Saturday

Well, Olympic week is over.  The Infants' closing ceremony was good.  Parading round the field waving flags, singing our two Olympic songs, giving out the results of the medal table and dousing the flames (OK, taking the tissue paper out of the cardboard cone, if you want to be totally accurate).  Quite sad, in a way.  I have one abiding memory though.  Although it was sunny, there was a fresh breeze blowing from time to time.  While they were all sitting down in front of me, suddenly a very strong wind blew straight across from left to right and, as if they were puppets on one string, every child lifted up his or her flag to catch the wind which blew the flags straight out.  The look of sheer delight and awe on their faces was unforgettable.  Being the Infant coordinator, I was standing up in front, leading it all, so I caught the full beauty!

When we were looking for songs for this week, we couldn't find very much, but there were one or two ideas that I tossed around, reworded and made to work for us.  I was quite pleased with the last verse of 'It's the Olympic Games' which we sang to the tune of 'Skip to my Lou'.  The children liked it anyway!

We did our best, slow or fast.
Whether we're first or whether we're last.
Young or old, we've had a blast!
It's our Olympic Games!



And now it's the weekend.  I'm up at stupid o'clock because I went to sleep at stupid o'clock yesterday evening.  Well out of it by 7:30, in a chair, upstairs just after eight and straight back to sleep again!  I've had a good night's sleep!!!  Really I have.

Friday

End of the week again.End of Olympic week too.  It's been good fun one way and another although I will be glad to get back to what passes for normality on Monday.  Yesterday was Australia and in particular Aborigine artefacts.  The children were fascinated and so was I.  J, my co-year 1-teacher, has Australian connections and not only does she know a lot, she also has the artefacts to prove it. 

I had to check the spelling of 'artefact'.  It's one of those words that looks accurate both ways to me.  I now know that in America they spelling with an 'i' and here it's an 'e'.  So that's something learned.

I've just been out to water my tomatoes and, to my great delight, every plant now has baby tomatoes growing.  Nice and early this year - well, earlier than last year anyway.  Last year, as I have whinged far too often, the fruit didn't start ripening until the end of August/beginning of September, which made the eating season quite short.  I'm hoping for better things this season.

As well as that I pulled my first radishes from the little willow planter yesterday and noted that a few of the little gem lettuces are about ready.  I also noticed several dead snails (serves them right) and evidence that a cat has been scrabbling in the soil - all the baby carrots are broken and torn.  Grrr.  So that's me off to the garden centre for some moggy deterrent tomorrow. 

Better get going.  I have a kitchen to tidy and a lunch to make.

Thursday

Good morning, everyone!  It feels quite a lot fresher than yesterday at the moment, thank goodness, With the front window and the back door, the house feels pleasantly fresh.

When it's our library day I like to take my children out for a ten minute run round before we go there - they need the exercise and library is scheduled when there's afternoon play.  Yesterday, some of my more energetic little boys decided that they would play relay races so they started zooming up and down the playground, tagging each other in a relay sort of way.  When they were puffed out, they all clustered around to chat.

Energetic Little Boy 1:   Mrs Clark, we're training.  We're practising so that when it's the *real* Olympics we can take part!

                                                              (not a clue where they got that idea from)

E L B 2:   I know, let's practise something else.  What else do they do at the Olympics?
E L B 3:   er . . . how about a hopping race?
E L B 1:   Good idea.  Come on . . .

And off they all swarmed to hop madly around the playground leaving me to wonder when hopping became an official Olympic sport!

Wednesday

Well, the mini-lympics yesterday went like a dream.  It was fine and sunny but not too hot, the children were noisy but well behaved, they ran and raced their socks off and cheered each other on with great gusto.

In the afternoon we looked at Greek buildings (ancient ones, of course) and then used the ends of Dienes rods to create mosaics by printing.  It was certainly different but they seemed to enjoy the discipline very much..  Today it is Spain and Picasso!

In other news, I am being thoroughly spoilt as having visitors means that I come home to find dinner cooked for me.  Very nice too!!!  I could get used to this.

Tuesday

Well, having declared my indifference to the Olympic games, I have to say that yesterday was quite a nice day.  We had an opening ceremony with a torch relay (the 'flames' kept detaching from the torch, which was fun!), a dance from the dance club and a Mexican wave as the torch ran past - OK, so it didn't run by itself, you know what I meant.

Today, if the weather holds, we have our mini-Olympics.  Some speed races with medal certificates and also some novelty races, just for fun.  And then, if there's time, it is all in the hall to learn a couple of songs.

Fingers crossed for the weather!

Monday

I have a terrible confession to make.  I'm not particularly interested in the Olympic Games.  Don't get me wrong, there are bits I enjoy - gymnastics, for example - and I will probably get as wound up as anyone else if a British athlete seems to be doing well, but really, honestly, I can't say my life would be any less complete is it was happening elsewhere or even not at all.  Isn't that terrible?

This week is Olympic Week at school.  The idea is to do special stuff.  I'm finding it hard to get all excited about it and I guess I will be the only one.  Ah, well, it's only one week!

Darn it!

Having just boasted about the clivia, I realise I have to hide it away in my bedroom for some days as I have two cats a-visiting with their people.  Clivia is poisonous for cats!  Grrr, the flowers will be going over before I can take it back down again.

Oh, well, it's a good excuse for another photo!