Conversations on the patio

"It's funny, I don't look like someone who talks about poo."

"And what? I do look like someone who talks about poo? You totally look like someone who talks about poo. Every time I look at you I think of poo."

I live with some charming girls! ;)

Footballers have problems too! Who knew?

(Sorry about the subtitles. Only decent copy I could find.)

I have seen this advert twice recently and both times I have felt...well...sickened really.

Honestly, what do Adidas' advertisers think they are doing sticking this sort of rubbish on our screens? I mean really, I know I find hope in the fact that David Beckham can get over what happened in 1998. After all, tripping an opposing player in a moment of adolescent-type stroppiness really is a "dark time". I don't know why people moan about their lives, when really none of us have experienced anything as awful as that. There is a lot of suffering in this world - people are abused, hurt, beaten, lose those they love and experience overwhelming depressions - but Becks knows what it's like to sink to the depths, after all, he did cry for almost 5 or 10 whole minutes! That is true despair. I can't even imagine how awful it must have been for him to cry for that long. And only have his millions of pounds and wife to comfort him.

I really have no idea what kind of idiot came up with the concept for this commercial but they seriously need their head examining.

Stick Stuff On Your Head Day 2007

Well, according to Mr Cactus over there, it's Stick Stuff On Your Head Day 2007. And who am I to argue with the logic of a prickly pear? It's true, we all need to take a step back and not take life so seriously from time to time. So, without further ado:







PS: My photos from the weekend are now up at Flickr!

A poignant moment

Ethel - my little car - had her last day on the road yesterday. We went for a little drive last night. It was nice.

This would be proof that I have far too much time on my hands if it weren't for the fact that actually I have a ridiculous amount to do. This is in fact proof that I am a procrastinator extraordinaire, but seriously, how much more fun is it to make a satyrical memorial video for your car than, say, write a justification for a lesson plan or a reflective commentary on a maths problem?

Yes, I am well aware that I am probably the only person who finds this funny!



I am such a geek!

Like I'm that stupid

Whilst in the process of swapping over to Gmail, which is supposed to have much better spam filters, I still get plenty of junk on my old email address that Outlook doesn't manage to filter out. I've received several letters like this over the last few weeks. Italics are, of course, mine:

Important Message .

Good day,
My name is . CPT.Babara J. Minnich, I am an American soldier, I serve in the Military of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, as you know we have being (Have being? What do they teach in those American schools?) attacked by insurgents everyday and car bombs. We where lucky to move funds belonging to Saddam Hussein?s family hopping it was a bomb in the box, (I'm always hopping for bombs. Or occasionally skipping. Depends on the situation) later we find out it was a fiscal cash .
The total amount is US$10,000,000 Ten Million United State dollars in cash, mostly 100 dollar bills which is still in our co sturdy at the military base camp, now we find it as a Big Risk (Gotta love Random Capitalisation) us if the Iraqis People get to find out about this box of money because we are not allowed to have any money in our position for that We are seeking for a (I am in awe of this grammar. IN. AWE!) trustworthy foreign business partner who can help us in receiving this box of money (Random line indent!)
so that He/She may invest it for us and keep our share for banking. This is our plan of sharing my partner and I will take 60%, you take the other 40%.

No stress attached, for we have made all necessary arrangement for shipping it out of Iraq, Iraq is a war zone. (No? Is it? I had no clue as I have been living under a large rock) We planed on using diplomatic courier service for shipping the money out in one large silver box declaring it as family valuables using diplomatic immunity. (Cunning!)
If you are interested I will send you the full details, my job is to find a good partner that we can trust to assist us. Can I trust you? When you receive this letter, kindly send me an e-mail signifying your interest including your most confidential telephone/fax numbers for quick communication also your contact details. This business is risk free. (Apart from the fact that we will have your "most confidential" phone numbers and address!) The box can be shipped out in 48hrs. Please send your reply to my private mail box: babarajminnic-at-aol.fr

Respectfully,
CPT.Barbara (Note this is the one and only time she correctly spells her own name - with two r's) Joan Minnich

I mean, HELLO? Like I would be that dumb as to send you my contact details, especially to a different email address than the one this one arrived from. And, let's face it, even if this were genuine (and pigs were circling the sky as I type) anyone with such a terrible grasp of the English language does not deserve $6,000,000!

Proper post coming soon...I promise :)

Delurk or Nunzilla will get you!!!

Today is the start of De-Lurking Week. For those of you who don't know, lurking is when you read someone's blog but don't comment....yeah, I'm looking at you!


I figured since I'm asking you all to comment, I should try and produce something comment-worthy, and so I present you with a random collection of pictures, videos and anecdotes that, at the very least, will make you think (in the style of Chandler Bing), "Could this BE any more random?"

Here is a video of the Christmas present I bought for Ali. Presenting.....NUNZILLA!



And here is a little sample of what Ali bought me for Christmas. As you can see I have already put them to good use!



Yes, she bought me bath crayons! They are cool! And I am SO not artistic hehe.

Last night I played Articulate with Ali and some other friends. If you've never played it before it is VERY funny. It involves describing a word on a card to your team. Some classic lines were uttered such as:
"You rob a....?"
"Thames!"

"Swiss people wear them on their feet."
"Clogs!"
"YES!" (NB, Dutch people wear clogs.)

and
"Women have it."
"B.O.!"



Ali and I also spent part of the evening playing with our friend Colette's neice, Deanna, who decided that she was Pegasus, I was Hercules and Ali was Meg. That was, erm, fun. Also she found 10p in her tights. Yes, I am the queen of the completely surreal evening.

Tonight I went out with Ali again and we saw It's a Boy/Girl Thing which really is as dire as it looks. The highlight, however, was Ali singing along to I Think We're Alone Now (how could Girls Aloud cover such a classic song?) and absolutely belting it out at the moment the volume of the music on the film dropped to allow for dialogue. Fortunately for Ali there were only about 7 other people in the cinema. But they all heard. And laughed. We were the oldest people in there by about 8 years too! The shame!

Also, look:

I finished my Education Studies assignment. One. Day. Early! Woohoo!

How many brain cells does it actually require to work at a refreshment stand?

I went to the cinema this evening with my dad and brothers. Bluewater was packed and apparently everyone had decided to have dinner at the exact same time as us. Most places said there was a 45 minute wait and as we only had an hour and a half till the film, we struggled to find somewhere that was going to feed us quick enough. We ended up at Carluccio's, which was slightly speedier, but we were still pressed for time so my brother Kolin and I went ahead to get popcorn etc while my dad and my other brother stayed to pay the bill.

So we walked up to the counter and queued for a little while before one of the staff called us over to his till. We walked over and I ordered a large popcorn, a bag of Minstrels and a bag of Starburst (Opal Fruits, Opal Fruits, Opal Fruits!!!!) and I then ordered an apple Tango for my dad. I turned to Kol and asked what he wanted. A Pepsi. So I said, "Okay, and two small Pepsis."

Our server, Olly, looked confused. "Do you still want the apple Tango?"

"Yes, and a Diet Pepsi."

"So that's one small apple Tango, two small Pepsis and a Diet Pepsi?"

"Yes."

"Do you know it would be cheaper to get a regular Pepsi, because that's less than two small Pepsis."

"Well, if it's cheaper...." I waited for a moment as what he actually said sinks in. "Wait, no, we need four drinks."

"Oh," he said. "I thought it was just for the two of you."

Yeah, the two of us were going to eat a whole large bag of popcorn and chase it with two entire bags of sweets. Seriously!

A series of Christmas vignettes

I figured that rather than bore you all with the whole "I did this, and then I did that and then I went there..." rendition of Christmas, I would simply highlight for you the most entertaining segments in a series of amusing anecdotes. This may or may not continue for several days, depending on how much I can actually remember!

The one where we ate the cat:
On Boxing day I ate lunch at my friend Ali's the same as I did on Christmas day. Her brother and his girlfriend were there. In an attempt to steer the conversation away from what may have been an inappropriate topic for dinner conversation (I honestly can't remember what), Ali's mum turned to her and said, "How's the cat?"

She was, of course, referring to Tilly, the cat owned by the people Ali (and I, sort of) was housesitting for. Ali's brother, however, in a moment of incredible quick-wittedness that I can only envy, poked the meat on his plate gingerly with his fork, looked up at us with eyes full of concern and said, "The cat?"

The one with the SPLAT!
Boxing day evening Ali and I got the munchies and headed down to the BP garage to stock up on goodies. We were looking at the selection of crisps and trying to make a decision, factoring in several special offers. "Well," I said, "I like Doritos, but if we get Doritos we have to get dip, and I don't like those Doritos dips. Do you think they'll have fresh ones?"

"I doubt it," was Ali's cynical reply.

Well I headed off over to the chiller cabinet and there they were: a selection of 4 dips in little plastic pots, stacked and then surrounded by a cardboard sleeve. "Aha!" I said to Ali. "They do have fresh dips!" And I picked up the cardboard sleeve and brandished the dips at her.

At which point the bottom pot of dip slid out of the cardboard sleeve and landed with a resounding SPLAT on the floor.

After we had recovered from our hysterical laughter, Ali and I grabbed another pack of dips and ran away to pay for them. Yes, I am the type of person who makes a mess in a shop and then pretends to have had nothing to do with it. I'm a bad person.

The one with the song from Friends:
At my mum's I noticed a funny smell. The cat was winding itself around my legs at the time, but I expressed incredulity at the fact that the cat could stink so bad that I could smell it from there. My mum said its teeth are really bad and she should really take it to the vet, that it should have really had yearly checkups, but it hadn't, and now it had the worst cat breath ever.

Later that evening, I caught a whiff of the cat's halitosis again and commented on it, at which point my brother started singing 'Smelly Cat'. I joined in and we sang the song in its entirety. My mum told us to stop, "You'll give him a complex," she said.

"We can't give him a complex, he really does smell," I said. "You won't take him to the vet, he's clearly not your favourite pet."

"Shut up," my mum said, obviously feeling a bit awkward. "We can't afford to take him to the vet."

I looked around at the shiny new cabinets and the gleaming metal of the stainless steel hob. "Well, obviously," I said, "a new kitchen is far more important than your cat's teeth."

"Kolin," my mum said to my brother. "What would you like for dessert, because Laura's not getting any now."

The one with the reminiscent vomit:
We were talking, for some reason, about my mum's ex-boyfriend and my brother reminisced about the time he threw up all down himself whilst they had been staying at my mum's then-boyfriend's.

"I think it was the first time I smoked puff. I'd been drinking and then all [ex-boyfriend's kids] friends were there offering me this joint, so I was all, what the hell, why not. And then I was sick. A lot."

"You really were," my mum interrupted. "We had to put all your clothes in a plastic bag to take them home because they were so covered in sick."

"Yeah," said my brother. "And I was only 6 years old, mother, what kind of parent are you." He paused for effect and my mum gave him a look. "Not really, I think I was fourteen."

It's that time again

As you know, I do check my stats from time to time. It's how I discovered my stalkers. Hi stalkers! *waves* Who, by the way, are still reading. And logging in from work. Tut tut. It's understandable really that they'd want to keep coming back, after all, I am just that entertaining.

Anyway, to actually get to the point, I do check my stats, and realised I haven't done a 'Googled' post in a while although I have some classic hits. So, without further ado, on with the show!

the advert were a man is on a chair and then is blown away by alot of hai - I can only assume that this sentence finished with the word hair and that the Google text box wasn't long enough to contain it all. But even then, I have no idea what this is about. Are you sure you didn't dream it?

love squishie - is this some bizarre term of endearment?

apathy, lack of emotion, poor or nonexistant social functioning - ahhh, so someone read my lonely hearts ad! Hehe.

doctor laura nude photos - well, I'm afraid I can't help you with that, and having visited Doctor Laura's website I'm not too sure why you would want nude photos. I can, however, direct you to her talking action figure, with its selection of phrases you can click to listen to. But seriously, check out the scary plastic smile! (And I'm not even talking about the action figure.)

lay back lie back gramma - what is it with people doing searches about my grandmother? Unless they actually meant grammar. In which case I will just quietly pity them. Hehe.

jiggling man boobs - none of those here. Thank the Lord!

making out with joseph gordon levitt - erm......no...?

multiple personality drama queen - hey, someone else who saw my lonely hearts ad! ;)

what's my story morning glory? write it for me - write your own flipping story, lazy arse!

can laura have some lunch please - yes, can she? Which of you miscreants is willing to feed me?

picture of a man farting out lava and near a volcano - can you fart lava? I mean, obviously not as you would die if your bowels were filled with lava. But surely 'fart' implies gas? And yet 'lava' implies liquid. I think a more appropriate word is necessary here.

Mullet: revealed!

I finally managed to get a picture of the kid with the mullet today! Yay! I will post more later about the last day but for now I leave you with "Conrad".

Random update

I figured I should do a bit of a random update, especially as I just discovered a couple of pictures on my phone that I totally forgot I took (see previous post - brain definitely on hiatus) and I had to share them with you.

On Saturday I went out for a meal with my family for my Grandad's 80th birthday. It was a pretty posh restaurant and the food was REALLY good. But my brother's bread and butter pudding came with a load of orange rind - I guess as decoration, although who knows, maybe you were supposed to eat it. Anyway, my brother piled all of his peel on top of the peel on my cousin's plate, creating a small mountain of the stuff. After some discussion of the message this would send the chef when the plates were removed, my brother decided to remove all ambiguity from said message:

Needless to say, the wine had been somewhat flowing. Just another shining example of the weird and random exploits of my family.

Anyway, there are a couple of other pictures from the weekend that can be viewed on my Flickr

I also had a funny evening Monday night, when I went to see The Holiday with Ali. The film was pretty good, although it was quite long and man, I didn't get home til after midnight! But we had a fun evening as always. Much hilarity.

We went into a bar before the film started and moaned like the old people we clearly are about the volume of the music television in there. But who can blame us in the face of such musical genius as Jibbs' Chain Hang Low. I mean someone has written a song to the tune of "Do your ears hang low?" (let's keep it clean here people), only incorporated the amazing lyrics:

Do your chain hang low

Do it wobble to da flo

Do it shine in the light

Is it platinum is it gold

Could you throw it over ya shoulder

If ya hot it make ya cold

Simply inspiring!

Unfortunately the sound quality on this video sucks, but the skinny white boys made me laugh!

Unauthorised absence

Dear Brain,

Please get a grip. I know you are tired, although God knows why as all you seem to do at the moment is sleep - particularly whilst I'm awake. There is only one more day of school to get through so please return from whatever corner of my skull you have chosen to hide yourself and get with the programme.

It is not helpful that you tell me all day that I have a choir rehearsal tonight when it is, in fact, tomorrow night. I can only be thankful that your absence is recent and you previously had the wherwithal to WRITE THINGS DOWN, because otherwise I would have looked a mighty fool at 8pm, standing around outside an empty building wondering 'Where is everybody?' like the giraffe on that old British Airways advert.

It is a point of fact, dearest Brain, that this absence is quite unacceptable. You are - unfortunately - quite indispensible and irreplaceable as I tend to need you in order to form coherent sentences and hopefully avoid that gut-clenching feeling of social inadequacy.

I know that hours upon hours of wrapping up brightly coloured pencils for the children in my class may well cause you to slip into a trance-like state of sheer, unadulterated boredom, but I'm afraid it can't be helped. There will be time to sleep next week, and to think about nothing more strenuous than what to have for lunch, but until then I must insist that you return to full functionality immediately.

So here's the deal, Brain, let's get through the next couple of days and then you can relax, maybe even take a holiday, on full pay of course. Just don't abandon me yet.

Sincerely,
Laura

In which logic loses out to blind panic

Thursday night. I go to bed early as I'm still not 100%. I've been asleep just over an hour when I'm awoken by the buzzer on my entry phone. I roll over and look at the time. 11:45pm. I freeze. The buzzing continues.

I lie in bed, paralysed by fear, unable to even get out of bed because the only person who would buzz my door at quarter to midnight? Would have to be an axe murderer. (Did I mention I was ill? That possibly, I wasn't thinking 100% straight?) Because obviously, axe murderers will buzz your entry phone when they want to come in and kill you.

*BUZZZZZZ* "Oh, hi, sorry to bother you at this time of night. I'm a crazy axe-wielding maniac and just wondered if you'd buzz me in so I can chop you up into little bits and store your remains in my freezer."

Yeah, okay Laura.

Anyway, after what seemed like FOREVER, the buzzing stopped and my heart slowly returned to its natural pace. I lay there, silent, lights still off so no crazy axe murderers would know I was home, and wondered who on earth would have been buzzing my door at midnight.

A few more minutes pass and MY PHONE STARTS TO RING! It's a local number, not a mobile, and one I don't recognise. Why would the crazy axe murderer, having got no answer from my front door, go home and then ring my mobile? Why would a crazy axe murderer HAVE my mobile number? (This is what it is like inside my head. Are you scared yet? Are you already dialling for the men in white coats to come and take me away? Can I just repeat the fact that I was still running a bit of a fever? Thank you.)

Eventually, after my phone had rung several times, the crazy axe murderer left a message on my voicemail and I picked it up.

It was J. She had decided to come visit me, knowing that usually I'm still wide awake at midnight. Her mobile was out of battery so she was calling from a phone box.

You know what? That actually makes a LOT more sense than an axe wielding maniac who happens to have both my address and phone number.

From the mundane to the ridiculous

I got home at six today, same as yesterday. I think this is going to be the regular pattern now up til Christmas. Only 3 days til the weekend.

My observation went okay. The DVD didn't really work as for some reason the picture was really blue. Apparently this is because it was a region 1 DVD and the projector didn't like it, even though the DVD player it was being played on was multi-region. Hmm. Anyway, it was okay and now it's over. We have a final observation booked for 5th December - geography - should be all right, I hope.

And a quick update from the latest escapades of Emmett:
In RE today, lower ability had multiple choice questions based on scriptures. The learning objective was to think about what it means to be friends of God. One particular scripture they had was Jesus' commandment to love one another as he has loved us. The question was "What does John say about being friends with God?"
a) It doesn't make any difference to our lives.
b) We should love each other like He loves us.
c) We should love God but not be too bothered about other people.

Guess which Emmett picked? C!

He does make me laugh.

Something fishy going on....

So, today I met up with a friend of mine and we went for lunch at Bluewater. It was lovely, and my friend got a staff discount in La Tasca because she works in the one up at Canary Wharf. Woo!

We wandered around the shops afterwards and as we were walking around the upper level I looked over the balcony and saw a stand advertising Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil. They had a gigantic inflatable fish!

I had to go for a closer look. There was a bloke in a fish suit! My friend didn't want to be associated with a person taking photos of a guy in a fish suit - I'm not sure why, I thought it was hilarious! - so stood a little distance away while I snapped a couple of shots.

Man in a fish suit

Huge inflatable fish

We had fun. We went and tried on some dresses as I'm her bridesmaid and she wanted to get some ideas for her dress and mine. Found some gorgeous dresses. I saw one I so want for a black tie dinner I have coming up soon. But it's £145 and I really can't justify it, but it's sooooooooooo nice. *sigh*

Oh well, I better get to bed. Just wanted to share with you the crazy things you can see in an English shopping centre. Haha.

Emmett, you little genius!

So, I had this day of non-contact time today. Alongside the reams of lessons I had to plan and assessment records I had to fill out, I also had a hefty pile of marking of all the work the kids have done this week. Their geography topic this term is 'What's in the news' and on Tuesday I had them writing news reports in pairs, based on watching Monday's episode of News Round, the BBC's children's news programme.

So we watched the show, took notes and then I put them into pairs so that the lower ability children would be working with higher ability children. There was an odd number of children in the class that day as one little boy was off sick, so Emmett and Conrad (the boy with the mullet) were also working with Nick. Nick and Conrad are both quite able and Emmett (as I mentioned before) is not so able.

Emmett was having a bit of an off day (although clearly not as off as Wednesday, when he got the ball stuck on his finger). I'm sure it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, but the three of them would not co-operate and no matter how many times I told Emmett to work with the other two, he flatly refused and continued to work on his own. I got frustrated but ultimately left him to it.

I hadn't looked at the finished products until today. They were required to write the news report like a script, so they could perform it, with the best one being performed in their class assembly in a week and a half. This is how Emmett's went:

Emmett: Hello and welcome to News Round. A penguin was trapped in the ice in Antarctic.
Nick: Some film directors saved the penguin.
Conrad: Also, in Portugal there is a chocolate festival.
Emmett: Now we will be back after the break (NB, News Round is a BBC programme - there are no advert breaks on the BBC!)
Nick: Welcome back.
Emmett: There was a 'bird factor' (play on words used in News Round). Birds were singing in Colombia.
Conrad: I've got a small brain.

I laughed out loud to myself in the staff room when I read that. It actually said "I've got a smal bran" but I got the gist of it.

I was just so impressed that he had done something so funny. Of course, I didn't quite know how to mark it. Up to that point I'd been ticking each news item he mentioned, but then that....I was slightly speechless. It seems sometimes, despite appearances, the kid is very much on the planet!

I managed to get through the whole pile of marking and plan about 7 lessons, although I still have so much to do. Wah! I really hoped I'd get more done today and have the weekend to myself. Next week I'm going to stay later after school each day and get marking done as it happens.

But still. Weekend! Woooooohoooooo!

I am NOT talking about Christmas

So there Beka ;P
Let us speak of it no more...

Not that I have much of anything else to say. I am just so tired. Only one more day til the weekend. Woo!

My class defied the laws of physics in science today. Yes, a bunch of seven and eight year olds outwitted Einstein (or whoever it was that invented magnets, c'mon, I'm going to be a Primary school teacher, I don't need to know advanced stuff). They were testing the strength of different sized and shaped magnets by measuring at what distance they would attract a paperclip. They were circulating from table to table in their groups, testing different magnets at each station.

Halfway through the experiment some of the highest ability kids approached me with a pair of magnets. They were the red and blue plastic coated ones that we use for most magnet experiments. They are good because one end is red and one is blue, so they are excellent for demonstrating the principles of north and south poles. Or at least, they were.

"Look, Miss," one of the girls said, holding up the two magnets.

She then proceeded to press the two blue ends of the magnets together and let go. The magnets stuck. I took them off her and pulled them apart. Then I put them together again. I could feel the magnetic pull. I reversed them and pressed the red ends towards each other. I could feel the identical polarities pushing away from each other as they should. I tried the red end to the blue end. They attracted as they should. I put the blue end to the blue end again. They pulled towards each other.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Nothing!" They protested, then acquiesced, "Well, actually it came apart so Erica* put it back together but she must have put it back the wrong way round."

I then informed them that they had, in fact, defied the laws of physics because I had (and have) NO CLUE how they managed to reverse the polarity of one end of a magnet. It's all kinds of wrong. Talk about messing with the natural order of things!

*NB. From this point on, when I mention a kid by name, just assume it is not their real name. It will save me typing a little "not real name etc etc" every time :)

How many scary Google hits will I get for a post containing the words 'finger' and 'balls'?

I am exhausted and a little bit miserable. The horrible cold, grey weather doesn't help. Nor does the fact that I am in school for pretty much all the daylight hours at the moment. I left at 5 today. It was totally dark.

My class teacher observed me during literacy today. It went well. She wrote nice things. All in all, today was a lot better. The class responded much better and after taking on board the feedback from my class teacher, they responded even better than that. (Very useful piece of information: if the class is talking on the carpet when you are trying to talk, get them to discuss the point in question with the person next to them for a minute or so - totally gets it out of their system and then they shut up again)

I'm all planned for tomorrow. I will be very glad when tomorrow is over and I can spend all day Friday in the staff room (schweeeeeeet) planning for next week. I have realised the best way to deal with this is one day at a time. That way it's not too overwhelming. It's working.

I saw one of the kids laughing at my picture on the visual timetable today. Grrrr. He's gonna get it! (Joke!!) But still, not helpful to my battered self esteem.

There is this boy in my class, Emmett (not real name, you know the drill blah-de-blah-de-blah) who is the funniest little character. Poor thing gets bullied quite a lot, but unfortunately it is easy to see why. The minute someone does anything to him, no matter how tiny, he is telling on them VERY LOUDLY. Sorry, Emmett, but that is not how to win friends and influence people. The class teacher has a real soft spot for him, and so do I. He's a cutie. One of those kids that somehow manages to look more like a little man than a boy. He gets het up about anything and will actually shake his fists when he's angry. It's the cutest thing, although he probably wouldn't appreciate that we think that way. My class teacher is very good friends with his mum, so we have a bit of a giggle with her in the playground after school.

He's not the brightest button in the box and sometimes you feel like he's not quite on this planet. Today though..... I am supposed to be meeting these professional standards set by the government, and laughing at a child is probably not one of them, but I swear, it was the funniest thing. The class teacher laughed too. The whole class laughed, bless him. But he was quite good humoured about it.

It was during PE. I was teaching, but because of insurance students HAVE to have a qualified teacher with them, which isn't the case with other lessons (hence me being all alone with the class yesterday). I had them practising ball skills - batting and bowling - with plastic racquets and airtex balls - you know, the hollow plastic ones with holes in so the air whizzes through them. Holes that are almost the perfect size to accommodate a child's finger. I say 'almost' because, as we learned today, they are big enough to let in said child's finger, but not quite big enough to let it out again.

The kids had been practising bowling to each other and I called them back to the front of the hall to talk them through the next activity. Suddenly, there's a commotion and in the centre of it is Emmett, finger held out like ET, white airtex ball firmly wedged onto it. And I laughed. I couldn't help it. It was hilarious! The poor little thing eventually had to have the caretaker come and cut it off with a pair of wire cutters. That image will stay with me for a long time.

So it's not all bad! The kids are sweet and funny and I love every one of them.