Blockages and leaks!

Simba had his second booster shots this morning and the bonus was that there was nothing to pay as I had already paid after the first ones. I then decided to go into school and spend a few hours sorting out my classroom prior to open evenings this week and to begin packing things into boxes ready for meto move classrooms. As of September, I will be taking on the additional role of Year 6 leader - something I have done for years previously in other schools but never in addition to Deputy Head, Curriculum and assessment coordinator, Eco-School co-ordinator.........

Talking of school; another total fiasco from the government this week. Our Key Stage 2, (Year 6) Sats test results, (the formal national tests imposed to freak out our kids as much as possible as well as stress the staff and agitate the parents of all children at age 6, 11 and 14,) were due out this week; the 8th July to be precise. Tight but not impossible as their end of year reports are due out at the end of the week on Friday. Leaving school last Friday and a circular was passed onto my desk to say that due to clerical cockups, (or words to that effect,) they would now not be available until 15th July. We will now have to do twice the work to send out all the reports once and then the results separately later, and does anyone care about the poor kids who took the tests and are eagerly waiting to find out what they got? You can read about it here. Although the system was newand extremely complicated this year, (due to be contracted out to a US company - need I say more!) It worked quite well for us. Apart from not getting enough sacks to put the scripts in, trying to work out the 12 page booklet which included 9 pictured instructions of how to seal and send the completed papers off, getting a UPS collection of completed scripts before the test date had even lapsed and having to send them all to a central distribution centre where they would be split up and sent on to the markers who would then return them to the warehouse who would split them up again and send them back to the schools, (in the past we simply had pre-printed address labels to send them direct to the markers who returned them back to us!) but apart from all this- it went well... until now! I now have to break the news to the kids next week notto mention field millions of phone callsfrom parents asking why they haven't had their results on the date we said they would!

Anyway, back to more mundane. Did manage to wash the carpet today and stock up on petrol for the generator just in case. Returned home and went out for a good long canoe.

For some time, my bathroom sink has been blocked and recently it has stubbonly refused to be cleared. This afternoon, I poked a wire down the plug in an attempt at clearing it and promptly pushed the pipe off the end. Result - an entire sink full of water and sludge emptied into my bathroom cupboard, across the floor and into the hallway carpet. I siezed the opportunity and thoroughly cleaned out the offending pipe before re-assembling it, checking it for leaks and I now have a fast flowing sink!

Plans tomorrow include stocking up on crickets and mealworms for the lizards, checking the battery levels and fixing the anchor in place. That will then just leave the last minute stuff like deep cleaning the boat and polishing etc. to next weekend before leaving the following weekend.