I am NOT a morning person, but this week I've been having new windows and guttering fitted. So while its my half term holiday, I've been us at 8.30 each day to let it workmen, and then get to sit in all day while they rip things off my house! Anyway, been watching some daytime tele, and mainly all the house makeover programs :) My current favourite is Houses Under the Hammer. It's about houses sold at auctions and what people do with them. I've decided if I ever have a few hundred thousand (Ha! In my dreams!) I'll be a mini property developer. Some of these people make very easy money - thousands at a time.
Another philosophical point to ponder: why do ALL workmen take 2 sugars in their tea or coffee??!! I don't use sugar at all really, so just save the odd sugar sachet (pinch them from restaurants etc) but these workmen have almost cleaned me out of sugar! I can make them one drink tomorrow and that is it! I almost had to buy some sugar today.. Ah well, time they gave up sugar anyway..
By this time tomorrow, I should hopefully be fully double glazed and have loved new guttering that actually works. Oh, and be £6000 poorer....
Saturday tomorrow, no makeover TV I bet. What will I watch??!
Sunday, February 15, 2004
I'm getting bored of school blogs - yawn, yawn, yawn!! Decided to blog about something else today: My cars! Yes, far more interesting!! As you may know, I got myself a new Mini One in November. A nice shade of blue (Indi Blue in car dealer speak) with a white checked roof. If you're not interested in cars, just click away now, but I have always been into cars, and can probably still tell you the number plates of all the cars we had when I was a kid! (Another picture of my car)
Anyway, my very first car was a beat up old Renault 4. I loved that car - and did a roof job on that one too! I painted it dark blue to cover the rust! It was an old banger, but a lot of fun. Next came a Fiat Uno - very sensible - very dull! It was also quite horrible to drive, with an engine with the power of an elderly tortoise! Was glad to trade that in for a really cool little car, a Citroen AX GT. That was a fab car - light and flimsy, but went like a rocket powered roller skate. However, it was about as well built as a roller skate too! The driver's door virtually fell off one day when I was getting out! Brilliant to drive though.
Next came another Citroen, a ZX Volcane, which was very lively. A 2.0 litre engine, and a much bigger car. It was supposed to have about 50bhp more than the AX GT, but I never liked it as much. Yeah, fine on the motorway, but for me, it's sprinting away from traffic lights and taking tight bends as fast as I can that I enjoy. The ZX was too grown up for me! It was a medium family car, and I like small cars better.
The Nissan Micra should really have been another in the "sensible but dull" category, but I was actually really fond of that car. It never let me down once in 3 and a half years, had a lot of character, and was a surprising amount of fun for a little 1.0 litre car. Plus I really LOVE the footrest for your left foot - why don't all cars have them?
Anyway, we're up to date now as I waved goodbye to the Micra in November. While the Mini was my dream car, I'm actually only getting to really love it now a few months later. I was just too nervous about damaging it for the first few weeks - and after denting the door, I was even more anxious about it, parking it, leaving it anywhere out of my line of sight! Plus, I was a little disappointed with the performance. The Mini has a 1.6 litre engine, but is quite a heavy little car, hence you really have to work those gears. I was beginning to think I made a mistake and should have bought a Mini Cooper and cut back on the extras. However, now the I've done 1500 miles and the engine is worn in properly, it's running quite a bit sweeter. Plus, I am slightly less nervous and am chucking it into a few corners, whereas I think I was just too tentative for the first few months. Basically, if I just put my foot down and hang on round the bends I have more fun!
I really should have taken Marky up on his offer to have a drive of his Mini Cooper at New Year, just so I could compare I think! (Already planning the next car!)
Anyway, sorry to have bored non car fans! I'm on half term this week, so no school chat. Instead it's a fun week of having new guttering fitted on Monday and Tuesday, and double glazing fitted to the back on the house on Wednesday and Thursday. Great - I get to sit in all week and write cheques for thousands of pounds! Ah well, it'll be nice when its done, but just such a BORING way to spend money!!
Anyway, my very first car was a beat up old Renault 4. I loved that car - and did a roof job on that one too! I painted it dark blue to cover the rust! It was an old banger, but a lot of fun. Next came a Fiat Uno - very sensible - very dull! It was also quite horrible to drive, with an engine with the power of an elderly tortoise! Was glad to trade that in for a really cool little car, a Citroen AX GT. That was a fab car - light and flimsy, but went like a rocket powered roller skate. However, it was about as well built as a roller skate too! The driver's door virtually fell off one day when I was getting out! Brilliant to drive though.
Next came another Citroen, a ZX Volcane, which was very lively. A 2.0 litre engine, and a much bigger car. It was supposed to have about 50bhp more than the AX GT, but I never liked it as much. Yeah, fine on the motorway, but for me, it's sprinting away from traffic lights and taking tight bends as fast as I can that I enjoy. The ZX was too grown up for me! It was a medium family car, and I like small cars better.
The Nissan Micra should really have been another in the "sensible but dull" category, but I was actually really fond of that car. It never let me down once in 3 and a half years, had a lot of character, and was a surprising amount of fun for a little 1.0 litre car. Plus I really LOVE the footrest for your left foot - why don't all cars have them?
Anyway, we're up to date now as I waved goodbye to the Micra in November. While the Mini was my dream car, I'm actually only getting to really love it now a few months later. I was just too nervous about damaging it for the first few weeks - and after denting the door, I was even more anxious about it, parking it, leaving it anywhere out of my line of sight! Plus, I was a little disappointed with the performance. The Mini has a 1.6 litre engine, but is quite a heavy little car, hence you really have to work those gears. I was beginning to think I made a mistake and should have bought a Mini Cooper and cut back on the extras. However, now the I've done 1500 miles and the engine is worn in properly, it's running quite a bit sweeter. Plus, I am slightly less nervous and am chucking it into a few corners, whereas I think I was just too tentative for the first few months. Basically, if I just put my foot down and hang on round the bends I have more fun!
I really should have taken Marky up on his offer to have a drive of his Mini Cooper at New Year, just so I could compare I think! (Already planning the next car!)
Anyway, sorry to have bored non car fans! I'm on half term this week, so no school chat. Instead it's a fun week of having new guttering fitted on Monday and Tuesday, and double glazing fitted to the back on the house on Wednesday and Thursday. Great - I get to sit in all week and write cheques for thousands of pounds! Ah well, it'll be nice when its done, but just such a BORING way to spend money!!
Saturday, February 07, 2004
A bit of a moan coming up - so what's new!! One of the parents came to me on Friday saying their kid wouldn't be in Monday morning as they were going to look at another school. "Moving house?" I asked? "No, just thinking of going to another school" the parent replied.
This mother is a right pain in the neck - spent the whole of last year complaining her daughter was being bullied, and ended up being brought in to sit in the head techers office to peer through the curtains and see that her daughter kept playing with these girls who were supposedly bullying her. The girl is bright and has settled down now, and indeed, is one of my brightest kids, but the mother is still not happy. Which brings me to my moan...parents!! OK, not all, just some.
One of my most depressing days as a teacher was when I was shopping in Sainsburys and met a parent. "Oh hello" she said, "how are you? You taught my children didn't you but I can't remember your name." Not only had I taught her troublesome daughter for a year (and had her coming in once a week for chats about her behaviour), I had her lively but likable son for 2 years - and he had only just left my class! I had spent many hours trying to help her children, writing reports on them, trying to do my best for them. I could have told her about her son's reading and writing, about his attitude to work, and his quite amazing ability to talk for an entire lesson yet STILL do loads of work!(That used to drive the other kids mad!) I was just depressed because I realised that I could have told her all that, while she didn't even know my name...
Of course, there are some lovely parents, but a minority of them view us as little more than babysitters, sending in their kids when they are sick because they have no one else to look after them. A recent event had us calling in a parent because her child was covered in spots, and an ex-nurse on the staff suspected measles. The mother was FAR more annoyed at being called into school than for her child's welfare. She returned an hour later claiming she had taken the child to a doctor who said there was nothing wrong with her ans she was "run down". Anyone knows you just cannot get a doctor's appointment that quick, and how many doctors would even *say* that a child was run down??? She just wanted to get the child back into its day care...sorry, education! This same mother had just spent £100 on hair extensions, while her older daughter had told her teacher how pleased she was, because she had managed to buy herself a PE kit from a charity shop and still had some of her pocket money left!
Anyway, it's the minority that just really get your back up and make you wonder why you bother sometimes. There are many compensations, good things about teaching(I'll have to blog about that instead of whinging sometime! ), but I thought I'd rant about one of THE biggest pains!!! Sorry about that..Moan over.
This mother is a right pain in the neck - spent the whole of last year complaining her daughter was being bullied, and ended up being brought in to sit in the head techers office to peer through the curtains and see that her daughter kept playing with these girls who were supposedly bullying her. The girl is bright and has settled down now, and indeed, is one of my brightest kids, but the mother is still not happy. Which brings me to my moan...parents!! OK, not all, just some.
One of my most depressing days as a teacher was when I was shopping in Sainsburys and met a parent. "Oh hello" she said, "how are you? You taught my children didn't you but I can't remember your name." Not only had I taught her troublesome daughter for a year (and had her coming in once a week for chats about her behaviour), I had her lively but likable son for 2 years - and he had only just left my class! I had spent many hours trying to help her children, writing reports on them, trying to do my best for them. I could have told her about her son's reading and writing, about his attitude to work, and his quite amazing ability to talk for an entire lesson yet STILL do loads of work!(That used to drive the other kids mad!) I was just depressed because I realised that I could have told her all that, while she didn't even know my name...
Of course, there are some lovely parents, but a minority of them view us as little more than babysitters, sending in their kids when they are sick because they have no one else to look after them. A recent event had us calling in a parent because her child was covered in spots, and an ex-nurse on the staff suspected measles. The mother was FAR more annoyed at being called into school than for her child's welfare. She returned an hour later claiming she had taken the child to a doctor who said there was nothing wrong with her ans she was "run down". Anyone knows you just cannot get a doctor's appointment that quick, and how many doctors would even *say* that a child was run down??? She just wanted to get the child back into its day care...sorry, education! This same mother had just spent £100 on hair extensions, while her older daughter had told her teacher how pleased she was, because she had managed to buy herself a PE kit from a charity shop and still had some of her pocket money left!
Anyway, it's the minority that just really get your back up and make you wonder why you bother sometimes. There are many compensations, good things about teaching(I'll have to blog about that instead of whinging sometime! ), but I thought I'd rant about one of THE biggest pains!!! Sorry about that..Moan over.
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