Half Term....I remember it well...

Yup, enjoying my first official few days of half term by staying in Cov with the sisters. May actually be staying for longer because Moffy's fuel pump was doing intersting things on the way up here and just after I'd got lost trying to find Tesco's somethng started going clank and, according to the AA guy, one of the vlave seats has blow....fun. I was supposed to be rotating wheels and fixing my gear box and speedo cable while I was up here. Now I have to ring the AA when I'm ready to go home and get Moffy into a garage ASAP....bless!

Still I did have the fun of driving to my Granny's house (which fabulously in the middle of nowhere) in a band new rental Peugot 207...very shiny!

So the rest if the week (especially getting to Wythall this weekend) is going to be highly entertaining! i can't get it into the garage here and there are 2 rigth next to my house at home - and Ireally need my car next week + I have a meeting tomorrow otherwise the sensible thing would be to stay here until Monday...ah well, sensible is rarely the start of a 'grand adventure'!

On being home alone...

Sometimes there's nothing like bopping round your flat like you just don't care to Rodrigo y Gabriela to make even risk assessments seem funky and fun!!!!

Zero88 course tomorrow, very excited bunny....:))))) ah techie-dom...

Calzone mkI

A little singed but Very tasty!!

Calzone in the oven....

No, no.....no euphemism. I have branched out into a new section of cooking. Right now my flat is filling with the smell of baking dough filled with cream cheese, cheddar and pesto and it smells gooooood. I'll take a photo when I get it out and post it!

I also made my first coffee cake of living here and, even though I was lacking Baking Powder, it turned out pretty good - yey! Now all I need to do is get the door of my oven to shut properly and I should be away :)

Hmm, what been happening? Well, last week I went back to Wythall for Isaac's Dedication which was lovely *fuzzy* I got spend some time The Sirrel's,and the Brown's which was fab and it was nice to feel properly as home somewhere for a bit.

My flat is feeling more homely. I think I need to put some more stuff up on the walls, my bedroom isn't very cosy - although it is spacious. And, as yet I haven't had to turn on the heat...yey. Also Moffy started every morning this week which was lovely, even meant I was at school early every day because I had to go out early in case I needed to catch the bus!

So tomorrow is my first time playing in church, I did about 40min practise today, kinda scary to be playing the 'cello for the first time in public in oooo 10 years...... blimey, had to think about than then! Gosh.

Stuff at school is going really well. This is the last week of this half term so I'm planning on doing some practical demos for the various departments in my PST team, Teaching the SM team how to prepare a props table, the Design team are starting their boards, the props team are doing some stuff, the Publicity team are starting work on the programme and putting up a noticeboard of photos. The Techs have got some gel sorting to do....fun! Still it'll help them learn the colours and sizes! Plus I have my LX desk training day on Tuesday so I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in this week :)

Plus I'm finding out more about the expedition stuff, Peru sounds cool - but who knows!!!!

A Wedding, A House Warming and a new TV Show

Last weekend was my step-brothers wedding. It was held in the lovely church in Great Alne and despite the threatning weather at the beginning of the day was very beautiful. They even arrived and left the church in a helicopter - how cool is that!

I stayed in Coventry on the Friday night, but didn't get there 'til gone midnight as it took just a little while to get Moffy sorted. This involved the lovely Andy from Charles Ware racing to my aid with a water pump gasket so that I could pull it out and easily get the (by this point) extremely irksome by-pass hose on. But huzzah it worked and I even got to meet the last of my neighbours - who very sweetly bought me some snickers bars whilst she was in Asda :)

Last night was Vicky's Birthday Party/The Coventry House Warming Party so I drove over again. It was a very cool evening - everyone was dressed up and we all were very grown up and 1970's chatting with glasses of wine and nibbles. Met some very cool peeps and everybody looked tres elegant :)

The new TV Show I have discovered is called 'Back to You'. I found out about it because I was looking at ELR stuff and it showed up becuse Patrician Heaton is in it. Then I discovered that Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier fame) is also in it and it was then that I had a desperate need to find out more. My friend from school (who now lives in the states) saw my coment on 'facebook' and led me to a link so I could watch the pilot and I have spent a very pleasant hour this evening watching that and then finding other stuff on You-Tube. I'm guessing I'm gonna have to keep up with it this way as it won't get over here for oooo 3 years judging by past experience. It was a bit weird seeing Patricia and Kelsey together in something but the writing is pretty solid and they are brilliant along with the support cast so it was very easy to get into and 'get' the characters. Oh yes, I feel another random US DVD colection coming on! (to add to my Dick Van Dyke Show one)

School is going well, definitely in full swing now! Just have to make sure I write everything down and NOT get anybody's names mixed up....hmmmmmm.....

Sometimes when you're driving - look up....

...What!!??!!!

Was kind of my reaction last night when I held up the by-pass hose to the gap it was supposed to get into.

Everyone has always told me what a pain in the a**e it is to fit but until I saw that gap I don't think I fully appreciated it. I attempted to fit it (using the old Fairy Liquid trick) and it split a little - then alot - then in half. So I decided to put the new radiator and hoses on and sort it out another time.

So this morning i woke at 6ish, cycled to Brislington (about 40min) collected 3 new by-pass hoses(you know....just to be safe!) a new radiator cap and a bolt for the radiator. Cycled back (more downhill...speeeeed). Then quickly got changed and headed out to the bus stop.
Half an hour later the bus arrived, got to Bath then got another bus up the hill. Arrived at school about 10am - not bad.

Joy came and picked me up after school and I got a tour of Bath (now have lots of places to go visit :)) and then we went for a meal in Saltford..mmmmm...Hunters Chicken...mmmm. So have decided to get a lift in tomorrow, maybe come home early and get the car done and then drive home. hmmmmmm.

Had fun at school though, Hard Hats and lots of consumables arrived (including L.E.D lights -ooo toys :))

Week 3 - Big Head rides again

Ah the puns...
It's going well, the job is fab and is about to hit full pelt as there's a Young Leaders conference this weekend and so I have to get all the equipment I just took off the rig back up and all sorted before Wednesday evening - piece of cake.....

Having fun doing the music-y stuff. Mostly adding sound to Powerpoint stuff, sorting file formatting problems and helping out in the yr8 classes. Not properly made it down to the Junior school yet (only once for a flying visit - their caretaker had built a full-size darlek and it was sat on stage - very odd!) so will try and fit that in this week as the Memorial Hall will be off limits for anything!

I now have 20 girls on the Performance Support team which is brilliant - they're all so keen as well!

I discovered the much ballyhooed cycle path between Bristol and Bath yesterday. it runs straight pas Bitton along an old railway line - where a steam trains now run. I went to Nicola's which is one stop down and far easier to get to by bike than by car! I did make a trip to Halfords first (with a HUUUGE Bikehut) and bought some lights, some gloves (for winter my hands go numb very quickly), a puncture repair kit and....a helmet. I had been waiting for my one from home. But I figured that I'd had that about 10 years and it probably wasn't going to do me huge amount of favours if I required its protection so bought a new one. A very shiny purple effort, very nice.

However it turns out that part of the plastic webbing was broken so I took it back this evening. I thought I'd measure my head before I picked out a replacement...and the result......yes, folks, I had to pick a bloke's helmet because of my weirdly large noggin. The only reason that purple one had fitted was because it was broken :( *sniff* I also bought a vaguely improved saddle - 'cos I gotta tell ya, sitting down today has not been fun!!!

I have decided to kit myself out with this because when I work on my car (more on that in a mo) I may not finish by the morning and I can cycle to work. Hopefully the more I do it the less scary it will be and I can try and cycle twice a week for some much needed exercise ....... 'the hill' however remains a sticking point - still I can always get off and walk......or park my bike and take the bus....... :S

Yes, so, on Saturday I went to the, again much ballyhooed, Bath Morris Minor Centre....except it's not in Bath now it's in Bristol....and is actually called Charles Wares...but apart form that a brilliant description..huh hmmm. What thoroughly nice folks they are. One of the guys came out and looked at Moffy's mysterious leak. We came to the conclusion it was the by-pass hose, however he also said that my radiator looked as if it was about turn its toes up (something I've known for...ooo...2 years!)so I decided I may as well go the whole hog and replace the radiator and all the hoses while I was at it. Then I got to look round the workshops and see some Moggy's in various states of repair which was cool and he told me about everything they did. Nice place. And Moffy made some friends too.

So I was there bright and early at 8am to get the stuff. I even managed to get a brand new radiator not a refurbished one (no surcharge for me!) which was pretty sweet. Hopefully I'll be able to sort it out Wednesday/Thursday night. Definitely by the weekend though as I'm heading to Bidford for the weekend and don't want to have to keep stopping!

It’s Monday and it’s back to school for my first whole week with pupils!

Last week went well, I’m still feeling a bit up in the air – due to the fact that there’s nothing really solid to get my teeth into, but lots of prep jobs (like taking down all the lamps, cleaning and logging them!) and this week the auditions for the school productions take place and I have organised a meeting for those interested in “Performance Support” (oh, yes, there will be T-Shirts!!) for tomorrow break. I have quite a few names on the list from a range of years so it looks good 

I am now incredibly skint after starting my payment for household utilities, Insurance for Moffy etc so shall be curling up with Sims2 and good DVDs (like 24 series 4 last week..) and waiting for the storm to pass. I do have a few things to do, I had a good evening at Nicola’s boat last week and we’ve decided to go running on a Wednesday night – not sure where but it won’t be far to start off with anyway!. I’m quite looking forward to this although I’m not sure how much it will help my very knotty and tense back/shoulders!

I did a complete scrub of the flat on Saturday. Unhinged all the sash windows and scrubbed them all. De-housed about 5 spiders, knocked my Venus razor out of the bathroom window and had to retrieve it from the bush below, turned on the exciting airing cupboard type thing in my wardrobe – then turned it off again at night when it wasn’t doing a whole lot, and generally had a good work out, followed by a relaxing bath…ahhhh….

My office is like a fridge – can’t wait until the heating gets turned on – although the word ‘oven’ then springs to mind looking at the size of the radiator……

New House, New Job

Hmmm, now where to start…..

I was going to go back and post all the stuff that happened on the appropriate day of the epic that has been the move but they’re all sort of blending into one now so I shall do my best in this one post (with pictures to break up the boredom!).

I am presently sat in my office which looks a little like this at the moment of writing..

whilst most if the rest of the staff are in a meetings about teacher-y type things that I don’t need to know (especially as, at the minute, I don’t have a shiny little notebook/laptop type thing!) I though I’d catch up on this!

Generally speaking the whole thing went pretty smoothly. Well, the plan-that-kept-changing-throughout-the-day did anyway!

This was the original plan:

Pick up van and go to flat – pick up stuff
Go to Storage – pick up stuff
Go to random Bidford house – pick up stuff
Drive to Kings Heath – pick up stuff
Go to Estate Agents in Bristol – pick up keys
At flat empty stuff (with Nicola) and thence to IKEA
Back to flat for tea drive back to Bidford – drop off van, pick up car
Drive home to flat.

Yes, well, here is in fact what transpired…
Picked the van up at 8:30 – the Luton had had its tail lift broken so I got a long-based transit instead – that was real fun to reverse!

I got to the flat at Bidford and started to load my stuff – it soon became apparent to me that I wasn’t going to get all the stuff from the flat in (never mind the storage or the other house!) in time to meet Dad so I put all the stuff from the bedroom in and set off to Kings Heath. We went to the storage place which was my first visit to such an establishment and they have a very weird air about them! However it was fun rooting through my Dad’s 2(!!) spaces and I came away with about 10 things that I hadn’t expected to get and about 45 minutes to get to Bristol for the keys…..hmmm.

I rang to say I’d be late (and naturally grovelled somewhat) and even though I made full use of the vans modern engine and overtaking skills I was still 1 ½ hrs late. They were very gracious and lovely so I got the keys and signed the paperwork fine.

I then had to make a decision about driving back to Bidford and getting the rest of my stuff then or going to the flat. My need for the toilet for and the fact that I’d arranged to meet Nicola sort of made the decision for me ;)

Arrived at the flat and the cleaner (who’d been sent back to do a better job!) was there and it looked like this.

Unloaded most of van and then Nicola arrived to help with the rest. I had got the kettle but no food or anything so couldn’t even stretch to a cup of tea so we decided to head to IKEA where I could buy a sofa and she could get some dinner after a long day at work (bless – apparently Swedish meatballs are the thing to go for – I had a strawberry tart – most helpful to my poor beleaguered body I’m sure!?!) Back from IKEA ,unloaded that and then headed straight back to Bidford – It was getting dark now.
So got the rest of the stuff from the flat, drove across a large expanse of grass (that was fun!) to get to the door of the random house for some more boxes and then to the storage for my bike etc – It was now very dark!

Mum had cooked me lasagne so I downed that and then off I headed on the road again – I had to stop to take my lenses out and to wake up at one point – An apple worked extremely well (for waking me up – not taking my lenses out…..)

Stopped of at the wonderful 24hr Asda Superstore on the way back and then arrived at the flat at approx. 2:00am unloaded the van AGAIN

without managing to wake anyone up – no mean feat when carrying a bicycle up the stairs – and with my legs beginning to show me the pain I would be in tomorrow - plonked my mattress on the floor and fell asleep in my sleeping bag!

I was then up again at 6am to get the van back for 8:30am. I had breakfast at my Mum’s then took a detour to Redditch to pick up my contact lenses and say goodbye to a few folks then headed for the M5. Moffy has been losing water and in my infinite wisdom I decided that I didn’t need to stop at the first service station….huh hummmm….

Still it meant she got to the flat in one piece and I can do 25minute journeys no probs!! I arrived back to start the tidying up process…

My induction day at the school on Friday was great – lots of information to take in but I got to meet the new Drama guy who has some amazing ideas (which involve me building websites!?!) and the rest of the new staff which was lovely this morning when I came in and recognised some faces.

Anyhoo, I have just been given a large selection of keys and free reign of the Drama room so I am going to explore, tidy and organise…. “hold me bags, I’ll be back in a week!”