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.