An Inspector Calls

Well HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We made it folks - in one shape or another, here we are in 2012.

I  would like to say a big good luck and hope it's a good one for you to all my lovely followers who keep me going and make it appear that I'm not just sitting here randomly warbling into cyberspace but people actually get something from all of this.  Yay! 

Anyway I'd like to think I could now have a nice quiet week 'post festivities' and take the tinsel off my enormous bush, wrestle it out the front door and restore some kind of order (what do I mean 'restore' - I would actually be establishing order for the very first time, but it's nice to dream).  

But no. 

I have potentially the most stressful week of the year, right here, right now,  upon me. 

I have to do 3 different jobs  at once (other than parenting), one of which involves 12 hour shifts and one of  which involves taking 18 strangers into 'that' village hall and saying 'Hello, my name is Stickhead, I'm here to talk about vaginas and how you can help them stretch' (OK that's paraphrasing you get the drift) 'and then we can talk about how you are about to enter years of broken sleep, the smell of poo and having malted milks ground into your Egyptian cotton bed sheets.  Would anyone like a cup of tea and a fig roll?'.  

This was all a case of 'bad planning' (well no planning actually) and in  the middle  of it  all the kids go back to school (I don't think I've actually taken their PE kits, school bags etc out of the back of my car yet post break up for the holiday.  Sigh). 

This would all be bad enough but (and it's a big wide but) - every so often when you are teaching groups an assessor has to come round and watch you and mark you out of ten on various things and come up with a plan for you.  This involves quite a bit of prep  work and writing a 'reflective' piece blah blah blah.   So that's how I spent New Year's Day - waffling on about goals and aims and learning outcome and holistic approaches and how I 'meet my own needs' (oh it was so so tempting to run amok with the answer to that one). 

I kind of resent this.  I wanted to just write in big huge  bold type letter something like this: 

'Dear Inspector, 

I very much look forward to welcoming you to the crazy hall of doom.  Please do not alarmed by 'Mary' the keeper of the keys or the caretaker in the Stetson.  However if you see any very old people clutching packets of  Orange Clubs or similar please check that they are actually for their ridiculous raffle and haven't been stolen from my supplies. Not that I buy Orange Clubs.    I would also advise that you do not focus on the carpet for too long  as the almost fractal like orange brown and red pattern has been known to induce vomiting.  If any alarms go off, try not to shit yourself or scream.  Focus on your breathing.  

I know you want me to reflect deeply on  the last year of teaching but frankly it's a miracle I'm still  here and still doing this and you should just be grateful for that, because despite everything, I do a bloody good job.   

Of course nobody is perfect and not all of the less than ideal moments in the last year have been the fault of dodgy alarm systems, mad line dancers or the people that stole the lead off the roof leaving me to teach amongst a sea of buckets and a ghostly howl.  

No. 

I mean it wasn't ideal that time when I was talking to the group about their baby's adjustment to the world outside the womb.  I held the (fake) baby close, demonstrated the need for touch and nurturing.  I laid the baby carefully down on a soft blanket explaining how a baby couldn't fall off the floor so it was a safe place to leave the baby..... I stepped forward  to pick up a nappy..... I tripped over my own feet and put the heel of my boot directly through the (fake) babies face. 

I shouted 'SHIT', did a move not unlike when Roadrunner goes over a cliff edge and fell on my side with an 'oomph'.    

On the plus side the group laughed so long and so hard it probably gave them an endorphin rush for days.  

Then there was the time I spent the day bouncing about on a ball in black leggings and a tunic top with my legs wide open...... Got a few funny looks.....Got home and went for a wee..... On closer inspection realised that the 'leggings' were footless tights.  I was wearing white knickers with pink hearts on.  Oh dear lord.  I was torn between pretending it never happened or starting the next group with 'I am ever so sorry about last week and my knickers. I truly had no idea you were all staring at my gusset'.   But I was  advised just to leave it and pretend it never happened.  Wise words. 

More recently I have had issues with emailing groups from my iPhone and the darn autocorrect thing.  On one occasion it 'corrected' my name to 'Cocky'.  So  I said something like 'I can't wait to see you all on Sunday - yours Cocky'.  I noticed this just at the point it swooped out into the ether and I couldn't stop it.  I promptly sent another email to apologise and explain.  This time I noticed, just at the crucial 'it's too late now' moment that I was now renamed Bucky.  So Cocky or Bucky take your pick - I sound equally deranged either way.  

Even more cringe-worthy was the time I emailed someone to congratulate them on the birth of their twins.   'I'm so glad to hear that you and your tubs are doing so well' I jauntily replied.   

Tubs. 

Tubs? 

However you interpret that it's not great is it?  

But all the same, just tick the box and let me carry on hey?  Because you know without me, it just wouldn't be quite the same kind of education, would it? 

Yours, 

Cocky

I mean Bucky

I mean, oh sod it, call me whatever you bleedin well like.  But maybe not Tubs.   Do you want a fig roll? 

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