could visit the Victorian Christmas market there. Mulled cider, chestnuts, strange crafts you only ever see at Christmas stalls. We ate a lovely pie in an old pub. We browsed the horror section of the Blackwells. A very lovely day out. 

I'm delighted at the return of Wolf Hall, love a bit of Rylance-as-Cromwell, and we've binge watched both series of Everyone Else Burns, which was very enjoyable. Second series better than the first, I think - I just think Sian Clifford is hilarious, which gave it the edge. 

I'll end with a snowy autumn tree picture from Oxford. I really can't put off going to the gym any longer.

2024 Weeknote 44

I spent most of this week away from home. I was in Oxford Sun-Wed and then caught the train to London Marylebone (a new experience) and then on to Kingston to see the smalls. We went trick or treating - a new experience for me - and I took Lara to the park for a bit to give SIB in law some time for a rehearsal she needed to go to. The nephew is getting lots of words now he is nearly 2 and, at one point, when Lara was counting up all her sweets after the trick or treating, she said 12 and he said 13. SIL and I looked at each other in surprise, I gather being able to count that high when one is not quite 2 is quite an achievement. 

In Oxford, I spent most of my time in the education library, on Tuesday pulling a 9-6 stint in there with just a brief break for lunch. I got quite a lot of reading done but, wow, some of those chapters are long. I spent most of Monday ploughing through one and even took the book away with me to my college library (open 24 hours, dreamy) so I could finish it. I had to skip about 10 pages in the middle that were full of the kinds of theoretical statistical equations I neither understand nor care to, but I got it done. I returned the book to its shelf happily the next morning, got myself settled and then checked the next book on my reading list. It was...the same book. Sigh. Happily the second chapter was less boring, though no shorter. 

On Wednesday, I ventured into the famous divinity library, part of which starred as the library in the Harry Potter films. I went and had a quick wander but there's no water allowed in that section and all the books are alarmed, so I gave it a swerve and settled for a view of the Radcliffe Camera (the iconic round one) instead. 

I took myself to a nice lunch at the Opera Cafe (site of the cardamom bun I enjoyed so much last time), to Barefoot bakery for coffee (also purveyors of cardamom buns though not quite as good; their pumpkin cupcake was top notch, though) and a couple of very nice early walks, once around University Parks and along the river Cherwell, the other to Port Meadow to see the river Thames. Autumn is really beautifully dressed around there and I enjoyed being near the water and having a tramp around. I had dinner at my college twice and even, the second time, spoke to some other people dining there. It was nice to feel part of Oxford, briefly, and I'm looking forward to returning in a couple of weeks. 

Unfortunately, the end of the week was marred by a toothache, a cough and some really aggressive histamines that kept me sneezing and miserable so constantly that I rebelled and bought an air purifier. Whether it's dust, cat fur or leaf mould, it is really quite severe, but the gadget seems to have helped. The toothache was so bad on Friday that I thought I'd never sleep, but happily I did and it has eased off to the occasional dull rumble. Still, I will be ringing for an emergency appointment tomorrow morning. It's a big filling replacement I had done in August and it just never really settled properly. Toothache is the worst. 

Some autumn niceness to distract me. 

2024 Weeknote 43

I have trudged my way all the way to half term. Deep joy. As usual, this is the longest term and the most sought holiday. Eight weeks is a lot. I actually had a big joy moment this week when I realised next term is only 6 and a half weeks, not 7 and a half as I had thought. 

I've mostly just kept my head down and kept going. I restarted Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys, which is teen fiction and therefore doable in the last week of term. The chapters are all very short which is a bit irritating but, as it turns out, perfect for such a stage of exhaustion. Some uni reading was also done and I bashed out one of the formative assessments I have to submit by 4th Nov. I'm off to Oxford in an hour so this week will be one of much nerding. 

I carried out the usual end of term ritual of going to the good bakery near the station for a pastry and coffee before work on Friday. I had cogitated all week about what pastry I would get, because usually I just get two or three and eat them through the day, hence why I'm on this diet in the first place. I settled on a pain au raisin but then, as I was ordering the pastries for colleagues, a little plate of butternut squash, feta, walnut and parmesan pastries slid onto the counter in front of me. Irresistible. No regrets from me at all. Unfortunately I did then buy the pain au raisin for later AND a millionaires shortbread, but spread them out through the day and will learn from this next time. Order. In. Advance. 

Off I go to be a student again, now. 

2024 Weeknote 42

I can't believe there are only 10 weeks left of this year. It is true that time does seem to pass more quickly as you get older, yet I've spent a lot of time thinking about years gone past this week, for various reasons, and everything feels like it was so very long ago now. Like, it's three years since I had covid. That is the same as the whole time it took me to get my history degree. 

Cue existential worrying about: what have I actually done with the past three years? But there are lots of things so, meh. 

This week has been a smooth one. The meeting I was meant to be at on Monday was abandoned, early in the day but too late to cancel the cover school had bought in for me, so I spent the day at home, doing reading for my Masters. I got through so much that I smugly ignored the reading for the rest of the week so I am now behind again. I start the course in 4 weeks - I matriculated in absentia (love using this phrase) on Friday - so I have a bit of time left. Next Sunday, I'm going to Oxford for three nights to get some library time in. And also to eat a cardamom bun from the amazing bakery I found when I went to Oxford in 2022 - see, I have definitely used the past three years gainfully. 

School was schooling. Meetings were had, classes were taught. I found myself getting irritated by the number of people who just want to talk to me or ask me questions when I'm trying to work, but I think this must be a symptom of it being close to half term. This time last year, half term had already begun. 

I went to a glow swim at the quarry after parents evening on Thursday. I took a new colleague from work (my replacement) who had swum there before but not in the dark, and my friend Rachael. It was 15 degrees, which is the temperature at which I eschew my wetsuit in the spring, so I waded right in in my swimsuit, full of bravado. It was quite chilly. We made it round OK but then, as we were ready to leave, it became clear that Rachael was not OK and special measures had to be put in place (another hot tea with sugar in it, sitting in a car with all the blowers going for 10 minutes) before she was OK to drive home. A sobering experience. I will be wearing my wetsuit next time. 

I had a very enlightening chat with the diabetes nurse at my local surgery, who praised me for my weight loss and told me that she approved of my plan to keep on with it, leave off the meds for now and have another blood test in December. It's not that I think I will be in remission by then (she said I might be, which was a surprise) but if I have made a start on reversing the sugar number, then I know this will encourage me to carry on with my weight loss plan. This week I wore a skirt I have never worn before, because it has never been comfortable enough. It's been in my wardrobe for maybe 8 years. Happy days. 

I also continue to enjoy the gym quite a lot and managed to spend over 90 minutes in there yesterday, though I did also manage to drop a 10kg weight plate on my foot, on its edge, so now I've got two black toes. Can confirm bare feet trainers really do offer the same foot protection you would expect from their name. Today, I went back to do a bit of cardio and thought I would try my nemesis, the stair-climber, again for the first time since the summer. On my last attempt I managed 11 minutes of a 14 minute programme and my heart rate was in the high 140s the whole time. Today, I did the whole 14 minutes and my heart rate didn't pass 140. This is both comforting (yey, healthier heart) and depressing (boo, I have to climb stairs faster to progress from here). 

I do realise people who talk about their diet and exercise regimes are sinfully boring but this is my blog, you know. I did eat a huge mound of hash browns covered in cheese and BBQ beef yesterday at knitting group, so it's not all leaves of lettuce. 

I continued to read The Gentleman of Moscow, very slowly, and then the library wanted it back and I couldn't renew it because so many other people want it. This explains why the copy was so pristine - I'd wager hardly anybody has managed to read the whole thing within a 3 week loan window. I bought it for my Kindle instead. 

I've been watching, in small pieces, Who Killed the KLF? which is a documentary I've had recorded for some time. It's all very interesting and I definitely feel like I get the whole thing better now I am coming into my full middle-aged cynicism and general rage. 

I've started knitting a baby jumper, the usual garter stitch one, for an ex-student. I never taught her but I did take her skiing, and she has built quite the myth in her head about the amount of interaction we had while she was a student, but she was a really nice kid who had a pretty awful home life and I was delighted when she messaged on Twitter in May to say she was expecting. I contacted her at the start of the month to ask if I could send her a gift, intending to pick up a pack of babygros, but when she replied this week she said she hasn't been doing so well, struggling with her own family a bit, so I decided I would knit her something instead. I picked out a peachy-orange shade of Smoothie I had in my stash but, in the jumper, it is decidedly pink (or salmon, as two people separately identified it at knitting group yesterday) so I might have to make another one in blue and wait to see what she gives birth to. Luckily it is a mega-quick knit. I've done the back and am already halfway up the front. 

I'd then like to knit up the Joe's Toes slipper kit I bought at Wonderwool in April (I never did post about my haul, something else to add to the to-do list) so I have a nice slipper to wear while I'm away in Oxford. I wonder how many things I can justify for 'while I'm in Oxford'. I've already got a new dressing gown and today I ordered a new backpack, for all my notebooks and pens. I am eyeing up pyjamas and considering a new fountain pen. 

All this is just a distraction from the reading, of course. 

2024 Weeknote 41

It's been a very pleasant couple of weeks. 

I've been to three different book talks -

1. Neneh Cherry sharing her new memoir, A Thousand Threads. She was surprisingly shy in front of the audience, considering this is the woman who really was notorious for her ability to act as she damn well pleased on stage through my formative years. It was a really interesting talk and it was clear there was 80s Wild Bunch royalty in the audience, though I wasn't cool enough to spot them - at one point she talked about Massive Attack staying in the back bedroom of her flat and said, 'I think...Daddy G, are you here?' to which she received a replying whoop from the gallery. Amazing. The man next to me (who introduced himself as Jim when he sat down) asked the best question about what music Neneh remembers stirring her soul first. 

2. Richard Ayoade sharing The Unfinished Harauld Hughes. I brought Mr Z along to this one as Richard Ayoade is funny and we both appreciate him. It was the wrong book talk to be Mr Z's first, though. It didn't really occur to me that what we would get was Richard Ayoade in character as Richard Ayoade, leaving very little room for finding out about him or any of the things book people normally talk about at these things; the whole thing was more about Harauld Hughes than anything else. It was...surreal. Luckily the woman behind us found it all extremely hilarious so Mr Z and I bonded over how irritating she was. 

3. Rev Richard Coles interviewing Ian Rankin. I first discovered Ian Rankin when I was living in Vegas and visiting the library most weeks, cycling over during the day to stave off boredom. I was looking for something else but saw a long row of both Ian Rankin and Robert Rankin. I picked the former and found the intense Britishness of the Rebus novels enormously comforting when I was a bit homesick. I'm afraid he might hate that, as a Scot, but there it is. 

I am a bit behind with my Rebus reading, having only recently finished Exit Music - now it turns out there must be half a dozen books between that one and Midnight and Blue, which he was hawking at the book talk this week. I arrived 15 minutes early, but, since my presence definitely lowered the average age by a good few years, most of the seats were already taken. I found one on the end of a pew marked 'Warden' which had a lovely cushion on it; having sat down and discovered I was a foot taller than the rest of the audience, though, I removed it, to the relief of the couple behind me. 

Anecdotes. Anyway - this was a lovely, cosy chat between two people who clearly knew each other quite well and I enjoyed all the insights into Rebus and how Rankin feels about the character and the books, and other things. 

Love a book talk.

I haven't actually done much pleasure reading of A Gentleman in Moscow but I have been trying hard to get through it because I know it will be on reserve for lots of other people. It's good so far, quite entertaining. Other than that I've been reading lots for my Masters. Some of it is impenetrably academic, some of it is borderline entertaining. Today, as I hit my 6th or 7th reading, I realised with relief that things were starting to overlap - this was always a sure sign, as an undergrad, that understanding was beginning to coalesce. I start the taught course in five weeks so this is timely. 

I have been enjoying my job. If you're a regular reader, this will probably come as a relief to you as I have been very whingey about my job this year. It turns out that just doing one job instead of two jobs smashed together into the time available for one job is actually quite pleasant. It's rare for anything on my job list, which is long, to be too urgent, which means I can spend some time actually thinking about what I want to do and how I want to do it. Who knows whether I will actually have time to enact my plans but I don't feel too much pressure to do and be everything and everywhere all at once. I like my new office and my new office mate. I'm less liking the fact that everyone seems to think I automatically know everything now, and comes to me very often with quite trivial things that I would have just worked out for myself when I was in their position, but presumably this feeling will not last too long. 

I haven't yet been successful at the twisted German cast on or whatever it is called, I tried with a YouTube video and just got frustrated and gave up. So I have been working on the linen top instead, which is going much quicker now I am past the ribbing (obvs). 

The health kick continues. I was an astonishing 15lbs down by last Monday. This week has been a very eaty week so we will see what happens tomorrow but, wow. I am pleased. According to my very sporadic records, I haven't been this weight since 2017. Loads of my old clothes fit much more comfortably and today, joy, a skirt I bought a number of years ago that has never fitted but I didn't send it back in time actually did up. It's a little snug yet but...it did up. 

I'm actually enjoying the gym, as well. I stick Brat on (cringing in the knowledge that this is really not what the creator had in mind) and smash out 20 minutes on the elliptical without really noticing. Yesterday, it was nearly empty in there and I stayed for 90 minutes, making up exercises on various bits of equipment. I've made some good progress with the amount of weight I can lift too. It's actually fun. Next, I want to try the treadmill that is just a caterpillar track that you power yourself, but I am a bit scared of falling off it, so I am still plucking up the courage. 

I'll leave you with some favourite pictures of autumn - all the pets enjoying some Saturday morning sunshine yesterday and an awesome rainbow from last week. Rainbows remind me of my y6 English teacher who was horribly sarcastic and mean when I put my hand up in a lesson to point out a rainbow outside. But you don't get to see rainbows very often. I think it's important to take the pause to look at one whenever it cares to appear. This one was splendid and so clear, I could see the reflection of it in an arc over the main one. 

2024 Weeknote 39

This was the last week of September and also the last week that I would class as unusual at work. This is a completely arbitrary measure, there are plenty of events coming up that would count as unusual, but this one had open evening (erghhhhh) and then an inset day that I was planning and leading in it, so I couldn't quite see beyond it. Happily both of those things went well and I rounded off my week by meeting an old friend for coffee. We were study buddies during our NPQ last year and, where most people are like, 'Oh I never met with mine', I valued mine highly because she always had time to meet (she is an exams officer with no teaching load) and it forced me to do all the reading so we could have a proper discussion. She was in Bristol for some training so I learned some things about Bristol's new road layout and patronised one of its priciest car parks so we could have a catch up. A very pleasant end to the week.

It was Mr Z's birthday on Tuesday but we did not really observe. I have now bought him a present but it isn't here yet. 

On Wednesday, I sneezed three time in rapid succession and then immediately knew I was getting a cold. It hung around nastily all of Thursday, when I was in school from 7am to 9pm of course, and I drowned it in my usual combination of Berocca, and hot water with fresh lemon and manuka honey (not all together, I hasten to add). I imagine this is just a placebo effect or the impact of drinking loads of liquids, but that, combined with going to bed as soon as I got in on Thursday, meant that I was feeling much better by Friday. It lingers in the corners of my eyes and in my sinuses, but I am feeling relieved it was not worse. 

As a result, though, I have had to eschew the gym most of the week and am now feeling like I must have gained a stone. I did my weekly try-on of clothes that only sort of fit yesterday, though, and was able to zip up a skirt that I haven't worn since I changed jobs in 2016, and the skirt I bought in August is almost loose now. This is very inspiring. I'm going to slope off to the gym in a minute, so I can try to maintain the downward trajectory. 

We finished the most recent series of Clarkson's Farm and I enjoyed the return of Bake Off. I was very excited when a book I reserved at the library FINALLY came in, so I started that yesterday - it's called A Gentleman in Moscow. It is in such high demand that I have a feeling my renewals will be limited so I had better get cracking.

I started the Masters readings this week too, by watching some of the pre-course lectures. I hoped to watch all five, one per weeknight, but only got as far as two, so that is a job for the rest of today and next week. I was getting quite into it, so hopefully it won't seem like a chore. 

Mexican dense bean salad

I've been experimenting with new lunches this term, ever since I came across the dense bean salad trend on Tiktok. It seems to be very much a thing, though, realistically, I have been eating lunch this way for many years now; I was fondly remembering when I used to make up huge salad jars for the whole week. But it's nice to see other people sharing recipes because it gives me fresh ideas, particularly for dressings, which I'm not good at.

I've figured out that the best long-lasting salads have robust veggies in them and to date, it's usual for me to add a couple of packets of mange tout, but recently I have been going with a coleslawy base, which adds plenty of bulk but not much flavour. This is good but requires some robust other flavours and also something nice, because shredded cabbage is just so...worthy. 

Thus I broke my own rule this week and added avocado - which qualifies as something nice - to this one, but it held up well in the back of the fridge (we've got a Smeg fridge and it is actually magic, tbf) for the week. Nobody gasp in horror at this revelation, but I take my lunch out of my fridge at home and it sits on my desk at work until around 1pm, sans refrigeration (yes, even with meat/fish in it, don't come for me, I apparently have an iron constitution) - by Thursday, this salad was not coping with that and had a somewhat fizzy flavour, so I put it in the work fridge (double bagged) today and it was still good by the time lunchtime came around. 

• 1 can Mexican beans
• 1 can butter beans
• 1 large can sweetcorn
• 1 bunch coriander (150g, really whack it in there, it's not for you if you don't like coriander)
• 2 peppers, any colour, I like yellow
• 2 avocados
• 300g cabbage
• 2 large carrots
• 3 limes
• 2 tbsp oil, I have cold-pressed avocado oil at the moment because I'm apparently incapable of walking past Holland and Barrett without going in to buy something
• Salt and pepper

Shred the cabbage and carrot. Chop the coriander, except the stalks, and combine with the cabbage and carrot in a bowl. Drain and rinse the canned stuff, add to the bowl. Chop the peppers and avocados and add those too. Salt and pepper to taste. Juice the limes and shake hard in a jar with the oil - mine turned the most wonderful garish chartreuse colour; dress the salad. Shovel into containers. It makes five portions of about 350 cal each and all five of your fruit/veg servings in one meal. I topped mine with Mr Z's Mexican chicken breast. 

2024 Weeknote 38

It has been another wildly busy week, between the mark reviews and the work commitments and writing out the reading list ahead of the first module at Oxford. I made that list this morning; Lenin came and sat in the middle of it, to ensure I carry his muddy paws into the course with me ever day, and then curled up and went to sleep, purring loudly, without requiring a fuss - I found this immensely comforting as the essential pre-module reading runs to two side of A4. I'm not overly worried about getting it done for November, but less convinced of how I will manage for February, when I will also have an assignment to do. Time will tell. 

On Tuesday, I had to travel once again to Birmingham, for a day conference of people from across the Trust who do the same job as me. This was all a bit depressing because, firstly, we got a telling off about Trust results (our school results were very good and an improvement on last year, so...) and secondly, I realised that everything this committee worked on last year, gave up additional twilight time for and spent most of the conferences discussing, has now been shuffled off and a new set of expectations has come in instead. 'We know you'll have done this so just copy and paste into our forms,' was the message. Well, I can't do that, because I asked you in June for the planning proforma, and even though I can see this went into my folder in July, you didn't share access to it, so now they don't match and you want me to re-do the large piece of planning work I have already done rather than actually enacting the plan.

Hrmph. 

I will be saying all this directly to the visitor we are having this week. They keep saying feedback is a gift. I am feeling in a very altruistic mood. Let's hope I don't come back next Sunday to say I've been fired. Although this might be helpful.

I went to the glow swim after the meeting, it is 2 degrees cooler in the quarry than this time last year but still a very lovely place to spend a twilight. I sacked it off this morning though because it was pouring rain. A lot of quarry people sneer at the idea that you wouldn't want to swim in the rain and I do get that you're already wet so why does it matter, but when you're a head-out-of-the-water swimmer like me, the splashing in the face is problematic. 

On Friday, we had a school trip with the sixth formers to Parliament. This involved a 5am get-up for the 6.40am bus, where thankfully I had earphones and went to sleep because the students were louuuuuuud. And it's not like being on a private coach where I can just yell at them to be quiet. We went first to the Churchill War Rooms, which was a great museum, though I only managed about 90 minutes before a combination of claustrophobia and Churchill fatigue got me. From there, we trotted past the statue of Clive to the Foreign Office for a tour - my colleague knows people there. This was really quite spectacular. To begin with it was just a grand old government building but then we went through the Locarno room and, wow. Murals, gold leaf, carpet deep enough to lose a shoe in, the lot. We finished with a peek at Number 10 through the gate (the staff said they'd watched Truss resign here and claimed multiple sightings of Larry the Cat, who apparently has some territorial beef with Palmerston the Foreign Office cat). It was very cool, even more so because the security guard was very moody about a bunch of teen girls twittering past him but just had to allow it. 

Me in the Locarno room, what a ceiling. 

From there we went on to Parliament for a tour from someone who worked in the whip's office for 20 years and had some amazing stories to tell. I have been to Parliament before, but I don't think I've made it into the chambers - neither house was sitting, as it was a Friday, and that gave us ample time for mooching around and pretending to be important. I managed to snag a cardamom Bun From Home on the way back to the coach station and then the students chatted loudly all the way back to Bristol while I tried to ignore them and read Salt to the Sea, a YA historical fiction I forgot I bought at the beginning of the summer. It's very good. 

I've also been getting through the rest of Stormbird (I started this in May) during my lunch duties in the student toilets, somewhere I can't eat lunch but where nobody can tell me off for reading. Students regularly ask about my book so I consider this good modelling. 

We've continued to watch Clarkson's Farm. I'm excited about the return of Bake Off on Tuesday. 

I managed to mostly keep up with the health kick. No gym on Friday but we did do 15,000 steps and I didn't eat very much because it was such a busy day. I disappointed myself by not doing any form of exercise on Wednesday but I was just exhausted after the early start on Tuesday and the exertions of the day. I was too tired on Tuesday to pack up my gym kit, telling myself I would come home, change, then go out - naturally I came home, changed, but then found myself mysteriously in my new favourite dressing gown (I am now in my dressing gown era) and so just went to bed at 9.15 instead, which did help with the tiredness, it must be said. 

I am not feeling so inspired by the linen top now that summer is over, so I have wound some yarn to knit a brioche hat. It's a skein of Isager aran tweed that I bought at the Oxford Yarn Store in 2022 - I was reminded of this when I googled to see how far this place was from my college (a terrifying 220 yards, this is going to get expensive); plus a beautiful, soft DK that I got from the knitting group secret Santa. I'm going to attempt to knit a Beezee but got as far as casting on at knitting group yesterday and had to give up, because who can do a twisted German cast on off the top of their head?

2024 Weeknote 37

In 2017, I went to Durham for a teacher summer school, that turned out to be a lovely few days of learning how to help students apply to Durham, mingled with tours, lectures and a fancy dinner. In my pack there was a flyer for a Masters that I was actually quite interested in taking. I've never bothered before. My teaching qual pre-dates the option to convert to a Masters and I have quite the chip on my shoulder about it anyway - it is already a post-grad qual, so saying it needs 'upgrading' to a Masters is like saying a BTEC cannot be equivalent to an A-level, just pure intellectual snobbery. Then I couldn't find a Masters that I wanted to do and that I thought would help me in my career. But this one did.

I talked it over with Mr Z and we agreed that I could potentially spend a year in Durham doing the course, but naturally that became another thing (like going part-time) that was never actually going to happen. 

Then, last autumn, I was chatting to friends who asked what I might do if I actually did what I keep threatening to do and stop working for a year. I was having some coaching through school as a new leader at the time and she told me to write a list. I went back to look at the Durham Masters, but it was no more. Sigh. Oh, but here's the same option at Oxford. 

Fast forward to Friday -

Made it. It was like having an out-of-body experience. I couldn't quite believe I was there. Naturally, I have already talked myself into believing that the only real entry requirement for Oxford as a post-grad is the ability to pay and therefore my achievement isn't really an achievement but, hey. It really did feel like an achievement once I got there. The course is full of interesting and accomplished people. I received my student card and got to look round my college, where the woman giving us the welcome speech casually dropped in that the King is one of the fellows there. I sat and listened to the head of the department telling me about her holiday and then fretting that I might not make it back to Bristol in time to see Six and all I could think was, this woman is on the government's panel looking into assessment, why is she worrying about me getting stuck in traffic. 

We were also given a list of all the libraries we can now access with the student card so I pretty much instantly booked myself into the college accommodation for three nights in half term, so I can do a library tour. I've worked out where I can rent a bike. It's just too exciting. I want to start now - but actually there is a large amount of work to do first. Now we see whether it is actually possible to study part-time for a Masters whilst doing a senior teaching role. 

The mark reviews roll on. They swallowed my whole weekend. Far fewer than last year, goodness knows how I managed it then though, because it is proving tricky. Plus there are shenaningans going on at the board that, naturally, they dropped on his with no warning and so I'm not wanting to do much for them at the moment, truth be told. So there's been no reading time and no knitting and very little TV - I watched an episode of The Perfect Couple on Netflix yesterday but it wasn't very compelling. We watched an episode of Clarkson's Farm today which was better. I still don't like that man (it's hard to forgive 'striking teachers should be shot in front of their families') but it is a good show. Plus I think his local council are taking those personal feelings to work with them, which is a bit grim. 

I did finish Ultra-Processed People on audiobook during my drive to Oxford, it was really very interesting, if a bit depressing. I don't eat masses of UPF anyway but it did feel like the message of the book was, it's all awful and there's nothing we can do. Once again I feel we've sewn the seeds of our own species' destruction. He wasn't preachy though and there was a significant social injustice slant on the book, which I always enjoy, being the choir, as it were.

I have been on a health kick since term started and have managed to go to the gym or do some sort of exercise every day in September so far, except for Friday, because I couldn't squeeze it in around Oxford and going to see Six in the evening. Yep, I even went at the end of the first day of term. I don't know who I think I am. I've also been tracking my calories and it is utterly depressing how much of an impact these changes are having already. My resting heart rate is the lowest it has been since I got a Fitbit in 2016. I'm sleeping soundly and waking up feeling rested. My Fitbit has moved my cardio score (I don't really know what this means) from 'Poor' where it has always been to 'Poor to fair'. I've had no post-lunch urgent visits to the toilet, though hormones would normally have dictated at least two of these in the past week. I've not walked out of school for an emergency olive stick once. I can already fit into the new skirt I bought that I could not do up at the end of the holidays. The scale is happy with me. I hope that tomorrow I will find that I am the lightest I've been since I got covid in 2021.

The realisation that I have been the agent of my own discomfort for so long is sobering. Hopefully I will be able to hang onto the feeling when I am bored with the novelty of gorging myself on fruit or not feeling like creating yet another dense bean salad from my imagination because I'm too cheap to subscribe to that tiktok woman's substack. 

The week was rounded off at the theatre with Jenny and friends, seeing Six. What a fantastic cast this was! It was as entertaining as ever. Definitely my favourite musical. Cleves is still my favourite queen.

2024 Weeknote 36

I'm in mark review purgatory. There isn't much time to say more.

Back to work. I've been to the gym every day. No knitting. Only television I've seen before. Falling into bed and immediately to sleep. I have read almost nothing but I have started taking the Conn Igulden book I started in May to my lunch duty in the toilets every day, because obvs I'm not eating lunch in the toilets. 

I did have my hair cut in the last week of the holidays and got to hang out with the niece. This was approximately 476 years ago. 

This week I'm off to Oxford for the day on Friday to start my masters!

2024 Weeknote 34

It has been a month that has included many swims, the seeing of sights, the catching of planes and trains and buses, the eating of gelato, the application of sun screen and the celebrating of my birthday - just a standard August. 

I returned from holiday towards the end of last week and have since spent my time mooching and doing, hmm, not sure what. I did all my washing, does that count? We packed up a load of rubbish and took it to the tip. I've been to the gym several times, completely obsessed with Brat (I'm so late to this party) as a workout album (I'm so old) to the point where I actually looked forward to it. Thursday was results day so I got to see everyone at work. Then I had to go to the doctor to be told I am now diabetic - news that they thoughtfully texted to me as I lay by a fancy hotel pool, on my actual birthday. I've therefore had quite a long time to process the news and it wasn't a surprise, given my genetics and size. Hopefully my new gym habit will help me in tackling it. 

On Thursday evening I drove to Portsmouth so that I could go to Victorious with Mother Hand yesterday. It was my first visit to the festival, though I'm still a bit sad I didn't make the effort to go last year, when Jamiroquai played. This year I swiped a ticket because the Friday acts included Snow Patrol and Fatboy Slim. We had a Friday brunch at our favourite cafe (this time the cafe lady did actually give me a hug and we friended each other on Facebook which was nice) and then headed down to the common. I wore a new Rosa Bloom acquisition and felt very festival-ready. 

We had a good wander around, had some tea at a stall, then Mother Hand went home for a nap and to feed to cat, while I sat in the sun at a picnic bench with a cider and read my book, periodically stopping for a musical interlude. Louis Tomlinson came on and complained that it was windy; I was sitting almost exactly where we used to have to play lacrosse all through the winter when I was at school and I thought, Louis, until you've been here in a PE kilt in January, you don't have anything to say. Idles were very good, as might be expected for a Bristol band. I teamed up with another woman on her own and we watched each other's stuff so we could go off to the loo or to buy food or more cider. Mother Hand returned for Snow Patrol and then I went and joined the crowds for Fatboy Slim. He is indeed getting on, but it was a great set and I was very pleased to see him live, 90s teen that I was. 

Yesterday I went to brunch with Mother Hand and her church friends and then for a quick dip before coming home. I always leave Portsmouth feeling a bit sad to leave, but must keep reminding myself that I am never having to go to work while I'm down there, so life can really be cafes and beaches and lie ins, and that I almost certainly wouldn't swim every day if I actually lived there full time. 

One more week of holidays and then it's back to school. 

2024 Weeknote 30

 A good holiday week indeed!

Two swims, as documented in Tuesday's post. Then a third swim in Bristol harbour, which I hadn't meant to book. I was quite grumpy. They were late starting again and wouldn't let me in without scanning the QR code, when I'd left my phone in my car. The lady at the desk held onto my phone when I asked if there was anywhere to securely store it. When I got out, she was trying to convince a passerby to come back and swim the next day - 'Use it or lose it!' she said. I'd love to use it. I'd be there every week. But you need to start on time, ideally have somewhere I can change (hats off to the old lady who went full frontal facing outwards along the path getting her nethers dry yesterday morning, cannot WAIT to be that age of not giving a damn) and also somewhere I can put my bag where I don't think someone will just lean over and nick it on their way past. It's £7.50 a swim and these are basics. I could also do without the loudspeaker pumping questionable musical choices but that's probably just me.

I am convinced All Aboard Watersports is secretly totally opposed to people swimming in the harbour. They just keep the whole thing really quiet and seem to be making it as hostile as they can.  

One paddle, aforementioned. 

Two trips to the library to collect one reserved book. A few months back my library card cracked in half, so the library replaced it. The new one had a new number but this didn't occur to me when I reserved a book I wanted online, using my old saved card details. I went to fetch it during their open access hours (no librarian on duty) and the computer said no. Bless that computer, it didn't realise that the person trying to check the book out was the same person who reserved it. It was trying to protect my reservation. 

I went back the next day and reached for my library card, which lives on the dash of my car...no card. I racked my brains. Eventually I realised I must have left it in the pocket of my dungarees, which were at that moment swirling in the washing machine. I (Mr Z) had to switch it off and pump it out to get the card back. 

I returned to the library, the librarian scratched her head a bit and looked uncomfortable when I told her not to delete my old account, but I've had a book on reservation for two months now and don't want to lose my place in the queue. I appreciate librarians and their commitment to good book service but I stood my ground. So I'm probably the only person in the southwest currently using two library accounts simultaneously. 

One coffee meet up with my friend Vanessa in Bradford on Avon, followed by lunch in the same spot with my friend Caroline. 'I've changed friends so she needs a menu,' I told the waiter, who looked completely confused momentarily and then burst out laughing. This is a ritual for Caroline and me, every time my old place of work breaks up. It feels like summer is really happening after this. 

One coffee meet up with my friend Charlotte, in a fantastic new cafe that has opened in the 'wood. Gentrification is in effect. It's still mercifully cheap, though. 

One yoga class, one PT session and one trip to the gym. I do enjoy the extra movement. My sore back enjoys it too.

One online shopping spree that I had been holding off for weeks: I got paid on Friday so I bought everything on the list, apart from the rug that has had its own tab in my browser window for easily a year now. I just need to bite the bullet and buy. 

Mother Hand is up and visiting because Mr Z and I are off to Devon for some camping today. It's our 18th wedding anniversary. We're currently sitting at our computers, he's playing online golf and I'm doing this. Pretty much sums up the past 18 years tbh. 

And the work is pretty much done! It was a long week of script inspection and report writing. I was full of the do-not-wants. But now it is over for another year and I feel like I blinked and missed it all. Rumours abound of big changes to our systems for next year...oh yey, more change...so perhaps I should be pleased for a nice smooth series this year.

I didn't really take any pictures this week. Most of them are screenshots. But here's Lenin asleep with Cecil (or Cyril, I forget), supervising my morning's work. 

A good holiday day

I've been reflecting, over the past few weeks (or maybe months) how much I miss the internet of old. I'm aware that this is me properly showing my age but I really am a bit sad about what it was and what it therefore no longer is. There was definitely a golden internet age for me and that was probably 2005-2012ish. It was after Google and YouTube were launched but before social media was super widespread. A bit of Facebook, maybe, but not a lot of people were using it and all the updates had to follow an is. 'Sally is...' Most phones did not have cameras and, if they did, there was nowhere really to share the pictures anyway. Tiktok was a twinkle in Vine's eye. 

For some of that time I was hopelessly stuck into a particular forum which my life verily revolved around but, to be fair to that forum, I made some friends out of it that are still my friends over two decades later and it taught me quite a lot, about people and having a wide network of acquaintances that can advise you and how to avoid arguing with people and how to win, if you're going to. 

My main reason for internet nostalgia, though, is the blogging. I really miss reading the blogs. Those little windows into the lives of people you were never likely to meet, I loved them. Those blogging prompts I used to do, the monthly crafty scavenger hunt and the weekwords, where you'd post your link to someone else's blog to help drive traffic. I was never that interested in traffic, I'm quite happy with my 7 regular readers (I refuse to believe you are all bots); it was just nice to read what people were sharing. Now that traffic has mostly moved to social media and people don't want to write longform anymore, or maybe people don't want to read it. All those livejournals and bloggers and wordpresses. I fear for the longevity of Blogger, I really do. Perhaps I'm going to need to go back to writing my blog in html and FTPing it onto the domain, like back in the old days (when this was all fields).

Naturally, the way to resist this crumbling of what I loved is to be the change, so I'm not going to say that I'm going to blog more but, here I am. 

I had a good holiday day today. Lots of nice things coincided in one day so that I found myself eating a cottage cheese sandwich I'd made myself as I drove from one thing to another, because I hadn't actually built in any time to eat or even go to the toilet.

I started with a paddle on the Avon. We put in down by the Chequers, the place that I went to back in February when I was trying to use my kayak once per month, only to find the jetty was raised higher than the bank and it was a fair old torrent that quite evidently spelled my death if I were to have put my kayak into it. Happily it was much lower at this time of year, so much so that I had trouble getting in; I was kayaking with two people from work that I don't know terribly well, certainly not well enough to ask them to assist me into my kayak from the bank. Happily I managed to find a slightly lower bit of the jetty to get in and then hauled myself out by stepping on the bank, which was naturally not as firm as it looked but held up OK.

We saw geese, a sleepy and suspicious heron and a few kingfishers. Plus a little lad who proudly announced he was eat breakfast on a boat. 

I went from there to get my back pulled back into some semblance of normal by Jenny. My back has hurt since the start of June, when I was very enthusiastic with the hip thruster machine at the gym. I managed to get it to a point where I could stand up straight, thanks to a combo of a foam roller, a massage gun and a hockey ball, but it has been grumbling on for weeks. I don't love being this age you know, everything takes for bloody ever to heal - that hamstring I tweaked in February didn't feel normal until the end of May, for example. 

Jenny did lots of good sports massaging. I winced into the face hole. It does feel better but alas, the best thing I can do is stay active.

From there I rushed off to the swim lake at Henleaze, at the invitation of my friend Paula. This is a swim in a quarry, but it's far more exclusive than the one I usually go to - it's so exclusive that even the waiting list is closed for now. I idly consider trying to get on it from time to time but it's not close enough to home, really. That said - how gorgeous. I think I prefer the water at my usual quarry but this one definitely wins on surroundings. Grass and shrubs, little windy paths that you can wander down for a more private sunbathe, an ice cream stand, deck chairs, three heights of diving board and even a sauna. The well-heeled of Bristol know how to swim in a quarry, that's for sure. I stayed as long as I could.

Then I came home and did some work because all good things must come to an end.

No pictures. Too much fun was being had. If you want pictures, there's always Instagram. 

2024 Weeknote 29

Another fortnight's leap. Term has ended and a week off has been had and I'd like to say that I feel a bit more human and it's sort of true but...well, the work never really stops, does it?

Work things:

I went to Birmingham for another meeting, my 9th trip to Birmingham so far this year. Me and that 6.44am train are getting very well-acquainted. Gutted there's only a Costa concession open at that time, I do not like Costa. I've made a friend among the group but I fear I won't be seeing much of her next year, as we both have different roles. Slightly jealous that hers is less responsibility. 

I spent the rest of the last week of term supervising the odd student who hadn't gone on a trip, packing my copious possessions and walking them downstairs to my new office (we're gonna need a bigger bookshelf) and fiddling around with bits of work that I thought were complete. This must be a leadership thing, where you have a job list, you do it, and then a bunch of people come out of the woodwork to tell you, actually, we want you to do this instead, or do it this way instead, or could you possibly repeat this work only on a different system? I have discovered that this irritates me to the extreme. I sort of hope I get leadership coaching again next year because, having been in the role for a year, I have a lot more to discuss than I did when I had a coach at the start of the year. I wonder how many initiatives I'm having to initiate come as a result of some man (it's almost always, you know) having his head turned by a talk or even just a winsome smile from a stall at an education conference. 'Why yes, let me impress you with how powerful and influential I am, by forcing a bunch of people I've never met to pay for your service and roll it out to their school, regardless of whether it is actually a good fit for them.'

The rage, eh? It simmers.

I waved goodbye to my long-term colleague and friend Marianne, who is leaving teaching for a bit. Isn't everyone. It was very sad. We've worked together for five years and affectionately refer to ourselves as Hivemind. I'm sort of glad I won't be heading the department now that she won't be in it. It truly is the end of an era. We went out for the boat party and I wore all my sequins again and had many compliments through the night, though the PE teachers looked at me as if I was a gorgon. Nevermind. A girl in the toilets told me the outfit 'really eats' which is a good thing in young person parlance. Another girl came up to tell me how much she loved it and it turned out she was an ex-student. She was on a date. I bought the three of us tequila shots and then decided that was my cue to leave, having never done a shot with an ex-student before. 

Exam marking finally finished today, when I woke at 6.30am in a pool of my own sweat and was too grossed out to be able to fall back to sleep. Now it's just the reports and the endless process of script-reading to do. Hopefully it will be done by the end of this week.

I went on a first aid course for two days. The last time I did this course was in 2021; I'd been out the night before at the not-a-boat party (the skipper 'got covid' the morning of said party, which coincidentally coincided with the England semi-final in the Euros), returning home at 4am, so I thought that was the reason I kept almost nodding off. Turns out, no. It's the course itself. The trainer tried really hard to make it engaging and a lot of it was outside in a field, which did help, but....sort of hoping that, by the next time I need to renew, I'll no longer need the qualification. It is just so dull. 

Any non-work things? There must have been. Hmm hmm. 

I started knitting a new linen top, the one I wanted to finish for my holiday, which is in two weeks. Oh well. At least I made a start on it. I've been swimming in the quarry a couple of times. I've re-read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which has just made me want to go hiking through California even more than the first time I read it. I've been to lots of the places she mentions in the memoir and the idea of being that remote is very appealing. I've started the Big House Clean of 2024, determined this time to throw out a bunch of things and then hopefully make it easier to clean in the future. In contradiction to this, I've been impulse-buying online, as is my habit during exam season, so I need to have a clothes clear out.

A little shout out for an excellent jewellery business. If you see much of me IRL you have probably seen me wearing a large pair of silver hoop earrings or a smaller pair of gold. The latter were a gift from Mr Z a few years back and the former I bought for myself more recently. The catch snapped on one of the silver hoops and I contacted the company, Catch Rhys, for a repair. I couldn't remember when I'd bought them, couldn't find an order number or details of it in any of my banking. I couldn't even remember which email address I'd used for the order (I have five in regular use, don't ask why, it makes sense to me). I offered to pay. The helpful Rosie wrote back to tell me she had been able to find my order and they were actually within the two-year guarantee. When she couldn't fix them, she sent me a shiny new pair for free. Such amazing customer service! All their jewellery is recycled so I guess my old pair will become something new for them to sell, but still. Such impressive ethics. I can recommend them if you're in the market for something timeless and long-lasting. 

This week coming has lots of nice plans in it. And this time next week I'll be snoring in a tent in Devon.

2024 Weeknote 27

My computer and I have been far too well-acquainted for me to think about using it for personal reasons over the past couple of weeks. Happily, marking deadline is today and even though it will drag on for another fortnight or so, the end is nigh. The end of term is also nigh. I did my three working Saturdays in a row and celebrated by having a three-hour nap yesterday and then going out to a friend's 40th birthday party wearing a playsuit that teen me could only have dreamt of. 

Making inadvisable internet purchases is one of those things I do every exam season (you should see the shopping carts I've got lined up in other tabs at this precise moment) but, when I saw that Rosa Bloom had extended her sizing since last summer, I hesitated for only a moment. I have no idea what else I'm going to wear it for but, love. 

No knitting. No reading. Watching reruns of Friends and, lately, the Princess Charlotte Bridgerton spin-off. 

Roll on summer. Four weeks until I go on holiday!

2024 Weeknote 25

Just in case you're wondering as to the state of my brain at the moment, here's an insight: I have been wondering, for the past two weeknotes, why I'm not closer to or yet at weeknote 26, when solstice was last week and the nights are once again going to start drawing in. I started to think I must have miscounted. Only this morning did it click that the end of June marks halfway through the year, not solstice. It's not like I've lived with this calendar for my entire life or anything. 

Work reaches its crescendo this week. Thankfully the side hustle is (currently) going very smoothly this year so is not needing too much of my attention, which is just as well because I have no more capacity. I'm not sleeping particularly well, having been haunted all last week with very vivid dreams that were not particularly nice - not the sort you wake screaming from, but the sort that create an uneasy feeling on waking that persists into the morning. Several of these dreams were about having to move. I'm not going to Google to find out what that might mean. 

I quite often come back to that adage that you can't have more than 10 productive hours in a day. I can't remember where I read it now and I don't know how it's evidenced, but it's something I use to make myself feel better when I realise I've been staring at the wall for an unknown amount of time, in a paralysis of indecision about how to move forward with my work. This week has been OK in terms of work rate but I have had to resort to finding a quiet classroom to work in, rather than staying in the shared office, because either they distract me or I distract them and then nothing gets done. I would have liked to have got more done whilst in my empty classroom, but enough was achieved and, when I'm doing 3+ hours of the side hustle before and after work, it's not unreasonable to expect my productivity in my main job to suffer a little. Most of the time, at this time of year, it's not too important as there's not much to do. This is most certainly not the case this year, though. Somehow I've got three working Saturdays in a row, amongst other things. I started listing my tasks but then remembered that this is not a work space...though I do write a lot about work, don't I. Sometimes there wouldn't be much to say if I didn't. 

Let's try. 

This week I wound the yarn to make a Tolsta Tank by Rebecca Clow. I am going to make the square neck version and stripe some linen I bought at Wonderwool. 

That fancypants little thing twinkling across the top doesn't match too well in terms of colour but it is extremely fine and I plan to carry it along on random stripes here and there for a bit of interest. I'm hoping that more of the twinkle shows up than the orange. I do like the orange tbf. 

Anyway, it would be nice to cast this on as I wanted to wear it this summer, but I am realistic about my chances of achieving that now. I am, it has to be said, powering through season 3 of Bridgerton and if I just had the mental capacity to lift a pair of needles then I might be able to get started. As it is, I have spent much of my free time doing quick crosswords on the Guardian app and fastidiously playing my three favourite NYT games (Wordle, Connections, Tiles), and this includes while Bridgerton is on. I do like Birdgerton but it's not something that takes a lot of concentration. I also find myself really wanting to look up spoilers online because I can't wait to find out what happens at the end of the series, but I have decided I would be happy with either of the possible outcomes and so I am holding off. 

Has anything else happened this week? I gave blood on Wednesday, donation number 23 in 7 mins and 41 seconds (I hadn't drunk enough on Wednesday, really). On Friday night we went out to celebrate Father Z's birthday. I don't see enough of the Zs, I hadn't seen them since Christmas which is embarrassing as they live very close, but I remain perennially bad at families, how does one do them? Sometimes I think I might just pop in but would that be weird? What if they're busy? 

My favourite thing about this week has been the honeysuckle. We have a ramshackle garage next to the house, which isn't fit for much at all, but has proved to be a very supportive space for some honeysuckle, that grows wildly across both the front and back of it and is currently in full bloom. It's nice when I brush against it in the morning and it releases a bit of scent, but it's best in the evening when it's been under the sun all day - the smell is incredible. It doesn't last too long, so I've spent more time than usual sitting outside, appreciating it. 

And now I'm off for a swim in a quarry. 

2024 Weeknote 24

A busy week of exam board meeting this week. I headed up to Birmingham on Monday and didn't come home until Thursday. On arriving at the hotel, the desk clerk offered me an upgrade to a family room. 'It's just got an extra bed in it,' he said, when I looked doubtful. 'OK,' I replied, 'as long as it has a desk - I need a desk.'

The desk:

I went back downstairs to ask them to put the extra bed away but he transferred me to another extra-bed room where the sofa bed was merely blocking the hairdryer/mirror, so I concluded that this was a hotel where a number of rooms had sofa beds that could not be folded away (I did try) and just got on with it. I did my usual ritual of eating takeaway in bed on the second night. I had nice, sociable dinners out on the other nights. The meetings went very smoothly (I'm almost suspicious) and I was able to spend time reading and napping - in fact, the desk was not used at all. I can only hope that the rest of the marking period passes as smoothly, though I have already had to fire someone and it's only the second day. Sigh.

Work has been predictably busy as a result of my absence; on Monday, the inspectors were in to observe the trainee as part of their inspection of the university (therefore this was not about me at all, but still felt sort of like it was) and then, in my only lesson of the day, two years 7s had a physical fight. I think that is the first time that has ever happened, in over 20 years. One of them was moved out of the class the very next day. Friday was spent catching up on all the things I should have done while I was in Birmingham and then feeling sad about the student now moved to a different class, because teaching them is not the same without her. But it is clearly in everyone's best interests. 

I've got well into a new book, Connor Iggulden's Stormbirds which was given to me by a tutee 9 years ago and which has resided in the plastic box of books that time forgot in the garage since I changed jobs in 2016. It is extremely readable and I like it a lot. I have also flounced my way through season 2 of Bridgerton, having been shamed by the release of the third season ... I am very behind on all the popular shows.

This morning I went for my first swim in the harbour of 2024. They reckoned it was 16 degrees but I think it was a little warmer. Still quite murky. There were hardly any people there but it was ludicrously difficult to find out how to book a ticket and I wonder if they're deliberately not advertising it too widely. I dropped in at the best bakery on the way home and picked up one of their apricot soft-serves. Ice cream for breakfast is required during marking season.