Tuesday

It has all turned topsy turvy again, weather wise.  After a very cold weekend followed by a milder Monday with rain, it has turned cold again and there's quite a frost out there.  I suppose that's about right for December and I remember when I were a lass t'was cold and frosty every day!

An interesting day yesterday.  As I said, I was out of class for interviews.  I do enjoy interviewing when I'm on the asking side!  It's only recently, as a senior management team member that I have been involved in this sort of thing and it's good.  There was stuff to sort out after the interviews were over so it was a pretty busy day all round.

Today is 'disrupted'.  There's all the adevnt stuff from Saturday to do, two ecards to open and read, songs to practice, a dance practice after play and then, in the afternoon, the first full run through.  We will be worn out by the end of the day.  I guess I will be able to fit in phonics and maybe a little bit of literacy or maths, but that's all.

And I must remember to make crowns for the kings!!

More Saturday

Would you believe, it is only three forty-five and I have closed the curtains to shut out the damp and gloom.  It's not dark but it's dark enough for me not to want to see it.  Not yet four o'clock!!
It's been a wet day and no mistake.  Fortunately we've not had an awful lot of wind, thank goodness, but it started raining around ten this morning and it really hasn't let up since.  I drove into town to get a few bits and bobs in Staples and there was a lot of lying water.

Still - I've been a good girl and done a lot of work.  I've worked out the numbers of programmes for each show (not so easy when you realise it's two programmes per family and three shows) using what seemed like a fiendishly complicated use of percentages to make sure it was all completely fair.
I've written the letter explaining how the ticket system works with several reminders about Not Losing Your Ticket As There Are No Substitutes and Yes, It's OK To Swap, etc.
I haven't written the letter about How To Order Your Copy Of The Performance On DVD, because I don't have all the info yet.
I've photocopied enough of everything and I've even sorted it all out into year groups.  Yes, I've been into school (via the library) and it wasn't half chilly!
And now I'm home with a wee bit of alcoholic reward for a job (several, in fact) well done (I hope).  And I feel I deserve it.  One thing's for sure, I won't sleep badly tonight.

It's odd, all the overnight fretting about numbers and chairs and room for filming and so on and when I actually sat down and worked out the numbers properly it wasn't too bad at all.  Yes, we will have to nick - er, I mean borrow - some chairs from somewhere in the school (probably year 5 or year 6) on Monday for the daytime performance; yes, the specially ordered and personalised stickers, intended to stop programme copying (yes, it does happen, I said they were like gold dust, didn't I) haven't come yet, but there's time and a way round that, if necessary.

And now I can look forward to our Christmas Staff Meeting on Monday with the feeling that I have everything more or less under control.  I've written the agenda, I've bought mulled wine, white wine, fruit juice, nibbles and stuff to make mini star-topped mince pies, I've sorted out my Christmas CDs . . . and if that doesn't satisfy my lovely colleagues, nothing will. 
No, I absolutely REFUSE to do the whole lot myself, so there!!! (just in case any of them are reading)

Now just wondering what I haven't thought of  or where my mathematical thinking has gone wrong (as it often does, me being mildly dyscalculic) - but not enough to cause sleeplessness! 

I hope!

A totally unconnected photo of an ornamental cabbage type thingy that was in a little bouquet given to me last weekend - and just after I took the photo nearly all the leaves dropped off.

Saturday

I know it IS Saturday but it feels just like Sunday and I am feeling an irrational sense of panic regarding all the things I should have done before Sunday (hope that makes sense). Today is going to be busy, busy, busy.

 I had the strangest night.  Apart from anything else, at one point I wondered if I was going down with The Bug, with some tummy cramps, but no, thankfully not!  But the biggest thing was that all the arrangements I have to organise for the Christmas Show kept buzzing around and around inside my head and, in the middle of the night, one is not with it enough to rationalise them.  SO it was doze, wake, doze, wake all night.  Not very pleasant and I shall be napping later on, for sure.
There's so much to do prior to our big Christmas meeting on Monday after school - we infants always meet together to make the background, allocate the programmes, etc and we have mulled wine, nibbles and Christmas music playing in the background.  Very pleasant but it takes some organising, especially when one is teaching all afternoon.

Allocating tickets is going to be a problem.  They are like gold dust in out school community.  For the first time ever we are doing three performances, one in the daytime, the other two after school at 6:00.  Each family gets two tickets.  It's going to be complicated, even if it was just that.  The complication is compounded because we were expecting the daytime show to be filmed so were going to have fewer people in the audience which was fine because we don't have that many spare chairs.  However, the company got muddled and are now coming to film on Wednesday evening which means fewer tickets given out for that show (because of space) and correspondingly more for Monday (for whom we have no chairs).  Aaarrgggghhhh!
And of course there's the usual 'will everyone be ready, will they know their dances, will they know the words, will we have snowdays?' worries that are par for the course.

Hence the somewhat interrupted night!

I took this several days ago but thought it a very appropriate addition to this particular blog entry!