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!