Monday morning

Guess what!  It's raining - what a surprise!  A wonderful start to the second half of the so-called summer term!  Yesterday morning was so lovely but it didn't last beyond early evening.  I'm going to be grateful and agree that as the experts tell us we still need a lot more rain, it has to be a good thing.  I doubt those caught up in the floods in Wales will agree with me though.

Yesterday was a day of paperwork.  I had a few breaks - I find I cannot keep going as I used to be able to.  After a while my brain gives up and I find myself writing total rubbish which is a sign for a break!  I had intended to do a bit of refreshing gardening in the evening.  On Saturday I went to Wyvale and found dahlias at three for a tenner.  I like dahlias and these were very pretty shades of pink and just right to fit in a space in my middle bed where the bulbs are now dying back.  So I dug some whitebells up, cleared away some leaves and made a nice space.  Ah, well, it won't go away and at least the ground will be well soaked when I do get round to planting them.  I also found some trailing geraniums which will soften the bricks around the beds and a yellow tomato which looks as if it is a tumbling variety from the way it is growing.  I think I will treat it as a tumbler and place it on a few blocks to raise it up - or no, I know, I will plant it in a big pot (for watering) and put the pot in one of my raised planters.  It will make a nice display as well as being useful!

The vegetables in the willow planter are growing like fury and I have had some radishes.  The mini gem lettuces are thickening out nicely and the carrots are also sending up nice green growth.  But, if you remember, I was trying seed tape.  Never again.  Given that some of the seeds didn't germinate, it has made for very sparse lines of shoots and the most recent rows I sowed have been sprinkled seed, not from the tape.  You live and learn!  The other thing I have now done is planted some salad leaves seeds in another pot, so in three weeks or so I should be starting to harvest them (given some warm sun).

And today.  Back to school.  It will be lovely to see the children again and I can hardly believe that the school year will be over in six months!  Amazing!!!

Saturday

So sorry about my non-appearance yesterday.  After such a busy and stressed Thursday, I couldn't get any thoughts together in the morning and by the evening I was so tired I didn't remember to blog.

I'm glad it's the weekend.  Apart from feeling very weary, I seem to have gone down with another cold, most likely acquired from the head who is up to her eyeballs in snuffles and coughs at the moment.  Let's hope it clears quickly - I can't be doing with another three or four months of aches and snot!

Yesterday was OK.  It was SEN day and I spent the morning (and some of the afternoon) getting prepared for next week's Important Meeting.  All done now, more or less, thank goodness, so I just need to get the planning finished and then I can relax.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Saturday

Weekend!!!!!  Yessssssssssssssssssssss . . .

Yesterday was SEN day and I got things done that have been hanging fire for ages so that was a great relief.  Particularly good was the afternoon when I had an informal 'meeting' with one of our LSAs to discuss and write an IEP.  I felt it was highly successful and we came away with a very useful and relevant piece of paperwork, which isn't always the case although I do try very hard to make it so.  Education is obsessed with bits of paper, you know.  Yes, it's all worked out on screen but then you have to print out multiple copies of everything to scatter around.  Paperless office?  Huh!!!  They don't believe you unless it's all on a bit of paper!

One of my little dears gave away a secret.  She was chatting about her holiday (her family is going away for a few days over the weekend) and suddenly segued into talking about a surprise for me on Tuesday - 'a nice surprise, Mrs Clark, do you like nice surprises?'  I almost said 'I like naughty surprises' but remembered to whom I was talking and did the conventional thing.  So I have that to look forward to, whatever it is! 

There's nothing specifically planned for today, thank goodness.  George is coming, unless it rains, in which case he isn't coming. 
The snails are crawling back from wherever they went to over winter and have started to attach my hostas, so I'm afraid I will have no mercy!  Slug pellets!  You think they'd learn, wouldn't you?
I'm trying a couple of new recipes, which I will tell you about if they are OK.  One's from one of those freebie mags I mentioned earlier and the other is from BBC Easy Cook.
I hope to finish off R's sock which means lots of sitting with the telly on.  Oh, the hardship! 
And I suppose I need to do some housework at some stage.  I have guests next weekend so I can't procrastinate for much longer.