2019: Part 4

October:
Now fully back into the swing of things at work, in spite of this, October had some nice events. The very first day was a trip to Drudle Door, in my new role as Head of Geog. And excellent reason to have that job.

Mr Z and I spent the second weekend of the month camping with the DofE crowd. My group gave me additional grey hairs; his were a dream, of course. It was fine all day but then rained all night, and it turns out that our silly festival tent from several years ago isn't waterproof, as we discovered at 3am. Mr Z considered going outside to put the gazebo up over the tent but I convinced him to just throw the tarp over our sleeping bag and we'd go back to sleep, a decision I regretted an hour later, when he turned over, disturbing the tarp, and I got a faceful of freezing rainwater. This whole drama played out to the accompaniment of a thumping drum'n'bass soundtrack, courtesy of some party somewhere distant, that went on until 8am. It wasn't what you'd call a relaxing night of camping, tbh.

The following weekend was much more pleasant, as I went off to Devon on Thursday night, spoke at an inset on Friday, spent two nights with my old friend Amanda and went to a party in honour of one of her friends, drove around Dartmoor for a bit getting lost and watching the rain and met my friend Caroline and saw her new house. A very pleasant time. Then it was back for an exam board meeting...less nice, but then less than a week to half term.

I spent the first weekend of half term in London, attending a nerdy teacher event on the Saturday, doing a nerdy history visit to Elizabeth I's lost dress at Hampton Court on the Sunday, and combining the two for a nerdy history teacher event on the Monday, which was a focus group, for which I was paid. A lovely little break, that was.

(Lost dress just about visible in the background)

At the end of half term I spent some time recording a new podcast I've launched with another nerdy history teacher. So far it seems popular.


November:
I blogged so much in November, you must be bored of hearing about it. It was a relatively quiet month. There was knitting. There was working. I gave blood. I played Trump in the silly staff play. I went to Friday club a couple of times, for a change. I mostly worried about how I would make it through a busy December, and tried to prepare.


December:
What a whirlwind the month has been! Even if I hadn't made the decision to gracefully fail to meet my target of 127 posts for the year, I don't think I would have made it.

The month started with the ubiquitous visit to the Bath Christmas markets with Caroline and Vikki. Mulled wine was quaffed. Puddings were bought. Dinner was eaten. Work was complained about. All pretty standard.

Also in this week I had a ski meeting and a hustings at school, and then at the weekend I flew off to see Jen in Edinburgh, where I promptly came down with a cold and spent most of the weekend wanting to be asleep. Not a good way to start yet another eye-wateringly busy week, this one ending in a mentor meeting at the uni on election day, the carol service, a sad, empty, post-election mood and a visit to Hampton Court with 50 lovely students...

(felt like this though)

...and then a catch up with Sib and Sib-in-law (so pregnant she almost couldn't walk), a hair cut, some Christmas shopping and a really fun party in Twickenham to celebrate Burhan's birthday, at which I took no pictures because there were too many interesting people to talk to. 

And then it was week 3 which was just as frantic but only filled with nice things, really. Monday night was Christmas evening in with Kath and Jo. Tuesday night was the work Christmas do...

...Caribbean buffet and all the rum punch we could drink. Winner. Then skiing!

With lots of cheese.

And then back for Christmas.

And since then it's just been sitting around, relaxing, trying not to think about the work I need to do. The new niece has been born and I'm off to Belfast for the first weekend of 2020, but then London for the second weekend, to meet her. Happy New Year, everyone!

(Yes, I fully cheated and wrote this after new year, but it's my blog, so...)

2019: Part 3

Time for the picture heavy months...

July:
As per usual, I hurtled into the end of term feeling completely unprepared for the holiday. We appointed a new history teacher - my first choice, hurrah. We waved goodbye to some beloved colleagues; I did a song and dance to C'est La Vie by B*witched in front of the whole staff. A classic moment. I went to Leeds for the history conference as usual, but this year it didn't coincide with the end of term boat party, which meant I was able to go, drink and be merry.

Bye bye Naomi, you are missed.

The rest of the month involved a few fun things: a party at Naomi's to drink her leftover booze, a trip to Highclere for a picnic and a nose around Downton Abbey...

And we adopted this little pair of snuggers. So cute. They are so much bigger now, obvs. 

I also went back to London to finish off my teaching fellowship: it was great to catch up with the other people taking part. There was lots of exam work too, naturally.

Mr Z and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary at the Pig near Bath. A fantastic meal, definitely recommended.

August:
I began the month with a birthday barbecue, on a Monday, not really considering that most of the people I'd invited (the family Z) were working the next day. Fun was had regardless. The next day, Mother Hand and I flew to Copenhagen for a little break. It was beautiful, expensive, not hot and very welcoming. I went and did yoga outside the hothouse in the botanic gardens. We ate lots of delicious Scandinavian-style breads and meatballs. I knitted and read a lot.

This was definitely my favourite Copenhagen statue. I mean...what one earth is going on?

This building houses the crown jewels but I put a picture of it on Facebook and said it was our AirBnB and some people believed me, awks.

No sooner had I returned from northern Europe, I flew to southern Europe with Zoe. That holiday could best be summed up with these pictures -

We swam in the sea, ordered cocktails on the private beach, went to the spa, explored the island a bit, went on some boat trips, jumped off the boat and generally had a very relaxing time. The weather was predictably glorious and I reflected that I hadn't spent time just sitting on a beach not doing anything for a number of years too large to remember. It was a tonic, even if I did have to do little bits of work while I was there. Already looking forward to our next one....hopefully Costa Rica in the summer.

August ended with the Downs festival. My friend Lizzy took my extra ticket and we went to see Neneh Cherry, Grace Jones and Lauryn Hill perform. We also went on the chair-o-planes. A fantastic end to the summer.

Grace Jones, bionic woman. She was incredible.

September:
September began with a trip to Portsmouth to see Mother Hand getting baptised in the sea, and then school began again. I had to leave my school to do some training at our sister school for part of the first day, for which I had to wear formal dress - UGH. I am still bitter about it. In the end I just put a jacket and some heels with a playsuit and called it formal, I think I got away with it.

Then we were into the new term maelstrom so not much happened for the rest of the month. I went to see David Olusoga speak at the Gloucester History festival with Charlotte and Marianne...

Truth, he nearly fell on me coming around the desk to take this picture with me. So close.

There was another Flock gathering. Another nerdy history group meeting. I submitted some more papers to the exam board (I do NOT like it when this process is timed to coincide with the start of the school year). My pictures reveal that I fell over running for a bus, which I do remember but I can't remember why I was out late on a Monday night - very curious. I guess we'll never know.

2019: Part 2

April:
April was lots of fun. It started in London with a teaching fellowship, at which I met lots of lovely people and was able to really immerse myself in the teaching of a particular topic. Loved the geeking out and the amazing input we had from academics, as well as the Caribbean food we were treated to.

From there I went to see Zoe, staying at her place for the first time (long story), going for a wander around the Tate Modern and booking a summer holiday to Malta. Then I had a few days at home before it was back up to London for flying away on a free teacher trip to Alabama - undoubtedly the freebie of the decade. The tour company who took us has launched a new trip there and wanted reviewers. It was just a quickie - Saturday to Tuesday - but we packed in loads of stuff around Birmingham and Montgomery, and I am desperate to get a school trip out there, if only I could convince the senior team that I'm not taking on too much. I knew two of the people on the trip already and the other two have become friends. It's become trite to say one is 'so blessed' but, really, I am.

I mean...this is Martin Luther King's pulpit, for crying out loud. For a history teacher, it rarely gets this good.

The month closed, as always, with another trip to Wonderwool, staying in a bunkhouse with fantastic views and hanging out with the usual lovely bunch of people, plus a few newbie lovely people.

The installation this year was gulls.

Yep, April was a good month.

May:
The first few weeks of May were overtaken by the sprint to the exams. There were a few 'drinks after work' nights out and, in the last week of the term, some momentous news from some colleagues that they were moving on that has had a big impact on my working life this year. I waved goodbye to three teaching groups. We bought a new table and chairs at home. I managed to get somebody round to quote for building in the understairs furniture.

In half term, Mother Hand and I went back to the same spa hotel we visited the previous October, only this time I remembered to book the tour of the Bombay Sapphire distillery. It was a relaxing couple of days.

Then it was back to Bristol for a trip to the Caribbean restaurant and some cocktails. Naomi was an excellent events organiser and I miss her ability to pick a date and get everybody to agree to it. I've certainly had a lot more nights out since I started working in Bristol.

June:
After the fun and laughter of April and May, June was a bit of a bump back down to earth, as the exam machine rolled into action. It was a lot better than 2018, I have to say, which is just as well - 2018 made me considerably greyer and I'm not convinced I could have coped with another summer like it. 2019 was my year to be completely slated by my peers on social media for asking questions they didn't like (of course they didn't know it was me, but I took to reading the comments with a large glass of wine as my evening's entertainment). I managed to get a hotel with a swimming pool for the meetings and went swimming first thing every morning, which certainly improved my mood. And I took all my assistants to see Six.

At the end of the month it was the usual school prom shenanigans and summer fayre. I invited some teachers for interview at the start of July. Naomi got a job and my role for this academic year changed accordingly - hello, head of geography. The term wound down. The year was half over.

2019: Part 1

January:
The year began in Vegas, making a Boston Cream Pie for my step-sib Alex and hanging out with Max for what would be, as it turned out, the last time, since he sadly woofed his last in the autumn.

The rest of January seems to have been fairly uneventful. I went to London for the usual history meeting. We had the usual Bristol history meeting. There was a night out with Naomi, Rachael and Xanna for pho and cocktails which ended in Hotel du Vin with us sharing an enormous cigar - this seemed wise at the time but I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest the next day. Mr Z smoked things in his new smoker. I ran a successful history pub quiz with my friend Rich. We packed out the pub, even though we made it fiendishly difficult.

February:
As all good Februarys do, this one began with a snow day - bliss - and I didn't have to spend the whole of it chained to my computer, writing a book - double bliss. I did have other jobs to do but they weren't quite so onerous. I am absolutely determined to stop saying yes to things next year. Even my line manager has suggested I should stop putting my hand up.

I went back to London for some training and at some point out for cocktails at Browns with Jo, Ali and Kath. Then it was time for SKIING again!

This year we stayed in St Martin am Tennengebirge and skied in the Gosau region. The town has its own, deserted nursery slope, were we spent the first and last day (the last day it rained so it was quite miserable). Notable moments included falling off the t-bar with Rachael and having to roll over the off-piste to get back; the bus breaking down and having to get the public bus; Ruby's Stella McCartney ski suit and losing her phone; the infamous swimming pool incident that almost led to a phone call to the police; having Carl and Rhys as our drivers again; getting stuck in a tunnel on the way back because there was a fire on top of it; Alex being too ill to ski one day; and the tubing. The tubing was amazing! So much fun.



I honestly cannot remember a time when I have ever screamed like that but it was definitely required.

February after skiing was a little flat, as usual.

March:
March was a good month for parties. It started in the pub with an ex-colleague, Emily, back visiting from Canada. Then there was Rachael's house-warming party, which produced a 10-year drunk for me - I danced so much my skirt literally fell off; I was very sick; I fell asleep on the bathroom floor; I stumbled back to Naomi's and was sick there too; I had something approaching a hangover the next day (I don't really get hangovers). I also visited Sheffield and went to a Take That tribute band with Jen and her friends. Sadly did not drink enough to make that enjoyable.

I also presented at a big conference towards the end of the month, whilst in Sheffield, on the theme of diversity in the curriculum, which made me more nervous than I can ever remember being before. Plus I went to a superb lecture by Professor Hazel Carby and the Matthew Bourne production of Swan Lake, so it wasn't all raucous drinking.

A fair amount of raucous drinking was done, though. Go me.

2018: Part 4

October:

The first part of October was pretty miserable, although I managed a weekend away in Portsmouth to celebrate my friend Zoe's birthday. We went clubbing. I wore false eyelashes. It was fun.

The rest of it was just the grind of work. I really struggled, particularly with the last few days - thank goodness we broke up on a Wednesday. I went straight off to Hampshire for a mini spa break with Mother Hand and that sorted me right out.

Most of half term was spent doing housey things. Chutney. Knitting. Picking curtain fabric. I went to Wells to have lunch with my old work friend Kaff and we had a wander around the outside of the cathedral. An impressive place.

November:

I started the month by heading back to Llandudno for the final day of my internship. I went for an extra day (just as well, since there are no trains to Llandudno on Sundays in the winter) and visited Conwy Castle and the Tudor house, and had dinner at Dylan's with the other trainers. Good fun.

It was great to be back at the school and see how excited they were to share what they'd been doing.

After the work excesses of the previous months, November felt like a rest. Exam board work abated, finally, for the first time since May, although I still had to write some training and record a feedback event (very weird, speaking into a microphone at my computer non-stop for 60 minutes). I ran a training event for some primary teachers in a sister school, visited another sister school with a view to supporting them, went to another history lecture and generally tried to catch up on a term's worth of neglect in my department. I think I managed it.

I went to the opening of the Bath Christmas markets with my old colleagues, as usual, and to the English national Ballet performing Swan Lake with Parpy Jo. I went to see Six in Southampton with my friend Vanessa and had dinner with my old colleague Paul. And right at the end of the month, the new sofas arrived. Win!

December:

The wind down to Christmas began with a visit to Hampton Court with year 11 - a wonderful day, in spite of the torrential rain we had at the start. My first PGCE student in years, George, finished his first placement and I met the second one, Sonia, who will join me after Christmas, thus making my department a little less lonely. We had a Team Hums night out painting pottery, and a staff Christmas night out drinking (apparently) cocktails. You know all this because I've been frantically over-sharing for the past couple of months, so I won't go into too much detail.

I posted this clip of me making a snow angel in Pritt sticks on Twitter and it got over 150 likes. Weird.


After breaking up for Christmas, I did my best to clear the decks of work but failed miserably. Mother Hand came to stay on the Friday and we spent Christmas at Sib Z's. Then, on Boxing Day, we flew off the Vegas (thankfully out of Heathrow - no mysterious holiday-ruining drone for us). And I think you're all caught up on what we've been doing here, as I frantically over-share right up to the wire to get my 127 posts. I think I need to let it go now I have reached 10 years of having the same post count. Well, I either need to let it go or do it properly and post all year. If I did a week note every week of the year and blogged every day in November I'd be at 80ish posts without even trying. I think I remind myself of this every year.

So, how was 2018? Well, busy. I'm always saying it's a busy year. This year has been busy to an entirely new degree. I was excited to think I could make the exam board work my only work, since they were paying me like a (not terribly well-paid but well enough) full-time job, but it never occurred to me that that was because they were asking me to work the hours of a full-time job, only in the space of 4 months, while working another full-time job. The learning curve was steep. There wasn't a lot of time for myself or for Mr Z. I think it will be better in 2020, as long as I can be a little better organised, but who knows? I suspect I'll be back here writing a similar thing this time next year.

But there you go! This was all exactly what I wanted, career wise. It has been good, though educational, to spend this year doing.

2018: Part 3

July:

I started the month hot-footing it up to Leeds for the usual conference, which was a lot of fun as usual, although this year my workshop clashed with England in the World Cup quarter finals, sigh.  From there I went to see Jen and Ben in Sheffield for a boozy barbecue school night and then drove to Manchester to staff an assessment centre for a few days. The folks there were weirdly deferential. In some ways, the job I do does demand that deference I guess, but it is still really weird.

Anyway, I stayed with my old boss Nigel in his lovely flat with gorgeous views and drove home during the World Cup semi-final that England played, so I had the roads almost to myself. It was good to reap some rewards this time round.

While I was away, the new floor was laid downstairs. I love, love, love it.

The rest of July was really just work. More work. Lots of work. So much work. It was neverending. I was supposed to be going to London for the very final workday on the last Saturday of the month but that deadline came and went. I was sad, because I had to miss another Uncomfortable Art Tour (the one I'd tried to go on in June was cancelled due to the Portrait Gallery changing their opening hours without notice). I was pretty sick of work by this point. I even went into school for a couple of days and did preparation work for this academic year, just for some variety. I've never done that before. TBF, it has helped this year go more smoothly.

I did make it over the Bradford on Avon to have a nice lunch with Caroline, my old work friend. I also went for a lovely dinner at The Bull on Whiteladies Rd with Mr Z, to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. So, yknow. Bits of July were OK.

August:

In the first week of the month, I took a bus trip to London for the evening for a lecture on Columbus and colonialism, which I saw with my friend Burhan. He thought I was mental for going there and back in a day, and he may have had a point, but the National Express ticket was less than £15 so it seemed doable.

We were, of course, still in the middle of a heatwave at this point, so I got myself a little paddling pool and started doing more of this:

The first weekend in August was a big birthday for me. I had a party. Much gin and much joy. No pictures to speak of. Jen and Ben came down to stay with their daughters and the next day I made everybody pancakes before we waved them off. It was a really fun party, even if more than half the people I invited were on holiday at the time.

Shortly after my birthday, Mr Z and I jetted off the southern Italy, where we stayed in a tiny apartment in Lecce and spent most of our time avoiding the heat. We did go to the beach one day. Stupidly, neither of us put on sun cream (in our defence, we were under a sun umbrella the whole time, but it didn't help). The rest of the holiday was spent trying to find an effective after sun for Mr Z.

I know it looks like I'm in the sun, but it was just for the picture.

On returning from Italy, I spent one night in the Gatwick Premier Inn and then jetted off to southern France with Zoe, where we stayed in a tiny apartment in Montpellier (are you sensing a theme?) Zoe is an extremely organised traveller and managed to cram a lot into our few days. I liked the beach club a lot but was sorry there were no sun loungers for us after we'd eaten lunch. We ended up sheltering in a shadow of another beach club, in a spot that smelled strongly of garbage. Not exactly French Riviera. But it was beautiful.

This water was not warm. Not even a bit. 

When I got back it was results day and I had a mini book party with work friends. My book was published at the start of August. Hurrah, hurrah!

I spent the last week of the holidays doing housey things (finally got the piano tuned after 17 years....he had to hit it with a hammer) and gallivanting. I went to Portsmouth for a few days first. Mother Hand and I went and contributed to the lego Tudor painting that Mary Rose were putting together.

We also went out for a really good curry dinner as a belated birthday treat.

Then I went off to London for a couple of days to get a hair cut and do some sight seeing. Burhan and I FINALLY made it on an Uncomfortable Art Tour, which proved worth the wait. I went and had a nose around St James's Palace and had afternoon tea at the V&A. Zoe and I went to the Frida Kahlo exhibition there and then went and ate some very good pizza afterwards. It was the perfect way to wrap up the summer holidays.

Quite pleased to see that I fitted a lot in to August. It didn't feel like much of a break. The re-marks soon started rolling in.

September:

School started again. My third year. There were various school-related things and the crushing weight of hundreds of re-marks - not more than usual in general, but double the amount I've usually done. I assumed everybody was being allocated them equally. Turns out, I was getting them all. Ugh.

Our new drinks-cabinet-of-dreams arrived and we very much enjoyed filling it full of all our booze.

The gin remains on the piano, for now. Even this massive cabinet couldn't contain all the gin. 

In the third week of the month I went off the Llandudno for the internship that represented the final part of the course I did back in January. It is a gorgeous place and I fell in love with it a bit. I'd love to go back for a little summer break. Maybe next July. I reckon I could sneak off there with a laptop and the exam board wouldn't even notice I wasn't at home. 

 The final weekend of the month was spent at a Tudors workshop in Oxford with some lovely people, and seeing Six for the first time. I am utterly hooked, it was amazing. So spot-on historically (the lyricist has a history degree, so....) and very sharp and funny. They request photograph taking in the final number.

The last day on the month I spent hanging out with my old friend Stu, wandering around Stanborough lakes, for a proper kick of nostalgia. I hadn't seen Stu since we went skiing together in 2011. But luckily, thanks to social media, it didn't feel like that long. It's definitely easier to keep up with people nowadays.

Well! This has been a marathon post. Expect a slightly briefer one for the final installment because I've been doing weeknotes all through the final three months in a desperate, transparent attempt to get me up to 127 posts. Whisper it quietly but, I think I'm gonna make it.