Remembering....

Quite a week for remembering this week. Today being remembrance day our school, like many others held a very respectful 2 minutes silence. There's been a lot of talk and many films on TV regarding the 'Great' wars and some have been very interesting and quite poignant.

The forthcoming weekend and Sunday in particular sees the 10th anniversary since my mothers death. I plan to travel down south on Saturday morning to spend some time with my father and visit Pricess Alice Hospice where mum's name is in the book of remembrance. An amazing organisation who were so very friendly and personal to us, even though mum never needed to use them as events over took the need. I don't teach on a Monday as it's my Deputy Head day so I've managed to get the day out of school so that I can travel back on the Monday and stay over at dads on Sunday night. This does mean that I will miss the recording on MOnday of our show songs for the CD but hey - life will continue!!

Talking of the show, things are progressing well. Pyrotechnics arrived yesterday and we have now managed to get the kids to perform on stage with the loud flash and bang going off behind them at the end of one song without them reacting or jumping! One lad nearly fell off the stage from the highest point during the curtain call rehearsal this morning - I sympathetically told him to let me know if he was going to do that on the night so that I can have my camera ready and get the £200 from You've been framed! 2 out of the 3 scene change sets are now complete, props are done and it's just a case of rehearsing the simple process of getting 2 coffins, a large computer and a set of candle sticks on and off at the right times as well as change the scenes, have the mics. switched off and the lighting all out as well as avoiding 105 children all at the same time! One smoke machine packed in this morning and we discovered the complicated system of hose pipes used to duct the smoke from the machine to the 2 coffins, (for when the monsters come alive,) had become clogged - back to the drawing board!

I reported during my recent half term trip of a leaky pipe from the top of my calorifier. John did a temporary fix but wasn't happy and we had hoped to hang on with it until my immersion heater element can be fitted and then he was going to replace the pipe properly. Too late! This evening, my boat is listing slightly more and the back cabin carpet is squelchy. Tomorrow morning before going to school, I shall strip out the wardrobe and John will come and replace the pipe for me bless 'im!

Late nights loom as the next 2 days herald my first meeting with the parents of my 08/09 class! Parents evenings tomorrow and Thursday and then again more next week.