UK Bucket List

T Minus 50 On a lighter note (see last post). Here’s something I prepared yesterday 🙂 With 50 days to go I have decided to post a UK Bucket list of things I would like to do before I leave the UK. This is a mirror post to my East Africa Bucket List

1. Visit Alton Towers Theme Park
2. Swim in the Atlantic
3. Have a Beach Barbecue
4. Eat a Cream Tea (either Devon or Cornwall)
5. Paddle in the North Sea
6. Climb Steep Hill and visit Lincoln Cathedral
7. Visit the Cotswolds
8. Visit London – see the sights again
9. Go Punting in Oxford
10. Climb a hill (Dovedale, Ivinghoe Beacon or Crooke’s Peak)
11. Visit Clumber Park
12. Run 10K again (a recently torn calf muscle make this more challenging than you might imagine)

Many of these are built around places we’ll be going in the next 50 days but even so the list is ambitious – we’ll just have to see! However, we have just used Tesco Vouchers to get 4 free tickets to Alton Towers 🙂

Bad Headache! Tough Day!

T Minus 50

A busy day and a tough day. A couple of hours sleep/rest and I ‘m feeling better now. But…

Non teachers may scoff, but working with groups of teenagers is challenging at the best of times. When you have a pounding headache from the word go and feel like you haven’t slept, it multiplies the issues. My classes today were fine, thankfully not too noisy and generally well behaved. In fact the vast majority of students at my school are well behaved, but there are always a small proportion of students who aren’t.

On a Thursday one of my roles is Senior Staff Duty.

Basically this role (undertaken by all Heads of Faculty, Year Heads and SLT) is a roving trouble shooting roll which deals with wider disciplinary problems away from the classroom and allows teachers to teach. This year my role has been at Lower School.

Today was one of those days when I walk in to the office and hit the ground running. Two separate incidents needed dealing with there and then, both needing witness statements from all parties and calling for various students. There’s a lot of detective work and questioning to get to the truth and it takes time (all this with Headache pounding away in the background!).

A full hour and 15 later I returned to my cold mug of coffee which I promptly poured down the sink. I’d missed break! Headache pounding still more, I returned to my classroom to teach Period 3 (class was absolutely fine, but even so!) then commuted to Upper School to my office – intending to mark exam papers but failing miserably. Realising this might soon become a migraine I arranged cover for last lesson and drove home while I could.

I rarely take time off and only do so reluctantly. However, you know your body and I know that a migraine was a definite scenario if I hadn’t stopped.

I think the pressure of everything is getting to us (Anita and I) a little – we definitely need a break – though to be honest I’m not sure where it’s coming before we leave the house.

The headache’s gone and there’s a pile of exam papers needing to be marked. So better get on with it before it’s too late.