Rounding off the year

Good heavens! If I ever needed proof that I am ageing, my perception of the passage of time provides it. Two gentle reminders that my blog needed updating prompted me to check the date of my last entry, and I find that what seems like a couple of weeks ago is actually five months.

Recapping that amount of activity now requires me to exercise another failing faculty, my memory for detail. The death of Bertie, my lovely old gentleman springer, at the end of July was a great sadness. He was staying with youngest two sons when he suffered an inoperable leg injury and had to be put to sleep. He was with me such a short time, but he ended his days as a much loved companion after a lot of struggles as an elderly and unwanted stray, and I consider it a privilege to have shared my home with him.

I recall August as a time of blissful idleness, but I know there was a period of mad activity when I realised that the new term was looming and needed proper preparation. (Such a period is now once again upon me, of course. I'm learning
the rhythms of the schoolteacher's year, which are quite different from the academic's.)

Tne highlight of the summer was a couple of visits to Smiths of Smithfield for breakfast. The first time, second son and I started the day thus before an exhibition of Picasso works at the Gagosian Gallery. Penultimate son, a Masterchef groupie of the most fanatical hue, was so envious that I promised him a visit when it could be arranged, and so a few weeks later, two sons, daughter and I converged on Smithfield for a return visit.

Oddly enough, one of the best things about September was the arrival of new colleagues so that I was no longer the new girl. It was good to be there for the start of the school year, to write my own plans for my department and to have my own timetable, rather than one inherited from a part-timer. Starting new after school activities was fun: my survival cooks spent the term learning to feed themselves well on a student budget, and after the first session when we were locked into the cookery room, we decided it was safer -
and more authentic to the student experience - to squash into my small kitchen for an hour each Monday. Meanwhile, my TV and Religion slot later on in the week has prompted some lively thinking about prejudice, social disadvantage and community life.

October provided an autumn of astonishing beauty this year. I gather from various online reports that this is the result of a sequence of traditional seasons. Whatever the reason, driving over the Cotswolds through trees in every shade from palest yellow to deepest brown to visit my Dad at half-term was a joy. The return to school in November coincided with a visit from the inspectors, who gave us a warm endorsement and the encouragement to keep going as temperatures dropped and fluey bugs raged through the school. When the first snow fell in early December, the cycle of the year moved towards completion. The village was under snow when I arrived, and as term drew to a close, another blanket of white covered everything to a depth of 18 inches.
The last of the snow is now melting after a beautiful white Christmas day. It was clear and bright enough to drive down the motorway with the soft-top on the MG down and my Santa hat blowing in the wind.

2010 has been a good year - a very good year. I have made new friends, found a new sense of purpose, and used time fruitfully in the new soil of this lovely place. I've had some good times with my lover and enough space to be myself. Part of the reason the detail escapes me is the intensity of life here. From early morning until well into the evening, and sometimes even late at night, every moment is filled with experience, hard work, and fun. And so, as the year ends in a grey mist which blurs the edges of perception after the snowy intensity of Christmas, I am gently reminded that my own blurred recollection is a consequence of the intensity of life lived in the last twelve months.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days

Oh bliss! The school summer holiday is upon me, and I am free to enjoy it all for the first time since I was 18. But gosh, I had to work to earn it. Term-time working hours are long and demanding, though I enjoy every minute. On a good day, I go in just before 8 and arrive home some twelve hours later. Once a week, duty in the boarding house keeps me busy till 10.30. The working week runs from Monday morning to Saturday lunchtime, and many weekends include functions and parents' meetings. Not all of those hours are compulsory, but I need every one of them to do justice to the job and my students.

This being the summer term, there were also exams to mark. The breaks in the timetable as students sat school and national examinations each threw up another batch of papers to mark. GCSE external marking arrived first, over half term. I was torn between the sheer pleasure of a week off and the painful urgency of GCSE marking. In a masochistic way, I enjoy the intensity of marking: each paper represents the culmination of secondary work for a child whose ability, teaching and aptitude for the subject has been tested at last by an hour and three quarters of application. Marking must always be accurate and consistent, because a trivial error on my part could affect the future career of a child. It can't be rushed, but the deadlines are tight in order to get the results out by mid-August.

Once that was underway, the school exam papers started flowing in, each set needing to be turned around within a week, ready to feed back to the students as lessons resumed. Common Entrance papers arrived for marking with a short deadline as well. By dint of some early mornings, later than usual nights and a few skipped lunches, I managed to get all of those clear before the A level papers arrived.

In between the exam frenzy, there were occasions both delightful and sad. Social activities, school plays and a staffroom sweepstake on the football world cup all provided a welcome complement to the busy-ness. The various ways the school and boarding houses said goodbye to those students and staff who were leaving reminded me of how close-knit a community we are. Although I've known my own students for such a short time, I'll miss this year's Upper Sixth.

The hot summer weather persisted through the term with

only odd breaks, with the result that my new car has had plenty of outings with the lid down, sun glinting off shiny paintwork and wind blowing through my hair. After years of vehicles that deserved nothing more than the odd trip through a car wash, I find myself looking forward to a sunny weekend morning when I can spend a couple of hours with a bucket and a chamois tarting up my car. The crowning glory was to fix on the personalised number plates that proclaim my ownership of it to all who pass.

Summer here has produced other pleasures, too. I had a bumper crop of strawberries from a patch in the back garden which would have been a slug fast-food joint in Sheffield, but which in the less clay-bound Oxfordshire soil produced pounds of strawberries a day at its peak. I plan to be

prepared next year with a jamming pan and preserving sugar at the ready: this year I merely gorged on the ripest fruit each time I went into the garden. The local farm shop sold asparagus so fresh and young it could be used raw in salads. Barbecues at school and chez friends are always made from locally produced specialist sausages, burgers, steak and chops. One memorable evening during exams, I took an hour away from marking to join friends in their garden, and all the local folk musicians turned up with instruments and fiddled, whistled and bongo-ed as the meat sizzled.

Now, term is over, the final batch of A level marking has gone back to the exam board and summer stretches away ahead of me. A week's city break with my lover marked the start of the holiday, and I plan a few days in France in the car, camping and visiting friends in Brittany, towards the end. Of course I have work-related things to do: planning for next term, reviewing the past six months, writing notes for my A level sets. But these are trivial tasks in comparison with the time available. Nothing can possibly spoil the sheer joy of school summer hols shimmering towards distant autumn.

As good as it gets

Yes, my dear public, it has been a long absence. A new job is always demanding: new tasks, new practices and new colleagues always take some getting used to. Changing from higher education to secondary has its own set of challenges, and my silence owes everything to the need to pour all my effort into hitting the ground running (and in the right direction).

The Lent term started under several inches of snow. With my wrist still in plaster from a close encounter with an icy road, my high heels stayed warm and comfortable in the cupboard while I travelled the perilous 200 yards between home and school in walking boots or wellies. As it turned out, the surgeon wasn't happy with the repair to my wrist and re-set it with pins during the second weekend of term, so further damage was actually done not by accident in the wild, but in the controlled environment of an operating theatre. I didn't lose the plaster and pins until half term.

I have always enjoyed teaching, but nothing matches the fun, the challenge and the buzz of a secondary classroom. It took a while to get acclimatised to teaching in 35 minute periods instead of two-hour blocks, but once I got the hang of appropriate content it has all gone swimmingly. OK, I once lost a fourth form set, all twenty of them, but only once. Tutoring in a boys' boarding house is funny, infuriating and delightful - it's like our house used to be when all the kids were younger, but times ten.

My colleagues are without exception wonderful. I have been supported, gently guided, encouraged and affirmed at every step along the way. They must have wondered what kind of nutcase they had taken into their midst often enough, but by the end of term it felt as if I'd been here forever. We've made some changes in the department, tightened up a few things and made big plans, all in the space of ten crazy weeks.

In the middle of all that, a big birthday loomed, coinciding with the school's own anniversary celebration, so the eve of both was celebrated with a formal ball (acres of rustling blue taffeta) and the day itself with a memorial walk. It was especially good to reclaim the day for some personal merrymaking in the company of a dear friend who came round, helped me cook dinner, and then made me laugh and forget work for an evening.

And then, after a busy, busy end of term, another unaccustomed pleasure - three glorious weeks of holiday. A city break with my chap, a few days parenting in Sheffield, and then back home (and it does feel like home, though I have only been here four months). Thanks to my Dad's outrageous generosity, the modest car with which I was going to replace my Ka in summer morphed into a six-month old MGTF 85th anniversary edition on Good Friday. So the beautiful weather of Easter week looked even more inviting than usual for driving, and I had a couple of good runs with the wind in my hair and the sun beating down. Life doesn't get much better.

Summer term started today, and, no longer a new girl, I'm happy to be back in the classroom with the whole term ahead. I wake up each morning, wriggle my toes, grin, and think "They are actually paying me to do this!"