Friday, August 24, 2012

August cold and dank and wet...

Flanders and Swann got it right this summer:  
     "In July the sun is hot.  
       Is it shining?  No it's not.  
       August, cold and dank and wet 
       brings more rain than any yet."   
Actually, if there had been just a little less of the wet stuff, I'd have been quite happy: despite years in the Middle East, hot weather doesn't really suit me, and I tend to wilt in proper summer weather.  The cooler season this year preserved more energy than usual, though I have not always used it fruitfully.

Spring, when I last wrote, flew past in a blur of work, and the Easter holiday was mostly spent gearing up for the exam season.  The summer term gets less productive each year in terms of teaching, as GCSE and A level exams creep back a day or two from year to year, so even with an early return to the classroom after Easter, we had less than four weeks before exams started.  Once I'd coaxed and nurtured my own flock through their Theology papers, I was then straight into examiner duties which continued through overlapping papers, standardising, marking, awarding and reviewing until the end of July. 

Just before the end of term, my mysterious black cat had to be put down after a road accident, so there was one quiet, peaceful evening when I buried her under the apple tree and mourned the pet who had been my constant companion for more than 12 years.  A few days later, the departure of students for the summer brought a little leisure: I could get up a little later, read into the night, and fit in a few visits to friends and family.

Summer sees two family birthdays, second son in July and youngest son in August, so two wonderful evenings out in London punctuated the holiday. Now I no longer have any teenage children, and with my delightful grandson more than adequately grandparented by his maternal grandmother, my duty to society has been largely accomplished, and there's a gleeful sense of possibility in the air.  I hasten to add that grandson is a source of utter joy when I see him, and even more so for the blooming contentment he brings to first son and daughter-in-law.  I have promised to become a properly functioning granny when he turns into a snarling teenager and no-oe else can bear him, because that is when I really start to enjoy young people.  Perhaps that is why schoolmistressing is such a delicious profession: they actuallly pay me to teach a subject I love to young people whose education I enjoy.

But it is exhausting, and with the extra time devoted to examining responsibilities, holidays time is precious.   I've been doing some research on recusancy, and spent a wonderful day at Rushton Triangular Lodge and Rushton Hall in the only really seasonal weather of the month.  The odd picnic or meal out loses nothing by being on my own, though asking for a "afternoon tea for one" tends to fluster staff at even the most venerable venues. Driving through the Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire country villages with the roof down and the wind blowing through my hair, stopping to look round a church here or a ruin there, is the best kind of holiday, and I can do it all without having to pack a case or change any currency.
 
 
My heavier exam load and his fragile health have combined to limit time spent with my lover this summer, but with him on the mend and a brief hiatus between examining and the looming start of the school year, we plan a couple of days together before the summer ends.  I'm already starting to feel the bubbling excitement as the Michaelmas term appears on the horizon: new ideas to develop, new students to meet, new possibilities to explore...

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