Connected!

Yey! We have the internet again. After a lot of messing about we finally figured out that our wireless router had been interfering with the broadband for the entire street and everyone had been without internet since we moved in. Oops! Well a new power supply and a week of waiting later, we're up and running. Lots has happened and I have loads to tell you...

Still No Broadband

I have loads to blog and no broadband to blog from. I'm in uni at the moment. We're right at the end of the three weeks which we were quoted as being the max length of time getting the broadband sorted might take. If nothing happens today then first thing Monday something will have to be done. I have loads of pictures to show you. I will catch up eventually.

All Change

We're now all moved and settled in enough to be comfortable. I've now handed in all my uni assignments so I'm looking forward to a weekend of gardening and organising. I hope the weather improves.

Sorry for the blog silence. We still don't have our broadband turned on, for reasons I won't go into now. It might take a while to sort out, so normal service might not be restored for a couple of weeks. Your patience is appreciated.

Employed

I'm not sure who I have told about this. I didn't go crazy at the start because it seemd so unreal. I have a job for next year. It is teaching physics in a small co-ed independant school. I'll be able to do my NQT year in a nice relaxed environment. I know it's never going to be a picnic, but I think I am going to enjoy being able to concentrate on teaching instead of crowd control.

The countdown is on to moving day. I did a fair amount of packing yesterday. Planning to get more done today. If all goes to plan should be on track for a panic free move. Keep all your fingers crossed for me.

Also need to fit in writing two essays at some point. Urgh!

I always suspected...

Hannah Scoffield -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Pasta flowers and little shoes.

I've nearly made it to the end of my teaching practice. I finally feel like I've got a handle on things. I've stopped obsessing over my abilities and am actually enjoying most of my lessons. So much so that I applied for a couple of teaching jobs and have interviews on Monday and Thursday. Wish me luck.

I have also found a bit of time to knit. I started knitting and joining hexagons based on a pattern from Knitting Nature. I felt that the pattern worked well with this handspun, naturally died yarn. The three shades are all created using onion skins. I bought the yarn last year from WoolFest and have been wondering what to do with it ever since. I think it will probably turn into a cushion cover.

I have also been knitting some baby shoes. I've been messing about with the guage to get different sizes. The small ones are really too small for anything but a premature baby or a doll. They'd make a cute ornament though. Just need to find some buttons.

After knitting today Graeme and I had some lovely sushi for lunch. I couldn't resist these flower shaped pastas in the oriental supermarket. I think I might put some in a salad for lunch next week.

Not much knitting going on this evening as I managed to slice a chunk out of the end of my index finger, while cutting up veges for dinner. Not having a great weekend in that respect. Missed King Creosote last night, because I had an asthma attack before the support had finished, and had to come home (and bring poor Graeme with me). Can't remember ever feeling that bad before. It wasn't great.

I'm not going to make any remarks about moving house because I don't want to jinx it. Slightly worried that I still haven't manage to pack anything more than this little lot, from a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we'll get some done tomorrow.

12 Days to Go

Well we're well into May now and more than half way through to the half term holiday and the end of my teaching practice. Things are going much better, but the kids are still wildly variable in their behaviour. I don't know if it is my fault (a lot of them don't have other problems) but I find it very wearing. Not going to let it drag me down this term.

We spent the weekend in Sheffield. On Saturday evening we attending my cousin's 40th birthday party (Happy Birthday Emma!), where I managed not to take any photos. During the day time we met up with my friend Cat who'd come up from London and visited the newly revamped Western Park Museum. I was pretty impressed.

They've revamped all the displays. I remember going as a child through gallery after gallery of stuffed animals. The stuffed animals are still there but they've made excellent use of them and their not creepy at all any more. They've still got a hive of bees that you can watch, but what I want to know is, what happened to the sumo wrestlers and the mummies? (I tried for quite a while to find a picture of these on the web and couldn't). It was lovely to see Cat too and it wasn't till I got home I realised it was the first time I'd seen her in person since August. This year is going so quickly.

On Sunday we went with my parents to Kelham Island museum. They've made a few changes, but everything is pretty much the same. I was dissapointed to see that my favourite engine (the crosley gas engine) was temporarily out of service.

The River Don Engine was on good form.

Anyway, we were back in Newcastle on Sunday and I had an interesting Monday trying to finish my uni assignment and preparation on the remaining battery life of my computer (I left the power supply in school). Managed in the end, though it was close and I missed out reading all the blogs I usually enjoy for a few days. Now for Thursday. Then there'll be 11. :)

Flashing the stash

Our moving date is looking likely to be about 2-4 weeks away. It struck us this weekend, how little time we might have to pack if things move quickly. So, we headed off to B&Q to get some packing tape, strong bags and bubble wrap. I decided to start by finding out and bagging up my yarn stash. Just out of interest I thought I'd get it all out at once and see how much I had. So here it is:

I have to say I was a little ashamed of myself for accumulating so much yarn, although I know it's not an extravagant stash (well, compared to other people's). I had almost started to feel like there wasn't that much, till I remembered the existence of this:

Well it's all bagged up now anyway, all 5 bags of it. I also stuffed another 15 bags full of various duvets, spare bedding, towels, winter clothes etc. It's worrying that that is only a small fraction of what is to come. Best not to think about it.

A little better...

Well, I don't want to speak too soon, but so far things this week have been going a bit better. Despite my lack of sleep on Sunday night, everything went well. The kids seem to have stopped hating me and wanting their normal teachers back. My voice is a little croaky. Hopefully things will continue to go well for the rest of the week and the term.

Sorry to say that once I started teaching I found it too hard to carry on trying to write my research proposal. I just couldn't concentrate. I think these things will just have to wait until the end of term. Oh well... one thing at a time.

Back to school

Well my lessons are planned, sandwiches made, bag packed, clothes ironed. I even managed to get to bed at 10.30 pm. Shame I didn't actually manage to sleep. I was so anxious about not being to tired this morning that I couldn't stop thinking about it long enough to actually relax and sleep. Oh well, I've felt worse on a school day. At least I'll be tired enough to sleep tonight.

Hooray!

I am literate, numerate and competant in ICT. :)

Time flies....

...when the school holidays are on and now it's nearly time to go back again. I knew I was tempting fate when in my late entry I wrote "I'll write some more about that tomorrow.". It's taken me over a week to get round to it.

I did get the wedding invitations done but many of them are still waiting for addresses (mainly G's side of things) and I have become distracted by other things. I wish I had bothered to take a picture of the 70-odd invitations sitting drying on the coffee table. It did look cool, but I was a bit sick of looking at them by then.

Last week was fun. I went to a mediocre gig (Minotors, Hush the Many and Fields) at the Cloony, but it was enjoyable. Also spent an afternoon knitting in Pinkphish's garden and another afternoon walking along the coast with her and Snaterkat and having afternoon tea in Tynemouth. On Friday evening Graeme and I headed to Edinburgh for a bit of kilt shopping. We didn't go mad sight seeing, since we've both been there several times, but it was pleasant to sit and walk in the sunshine in the quieter places in Edinburgh.

I paid a visit to the fantastic shop HK, described in detail by Purlpower and am ashamed to say that I lapsed from my pledge, buying 7 balls of lovely sock yarn.

We came back to Newcastle on a lovely meandering route along the coast, stopping at various places along the way.

It's unfortunate to say that this week has been something of a let down. I have a large pile of work I'd like to get through. Some of it is preparation for the coming term of teaching, some of it is PGCE assignments for university, and there's the small matter of the basic literacy, numeracy and ICT tests which I have been practising for and must go and take this morning (grr...). I've also had the crazy notion of writing a proposal for a research fellowship, having read nothing related for 9 months and having no real concrete ideas. It's Thursday already and I'm still not close to my ideal state of super-organised preparation. I'm beginning to accept that I am not going to reach that pinacle of achievement and instead will just make do and get on with things, comforting myself with the thought that at least I finally got round to cleaning the bathroom. Wish me luck in the tests......

YSP and spring lamb

Finally I am getting to enjoy my share of holiday days. We went down to Sheffield on Friday and had a lovely weekend, made even better by the sunshine. On Saturday we went up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I have been before, years ago, with my Brownie pack. My only memories of the place were of a tree house which noone else seemed to believe existed. It is now all shiney and new, with a posh visitor's centre and galleries. While having a healthy appreciation for craft skills, my family is not what you would call arty, so we were all a bit suprised when my dad started raving about this particular piece. This photo is for you Dad.

It was lovely to see the lambs in the country park area....

...and the leaves coming out on the trees. Is it me or are the trees lagging behind a bit this year? The daffodils have already been and gone.

We ate a picnic lunch and even got a bit sunburnt.

On Easter Sunday we decided not to go too far afield. We headed up to Graves Park, where we spent many weekend afternoon's when we were younger. We all spent a lot of time looking at the newborn animals and saying 'ahhhh...'. These piglets were my mum's favourite. They seemed only to be a few hours old and hadn't been written on the board yet.

There were also some motherless lambs.

Refreshed from the weekend I am now throwing myself into the wedding preparations, which have been somewhat neglected over the last few weeks. The first wave of invitations will hopefully be going out at the end of the week. I apologise to people who don't recieve one straight away. Family are getting priority at this point. I'll write some more about that tomorrow.

Happy Easter

Hooray! I've arrived at the end of term safe and sound. I celebrated by paying a visit to Jen to coo over the tiny Isabelle. She was less than happy at being deprived of her food supply while I held her, but cute all the same.

I followed that up with a trip to the pub and the Lonsdale pub quiz. I didn't make it to the end though. Instead I came home, got into bed and had a lovely 9 hours of quality sleep. I only dreamt once about school, and it was a good dream where kids were all doing what they were supposed to and enjoying themselves too.

In a while we'll head off for a weekend with my family. Hopefully we'll have a chance to enjoyed the promised good weather. Hope you all have a lovely and relaxing Easter.

P.S. Still no sign of the daffodils. Think they're gone for good.

Nearly There

I've nearly made it to Easter. Just three more teaching days and an admin day at school to go. I feel like I've run a marathon already and I am only at the half way point. Fortunately I seem to have relaxed a little. One effect of this is that I am sleeping a lot better and have stopped loosing weight (Wonder how long it'll be before I can no longer fit into my small sized jeans again). The other effect is that I am now feeling more and more like procrastinating instead of getting on with work. Must focus properly on what I am doing. Good to feel like myself again either way.

I've finished another little sweater, in a third of the time it took to do the other one. It's no masterpiece, but I am very pleased with the little flower buttons that I bought in Lewis' on Friday afternoon.

One thing that put a dampner on my good mood yesterday was stepping out of my front door to find that that large (~50cm diameter), ceramic pot of dafodils that I had sitting in my front yard had disappeared. This feels like something of a mystery. I can't imagine anyone getting that far with it on foot. It wasn't light. I've scouted around the neighbourhood and can't see any sign of it (whole of broken). That probably means that someone has gone out of their way to actually steel it. I am quite angry about this, but at least it wasn't an expensive thing. The bulbs are last years and the pot was cheap.

My only hope is that it was a drunken student prank and they will bring it back at some point, instead of letting it fester in their yard. At the end of the day though, steeling is steeling.

At last an FO

OK, so productivity has be at a new low over the last few weeks, but I finally finished this baby cardigan I started at half term. It's done in Sirdar Suggly. Partially because I had some and I'm on a yarn diet at the moment (I didn't want to buy yarn for a project that was likely never to get finished), and partially because I feel guilty giving a new (non-knitting) mother hand-wash only baby clothes.

In other news, I'm still plodding through my teaching placement. I can't say I'm particularly enjoying myself, but my sanity seems to have returned to a more reasonable level (for me).

Sorry if I have neglected to send anyone presents or birthday cards, or have just ignored you. It's not intentional and normal service should resume soon (June at the latest).

Alive

Just to confirm, I am still alive. I am still teaching. I am working about as much as I expected, but I'm not enjoying it much at the moment. Keep hoping this will change. 2 weeks and a day until our Easter hols begin. Anyone who says that teacher's don't deserve their long holidays deserves a slap. Roll on Easter....

Churning

Well I'm just about to start my third week of my teaching practice. Only three and a half weeks till Easter. Hooray! That's become a little chant that I repeat to myself when I am feeling stressed. Compared to when I started I feel relatively calm, but I still never quite feel properly relaxed and normal. Just when I think I've managed to relax I find myself in a sudden panic about a worksheet I've forgotton to photocopy, or some equipment I haven't checked.

My friend Leanne from school visited over the weekend. Our mutual friend Helen lives locally, so she too a hard earned break from her kids and the three of us had a couple of meals together and did some shopping. It was great to spend some time with old friends who know me so well.

I spent all of Sunday working again. Despite getting up and starting early (8.30 am), hoping that I would finish what I needed and have time to pop along to Jen's baby shower, I still ended up working almost solidly till 8.30 pm. Can't vouch for my efficiency during the second half of the day, but things have to be done.

I'll finish by mentioning one of the more stupid things I have done this week. I did all my hand washing last night and put it in the washing machine on the delicate drying (water sucking) cycle, then went to bed without hanging it up. The distressing thing is that it included all of my bras. I'm now keeping everything crossed that at least one will be nearly dry by the time I get dressed. Otherwise I'm going to have some interesting wet patches during my morning lessons. Oh well, can't get everything right.

Little Surprises

I've actually had an alright day today. Probably my first since I started my teaching practice. Bearing in mind that I had to teach all five of today's lessons that's not bad going. Hope it continues through the week.

When I got home today there was a parcel sitting on the door mat. I wasn't sure where it was from. There was no return address and a printed label. In it was a copy of Rowan's Classic Alpaca and a slip saying 'Rowan, with compliments'. This was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't ordered it. I can't help but wonder where it has come from. Apart from the weirdness of the whole thing it was a really nice surprise. If you've sent me this then thank you very much. I wonder if there'll be any more parcels on the way. I can always hope.

Apologies

Just wanted to say sorry for not making it to knitting on Saturday, or on Tuesday. I've been hit with a wave of post-half-term teaching work/stress which I felt like I had to deal with instead. Coupled with selling the house and wedding stuff I feel under a fair amount of pressure at the moment.

On the upside, I only have 2 lessons today, as opposed to the 5 that I had yesterday, we have our first person coming to view the flat today, and I'm beginning to get to grips with my planning so I should be able to come to knitting next week.

I also offer some preemptive apologies for the lack of blog posts in the next few weeks. Easter is not that far away (thank heaven).