Tuesday

Back to school.  Long weekends are very nice and perhaps, as a lead in to retirement, at some point I might think about going down to four days of teaching rather than five.  Our senior management seems very receptive to that sort of approach, recognising that a happy teacher is likely to be a better teacher and to give more to the job, I guess.  Something to ponder on anyway.

It's still  raining!  Not hard, but steadily, and everything is dismally dripping down onto the already saturated ground.  It's Tuesday, so my playground duty day: I just hope it's not too nasty by playtime.  I suppose it has to clear up at some point and we do still need the rain, if only to water those gardens affected by the hosepipe ban.  It's not really the purely or mainly ornamental gardens like mine I'm thinking of here.  I know of several families who are financially fairly dependent on produce they grow to eat in their garden or allotment and to have to watch these shrivel up and die or to spend hours they cannot really spare with a watering can must be a real problem.  Life is so fast and furious nowadays, paid employment sucks in so many extra hours, that the gentle, slow activity of filling a watering can and watching the sparkling droplets landing on the soil seems a lifetime away.
No problems that way right now anyway!

Yesterday was pleasant.  I didn't do much really - just a bit of this and a bit of that.  Very lazy really.  Back on the working wagon today!

Saturday

Not exactly a restful day today but it will be very pleasant.  Nearly all the family are converging in Chelmsford for a nice lunch together.  It's going to be great!

Yesterday was so busy I didn't have time to feel my usual Friday afternoon tiredness.  Plenty of paperwork to be getting on with, three meetings and then more paperwork as a result of that meeting.  Next Friday will be no better - two meetings with 'outside agencies' - people from various support services assigned to a particular child - with resulting paperwork attached.  Stll, it keeps me out of trouble, doesn't it?

It's still raining.  Not right now but on and off.  Yesterday we got lucky.  They got all their playtimes fore and aft and it didn't rain at the beginning and end of school either.  Plenty in between times though, some very hard.  Proper April showers and no mistake!  No need to use the hosepipe although, in fact, we don't have a ban around here, much to everyone's surprise.  I'm really not sure why not but there you go!

My grafted tomatoes have arrive.  Titchy little plug plants that I need to get into pots this morning and then keep indoors (on the window ledge, I guess) until frost danger time has passed, whenever that will be.  It's still jolly cold at night but because of the cloud cover there's been no frost.  I wouldn't like to bet on the chances of no more frost this spring though.

Well, better get going.  There's a house to dust and sweep!