Charity begins at home

I like to think of this time after Christmas as a time to think of others less fortunate than ourselves (really, there are people in worse debt than me!!) and so we take the time to carefully choose some of the children's toys to give to charity. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they get far too much for Christmas each year and without a massive sort out we would not have room for all of their new stuff, I think there is a valuable lesson for the children to learn about children who do not get presents at Christmas. Maybe I could kill two birds (not literally, Sarah!) with one stone next year and not buy them any presents. The problem with that is, I like shopping as much as (probably more than) they like receiving the presents.

We do have a problem though of where to store all the new presents. Our house is not tiny, but it's full already and we don't have a spare room. Having had Christmas at Seany's this year, we came back and literally dumped everything into the conservatory, where it has stayed. I am gradually filtering some of the gifts into the children's rooms but they simply do not have anywhere left to put things unless we get rid of something. Little Z has very conveniently decided she no longer wants to keep her huge Sindy doll's house or the furniture. It is a bit easier with Little Z as she has a lot more stuff which she is growing out of or doesn't play with any more. Big J on the other hand, has the smallest room in the house and does not seem to have grown out of any of his toys yet. We were given several big boxes of boys' toys by a neighbour last year and although we passed some of it on at the time, we kept a lot of it and the storage space in his room is full to the brim not to mention the big tub and 2 boxes and a small tub of toys he has downstairs in the living room. I go through phases of ruthlessly getting rid of lots of stuff, but even that's not working at the moment. The minute I put things into a bag for the charity shop, Little Z finds the bag and gives Big J all his stuff back. I heard her telling him this evening, "Mum wants to give this to the charity shop" (passing him a Bob the Builder phone.) I would have been really cross, except Big J is only 2 and has no idea what a charity shop is because it is not something he can eat.

I need someone to give me some good ideas on how to get rid of the children's toys. Otherwise I will have to do it during the night and tell them santa came back and he was very cross!

Thank you!

This post is dedicated to my Big Bruv, Seany, who made sure our Christmas this year was one of the best ever (and who is probably going to kill me for the awfull attempt at the picture above, which I really ought to have blamed on Little Z!)

We planned to leave Southampton on Saturday 23rd December after PP had finished work and had come home for a few hours sleep. However, it didn't quite go as planned. In the 3 weeks running up to Christmas, I had a bad cold then Big J had his chest infection and then poor Little Z had a bad cold which kept her off school for the last few days of school (the only days when they get to play all day and not do any work!) and which meant that the few days we had together after she finished school and before Big J's nursery closed for Christmas were spent mooching around the house instead of having fun "girls' shopping trips" which I had planned for us. PP had got away with a mild cold in all of this, but we thought we had at least got all of the germs out of the way before Christmas. So, we were not very impressed when PP started coughing & sneezing around Wednesday of the week before Christmas as we knew it was unlikely he would be able to get rid of it before Christmas. I was even less impressed when, on the Friday night before we were hoping to travel on the Saturday, I felt the beginnings of another cold. Surely I have had my quota for this year, or maybe it's like holiday, maybe I still had some to use up before the end of the year and it could not be carried over. With all the hours he had been doing, PP had not really had a chance to let his body recover from the cold and so it had just got worse and worse, so I thought he needed the opportunity to sleep non-stop for what most of us consider and take for granted as a full night.

Anyhow, the point is (oh yes, the point, I had almost forgotten!!) we finally decided to leave the 4-5 hour journey until early the following morning (Sunday 24th) as neither PP nor I were feeling like driving. We arrived at Seany's around mid day on Christmas Eve after a very smooth journey. Not only had Seany given up his bedroom for us, he also had bought lots of extra things in that the children needed and had also made sure that he had bought the children's favourite breakfast cereals. In fact, during the four days we were there, he spent a lot of the time running around after us and my parents. The Christmas dinner was excellent, one of the best I have ever had, and the buffet he did for Boxing Day was so good, we had more on Wednesday before we left for home.

What also made it a great Christmas this year for me, was the Children. It is always difficult when you go to someone else's house to stay, as you rely on the host having a lot of patience with your children or you rely on your children to behave themselves. In my experience, you can never rely on either of these for any significant length of time, but I am very proud of both Little Z and Big J. They were not perfect, but then who is? But they were well behaved and I don't have any complaints about the way either of them behaved while we were at Seany's house or on the journeys there and back.

I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we did.

Twelve Year Anniversary

I am very proud to say that PP and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary yesterday. Despite being told we were too young (20 & 23) and not ready for marriage, we tied the knot at 2pm on Saturday 17th December 1994 at St James' Church in Grimsby . It makes me feel quite old to have been married for so long, especially when I think that most of my uni friends with whom I did my PGCE were still at Junior school back then. For the first few years we followed the tradition of buying something of paper, something of wood etc. We got bored of that pretty quickly and although we did continue to buy each other gifts up until last year, we now just buy cards. It is so close to Christmas that we have decided not to spend more money on presents for our anniversary. We usually celebrate with a meal out or a meal in, although invariably since Big J has been born, we have spent our anniversaries at home as it is too much hard work trying to keep him occupied when we go out. This year we didn't even bother with a meal. This was not as a result of a conscious decision made by us, we simply hadn't planned it very well (actually, we hadn't planned it at all!) We did do something quite special though...

With little Z's increased interest in Christianity, I have been promising for a while now to take her along to a church, but have been putting it off because I did not feel comfortable walking into a church full of strangers. Last time we did that, we were going to hear our banns read a few weeks before our wedding and were practically pounced upon by the regular members of the congregation asking us to get involved in various events. Needless to say this put us off going back to that church (apart from to get married), even if that had been our intention. However, having recently got back in touch with a friend who goes to church regularly, I decided to ask her about the Carol Service at Central Baptist Church, in Southampton. I was happy that we were not going to be cajoled into getting involved more than we wanted to and so we went along to "Carols by Candlelight" at 6.30pm. Big J was as disruptive as could have been expected, Little Z took it all very seriously and looked quite solemn, until they offered her cake and juice at the end of the service. We all enjoyed ourselves: Big J had lots of cars and a wooden garage to play with, Little Z made a Christingle, PP had mince pies and I had mulled wine. Well, anywhere where you can get free food & alcohol must be good!

How do you solve a problem like Little Z?

For 2-3 years now, Little Z has been taking an increasing interest in God. As we do not go to church ourselves and do not consider ourselves religious, she must have decided this based on her experiences of Religious Education at school. She does not go to a C of E school, but the school is very proud of its RE syllabus and does put quite a strong emphasis on teaching Children about Christianity.

I have always believed that children need to make their own decisions about their beliefs and not have their parents' (or anyone elses for that matter) beliefs thrust upon them. For that reason, I have not had either of my children Christened, particularly as I do not go to church and am not willing to stand in a house of God with a new baby promising to bring them up in the way of the Church, when I have no intention of doing so. I appreciate that many people get their babies Christened because of pressure from their families. It is not my place to condemn them. I am simply saying that I decided not to do it because I don't think it is right.

I have digressed somewhat from my point. Little Z has told me she is a Christian on many occasions since starting school. I have been to see her teacher to discuss their RE syllabus and actually, I am quite happy that they are not telling the children what they believe. She now tells me she has decided to become a nun. When someone asked her, "Do you even know what a nun is?", she replied, "Yes, I am going to give my life to God." Wow.

So, how does this happen? My Church-going friends say it is a calling from God. My Atheist friends say it is a phase and she has probably watched "The Sound of Music" too often.

God bless you!

Full of cold and No Job yet. Oh Joy...

Have applied for another 2 jobs today. I visited both schools and really liked both of them. One is only 10 minutes from home, which would be ideal, and I know someone else who is already working there, which would be really great. It is so depressing spending almost half a day per application working on the personal statement to support it, only to hear nothing. I can't help feeling that it would not hurt the schools to write a simple "thanks, but not this time" letter to people who apply, just to confirm that you can stop hoping for an interview.

On top of this I have caught a cold from one of the horrible little children where I did supply last week. Well, okay, I don't know where I actually caught it from, and standing for 4 hours in the freezing cold watching the carnival on Saturday night probably didn't help, but I am now stuck at home with a cold (yes, okay, I'm not going to die of a cold) and with the kids who are getting increasingly excited because Christmas is getting near.

Have a nice weekend now!

Oh no, don't stop the carnival...

Bridgwater Carnival is the best carnival I have ever seen. I went this year for the 5th time and I never get bored of it. We were in two minds whether to go this year as last year was a bit of a disaster.

We went in our campervan (not a big posh one - just a 27 year old Toyota HiAce) and Big J who was not as big then as he is now decided to keep us up all night because he did not fancy going to sleep, but preferred to jump around the van pulling at the curtains and playing with the cupboards and the switches. Since then, we have not dared to go away anywhere in the van to stay overnight.

However, since our trip to Devon, we discovered that Big J will sleep if he is snuggled up next to me and that it also helps to get him really tired by taking him for a long walk or a run around. You are probably thinking, "How has Little Z got to the age of 7 without LLS knowing these things?" Well, Little Z was actually quite an easy baby. She slept anytime anywhere, so I never had to consider ways of making her tired etc.

So, we decided to give it a try on the understanding that if Big J would not sleep, we would just drive home (it's only a couple of hours away).

Rather than me posting my pictures here, (they are not that great as the floats are so big, it is difficult to take good pics of them from the side of the road) click here and here to see some of the floats from last year.

The carnival lasted a good couple of hours and although we had to stand around and wait for about an hour before the floats got to us, it was worth the wait. It finished at about 10pm, so by that time of night it was getting pretty cold, but some of the floats are decorated with so many light bulbs that the heat from them can be felt as they go past which did help to warm us up a bit.

The long walk back to the van from the place where we had watched the carnival was enough to tire Big J out completely. As soon as we got to the van, he slept. Aww bless.

Apple Bobbing

Until this Halloween, I had completely forgotten how great Apple Bobbing is. This year little Z has been very excited about Halloween and has been asking to play various games she has heard about from the TV or from her friends at school. Every day she has asked if I can buy some apples for us to play Apple Bobbing, so while picking up a few bits of shopping from Tesco, I also picked up some apples.

After dinner, I filled a bowl with water and put 4 apples in. That was the first big mistake. Big J and water do not mix. I showed little Z how to try to get an apple using your mouth without biting it and explained that it is actually quite difficult. She said she could do it easily (everything is easy when you are 7!)and then she tried. PP and I also tried but did not manage to get an apple. I am sure it was not that difficult when I was a child. We kept trying and got wetter and wetter. Big J laughed as we kept dunking our faces into the water. Every now and then he would put his hands in, take an apple, bite it and put it back. Lovely child. He then found a better game: "Lets see how hard I can throw the apples into the water to make the biggest splash." Then his game progressed to,"lie down with my arms in the water, then throw my arms up into the air". This game would have been more suitable had he been in a bathtub, but we were actually in the living room and although I could not do anything to stop him as I was immobilised with laughing so much (which just encouraged him to do it more!)the floor was actually getting very wet as were all the toys etc which were lying around on the floor. It took a lot of towels & a mop & bucket to clean it up, but I can honestly say I have not laughed so much for a very long time. Thank goodness for Parquet Flooring!

Holiday in The Sun

This week was half term, which would be more relevant if I had actually found a teaching job by now (okay, I know this is getting tiresome - I will stop going on about it!) but for little Z it means she does not have to go to school this week. PP had also booked the week off and so we all went off to Brixham in Devon for 5 days. We had collected our tokens in the Sun newspaper and booked our holiday online (a privilege allowed only to those who have been on a Sun Holiday before as we have). It cost us £9.50 each and then £10 for linen & services. So, for less than £50 we got to stay at Pontins' Wall Park Holiday Village in Brixham for 4 nights. It was great. The accommodation was a little on the small size and PP and I had to sleep on a sofa bed, which was not all that comfortable, but we had loads of great days out and spent some quality time together as a family. The best day out was undoubtably our trip to Dartmouth. We travelled by steam train from Paignton to Kingswear then took the passenger ferry across to Dartmouth where we then took a lovely walk for just over a mile to Dartmouth Castle. Dartmouth was really beautiful. I would love to go back there and spend some more time looking around, but have been warned that it is better explored on foot rather than by car.

So, a fantastic week was had by all, particularly the credit card company, who will probably have benefitted most from our day trips and visits to various tack-filled souvenir shops! I would definitely recommend collecting the tokens and trying out one of these holidays.

Happy Birthday

Little Z's 7th birthday is finally over and I must admit that I am not sorry to see the back of it. Yes, I know that sounds like I am talking about a visit from a bossy old aunt (don't have one of those, all my aunts are lovely - just in case they ever get a computer and read this!!), but she has been talking about her birthday daily since Christmas and has got much worse since May when practically everyone in the extended family apart from Little Z has their birthday.

The day itself went very well. She managed to get up early (a major achievement in itself) to open the presents which had arrived and was very happy with what she got. Being a very girly girl, she was given lots of dressing up costumes, hair accessories and jewellery. She had a lovely day at school. She got to stand at the front of the class while they all sang "Happy Birthday" and then she was allowed to "show & Tell" some of her pressies. At the end of the day Granny & Seany turned up to surprise her from school and we had a little (okay, it was quite big) buffet style tea party.

The problem with children's birthdays is that they always seem to last longer than 1 day. Little Z's birthday continued into Saturday, when we decided to go out to Lepe Country park (again) for a walk on the beach (Granny was there this time to watch Seany and make sure he played nicely!). We still had loads of food left from the Friday's buffet, so we had another tea party to finish that off. Then on Sunday, Little Z had her party at Ollie's, an indoor soft play centre in southampton, with nine of her friends.

Little Z Birthday

Ollie's did us proud with the party. I didn't have to life a finger, except to write the cheque at the end, but it was not too expensive. It cost just over £7 per child which included 1 hour play, 45 mins in the party room for food, our own party hostess, party bags, unlimited cold drinks for the children during play and party time and a couple of free hot drinks for the PP & I. It was well organised, the food was good and the children enjoyed themselves. It would have cost far more than that at home and I would have had to do all the organising and cleaning up too. for seventy odd pounds its worth it to save us the stress.

So, now it is all over for another year, little Z has already started talking about Christmas with the occasional mention of Halloween and Guy Fawkes night.

Have you seen the old gal?

After applying for a job at the first of the two schools I visited last week, I was very pleased to receive a call on the same day inviting me for an interview. I would have to teach a 15 minute lesson in the morning and then they would shortlist candidates for interviews in the afternoon. I was told they wanted me to "share a story" with a class of year 5 children (9-10 year olds) and that they would be looking for pupil engagement (are the children interested?), good pace (keeping the lesson moving at a good pace so the children don't get bored) and speaking and listening opportunities (not just reading a story to the children, but getting them involved in discussion).

I suppose many people may think 15 minutes is a long time, but actually I found it very hard to limit my lesson to 15 minutes. It is certainly not long enough to share a whole book with pupils, so as I thought most of the interviewees would probably be sharing an excerpt from a book, I decided to do something different in an effort to show creativity. So, I found this picture:

"On The Streets Of London" by Arthur Steele

and played the song “Streets of London” by Ralph McTell. Then we discussed what we might like to find out about the woman in the picture and what questions we could ask her and what the answers might be.

I enjoyed the lesson, but apparently more than the observers did. I didn’t get it.

However, although I am disappointed they did not like my lesson enough to interview me in the afternoon, I must feel pleased that out of 25 people who applied, I was one of 8 invited to attend the morning interview/lesson. They interviewed only 3 people in the afternoon, so I was not the only one disappointed. Also, I am applying for 2 other jobs which I would rather have than that one, so it did save me having to find a polite way of saying, “Thank you for wasting your time interviewing me, but I don’t really want the job anyway, I am only here for the experience!”

Got some hard work to do now on my personal statement for the next application due in tomorrow!

Not for the squeamish....

What a fantastic day. I visited two schools today, one for a key stage 2 (junior school) job and the other for a KS1 (infant school) job. I liked both the schools and after looking around and talking to the headteachers I will definitely be applying for both jobs. The school I saw this afternoon is not your average school. Here is what Ofsted said about it a couple of years ago:

"According to the 1998 Index of Deprivation, the ward where most of the children live was ranked as the most deprived in the South East Region, and the 49th most deprived in the country."

The children come from all sorts of backgrounds. There are 24 languages spoken in the school and many of the children do not speak any English at all when they start school.

In spite of this, I got a really good feeling about the school and the headteacher was very laid back and friendly, giving myself and the other potential applicant lots of useful tips regarding the application & interview process. Despite telling us this job was "not for the squeamish", she said she would be happy to receive an application from us and promised that if we were successful, we would receive good support for our Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) programme.

So, with no more schools to visit this week, I thought I'd relax a bit this evening. We were all laughing as Big J stomped up and down the living room wearing my shoes (yes, my nice shoes which I wear for interviews etc..). We all stopped laughing, however, when he stood still, looked down and not only filled his pants, but also did a wee on the floor and into my shoes which he still had on his feet! That's not the worst of it (although I'm glad I was not the victim the second time around). All cleaned up and sitting at the table eating (yes, they pick their moments perfectly!) Big J covers his face with a magazine and makes a very loud "bottom burp" noise, followed by another and yet another. Yes, he had filled his pants again. It was not a pretty sight (or smell) and certainly not one you would welcome at the dinner table. So, PP decided to take him up and put him straight into the shower, pants and all. However, as PP was getting the shower into where it needed to be, he accidentally let go of the pants' elastic and unable to move out of the way quick enough, got a face full of spray from the soggy contents of the pants.

Well, I hope that if you are reading this (if you have managed to get this far)you have already eaten. If not, Bon Appetit!

And she's off......(not sure where yet)

Although I have theoretically been looking for a teaching job for a few weeks now, I feel like I actually did something proactive (ooh haven't used that word since working for the bank) about it today. I visited a school and the headteacher was just lovely. She sat us all down and told us to relax, she wasn't interviewing us. She told us about the school and a bit about how she likes things done. She seems very laid back and I got the impression that she really cared about the children's education, which is not as common as you might think. Two year 6 children showed us around the school. They were so sweet, despite being almost ready for secondary school (no idea why anyone would want to teach secondary). This afternoon I arranged 4 more visits to various schools in addition to the one I am visiting tomorrow. A couple of them are in deprived areas so it will be interesting to see what sort of problems they have with behaviour etc. Having done one of my placements in a school in a deprived area, I would have to make sure that there is proper support in place and a clear behaviour policy before I apply to work there.

Little Z went to a Drama group for the first time this afternoon after school. She loves role play, pretend play, making up stories, dancing, singing etc so I though this would be perfect for her. She hated it! The lady running it was quite abrupt and I think little Z felt a little intimidated by her. She did join in with the activities, but had tears in her eyes when I picked her up. I asked the lady if she could maybe pay weekly for a couple of weeks to try it out to see if she liked it. I was told that if she wanted to come next week she could have another trial which would cost £10 (this first week was our free trial) but after that she would have to decide whether she wants to go again or not. Considering the fees for the whole term are £84 which would pay for her to go every week up until Christmas except for half term, I was not prepared to enrol her and pay her fees without knowing little Z was happy. We are not going next week.

Had another go at bubbles this evening. We decided to use the fan to blow bubbles and see if we cold fill the living room with bubbles. We couldn't, but we had fun trying.

Off now to find out about the school I'm visiting tomorrow.

Bubbles

I have just spent the last 20 minutes blowing bubbles and found it so relaxing that I just had to tell everyone (not that everyone (or indeed anyone!?) reads my blog) about it. I bought the kids these "Ice Cream" bubbles from Tesco a couple of weeks ago and they are the best bubbles I have ever seen. They are colourful, they don't keep popping before you get a chance to blow a bubble and you can blow loads and loads of bubbles all at once, even though they only come with a normal little bubble wand. They are also scented, so if you buy the pot which looks like a chocolate ice cream, the bubbles smell of chocolate. (They don't taste of chocolate though, which little Z found out to her cost.)Cool hey?!

"What is she doing standing around blowing bubbles when she should be looking for a job?" I hear you ask. Good question, to which I do not have a sensible answer other than the fact that bubble blowing is addictive and although I had not intended spending 20 minutes having a competition with PP (yes, he was doing it too!) to see who could blow the biggest bubble or to see if we could blow so many that we could not see each other, it is a bit like having a bag of Haribo and saying "that is the last one now, I will save the rest for later." It is not as easy as it sounds.

On the job front, I am going to visit a school tomorrow in a nice area on the suburbs of the city and am visiting another on Friday. I am getting really tired of people asking if I have a job yet, so I need to get one very soon just to shut them all up (Apart from that, we could actually do with the money!) I know people are just concerned, but it reminds me of having a baby when people just keep phoning you up to see if you have had it yet.

Well, got to prepare for that visit tomorrow to make sure I ask all the right questions. Bye for now...

Playing catch up

Crikey. I didn't realise how long it was since I last updated my blog. That probably means everyone has got bored and has stopped checking in to see if it has been updated.

So what have I been up to since my last entry? Well, those of you who also read Seany's Blog will already know that all my nagging did in fact pay off and my children, PP and myself were (eventually) honoured with a visit from the infamous uncle Seanie, during which much fun was had, the most memorable of which was our visit to Lepe beach where Big J decided to run into the sea and Seany duly followed. Big J can lead anyone astray, even his uncle who, as he himself admits, really should know better! As if I didn't have enough washing to do, Big J not only decided to cover his clothes in sea water, but added a few blood stains to this (and his dad's T'shirt) as he took a tumble off his trike and used his face as a brake. Luckily it looked worse than it was and although he had a fat lip for a couple of days, he was not seriously hurt.

We had a couple of guitar sessions, in which Seany played and I sat holding my guitar, pretending I could play. I bought the guitar about 6 weeks ago having never played before and with the intention of teaching myself how to play. It is harder than it looks. I still intent to stick at it though, as I think a teacher should be able to play at least a few chords on a guitar and it will be very useful when I haven't a clue what to teach as you can always shut kids up by singing. I would also like to learn to play the piano, which is something else Seany can do and I can't, but then he had a piano to practice on (yes, he was bought a bike and a piano! - spoilt is not the word (no, it really isn't the word!))

Since Seany returned to "The North", Little Z has gone back to school and ballet and although the school term has started and I am a teacher, as I do not yet have a job I have not gone back to work. I am, however, in the process of applying for 3 jobs in schools locally and so I hope to be in work by January. Unfortunately, I do not have the option of being a lady (I use the term loosely) of leisure until then. I have to enter the depths of "Supply teaching!". Maybe it isn't so bad, but if you went to a school like the one I went to and saw the way the supply teachers were disrespected, you would also be a little nervous.

On a more positive note, I have joined weight watchers online and after my first week, I have lost 4lb. Yippee! Feeling great about this, I entered the weight into my online weight tracker, expecting some kind of praise from the weightwatchers site. Instead, they displayed a message thanking me for entering my weight this week and then telling me that the recommended amount of weight loss is 2lb per week and that losing more than that means I am likely not to keep the weight off. Well, I know that you shouldn't starve yourself because this is not an effective method of weight loss, but I have been following their point system and eating the right amount. In these early days of my diet, I really could have done with some encouragement. If I wanted to be told I was doing it wrong I would have phoned my dad. I have about 6 stone (ouch - damn Haribo) to lose and I know it isn't going to happen over night, but as being officially "very obese" is also having detrimental effects to my health, I have been advised to lose weight, but to take it slowly and not to expect to be skinny by Christmas! I will settle for being skinnier by Christmas.

Wot no Seany?

So we were all excited at the kids' uncle Seany coming to visit. Then we got the call. Seany was not well. "He'll probably be here tomorrow" we said. Tomorrow came, and still no Seany. Seany was still not well. Poor Seany :o( We were all very disappointed, especially when Seany said he probably wouldn't make it at all this week and would probably forget about it this time and maybe come another time. Time for drastic action. I phoned my mum. No one argues with my mum. She phoned Seany. I think Seany will be here sometime tomorrow. Cool. Little sisters still get their own way, even at the age of 32!

She passed !

Little Z has been waiting for 6 weeks for the results of her Primary ballet exam. Today the phone call from the ballet teacher came. She passed and apparently was only a couple of points off getting a merit. I'm so pleased for her. She worked very hard to practise for the exam. She can now go into the Grade 1 ballet class which means I don't have to get up early on Saturday mornings any more as she will go on Wednesday evenings. I will probably still be at work when she has to go to ballet, so PP will have to collect Little Z from school, Big J from nursery, feed them both and get Little Z to ballet class all on his own. As husbands go, he is actually very good at helping around the house (actually, he does most of it and I do the helping) and at doing the "dad" thing. However, I feel a few stressful evenings coming on!

Well Done Little Z !

Here comes the bride...

Two of my friends have got married in the past month or so and it has made me think about when I got married. I was only 20 at the time and many people warned that we were too young and it wouldn't last. The postie and I will celebrate 12 years' of marriage this year, but, you never know, maybe it won't last !?

My friend, Ali, got married on Saturday at Christ Church in Bournemouth. After several days of heavy rain, I wondered if she was going to have rain on her special day, but for the important parts of the day it did stay dry. From start to finish it was a really lovely day. Ali looked very happy, as did her new husband, Stu. I spent a lot of the day asking little Z to stop touching Ali's dress. At one point Ali thought her veil was caught on something and turned to find my little one holding it. Little Z and I thoroughly enjoyed the day and after this and Sarah's lovely wedding a few weeks ago, I am waiting to see which of my friends will be next down the aisle...

Stray Cats

For about 5 weeks we have had daily visits from a lovely grey and white cat. I don't hate animals (contrary to what some believe!) but I don't consider myself an animal lover either. Gradually over the last 5 weeks this cat has pushed the boundaries more and more and we are now at the stage of buying food for it. It also has its own bowls, a new collar and the children have named it fluffy. Little Z insists it now belongs to us, but how do we know if it actually is a stray? I feel like we are stealing the cat from someone. It doesn't look particularly scruffy which makes me think that prior to coming to us it has been well looked after, so how can we be sure that it doesn't still belong to someone else?

The other issue is that little Z is allergic to cats. I know what you're thinking, why take on a stray cat when one of our children (and, incidentally, the children's uncle Seany) is allergic to cats? Well, I quite agree. That doesn't stop the cat from coming here every day and even if we refuse to let it in the house it doesn't stop the children from playing with it (or, in big J's case, trying to ride on it) in the garden. In any case, like most people, we like to leave our back door open during the nice weather and the cat doesn't ring the bell.

My solution is to give the cat to my mother-in-law who will take in any stray animal, but I am fighting a losing battle getting Postman Pat (my husband) & little Z to agree.

Books, books & more books

Having got no closer to getting the house tidy, (although the floor is pretty clear in case Big J is too engrossed in playing to notice that it's potty time) I did the sensible thing today and went out and bought lots of books. We are not short of books in our house, in fact that is a gross understatement, we already have more books than anyone could read in a lifetime. But despite having 2 large bookcases full, and the children each having a shelf full in their bedrooms, I continue to buy books with the hope that I will find somewhere to put them. Books are great though, aren't they? I think it is good for the children to grow up with a love of books and to have plenty of books at their disposal. My children love books. My youngest likes to see how many pages he can pull out before my 6 year old notices and shouts "MUM!" but at least that solves the problem of where to put that one!

Summer Holidays

Six weeks seems like such a long time, doesn't it. Having said that, I can't believe we are in the middle of August and it's not long before the kids go back to school. And if you're a teacher, you go back to school too. It's like Bagpuss and the Mice on the Mouse Organ.

I had so many plans for these holidays. I have lots of reading to do, I want to teach little Z (my daughter ) who is 6 to ride her bike and to tie her shoelaces. We have started both, but are not getting very far. I also promised to take her swimming, which just hasn't happened. I have started to potty/toilet train big J (my two-year-old son) who finds it very funny to wee on the floor and then paddle in it (boys are just not like girls!).

I would like to be able to tidy the house and have it all organised for when I start teaching in September, but as quickly as I tidy, the children are busy untidying behind me twice as fast. I'm sure I will look back on these days and long to have them back when the kids are all grown up and living away with their own children, but right now I would do anything for a tidy house.

life changes

tAfter many discussions with my brother about how great his blog is (judge for yourself) and how bad mine was (I have now deleted it), I decided to take the opportunity of having 6 weeks off this summer to do something worthwhile. I also decided to start a fresh new blog!

It can be a scary thing to make a big change to your life, especially if your life is actually okay. In November 2004, after returning to work after having my second child, I realised I could not suffer my job any longer. I left my job and did a Primary PGCE at the University of Southampton..

I am lucky to have a very helpful, hardworking and supportive husband as the course was extremely difficult and at times I really wondered if I could cope with family pressures as well as the full time PGCE. Somehow, if it is something you really want, you do it. I look back at it now and let out a huge sigh of relief that it is over....or is it?

I now have to complete my NQT year and that is not going to be easy. But first things first, I have to get a job for September. Supply agencies here I come...