Trouble

I've been rooting around in boxes in the loft today and came across the following newspaper cutting from around February 1977.

What it fails to say is that I actually locked my mum out of the house when she was 8 months pregnant with my brother and wouldn't unlock the door to let her back in. I think it was quite clever of me at the age of 22 months, I guess my mum probably didn't agree. I was trouble even at that age!

Sponsored walk

I've been on an eight mile sponsored walk today. We went on a circular route starting at Milford Common which took us over Cannock Chase, through the Sherbrook Valley, along the Trent and Mersey Canal, through the Shugborough Estate and then back to Milford. The views across the Chase were magnificent, but unfortunately we spotted no deer. I don't do enough walking- when I do go I love it, but I just never seem to get round to it. Perhaps today will give me the motivation to do more.


Trent & Mersey Canal


I wouldn't argue with him!


View from the top of the Chase


Essex Bridge-the longest packhorse
bridge in England


Moi!

School days

My old school newsletter arrived in the post this morning. I always have a scan through it for names I recognise but the majority are pupils from the 1940s and 1950s which is somewhat before my time. However, there are always pieces written either by or about teachers that were at the school whilst I was there. Of course, this has now sent me on a nostalgia trip and I have been remembering some of the bizarre characters that taught me over my seven years there.

Mr Harris the maths teacher was a bit of an oddball- good teacher, fairly approachable and friendly, but was scary when he was angry (scary in a rather unhinged way). I remember on one occasion he had told us to stop talking whilst he was teaching about three or four times, getting more cross on each occasion (he had this freaky habit of rolling his eyeballs unhealthily high in their sockets); when we then persisted in talking, he just stopped mid-sentence, walked out of the classroom and stood outside in the corridor looking out of the window. It worked because we stopped talking. We thought we were going to get really shouted at when he returned, but he just walked back in after about five minutes and continued teaching where he had left off without saying anything else to us. The same thing happened on another occasion, but he just walked off and never returned!

Then there was Mr Coupe the physics teacher. All I can say is I am glad I didn’t have him for A Level as I don’t think I would ever have passed. He was lovely, but things just went wrong all the time in his lessons. We once had to evacuate the lab because his demonstration of the diffusion of gases went slightly wrong and we were engulfed in clouds of bromine gas. He also took pride in telling us about the time he fell asleep whilst driving on the motorway and woke up to find his car perched half-way up a tree….and they trusted him to teach us?!

We had quite a few old-school twin-set and pearls type teachers. Miss Bowdler the cookery teacher could be the sweetest person, but she was so strict. There were always rumours around school about her throwing knives and forks at unruly pupils, but I fortunately never experienced this. However, she taught me the best way to chop an onion and this has stuck with me ever since.

Mr Swift was a funny man; he was one of those unfortunate people who refused to go bald gracefully. He had a massive combover which looked daft at the best of times, but one of the funniest things I saw whilst at school was when, on a rather windy day, he walked past the library windows and his combover was flying horizontally out from the side of his head. It’s just wrong!

I had some excellent teachers though. Mr Collis, my A Level chemistry teacher was one of my favourites. He looked like Penfold out of ‘Dangermouse’ (don’t get me started on children’s TV programs!) and was one of the nicest people you could meet. We felt so guilty when, having had a water fight in the lab with the distilled water bottles when he was off one lesson, he found out what we had done and didn’t tell us off, but was just VERY disappointed. I used to love his lessons, as I did Mr Edwards’ A Level Latin lessons. He was the deputy head on the boys’ site and was feared by many of the boys, but again he was one of the kindest people and he had a cracking sense of humour. Miss Smart, also my Latin teacher, was fantastic too. She was another twin set and pearls type, but she was a teacher that really cared and she was passionate about her subject; in fact, we always maintained that the reason she never married was because she never met a man that matched Tacitus!

It all seems a long time ago now, but I have a lot of fond memories of my time at Newcastle-under-Lyme School. The strange thing is that within my current job I now work alongside teachers from the school to recruit volunteers to work within our organisation. It’s funny how life can go full circle.

Scaredy cat

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted. What can I say, I’ve been busy.
It’s been another of those varied weeks for me- I seem to have done a bit of everything. A couple of days ago I organised a visit for our children from the ‘Animal Man’, a rather eccentric man with the curliest moustache you have ever seen, and it got me thinking about phobias. The appearance of snakes and oversized spiders never seems to bother the children at all, in fact they usually can’t wait to hold them, but most of our teenage volunteers recoil in either fear or disgust. At what point do we gain these fears? I’m not in the least bit bothered by snakes, spiders, creepy crawlies (though I’m not keen on wasps), but put me in a room with a cat and I’m fairly anxious; I wouldn’t say I’m phobic, but I’m not comfortable. I don’t think I have any real phobias- there are things that I would rather avoid (great heights, maggots, large knives, public speaking, horses) but they are all things that I can do/ come into contact with if I have to. Where do the really irrational fears people have come from though? I had a work colleague who was phobic of milk and milk products- she couldn’t make someone a cup of tea with milk in it, couldn’t sit next to anyone eating yoghurt and would run out of the room if someone spilled milk; she was unable to give any reason for this phobia. I've also come across people with phobias of buttons and polystyrene!

Favourite childhood books

Sorting through all my books over the weekend got me thinking about my favourite books from when I was a child (and that is quite some time ago!). I seem to have grown up on way too much Enid Blyton- I still have the complete set of the Famous Five series and of Malory Towers, along with others such as The Magic Faraway Tree and The Enchanted Wood. The Brer Rabbit stories also stick in my mind though I think if I were to re-read them now I would probably be quite shocked, I am sure 'Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby' was blatant racism. Must read some of them again for an adult take on the stories.
My very first favourite book would have been Beatrix Potter's 'Mrs Tittlemouse' which my Dad likes to think I was able to read at 3 years of age! Yes, I knew it word for word, knew when to turn the pages and would shout at my parents if they got a word wrong when reading it to me, but I'm not entirely sure that this necessarily constitutes being able to read!
What is my favourite childhood book? It has to be Eric Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'- I loved that book (and still do) but, leading a deprived childhood as I did (hmm), I never owned a copy until I was about 23. I loved going to the local library and that would be the book I would always hunt out to read.
What would I be likely to read now if I were a child again? It would probably be Philip Pullman books, which I think are fantastic- if you haven't read the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, you must do, they make for compelling reading. I think Harry Potter would probably be in there too.

Order order

I am the very excited owner of a new bookcase. Plashing Vole asked in his post a week or so ago how people like to organise their book collections. I have to admit I agree with his alphabetical method, with the overspill of unread books being in a totally unordered pile on the floor. However, I am in a quandary. Now that I have more book space, I am able to shelve all my children's books, which until now have been stored away in boxes...but how should I include them in my collection?- separate section (still in alphabetical order of course!) or integrated with the rest of my books?

More retail therapy

Have had a whole day off work today- heaven. Went for some retail therapy with my mum (she is the only one who will put up with my incessant whinings of "does my bum look big in this") and spent too much money. Oh well.
Had to boost our energy by stopping off for a drink and slab of cake in Marks & Spencer. When the lady served my cake she pulled out of it what looked suspiciously like a long hair, dropped it on the floor and then proceeded to put the plate on our tray! I don't think she realised I was watching. When I asked her if she had just removed a hair from the piece of cake she just said "I think it might have been, or it could have been a fibre from the strawberry jam"- since when has strawberry jam contained four inch long fibres? Not impressed.

Worst ever chat-up lines

I went to put petrol in my car yesterday on my way home from work- not a time or place I would expect to be chatted up. I must have looked like I had been drawn through a hedge backwards and was wearing my not so attractive work clothes, yet the guy behind the till still felt I was worthy of his rather poor chat-up lines.
Him: "Hello, how are you?"
Me: "Fine thank you, and yourself?"
Him: "Very well. Very well now that I have seen you. Yes, very well now that I have seen you."
At this point he leans forward to read the logo on my T-shirt and I start inwardly cringing. He makes another couple of random comments and I am willing my card transaction to speed up. Then, "Are you married?". WHAT?! Fortunately he was just in the process of handing back my card, so I just looked at him rather stunned, said thank you and walked out, leaving him starting to say something else- I just dread to think what!

Busy busy busy

It's been a hectic few days. I would say I am glad it's the end of the week, but I am at work all weekend yet. Interviews are over and went fairly well...apart from the two that cancelled that is...and the one that didn't turn up....and the one who was slightly late having had to buy a new pair of shoes on her way because she got caught in a torrential downpour and didn't want to squelch into her interview....and the one whose belt burst off just as she was leaving the interview room! Surprisingly, despite all that, we have found two (hopefully) very good new staff members. I do enjoy interviewing, I have met some really colourful characters over the years.

It rained...

....a lot! Other than that it was a successful day (no children lost or gained), if somewhat exhausting. Interviews tomorrow- should be interesting.

Variety is the spice of life

I've a bizarrely varied week at work ahead of me. Tomorrow I am taking a group of disabled children and teenagers to Drayton Manor Park, Wednesday I am at a training session all day, Thursday I will be interviewing for new staff and Friday I will be delivering training to 25 new volunteers. Somewhere along the line I will need to fit some paperwork in too, though I am not sure quite where at the moment. I think I must have the most varied job in existence...and definitely the best job!
Wish me luck for tomorrow- success will be gauged by us returning with the same number of people we left with (hopefully these will be the same individuals as well). Hope it doesn't rain.

A good weekend

I've spent a very pleasant weekend in the company of Mr Vole. We went to see the new Harry Potter film on Saturday- very good. It had the odd shaky moment and a lot of the detail from the book was passed over, but on the whole it was excellent. I couldn't believe the queues of people waiting to get in, I'm guessing it will definitely be a box office success.
Yesterday was spent mooching- isn't that what Sundays are for? Had a bite of lunch out and then pottered (sorry, no pun intended) around Waterstones, just to feed the Vole's book buying obsession. I did think at one point he was going to go into a frenzied rage around the store on spotting a sign above a case of books about cycling that said "Peddle Power". Appalling. A quiet word was had with the shop assistant who said that the sign had been produced by the Arndale store- not sure which was worse, the fact that they had made such a dreadful mistake in producing it, or that someone else had then put it up without spotting the error. Grrr.

Ooh, parcels!

I like coming home to find parcels waiting for me. Today I had a lovely big box delivered and what should I find in it but a Radley handbag! I don't know where that came from. Perhaps it was from when I accidently found myself on the Radley website and accidentally clicked on a rather nice bag (I think I may also have accidentally given them my address and card details- careless of me)! I must stop this unhealthy obsession with Radley- I now own five handbags, one wallet, two purses, a passport holder, a key ring and an umbrella. What shall I buy next?

It's good to be back...not

Well, it's been back to work for me today after my annual leave. I can't believe the amount of paperwork that was covering my desk this morning- ridiculous. I think I've done the equivalent of a week's work in one day- I need a holiday!
I've been shortlisting job applicants this afternoon. It was SO depressing. I know that people are desperate to find jobs at the moment, but it is really frustrating when three quarters of your applicants don't even meet the minimum requirements for the post. I was amused by the applicant whose job history included being Santa on more than one occasion- he stated the reason for leaving this job as 'seasonal work'! Well, I never would have guessed. As much as it would very useful for us to have our own professional Santa, I am afraid to say he won't be gaining an interview. Finally managed to shortlist eight for interview, so have that excitement to look forward to next week- I love interviewing!

Mmmm, chocolate

I've been feeling a little sorry for myself this week- my cold seems to have developed into mild flu-like symptoms, though I am feeling a little better today. Being ill gives me the excuse to eat chocolate though. I am a bit of a chocoholic- I don't buy it for myself that often but if it is put in front of me I cannot resist! I'm afraid that yesterday the chocolate bars at the till in the supermarket kept shouting at me (damn those retail psychologists) and in the end I gave in and bought a Cadbury's Double Decker. They must be one of my favourite chocolate bars, though as with many things in life, they aren't as good as they used to be. On that note I ask, what things in life do you feel just aren't as good as they used to be?

Big Brother is watching....

Well, I'm pretty confident I passed my passport identity interview. It's scary how much information they have on you- I began to wonder at one point if they knew more about me than I knew about myself! They asked me for all addresses I have lived at and with whom I lived, the date my parents got married, my grandparents' names, who my brother lives with, any loans or mortgages taken out in my name, any store cards I own...the list goes on. I did offer them the name of my teddy bear but they didn't need that information. It shows though just how much information the Government holds on us as individuals and how very little privacy we have in our lives.

Identify me

I have to go for my passport identity interview tomorrow. I have managed so far to go my whole adult life without venturing out of the country, but am due to visit Barcelona with my friends in September. I thought that having my passport photos taken was traumatic enough, but now I have to undergo a half hour grilling to prove I am who I say I am. The bizarre thing is that I don't have to take anything with me- no driving licence, no utility bills etc- so I am slightly unsure how they are planning to prove my identity. We shall see tomorrow.

Feeling sorry for myself

Why is it that as soon as you get some time off work, your body decides to pack up on you? I've got a stinking cold and am feeling miserable- not so much because I feel rotten, but more so because it's made me waste a day of my annual leave doing absolutely nothing. Grrrr, I am not impressed. Did eat some chocolate which cheered me up somewhat but now I feel sick too. I am determined to feel better tomorrow, I WILL NOT BE ILL....and, no, it is not swine flu.

Coincidence?...

We have our first case of swine flu in Stoke-on-Trent. Funny how it has broken out just after my new car arrived from Mexico....

Fancy making a mint?

I don't suppose you usually look too closely at the coins in your pocket. It may well be worth your while to do so. The Royal Mint have manufactured 200 000 new 20p coins without the date stamp on them and are now recalling them all, offering £50 for each one returned! Get checking your pockets!

It's way too hot....

I'm not a lover of high temperatures. Having spent an uncomfortably warm weekend at work, you would think I would be keen to keep cool on my day off. No. Instead I have spent all afternoon baking in a kitchen that has now reached temperatures equating those of a sauna. What's more, I won't even have the pleasure of eating my wonderful cakes as they are for our summer fair at the weekend. I did get to lick round one or two mixing bowls though and now feel a little sick! I think I would make someone a good wife. Any takers?

By the way....

....did I mention, I've had a new car!

Death of the cassette tape

I have collected my new car today. I successfully managed to contain my excitement over the last week but now I am like a big kid at Christmas! I think I may just leave it on the drive to look at and commute using public transport so as to avoid dirt, scratches and dastardly children trying to climb over it (I am sure that is how my old car got a dent on its bonnet). Or maybe not.
I have also finally entered the technological world by having an integral iPod dock; no longer will I be playing compilation cassettes on my car stereo. I love my iPod but I will miss playing some of my old indie classics that were copied from 7" singles (yes, I am afraid I am a vinyl junkie). Must search around for some of them on iTunes, though I fear some may just be too obscure.
I'll leave you with a couple of photos of my Beetle.

Bug alert...

After expecting a wait of six months for my new car, my Beetle is ready and waiting for me!!! I am sooooo excited. Can't quite work out why it has arrived four months earlier than estimated- hope they haven't forgotten to put the engine in!

At the car wash..

...or not. Got up this morning, earlier than I would have liked, to go to a car wash that had been organised to raise money for the Playground. Arrived at my destination after a horrible journey along the A50 (I hate that road) in the pouring rain to find out it had been cancelled. So now I am fluctuating between being cross that I missed out on a Sunday morning lie-in and relieved that I haven't had to spend four hours cleaning cars!