I have been right pushed busy-wise today. Which makes a change because my chief activity for the past fortnight has been lying in bed till midday reading and mooning before finally dragging my carcus out of me scratcher and getting a taxi to Jacs because I'm too much of a lazy biffer to walk that half mile max. Then I will consume soup and cake before hauling myself the Heir and Spare into FICS 'to do some work' while they go swimming. Work, it would appear, largely comprises of cutting and sticking classroom displays and dreaming up vastly complicated schemes of work, writing them in pencil on the back of West Store receipts and then chucking them in the bin as unworkable fantasy.
This is the Curse of The Profession. Whenever I tell people I am a teacher they have three instantaneous reactions.
1. 'Primary? WHAT SECONDARY! Are you quite mad? Ruddy kids nowadays and their foul-mouthed disrespectful, hoodie weraing looting ways, blah blah'.
2.Really? Do they allow certifiable nutters to teach then?
3. You jammy git - 12 weeks holiday, I work for a living, blah!'
Now come the middle of July, there is nothing more desirous than a long six weeks yawning ahead of wild inactivity before you have to get up and get a grip on that marking, but by late August all pedagogues go slightly psychotic. Teachers have an unusual afinity for strong drink but by the end of the summer, the wasailing can reach epic proportians of self-abasement. I well remember my ex and much missed Guv wandering it to the September pre-term inset muttering 'Ye Gods! last night I drank so much value cider I began to hallucinate'. Whilst his experience might be extreme it is not entirely out of the ordinary.
Teaching is a full on sort of gig and weeks of doing not very much eventually begin to mess you up. You long to return to the Chalk Face, you dream of Quality Teaching and Learning experiences, think fondly of that minx in year 11 with the knuckle duster and ASBO, hope this is the year when you can prove your worth to a cross-eyes OFSTED imspector with vengence on their mind....
By the second week of September, you realise this was troubling and unreasonable fantasy and you do the marking that you have been putting off since June with a keen eye on the calender counting down the days till October half term.
Thus it has come to pass that I am, despite an exciting move of 8000 miles, in late summer limbo. This means that I am cursed by bad dreams and nightmares. I blame all these odd books I am reading about DEATH ON EVEREST and not being used to Exportation Red wine ( 5 Bottles for £10.00 down the West Store - Bargain!). Now I don't really mind the odd nightmare. Back in me RADA days I used to encourage them actively by eating three battered cod roe and several pickled onions on the way home from the theatre. Never failed - there are dreams that I had then that I am still in therapy for.
But 7 nights in a row seems a bit much. This morning I woke up at 8am wrapped up in the duvet like some kind of massive slug. Rictus grin and wild hair greeted me as I looked in the mirror and there were discernable teeth marks on the Kindle.... I had awoken from a paralysing Heironymous Bocsh of a snooze. A hybrid of 'The Day after Tommorow', Dali's darker moments and a bit of Crimewatch. I was in a sweaty death panic.
'Right! That's it' I muttered logging on to the BearGryllsWisdom site as I lit my wake-up fag. (note- this website does not exist but it should). Bear would no doubt advocate tea totalling and prayer along with some positive energetic action and a nice horlicks later on. And probably read something a little less traumatic.
I took matters into my own hands and became a domestic legend completing seventeen loads of laundry, dashing off to the Chandlery to procure huge amounts of Lenor, cleaned house, cooked food (without major mishap -win!) done a bit of vaccing, finished me noticeboards, folded the corners of my bog roll into a triangle like they do at the Travelodge - the lot.
It remains to be seen whether this will cure my night terrors. At the library I found an extremely absorbing account of the acsent of K2 in 1981 by a woman I can only describe as a class A patented fruit loop. Her ravings are most distarcting but I fear not good for my emotional well-being but I'm fascinated so I will not return it till it's finished.
I have set all five of my alarm clocks for 7am and will venture into the morrow with light heart and positive attitude. Now I'm just going to have a late night snack of olives, cheese and piccillili while I finish this book....
Borah Out.
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