Monday 30th September - A day out?

A day out of sorts.

It started with watching a beautiful sunrise. Very pretty. Insert your own picture here.

The sun rises at about 20 minutes to six at the moment.

Even though it was one of those yellow to golden to red and then to daylight sunrises, I think I would have preferred a little more sleep.

Still, it made a propitious start to the day.

Off at eight am to collect my godmother (who lives fifty miles away) through fairly solid traffic. It is astonishing how roadworks on a major route can have a detrimental effect on traffic flow for miles and miles in every direction. We saw it happening when we visited at the weekend, and again today.

The logistics of getting a 91 year-old (it's her birthday today!) to a hospital appointment are quite something. You really do need two able-bodied people; one to manage the car parking side of things, and another to assist the patient into the hospital, find her a seat just before she collapses while you hunt down a wheelchair - friends, don't blame me - but I stole it from the lobby of another department - my need was greater than theirs at this precise moment - and at least I didn't evict the previous occupant from the wheelchair but found an empty one - and wheel your relative into the correct clinic.

Those wheelchairs, by the way, are interesting to deal with. They are immensly heavy, and Rear Wheel Steering. Think about it. Think about the size of doorways, the dangers of protruding elbows and shoulders, and the difficulty of starting and stopping and changing direction of the said contraptions.

However, her review went very positively, and we successfully reverse logisticated all the process without incident to get her back to her home. And yes, I did sort of abandon the wheelchair in a sort of random way, but when I went back to rescue it, someone else was already disappearing with it. Hot seating instead of hot desking or hot bunking.

We had lunch at her place - soup - and have arrived home tired, hungry and altogether finished with being careful and considerate and alert.

He is cooking a curry which we will be eating in six minutes from now. I have approximately 97 minutes of being awake left in me, as long as those minutes do not involve sitting, standing, lying down, watching, reading listening or speaking.

I expect she had fallen asleep long before we had reached the end of her driveway.

Sunday 29th September - News, Views, Whatevs

What's to say?

I'd have to look in my journal to try and remember this week.

Monday - the usual teaching
Tuesday - the usual teaching, round to friends in the evening.

I started and finished a couple of summer sketches; a trip to London

and this one - which I did a slight 'tinker' to just now; spot the difference?

Wednesday - the usual teaching

Thursday -  it was going to be a day of waiting in for deliveries, but they came early, and as a school had cancelled I had an unexpected free afternoon. So we all went off to the pub, me and Himself and the Grand Old Man. They had steaks, I had 'a lady's meal' (I am not quoting Himself) of hake and chips and mushy peas. Lady's meal or not, it came on a smaller plate!

Friday - another waiting for deliveries day. I stayed in bed for ages and ages, reading, dozing, reading, dozing until even the cat was bored.

Then I finally got dressed and came down, and did a diary page picture

and wrote some more novel, and went off to drumming.

Saturday - oh my word, Saturday, weary Saturday... I went off for the normal morning teaching. They have a problem with damp in the practice rooms where I work, so they leave the electric heaters on, turning the room into something like the Palm House at Kew, but with an all pervasive smell of rot and mould. It's not good. I would open a window if there was one, so have to be content with switching off the heater and leaving the door open while I'm in there.

I taught my eight pupils, escaping into the corridor at every opportunity to breath the fresh air through the open windows, and then it was the drive to visit my godmother (50+ difficult miles each way). It is always worth visiting her; she works hard at staying cheerful and coping with the difficulties strewing her. 

But still I was glad when we arrived safely back home. It is not a drive I could safely undertake after teaching all morning; the traffic is hurried and harsh and aggressive and unforgiving.

Sunday! We've arrived! We went shopping in the afternoon, collecting this and that for my godmother for next time we visit. I'm not sure how her oesophageal stent will cope with the pickled herrings that she is desperate for, but perhaps she'll manage if we cut them up small enough. 

While he was doing the hard work of shopping, I sat in the cafe (which was unfortunately unable to serve tea or coffee! due to a machine breakdown) and wrote some more of The Book in a notebook I happened to have in my bag. I've stuck the pages in, and that brings me up to the target of 1000 words per week for several  weeks in a row. Happy Happy.

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The garden is still looking wonderful - so worthwhile all the angst and drama of getting it done. The whole process started this time last year, and was delayed every month and beset by obstacles. At one point I was ready to throw in the towel and live with the weeds. But look at it now!

Salvia 'Armistead' and 'Hotlips', Rudebeckia, and a Holly

The white passion flower is still producing lots of flowers

This fuschia is a potted up cutting, given by a friend

That last photograph is the corner of the raised bed where I have even managed to plant a some bulbs - no idea if they are daffodil or crocus or narcissus, I'll find out in the Spring. It will be a surprise. The plastic grid is to foil any attempts by the cats to appropriate the soil for their own purposes.

I've made a rice pudding in the microwave, and Himself is providing the first course of roast chicken, which will be ready very soon now.

Just three work-related emails left to send (I've done the other dozen already) and Saturday's lessons to write up and I'm free!!!!!! More happy happy!!!!!

    

Sunday 22nd September - That was the week that was.

This morning (Sunday) I discovered that my glasses Really don't work for playing the church organ. I had to lean back to bring those pesky little dots and dashes into focus, which had implications for reaching the keyboard... On the plus side, that sticking note that blurts out unexpectedly in the middle of the quiet bits was on holiday today.

Yesterday (Saturday) I accomplished a mere 1250 steps, mostly walking from various destinations to the car and back. Today is not looking much better; 1388 steps so far (5.45 pm). I tried to help increase the count by taking shorter steps. Seems to have worked to some extent.

Friday was - hooray - flu-jab-day - which probably explains why I am feeling the way I do today. And every time He puts an arm around me to console me I let out a yelp and am not consoled at all.

However I did write another episode of The Novel. And I've thought through another episode which I haven't written down yet as I am procrastinating by blogging instead. Plus I want to paint this door into my diary for this week. It was at the cafe/farm shop where He and I and Daughter met up with Son for lunch today, transferred Daughter to Son's car so that they could go back towards their homes, and we could return to ours.

I have a feeling it might become a Portal in another book-in-progress that has got stuck. Maybe this door will open a way back in.

Thursday was so long ago I can't remember what happened. Teaching, I expect. Yes. Oh, and I have a memory of trying to carry my djembe along the road to the 'pick-up point' where my lovely and loving roadie was waiting to drive me home. I keep meaning to weigh it on the scales. It will be a substantial number of pounds, I bet you.

Oho, look at this... from googling 'how much does a djembe weigh?'

My ever-loving man has gone to weigh my medium-sized djembe - 16 pounds in its case. That explains rather a lot.

Right. Time to write.

Wednesday 18th September - Midweek Musings

I posted about having an unusually peaceful day last Sunday - although we were both bustling around doing this and that, there were just the two of us, doing things without reference to clocks and schedules and deadlines.

Is it a coincidence, then, that on Sunday night we both slept the best for quite some time? No need for me to have an mp3 player mumbling in my ear (talking programmes are usually good to have me zzz-ing within about 15 minutes, so long as they are not all that interesting). No nocturnal visits to the loo - just eight hours proper sleep.

It is Wednesday lunch time now. All those cut-out leaves are at one of the schools I teach in, slowly being stuck to the display board.

There were about ten up by the time I left on Tuesday - my six pupils, myself, the cello teacher and her pupils. I'm looking forward to seeing how it has developed by the time I'm back next week.

This morning was clear and sunny, bright and fresh. As I was driving along to a country school in a small village, there was a 'chalk moon' - 'day-time moon' - in the blue sky in front of me, as though showing the direction to travel.

It suddenly struck me how completely different these lanes would look in a couple of month's time. The trees are mostly still lush and green, only the horse chestnut leaves are turning. It is quite hard to image the contrast between the green of Summer and the bare brown branches of Winter. The rooks would be back creating silhouettes of nests and birds in among the bare branches...

And it will be COLD again!

 

 

Sunday 15th September - A Day of Rest (What's one of those?)

We have had a day off today.

I mean, there has been work 'for work' - I've run a vacuum cleaner around the floors downstairs, written a letter, emailed an invoice, finished cutting out Autumn Leaves.

I'll write up a couple of lessons from yesterday, and have a think through the lessons I will be teaching tomorrow.

And there has been work for my own pleasure - I've filled the blank page for this week in my diary;

started to sort out what my book might be about and written ideas into my lovely new notebook (oh, the satisfying feel of fountain pen gliding across smooth paper)

copied an episode from a different notebook (with much rougher and therefore unsatisfying paper) into this, one, and completed another episode

 
re-potted a fuschia cutting given to me by a friend, and paused to admire the sweet tiny cyclamens which are forming a small family gathering under the smoke bush.

Who knows, but I might even put in some ivy plants and bulbs ready for next Spring before suppertime?

All these 'worky' things haven't stopped it from feeling like a really, really restful day to carry me forward into next week.

It has felt like a blissful day of peace and quiet and sunshine and sitting in the garden to eat lunch or drink coffee (or wine in his case).

I hope you have a good week..
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Saturday 14th September - Another week ends/begins

I tend to think of Saturday as the beginning of the teaching week, as well as the end of the teaching week. It is a sort of confused day, involving teaching 8 piano pupils at the Music Centre in the morning, and visiting my godmother in the afternoon, and zonking out in the evening.

Which is what I did today.

At the beginning of the week, on Monday, it felt as though I was living my life in a sort of grey-scale world. What on earth was going in? Then on Tuesday I suddenly put two and two together - hacking cough, red blood-shot eyes, wobbly legs, tiredness - time to take the antibiotics. What a difference! Colour has returned to my days again! Clearly I was brewing up for the usual back-to-school lurgy.

Another tell-tale symptom was that I had started leaving my possessions scattered over the county again... luckily, when I left my diary at a school on Tuesday afternoon, I was able to drop in on the way to another school on Wednesday and retrieve it without too much delay...

I did manage to fill the empty drawing page in my diary for last week;

It's a deliberately sketchy sketch of the picture above, which is the last photograph in the book 'Steal Like an Artist' by Austin Kleon that I've just finished reading. I have taken my time over it - too easy, otherwise, to get through it all in one quick read, and there was quite a lot to think about on the way.

I've mis-quoted the final phrase, which directed my thinking about the sketch, but the sense is about right.

I've also read nearly all the Anne of Green Gables books again, staring from a quotation that someone referenced on twitter; 

I forget why the someone mentioned the quotation; Anne Shirley makes the remark after a torrid day teaching in the local school. It seemed appropriate for the day, and I looked it up and got hooked . The final volume of the series, 'Rilla of Ingleside' is set in, and was probably written during the years of the First World War; it felt as though the war was being 'live-tweeted' all through the book.

This weekend's ridiculousness has been cutting out 48 Autumn leaves

and laminating them

and then cutting them out of the laminated sheets

which is a job that goes on for far too long and eventually your hands and fingers get very tired of working the scissors. The plan is to create an attractive noticeboard outside the piano room in one of the schools, with each child having the chance to write their name and their favourite piece on a leaf, to be stuck on the board. It seemed such a good idea...

My godmother is bearing up well; ninety years old, still just about managing to cope on her own. I do a minimalist bit of housecleaning when I am there, and she gives us ice-cream or cake or rice pudding ordered from the meal-delivery company. There's usually something to sort out - a letter, a clock, batteries, whatever. Long may it last.

Tomorrow I may or may not make it to church - at the moment it's looking like a 'not' as he's bought croissants, and breakfast in bed is a distinct possibility.

Goodnight, and sleep well, 

Sunday 8th September 2019 - A moment of calm

Last week was pretty full-on - a bit of a shock after the Summer Holidays.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were two and a half days of training courses. The other two-and a half days were mostly prepping for the new term - getting all the lesson plans, paperwork and so forth in order, sorting through music books to give out to various pupils, realising that I had three pupils lined up for one copy of Book 3 and rummaging through my stocks for alternatives.

Also dealing with the discovery that last term I taught ten lessons, not eleven in one school, and so I need to give all the parents a rebate or a credit. And the discovery that I seem to have sold a djembe that I thought was one I bought as a job lot, but was actually our departing vicar's djembe brought back specially from Uganda. Hopefully I will be able to track it down and retrieve it before she actually moves in a couple of weeks. And so on.

No-one should ever put me in charge of the organisation of anything. (A vicar, long moved on, informed me that he thought I had a Gift for administration. I had kind of already lost confidence in his pronouncements and this sealed it, in my view)

My teaching term started yesterday; eight students starting at 9 and ending at 12.30. I do get two short ten minute breaks, but these can easily disappear in being friendly and chatty to parents. Luckily a brother and sister didn't show up, so I got more of a breather than I was expecting. I've quite a few students deferring their first day back to the week after next, which will help make the transition from leisure to work a bit easier!

Today, however, I have an afternoon of calm. I've decided not to go to a big shared goodbye lunch for the djembe vicar, but to sit here and catch up with myself, and even just sit here...

My plan for this year's diary was to use one side for appointments, and the other side for sketching. It has worked well so far;

Some birds copied from a paper napkin, the inside of a church, a (rather rough) sketch of McCavity hiding in the new flowerbed

Week beginning 19th August 

The view from inside the look-out place at the farend of the terrace at Standen, detail of an embroidered flower, notes about a way of creating abstract splashes of colour using Tombow markers, and a sketch of a complicated and wantable folding shopping bag that I saw in Foyles bookshop in London

Week beginning 26th August

 But this week was too busy. All I've done is copied a verse from a hymn we sang in church today - I don't care for the rest of the hymn - a plodding tune and some rather plodding lines, but I like

"I will hold the Christlight for you in the night-time of your fear;"

possibly the only line of poetry in the all the verses.

Week beginning 2nd September

I've been reading a book called 'Steal like an artist' by Austin Kleon, and the final bit was

"In the end, creativity isn’t just the things we choose to put in, it’s the things we choose to leave out."

Leaving out everything and presenting a blank page doesn't exactly fit my understanding of what the book was suggesting. Today may just be the day for finding the time to fill in blank pages here and there.

It's an odd sort of idea; that the emptier the drawing page will indicate how full the week has been. I don't think I like that thought.

Wednesday 4th September - Inset Days

Today is the last of a series of inset (In-Service Training) Days which is how the Autumn Term usually begins.

I find them... varied... in usefulness, interest and content. But I also get paid...

It is also the only time of year I get to meet my colleagues. Being a peri teacher is an oddly un-social job - I meet loads of different people at the schools I visit - mainly the front office staff -  but very few of my fellow peri teachers. When our paths do cross, it tends to be in a 'hot-desking' situation - rushing off to another school, or rushing in to start teaching.

I guess that is one of the pleasures of teaching in a Music Centre on Saturday mornings - several other teachers that I used to co-teach with for years (two of us working together in the same class room) also work at the Music Centre and we might get a chance to chat for a few moments in between pupils.

The weather has changed for the start of term. I am wearing socks for the first time since about June. It is drear and raining at the moment, making it hard to believe the forecast of sunshine and warm weather by lunchtime. Will I regret wearing boots? Should I change to trainers? Can I be bothered?

I'm not going to comment on the political situation this country has got itself into beyond saying it is utterly depressing to listen to grown up people in positions of huge responsibility blustering on, saying whatever they feel will suit the moment. Do you remember the board game called 'Risk'?



Or an even more savage version called 'Diplomacy'?



We used to play 'Risk' when I was a child. Friends used to come and 'play' 'Diplomacy' at our house when I was a teenager, and the rows and heated arguments that went on as pacts were made and broken were something to behold.


I reckon that some of our members of parliament have never grown beyond 'game-playing' - that's fine in la-la land, but when it is real people, real lives, real consequences, it is unpardonable. 

 

La-la-land versions of Risk?