2026 Week 13

If I had to sum up this week with a gesture, it would be a gentle shrug and sideways look. It's definitely close to the end of term - lots of the country broke up on Friday for Easter, but we have another week - and I have been somewhat in retreat, possibly because of my weekend of intense nerding, which did not set me up for a well-rested and active week. Plus it was my busy work week. I really do not like this timetable week. Only (I think) two more of them and then the exam classes will drop off. 

I continued to read the House of Odysseus, a bit; listen to The Anxious Generation, a bit; knit the purple jumper, a bit. I saw a coursemate from Oxford who has just moved into a flat up the road from school, was interviewed by another coursemate for her research, and had a meeting with my supervisor, so it felt like quite an Oxfordy week. A pity there was not more Oxfordy work, I really need to get into some discipline on that and very soon. 

I went to the trendy glasses shops on Park Street, intending to get some huge and chunky new frames, but in the end I left without ordering; I don't wear my glasses much these days, having eased myself back into contact lenses that I use with reading glasses at work. I probably need to dip my toe into the world of varifocals but it seems like a lot of hassle. I keep thinking I should look at laser eye surgery...as if that would be less hassle. 

Some nice things: I finished the course with my A-level students, this is the earliest I have ever managed it. The older and slightly simple gentleman who I often see sitting at the bus stop near school, but have not seen for many months, was back in situ on Friday when I nipped out for my Friday coffee treat and we had a little catch up. All my royalties arrived for the second half of the financial year. I had a bit of a wardrobe clear out so almost everything fits in the wardrobe now. I made packing lists for April - I'm going on four trips, all to very different locations and for very different purposes, so it is wise to be well-planned in advance. 

Roll on the first of those trips, starting this Thursday night. Woo. 

2026 Week 12

It was only a four-day work week this week; we had Friday as a twilight inset day in respect of Eid, so I went to Oxford on Thursday night to wrestle with the dissertation. This was a very wise decision and I managed to make a great deal of progress, not necessarily on the writing but certainly on the planning, reading, getting to grips with qualitative research and generally beginning to feel like this is going to be achievable. I got up early enough on both days to get my very favourite Rad Cam seat, which is in a very sunny morning spot, keeping me warm and cheerful. I had intended to study in the education library on Saturday but then discovered it was closed; so I visited there later on Friday afternoon to beg a renewal of a book and view the famous magnolia that was the inspiration for the department logo. 

I bumped into a friend form the history teaching world while I was there, always a pleasure. I had dinner in college on Friday night and with a course friend, Lin, on Saturday - we went to the Perch, on the other side of Port Meadow, which was in flood and full of horses during the beautiful sunset, as we walked over there. The way back was a much darker story, we had to do some deft manoeuvring out of the paths of some horses and one tall specimen was stood resolutely in front of the foot gate so we had to climb over the big gate to get out. I think he might have been the same one hanging his head over the fence in the hopes of stealing someone's chips as we'd come in. 

Anyway. It was lovely to catch up with Lin. She lives in Singapore but is doing a PhD (or DPhil as Oxford prefer it) and is back in Oxford for this term as she needed to resubmit her research plan. We had a good chat. She helped me think about some work things. I had a tough meeting with the head on Thursday and I need to undertake a support plan. The trust suggest (apparently) that this is because I am too nice: I am not holding people accountable when they don't do what I tell them to do. I have felt a bit meh about this since the meeting because I don't want to be that person that is running around putting everyone else on support plans and making them feel grim. But Lin pointed out that I can hold more of a critical friend perspective. Not at all a bad idea. I just need to work out how to do it. 

Thinking again, of course, about just quitting. Maybe this is my sign. Another sign. I don't mind the support plan as it confirms my suspicion that I'm not very good at this job (yet). It also proves that I really can't do all the things at once and do them well. But I'd rather go out on a high. And I have got a ski trip to run next year. 

So, I managed to cram quite a lot into the four-day week. I ran a second round of MSc interviews, attended an interview about a certain infamous Bristolian whose statue is now missing for some UoB students who are making a documentary, went to an evening history lecture and saw some ex-students (lovely), ran a long afternoon webinar about assessment while a colleague delivered the training I'd planned for my own staff, rushed to Oxford for the evening coaching call even though I hadn't managed to do the work. Went to the sauna. Went to the gym but then left because I hadn't packed a t-shirt....I am definitely not hitting my gym goal this month but I am not really minding. Last Sunday I had the embarrassment of missing the bracket when I tried to rerack my weight at the end of the third set of bench press, when I had absolutely nothing left to force the weight back up, so I had to call on a young man for help. The shame. This is what I get for feeling smug when the man at yoga offered me a strap I didn't need. This small incident at the gym left my shoulder an neck feeling quite pulled for the week but that did mysteriously clear almost as soon as I'd finished my Thursday webinar, so perhaps there was some stress in there as well.

I've been getting on with knitting the new purple jumper, which is going fast. I finished watching Lord of the Flies: I loved the 70s cinematography. I finished reading my Alanna books and finally picked up some real books, Robert MacFarlane's Is A River Alive? and back to Claire North's House of Odysseus, which I tried and failed to get through last year but which is flowing much better now, although of course I can no longer remember the finer points of the relationships between all the characters. 

I've booked a ticket to see Robert MacFarlane speak in London in May. It's fantastically indulgent because I will just go to London for one evening. But he's written a new book about birds and I just couldn't resist. 

2026 Week 11

Well, I guess I didn't get round to coming back last week. Last weekend I had quite significant work to do for both my exam jobs and I was also trying to plan a two hour online workshop I'm delivering this Thursday - it has taken waaaaaaay longer than it should have done and is still not finished, but I am hoping I will be invited back to deliver it again, in which case, the work will already have been done. I squeezed in a trip to knitting group, a walk into Waterstones to collect the new Penguin Monarchs Henry VII which is FINALLY OUT (eight years after I bought its other Tudor companions) and a quick gym visit, but other than that was fairly tied to the computer. 

Like I said, I enjoyed it. I enjoy all of those things. But this week has been one of constant reaching for the weekend and yesterday I spent two hours dozing in the sun on the sofa and reading a teen fiction and it was very much needed. I'm glad that I seem to have reached a place of better understanding about my limits so I can be a bit kinder to myself and not wonder why I'm unable to continue working effectively later on in the day, but I wish I could reach a better understanding of how much I am capable of doing. I call it playing the long game, because all of the extras will be continue to be the paid employment I need when (if) I ever give up my main job, but...is it really the long game if I'm never going to do that, I wonder. 

I have been toying with the idea of telling my boss in September that it will be my last year, but also have it in the back of my mind that I won't have a degree to do alongside work next year and it might therefore be better. So, we will see. 

Reading. I bought the new Henry VII book, as above, plus a newish Robert McFarlane about rivers; then I went to the library and brought home two new novels from there. So, naturally, all week I have been reading the Alanna/Lioness Rampant series that I first read as a teenager. They are so easy to work through that I can manage it even after a very long work day but I do struggle to stop, eg on Sunday I stayed up past midnight finishing the 4th one (which I read first...don't at me), which action probably also holds some responsibility for the kink in my week. I do like the series but, as I get older, I find the extremely concertinaed timeline of the later books more problematic ('She's never come to terms with it,' says Alanna's servant, a mere 4 weeks after the seismic event upon which the entire series turns...I am still digesting things I ate 4 weeks ago). I also fear Ms Pierce might be a white supremacist. I am afraid to Google her, in case she is depicted at a fascist rally. The baddies in this series are almost all 'swarthy' or 'dark-skinned' while the whiteness of the goodies' skin is remarked upon often, and I never noticed it as a child. Perhaps she didn't either. Context of the time and all that. 

Watching. Having finished Under Salt Marsh, I was casting around for something equally engaging to watch and came across Task, which I powered through this week. I like an-episode-a-night but, when something is as good as Task, I get nostalgic for the bygone years of one episode a week. There's something in the wait, where you digest and turn over the episode in your mind while waiting for the next one, that enriches the whole experience. I can just barely amass the will-power to stick to one episode a night but do not have it in me to put it off for a week. 

Anyway. Task was one of those rare American dramas where the obvious clues that I always think are so obvious they're red herrings actually ARE red herrings, and the storyline is so complex that I have to spend some time thinking about how it all fits together (hence missing the wait) because it's not all laid out for me. Very definitely NOT two-screen TV and I had to rewind a few times when I forgot this and picked up my phone. Hence, very enjoyable. I very much appreciated that there was no clear good guy/bad guy line and that all the characters seemed to reside on both sides; that there was heavy, series finale energy in episode 6 but episode 7 brought more than just loose-end tying; that the sub-plot was really the main plot; that Martha Plimpton was in it, I LOVE her (all of the acting was superb, Mark Ruffalo especially, but I don't feel like Martha is in enough things so it was a real treat); and the birds. The scenery! I could have coped with a couple of the episodes being a minute longer if there had been bird-watching in that extra minute. This was a theme I felt was a bit under-developed, as a huge fan of birds. 

Knitting. I finished the watermelon cowl, I had it in mind to do a separate post about that, maybe I will. I started knitting a new version of this jumper in the purple yarn I bought at Wonderwool in 2017 - the watermelon gradient was also from 2017, coincidentally. Once it's used up, I will just be left with the cake from Pook and some linen I took out of Jenny's destash left to knit, from the 2017 haul. I might put Jenny's destash into my destash for this Wonderwool. I didn't realise it but I bought something very similar in 2024 and knitted that tank top out of it last summer. 

The new jumper is going quite well, I went up a needle size from the 2013 version because I've never been completely happy with how the neck lies on the original and I'd like a boxier fit; but this may turn out to be a huge mistake because the point of knitting this one in particular is because I can get a whole jumper out of 4 skeins of DK and I may not be able to do that on a bigger needle. BUT I had to significantly lengthen the original sweater so it wasn't midriff-exposing, suggesting my row gauge was off, so maybe it will work out. Otherwise it's going to be a midriff-exposing sweater, good for wearing over dresses. 

I've found it hard to get back to the gym in the same routine I was pre-skiing, maybe because I'm not preparing for skiing anymore, so I have only been once since half term (I'll be going again shortly), but I have found a Hotpod Yoga class I like. I am one the fence about the pod itself, it's a very noisy tent with all the blowers going and the ceiling is quite low; but I came along to a nurturing flow last week and liked it so much I rebooked for this week. It's a bit annoying that it's only 45 minutes but priced the same as an hour class, and I have to add nearly a fiver onto that for parking, but it was a very comforting and coddling way to end the week. Last week we were told we'd need a strap but, when it came to it, I did not need a strap as I can reach my toes in pretty much any forward-bending position (I think this is because I have a long body and short legs but my PT insists I have unusually flexible hamstrings so it's probably a bit of both, right?) The man next to me tried to give me his strap and I had to tell him I didn't need it, which was gratifying. 

A new hot yoga place has opened up the hill from work, where parking is not guaranteed but is free. I might check it out. I do still sorely miss bikram. 

2026 Week 10

It's been a very worky weekend, but I have enjoyed it.  

It hasn't left much time for blogging, though. Hopefully I will come back and update - my knitting progress, my new books, my TV watching and my return to hot yoga. 

2026 Week 9

"A whole week of holiday! It has felt longer than a week. We crammed a lot in."

Above is the single line I found of my update for Week 8 when I came back to blog today. Clearly got distracted, so I will make this as quick as I can. 

A busy work week, leading inset day on Monday and then some more training after school on Thursday, so the whole week was one of feeling tense and on the back foot. I was also, at least for the first two nights, absolutely exhausted, going to bed at 9.30 on Monday night, unable to keep my eyes open, and not much later on Tuesday, having fallen asleep on the sofa. I did give blood on Monday night which, combined with a busy half term and aforementioned tension, probably created the perfect narcoleptic storm, but it was not at all useful for getting All The Things done for work. Still. I muddled through. 

I got to leave at breaktime on Friday and fly to Edinburgh to see Jen and the fam for the first time in over three years: a horrifying amount of time has passed and her oldest is now nearly learning to drive. I feel like I think about my age and aging more than is normal but this really makes me appalled about how much time has passed. 

Anyway. It was a mess up by easyJet that had me out of school so early, they apparently changed my flight time from 5.40pm to 1.40pm, though the original flight still seemed to be operating so I am a bit annoyed about that, they clearly resold my original ticket for more money. Luckily I didn't have to miss any lessons so I was in the pub with Jen by 3.30. A very pleasing start to the weekend. 

On Saturday, we went for a chilly walk around South Queensferry (very bourgie, I can definitely see a yarn shop doing well there) and then went to see Here and Now, the Steps musical, in the evening. It was really, really Steps, in every way you might imagine. Loads of fun and all the hits, plus a mega mix at the end that got the whole balcony moving, an experience I haven't felt since Rocky Horror. 

Today, we went for a wander to the Scottish version of The Wave, a huge surfing complex that has opened in the quarry just behind Jen's house. And then I flew home. I decided to shell out for easyJet Plus membership when I realised I had seven flights booked with them: adding hand luggage and booking a seat on all of them cost more than the cost of membership, without considering any of the other benefits, so I went for it. This got me through fast track security at Edinburgh, so I was at my gate roughly 10 minutes after being dropped off. I know everyone hates the speedy boarders but I can't be sorry about it. 

I've been ploughing through The Raven's Head by Karen Maitland, suitably creepy; and I got through all of Under Salt Marsh. I was very put out when I got to the end of episode 5 on Thursday and realised there was another one to be released, I had to wait until today to watch it, but it was worth the wait. I enjoyed it a lot. 

I've been trying to finish the watermelon brioche cowl that I started knitting ages ago but it is just not very compelling. I need to have something fun and easy to knit next, a DK jumper or something that I can knit without looking at and will feel the need to complete before the Iceland trip in April. 

Spent much of the evening plotting a little trip to the German Christmas markets. I am getting the holidays stacked up this year, dreaming of life after the Masters. 

Scenes from Gare de Lyon

We wait for the lift. We've been waiting a few minutes. It's quite bleak in the vestibule and a French couple are waiting behind us. 

The doors open: a family with a buggy and luggage, a man at the back. Nobody moves. The man at the back tries to exit but the man in front of him is not interested in moving. He says, in English, 'Well I can't get out, you'll have to wait.' The man behind him gently protests, in French-accented English, to no avail. A few seconds of muttering ensue. 

The doors close on this unfortunate tableau.

Moments later, they reopen. Frustrated Frenchman tries again to leave, Rude Englishman tells him he 'should have taken the fucking escalator'. Something in me goes ping. 

Me: oh do you need help! Please, let me help! *rushes forward and grabs suitcase and huge bag of pampers from Rude Man before he can react*

Rude Man: I don't want to get out

Me: I know you don't, but he does

Rude Man: Well he could have taken the fucking escalator

Me: And you could be less rude

Surprisingly, this cows Rude Man, who retrieves his belongings and gets back in the lift. In the brief interim, Frenchman has exited, so all seems well. The doors close on him and his stoic wife and children. 

Moments later, the doors open again. Rude Man's humiliation deepens and he repeatedly and helplessly jabs the button for the floor he is on. 'There are only two levels,' I say, 'the one you came from and this one'. 'But there are three buttons!' he replies. He's not wrong, but it is quite clear that this is the floor they are meant to be on. They exit the lift. He stalks away, muttering 'Go fuck yourself' at me, but quietly, and from a distance. His wife and children follow.

'Have a great day!' I call after him. We laugh. The French couple laugh. We all board the lift and get on with our days. 

The only trouble with exchanges like this is, I fear he will be utterly horrible to his wife and children for the rest of the day.

Also, one day I'm going to get punched.

2026 Week 7

A little late but I am on holiday, let me off. 

The last week of term flew by in a predictably swift way. I managed to power through quite a lot of marking, peaking on Wednesday, when I finished marking my Y13 mocks in time to give them back before the end of term. This was an utter triumph but marked the end of my productivity on this front, which is why I was marking GCSE mocks on the train from Paris to Oulx on Sunday. On Thursday, I allowed myself a swift stomp down to Farro as I was just staring at the wall, intellectually paralysed; happily, their blood orange and chocolate Danish, combined with the walk, managed to kick me into some sort of working mood so I did get some things planned. I'd be happier if I'd got more done but, then, wouldn't that just mean I would have thought of other things that needed doing?

Not much happened by way of leisure. I went to the gym, to yoga and to see my PT, but I skipped the sauna as I was meant to be giving blood, which in the end I had to postpone, on account of having had a bit of a cold the previous week. Annoying. 

I ordered a new ski boot bag and spent two evenings lovingly rearranging things within it. Packing for skiing was harder than usual, I was just very unsure about what I would need, and being on the train meant I didn't have to limit myself, so naturally I overpacked. 

I was verily glued to the Winter Olympics on the TV, enjoying a lot of things but particularly the snowboard cross and the figure skating. I might be the only person in the world who doesn't like Ilia Mallinin. Reading-wise, I pulled out two teen novels that are such easy reads - The Fortunate Few by Tim Kennemore and Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce, reading both in the space of a week because I know them both extremely well. It's comforting to go back to old favourites. It must nearly be time for the The Dark Is Rising reread. 

On Saturday, Rachael and I started our journey to skiing. We spent Saturday afternoon wandering around Paris and had a nice dinner that involved French onion soup (a must for me). On Sunday, we hung out at Gare de Lyon most of the day as their left luggage was taking only cash and, even then, only coins...who has 25 euros in coins, I had to wonder. There was an incident with a rude man but I will write separately about that as I wrote the story down on my phone immediately afterwards, for blogging purposes. 

Our onward journey to Oulx was slightly marred by the fact that our seats had been taken by some schoolchildren and we were escorted to what seemed, to me, to be very inferior seats; but then, it was probably better than being in the middle of a carriage of schoolchildren. That carriage smelled pretty awful when we went to retrieve our luggage, 5 hours later. 

We were also delayed and missed the last bus to our accommodation and, it turned out, Italy doesn't really do taxis in its ski resorts on a Sunday night. After half an hour of ringing every number I could find, one of the pre-booked drivers took pity on us and ran us up the mountain, thankfully. Just as we arrived, it started to snow, and it hasn't really stopped until this afternoon. Dreamy. 

More ski news in next week's update.