1 of 2 (or maybe 3)

2011-08-05, 5:42 p.m.
Oh my good GRAVY � How many times have I tried to write this update? Answer: eleventy bazillion. Ive had a severe case of bloggers block, dear readers, and most debilitating its been. I love writing stuff but sometimes the pithy bon mots just wont flow in a natural channel between brain, fingers and keyboard. They just mill about, like foreign students at the bottom of an escalator, never really forming themselves into a coherent mass and, before I know it, Ive wasted another day piss-arsing about watching people torture their kids having fun. And when you consider that this clip is only 11 seconds long, that might give you some idea of the powers of my procrastinating mind:

Every time Ive started this entry and then abandoned it for something more thrilling (coffee, whisky, cake, little lie down in the garden � not necessarily in that order) Ive added one of these:



So you can see just how many pathetic attempts Ive had at updating more often than once every three bloody weeks. Here *offers arse*, kick hard (with added �buck up, you lazy moo�) willya?


Lets start with this, shall we? Y�all can let it play while you read all the bollocks what I am writing today, seeing as Schoooooooooooooool�s Out for Summerrrrrrrrrrr!

I appreciate that my stateside cousins have slightly different holiday times, but over here in UKshire, school hols start at the end of July and go on til the beginning of September.

For the last ten years or so, the school holidays have just meant a nightmarish maelstrom of childminders, kids clubs, babysitters and Working Mum Guilt but, guess what? Now that I work in a school, the school holidays just mean SIX WEEKS OFF AND GETTING PAID TO DO NOTHING!!! Lemme hear you say WOOHOOO!


Well, I wrote that a week ago and since then my head has been so cluttered with shite as to make writing anything more entertaining than �Buy Milk� on a post-it something of an elusive occupation. Ive tried writing this about a dozen times but after staring at the page for half an hour or so Ive inevitably gone back to staring into space, or staring out of the window, or staring at the TV or sometimes (for a change) just staring.

The trouble is, all the stuff that�s been happening has been stuff of the �I just don�t know where to start with that�� type, which Im sure would make for riveting reading, but makes for jolly difficult writing.

First off, there was the end of term to deal with. That included an awful lot more depressing stuff to do with dead teenagers, which also meant a lot more people crying, and funerals (which I couldn�t go to as I had to cover for the staff who REALLY had to go) and all that kind of stuff, and the worst of it was we couldn�t even be �normal� about it.

The classrooms were full of crying kids who we aren�t allowed to cuddle (I did break the rules once or twice and offer a little pat on the arm, but I think I got away with it) and, of course, you cant let the kids know that you�re upset about it at all. We just had to retain an air of �everything�s OK� which is fucking hard to do when you really want to have a jolly good cry about the unnecessary death of a nice, funny, sparky girl with whom you�ve spent an hour or so every day for the last year, explaining why she might need to learn how to do a quadratic equation. She�d be looking at me with a �Really? You really think this is going to have any impact on my life at all?� look on her face � almost laughing, but not quite. And I�d eventually give up the pretence and just say �Aww, come on. You�ll never have to do another one of these EVER after this term. Cut me some slack and do them now and I�ll get off your case.� Well, she sure as hell doesn�t need to know how to do them now, and she sure as hell wont ever have to do another one.


There was also the small matter of the Retirement Party of the much-loved and revered-as-a-God Deputy Headteacher. I�d been told that there was to be a �cabaret� of sorts, so even tho I wasn�t planning to go to the party, I volunteered for the cabaret cos, well, you know I love to sing and I thought it might be fun. I was told there would be �loads of us� and it would be �a bit of a laugh�. Turned out it was just two of us (me and my friend Mia), and it wasn�t fun at all.

By subterfuge someone had found out the DH�s favourite five songs and emailed me a list of them, with a note saying �can you do these please�.

Of the five, there was only one that had a female vocal. Two of the others were (tenor) show tunes, one was a Queen track and one was Roy Bloody Orbison (whom Ive never liked!). Oh joy.

Time to rope L in. He�s never even MET the DH but he really stepped up to the plate on this one � he found two backing tracks for the show tunes and re-recorded all the sounds so they didn�t sound like they were played on a childs xylophone*, then he played around with the Roy Orbison until it was in a key that me and Mia could sing it in and we divvied up the vocal and made it a duet (of sorts). She also took the show tunes off my hands (Bring Him Home and Love Changes Everything). That left me One Day at a Time Sweet Jesus (a female vocal! Huzzah!) � L agreed to play it live, on guitar, and he blagged a favour off his mate Tim, who wrote me a harmonica part to play when I wasn�t being Lena Martell(!).

Then, with only about a week to go, we called in another favour from a mate who�s produced a Queen show and who lent us a copy of the score for Somebody to Love. Then me and L carefully stripped it down to its bare bones so that it was just one (female) vocal line and a simple, finger-picked guitar sound. It was pretty good (although SO nervewracking to sing � especially when people started joining in with bits I knew we�d cut!). Actually, no, it was bloody marvellous � especially considering we�d also had to play/sing through the crappy school PA which is also used for making announcements at sports day. Hardly a Concert Rig, m�dears!

I drank heavily to numb the pain and we got the sweetest thank you letter from the DH, apologising for his taste in music and for �causing you so much anguish on my behalf�.

* despite seeing the word xylophone on just about every ABC poster in every classroom that I, or my children, have ever been in, that is the first time I have ever attempted to write that word. It was trickier than I thought!


Last night I did the suppers for the Pool Team that L belongs to. I made 130 meatballs (from scratch, natch!), including squelching together a couple of pounds of steak mince and a couple of pounds of sausages in my biggest bowl. I don�t mind making meatballs � there�s not much to do other than stare into space and roll your palms together. There�s also the added bonus of forgetting to take my jewellery off which meant I could call out to the general household such gems as �Eww! Ewwww! Ive got sausage meat in my ring!� and �does anybody have an old toothbrush that I can use to scrape out my ring� which made me laugh quite a lot. Nobody wants sausagemeat in their ring, do they? No, don�t answer that.


In other school news, we had an outbreak of vandalism which included some arbitrary window smashing and someone taking a shit in the doorway of a science lab. Im not keen on chemistry, but really, Id draw the line at defecatory symbols of protest. Luckily the dumbasses perps were stupid enough to have themselves captured on about fifty CCTV cameras around the school so it didn�t take too long to have the little bastards arrested, especially as one of them came into school next day wearing the same jacket that he was wearing on the CCTV footage. Dumbass.


You know what, Imma gonna post this now, before it gets too unwieldy (and whilst Im still piecing together all the other half-entries that Ive started and then abandoned) and then I�ll do another bit after dinner. That bit�ll be Personal Problems, Recipes, Musing on Being �Formerly Hot� and maybe a picture or two.

Check back laters, m�taters and there should be more of the same (possibly more jokes and less expired adolescents, but Im not promising).

S
x





back - forth