I am so tired that I am currently in bed in my school suit and my coat. I have only taken my shoes off and have dumped all my schoolbags at the foot of my bed and just collapsed in an not very elegant heap.
God, I had forgotten just how knackering teaching is. Don't get me wrong, I have the most delightful class this year; in fact, I said today in the staff room that I thought I'd died and gone to teaching heaven as they are just so bloomin fabulous. However, although I only have a class of 31, I take in 6 extras from another class for English and Maths so I have 37 kids for half the day. This isn't too bad as I had 34 last year and I had some real fruitloops in that class in terms of behaviour so it's not the numbers that are killing me. I had just forgotten how exhausting being so damn positive all the time was!
My jaw aches from smiling, my feet are killing me and I am utterly shattered from some kind of suppressed tourrettes syndrome where, after almost seven weeks of swearing like a navvie, I'm back to, "blimey", "crikey" and "goodness me!". Believe me, there are only so many times you can turn a "f*cking hell" into a "flippin nora" without starting to get stressed out yourself. I almost had to go into the art cupboard and just shout expletives at lunchtime just to try and get them out of my system.
I am very pleased this year though as I finally have a teaching assistant. I have been sent by the gods of teaching, an amazing higher level teaching assistant who is currently making my days so easy to breeze through I am almost a one woman work hurricane. In the past, I have always drawn the short straw and not had one as I teach Y6 (age 10&11) and so the assistants have always gone to the younger classes.
However, this year, as two older teachers have retired and two newly qualified ones started, we had extra money in the budget and so I finally got some help. If the truth be told, I almost didn't know what to do with her! I'm so used to fending for myself in the wildnerness that is Y6 (cue the Bear Grylls cutaway shot to me crawling through a ravine or fashioning a hut out of poisonous evergreen leaves in a rainforest) that I kind of almost had nothing to give her to do. But, a girl can soon learn to delegate and within moments I was drafting a massive list of stuff for her to do and i actually, for once, didn't have to play the educational version of, "whack a rat" (you know, that fairground game where one little rat pops up out of a hole, you have to hit it with a mallet and then watch for the next one...) and cope with everything on my own. Oh, I would just like to point out at this juncture that I am not in the habit of whacking kids on the head with a mallet, just in case anyone thinks of contacting childline, although I did once accidentally drop a football pump on a child's ear in the PE store. Not a nice conversation to have with an irate mother I can tell you!
Anyway, the upshot of all these exertions is that I am in a crumpled heap, in a crumpled suit, under some crumpled bedding and feel as if I've been put through a mangle. My grandad, who i went to see after school, was quite quick to point out that it's less than 2 weeks since I had surgery so that's probably why I feel not as if I've been hit by the tired stick, but that an entire tired tree has fallen over and crushed me.
I'm meant to be going over to my brother's tonight for a quick drink as Tom's away all weekend and so are my parents - all my mates have coupley things on and so I'm all on my tod. I was seriously contemplating going with my Grandad to play cards at the Estonian club with him tonight until I jokingly implied that he and all the other octogenarians all just play strip poker and not whist or rummy and he just winked at me. The thought of being surrounded by 80 year old Eastern European ladies as they cheekily remove their support tights is not exactly my idea of a good Friday night so I reckon I'm probably safer over at Will's. Embarrassingly though, Will had his house valued today to put on the letting market for when they go travelling and, just my luck, the lettings agent turned out to be an ex boyfriend of mine from 10 years ago. Eek! The last time I saw him, we were both "in flagrante" in a spare room at a friend's party whilst a mate of ours was passed out in the ensuite bath with a walnut whip shoved down his boxers. I do hope he didn't share this paticular remeniscence with my brother...
I've also had a massive row with Tom on the phone tonight. Our first big barney and he's in bloomin France. So now I'm holed up at home all post-row vulnerable and in that half-cross, half-upset and need a cuddle type of mood and he's living it up on a golf course in Brittany. Bum.
Basically, when i came round from the operation, I was very groggy but the consulant gave us loads of information, loads of blood test forms, test forms for Tom and strict instructions on a second set of hormone function tests for me. Apparently there was loads of info about exactly which days of the month I was meant to do these on and dates for various clinics we were meant to attend and some evenings where I need to go and learn about how to administer injections to myself for the IVF. Tom forgot half of the info as he was so worried about me and as I was struggling to remain conscious, I only remember the vaguest details - in fact I told Tom I only remembered the two blue surgeons standing there and apparently they were actually green so it shows how on the ball I was!
Anyway, I've been trying to find out from Tom for ages what was said and he's kept saying that he'll phone the clinic to find out the bits he doesn't know and basically he hasn't. I've said every day that I'll phone them but he keeps saying he wants to do it and then every night I find out he's forgotten! It came to a bit of a head last night and he said he'd definitely phone at 9am this morning and if he couldn't, he'd let me know so I can phone them. However, he phones tonight and as his head is currently in "caddyworld" then it went clean out of his earholes and he forgot. Cue the massive "You're just not committed to this and I can't bloody forget it as I'm covered in bloody stitches and bandages but it's easy for you - you can't even make a bloody phonecall!"
I am now therefore feeling a little cross with myself for yelling at him down the phone.
So, I am now under my covers all upset and Tom is in France getting wasted with his mates. Oh woe is me!
However, every cloud has a silver lining and in this case, the silver lining is cucumber shaped. Now, before you get the wrong idea ladies, I'm talking about an actual cucumber.
I was sitting at my desk marking some books today when a huge, green, knobbly thing was thrust under my nose and I was asked if I wanted it! After I had composed myself (it's not often that giant phallic objects appear in a Primary school and even less frequently are you ambushed from behind by one at your own desk) I turned round and it was my lovely new teaching assistant. Apparently the kids' gardening club at school which she runs had had a bumper crop of cucumbers and she was distributing them to anyone who wanted one. I therefore arrived home with all my schoolbooks, a laptop, a handbag and a giant cucumber wrapped in display paper. And who said the art of gift giving was dead...
Anyway, I'd better go now as the bin needs bringing in from the pavement and I need to make myself some dinner. God I lead a thrilling life!
So, I'll say bye for now and will update again soon.
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