I love my job. Especially when it's my day off

First of all lets celebrate temperatures above freezing for the first time in what feels like a month. Colour is out there! A bit of blue sky, a patch of green grass outside and a beautiful lilac/blue in my lovely gift from Alison indoors.

I'm sure the women I work with imagine me reclining on a sofa eating peeled grapes on my day off and they always look a bit miffed when I breeze out the door on a Tuesday with a casual "see you on Thursday".  So let me give you a glimpse of what goes on chez Debs on a Wednesday.  First of all, chores. Washing basket emptied , washing machine full followed by tumble drying followed by the dreaded ironing. Phew, now we have that out of the way let's relax a little. And when I say relax, I mean make a mess. When everyone was here on Saturday my dining table was full of papers and flowers, scissors, glitter and glue. Today I have singlehandedly filled the table again ...

Because tomorrow a work colleague leaves.  I am dreading it as I know I will not manage her farewell speech without the aid of a box of tissues.  She is such a lovely lady, we will miss her so much.  She was adamant that she did not want gifts - any money raised in her farewell collection is going to our sister school in Uganda where she visited two years ago.  But I couldn't let her leaving pass without giving her something.  Part of my job is to help her with compiling references for our Year 11 girls who are leaving to go to another Sixth Form.  We ask the staff to tick boxes on a sheet to give us an idea of what kind of student they are.  Things like conscientious, willing, honest, helpful, hard working for example.  And for those who aren't completely working at their optimum effort, under achiever, struggles to manage her behaviour (we are sure that when *** finds a subject that she enjoys, she will work hard and thrive.  We've tried teaching her 10 subjects and she hasn't worked hard on any of ours yet but who knows, maybe a new school will find something that holds her interest.  An A level in  texting, Facebook or Twitter may be just the ticket) ...  oh yes, we have a great reputation in and around our County but not every H&E girl is a studious little angel.  So, I've compiled a reference (of nice things!) for my colleague, printed it out on nice paper and made it into a kind of certificate.  Plus made a tag to go on it, and prettied up her goodbye card.  This day off business is hard work ...

 

Then off to Costa Coffee for a latte and cheese and ham toastie to put the world to rights with a friend.  2 hours later, news caught up on, I return home to start cooking a casserole using one of the recipes from the cookery demonstration I went to last month.  Now the kitchen's as messy as the dining room.  I'm sure there was something else I planned to do - oh yes, a phone call to Denise for a full debrief on the meeting up in London on Sunday.  It's tiring doing all this non-working stuff!   What a good job I only have to work until 1.30pm tomorrow and then we are on Easter break until April 16th.  There aren't many perks to working in a school but the holidays are definitely one of them!