Friday 10th November - Perils of the School Gate

It is a well-known truth that if you are early for something you are bound to end up late.

But today was an exception that proved the rule.

Somehow I managed to be up and dressed a whole hour earlier than I intended; it was when I was sitting at the PC storming through the over-night emails that I noticed the clock said 7:15, not 8:15...

I managed to arrive at the first school half an hour early - time for a cup of tea.

I came home after teaching a lively recorder lesson to a year 3 class. Time for a snooze (how I needed stillness and quietness!). Lunch, and then quarter of an hour before I needed to leave for the next school. 

I arrived half an hour early again!

Arriving early is not the good thing that you might suppose.


At the first school I got all mixed up with the last of the parents dropping their children off, which turns the narrow lanes at the back of the village into a nightmare chicane of unexpectedly shifting cars and trucks.

At the second school I became tangled into the manoeuverings of departing morning visitors and arriving lunch vans all trying to get in and out of the automatic electric gate.

Knowing the exact timetables of every school I visit; start and finish times, break times, lunch times and deliveries is a hidden part of my world...