A good egg?

Today I found a Cadbury's Mini Egg that was exactly the same shade of purple as the jumper I was wearing.

Seemed a shame to eat it really, but somehow I managed. They really are bite-sized parcels of Cadbury heaven!

An ill wind that blows no good...

Erm, has anybody seen a dark green tarpaulin which was, until yesterday, securely fastened around my patio set? It is missing, presumed entangled in someone's prize rose bush or floating serenely through the Lichfield sky humming "Nobody does it better" to itself.

* Ok I'll admit it: the picture of Daniel Craig is almost entirely gratuitous (although no one can deny he is more asthetically pleasing than Roger Moore)

I should be working but...

I realised today what the problem was with the "individual research" projects my class have been doing about a famous river. You see they have been working on it for weeks; finding information on the internet/in books etc and putting into a format of their choice (PowerPoint, Photo Story, Publisher, handwritten.). The only trouble is that every time I have checked up in their computer files they have made very little progress. Now this has been going on since before Christmas and, what with SATs looming, my colleague and I are getting somewhat desparate for the children to finish them. So today I booked the computer suite and watched their "research" skills closely. As a result I have come up with what I hope is a definitive set of instructions that I can use for the rest of the year...

1) Stick to looking for the things on the checklist you were given at the beginning of the project (even if a flashing box comes up saying you have won a computer/$10,000 at an online casino or if upon searching for a picture in google you happen upon someone's holiday snaps and decide you might peruse them incase they went anywhere else interesting or have quite a nice car that will distract you for a few minutes)

2) Search specifically (i.e. don't just put "river" into google if you want to find out where the source of the River Shannon is or which states the Mississippi flows through)

3) Read and jot down what you find out. Don't just glance at the page, excitedly tell your teacher you've something interesting (so she thinks you are doing some actual work) and then move on without having actually read any of it. The point of searching is to find.

4) NO-ONE under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES is to alter the background/font/slide order/slide transition/sound effects/ animation or ANYTHING on a PowerPoint that is to all intents and purposes BLANK

5) In fact NO-ONE under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES is to alter the background/font/slide order/slide transition/sound effects/ animation or ANYTHING on a PowerPoint full stop until they have enough notes to complete the project.

6) No one is to work with "Not Connor" who can work beautifully on his own but turns into a complete nuisance when anyone is within 1 metre of him.

7) Your teacher will not even discuss with you potential background colours and text colour schemes until the text part is finished - even if you pretend you are going to give it a pink, fading to purple background with a light green font.

8) Learn how to spell the name of your river. If you're researching the "Congo" and all Google throws up at you is pictures of people in party hats, kicking their legs about, you have not spelt it correctly.

It was quite an enlightening hour, I can tell you.

Raikkonen at Ferrari

Hehe, I had to chuckle to myself when I saw this photo of Kimi Raikkonen in his new Ferrari overalls today. Being a fairly typical Finnish racing driver, the icy-grey McLaren overalls seemed to suit him down to the ground. If he can't cope with putting any intonation in his voice, how on earth is he going to cope looking like this day in day out?! The poor boy is squinting already. Mind you perhaps a bit of that Italian passion is what's missing in his life.

One week down...

Breakfasts: 2 (mmm, crunchy nut cornflakes)

Times shouted at children: 3 (but once was not my class so surely that doesn't count?)

Times cleaned out guinea pigs: 0

All in all not a terribly eventful week but I thought you might like to see this piece of work two of the boys in my class did. We are starting a technology project on shelters so I asked them to write down what they already knew. To be honest I was expecting information on structures; materials; shelters around the world.

That was not what I got.

Sorry if it is a bit too small to read. I only took a screen shot of it and can't be bothered to type it all out!

First day of school

Well, I made it through but it was a close one. I managed to break the new year's resolution I made last night by 7.30am when I left the house without breakfast (I look forward to yet more haranguing from everyone about it being "the most important meal of the day"!). I did my best but I swear my entire body was in shock from being up so early. In my opinion it is utterly wrong to leave for work in the dark and return in the dark so I am putting in a petition for my hours to be from 12pm til 1pm until further notice just to be on the safe side.

Tonight I am supposed to be tidying my entire house as my Australian friend (who is actually from County Durham but let's not be picky!) is arriving tomorrow to sample my hospitality for a few days. She really knows how to pick her times (as I shall point out when she arrives!). Not only has she chosen to come on my second day back at work in 2007 but she is arriving on the night of the long-awaited, 1hour and 50 minute long, Green Wing final ever installment and, get this...SHE HAS NO INTEREST IN IT WHATSOEVER! I have told her she will have to sit with her finger on her lips for the duration whilst I sit in my "Ooh Colin Firth is on the telly" mode i.e. on the floor, really close to the television looking up at it adoringly!

NB Just in case I have panicked or over-excited anybody with that last comment; Colin Firth is not, I repeat NOT in the final episode of Green Wing.

A new laundry-based trauma...

Do you remember that game "Buckaroo" that someone always used to bring in on the last day of term? I don't remember the precise rules as I have never really been one for those stress inducing type games where silence and tension is suddenly broken by an almighty clattering(see also: Jenga; Mousetrap; Kerplunk - even Twister if you are not quite playing properly!). Anyway the premise is that there is some sort of horsey/donkey thing and you have to keep adding luggage carefully until it has had enough when it will suddenly "Buckeroooo!" and everything goes flying off. The last person to place a piece of luggage is the loser and is ridiculed (while secretly everyone else is relieved that they are not unlucky enough to be the cack-handed, clumsy oaf that set it off.

The reason for that unneccesarily long preamble was that I have had another laundry crisis. this time is it my clothes airer which is one of those ones with 3 arms that looks a little bit like a rotary drier but smaller. Anyway to cut a long story short; it is broken. Now I didn't break it (well not initially anyway) it has always (for the 3 weeks I have owned it) been a bit on the weedy side but now, in an attempt to sort it "once and for all" I have properly broken it. The result being that the only thing that holds it up now is a wish and a prayer (always best to cover these things from both angles just in case!).

This means that now, hanging up my washing to dry holds many of the same stresses as that infernal game. First I have to set up the airer to the correct height then tiptoe around the room in case a slightly loose floor board should move and cause it to collapse. As I hook each hanger on to one of the arms (making sure the weight is spread evenly of course, any hardened Buckaroo play knows to spread the load) I hold my breath to see if the airer will take the strain. If it does I breath a sigh of relief (not too big though as a sudden blast of air can also cause it to collapse) and start on the next item. If, heaven forbid, the airer does collapse, it is impossible to reassemble with all the wet clothes on it so I have to take them all off and start again.

At least at school there was a fairly even chance that anyone could lose at Buckaroo, in the "Amy versus the Airer" game there is only ever one loser!

Oh, and happy new year!