As usual I've waited until my birthday is over before starting The Christmas Missive™. I live in the honest hope that I’ll actually finish it before it’s time to start sending cards out. Let’s face it, the alternative is that I don’t finish it, and the cards don’t get sent, either. Which makes me look churlish! I am SO sorry for my lack of preparation, because last year there weren't many cards.
Life, when working in a school, gets manic. This is not, on the whole, a problem, except that I allow myself to be sucked into the frenzy at the end of term, knowing that in a few weeks I’ll be able to relax for a week or so before Christmas. You know as well as I do, that this is a false sense of security! There’s no way I'm going to get my cards out by Christmas unless I aim to do it in early December. To a very small degree, I sympathise with those shops throwing Christmas at us in September. VERY small!
Since there was no letter last year, there are two years worth of information on which to catch up. Fret not, dear reader - I'm not going to make you sit through two years of camping in France!
However, the MOST important thing to have happened in the last couple of years is that I turned 50! Yes, I know! I hardly look a day over 49! How does Sian keep her girlishly good looks? It’s got to be confessed that hair dye plays a large part in that. Since it was a large and important birthday this year, I decided to host a sophisticated Soirée for all my highest-brow friends. Oh yes! Disco time for all! Turns out I never really left the 70s, and my love of disco is as strong now as it was during those formative years. Oh I may sneer at the chap who comes to support my PCs occasionally, rapidly catching up with me in age, and DJ-ing at clubs (to which I have an open invite) every weekend, but deep in my heart of hearts, I still believe I can dance all night! Thankfully this belief was not tested, because having decided to host the party in my school’s drama studio, we had to finish up at 11pm. My wonderful sister-in-law, Vesna, helped me plan out the food (and cook it), which was great, and I hired a proper disco DJ. Apart from the fact that he seemed to harbour the erroneous belief that disco stopped in the mid-80s, he was brilliant, and the music was fabulous! I do believe that a good time was had by all!
I expect you've already worked out that Lottie is currently in the middle of her GCSEs (which I persist in calling O-levels, to her annoyance), and has applied for a couple of colleges for next year. I think she hopes to be accepted into Farnborough 6th-Form college. Interestingly enough, she’d like to study Philosophy while there, along with Music. She’s alarmingly musical, you know. She’s been part of Farnham Youth Choir for 2½ years now. Every year the choir goes on a trip to somewhere, and the year she joined (these are school years, you understand), they went to Cincinnati for the World Choir Games competition. Apparently there isn't an overall winner in these games, but they won a gold and a silver (will clarify with Lottie, and hopefully update the letter for accuracy), visited New York, sang at Ground Zero and generally had a good time. The trip for last year (which took place at Easter 2013) was to Montreux, where they have a Choral Festival every year - turns out Montreux, apart from having a really rather good statue of Freddie Mercury (and being one of the most expensive places I've stayed), has music festivals ALL the time. It’s something of a cultural centre. THIS year’s trip will be Ireland (begorrah!), and in the wake of a successful Road-Trip to Montreux last year with my mum, we've decided that a visit to Dublin and Belfast will be a hugely entertaining activity for the upcoming Easter!
Lizzy’s just started her 2-year GCSE stint - let’s not dwell on that, shall we? She moved in with her dad last May, and, should she be asked, will tell you that I kicked her out. I suppose, technically, this is true, but there ARE extenuating circumstances! She’d been talking, oh, for simply months, about moving in with him, and I’d been making all the most encouraging noises about how NOW would be a good time to move over there. But the weeks turned into months, and suddenly her room at her dad’s place had been ready for 6 months, and she still hadn’t moved in. The actual catalyst for the move was somewhat unfortunate - just before half term last May, I received an email from a teacher telling me that this was the third time that term Lizzy had failed to bring ingredients for Home Economics. Which was, in fact, the first time I’d heard about ingredients at all. So I asked Andrew to take on, sooner rather than later, the task of assisting Lizzy with her homework and school organisation, by dint of having her live with him. Oh how she LOVES to throw that at my face when discussions bring it up! She is, thankfully, quite happy living there, and since I pick her up for school and bring her home every day, I get to see her all the time. I barely get a chance to miss her.
Just after this unfortunate event, we all went to Germany (taking a whole, hard-won day off school for the pleasure), to watch a couple of our friends redo their wedding vows! It was LOVELY! I expect I’ve mentioned the Germans, who we met at the beach some years ago? It’s such a surprise when you meet people with whom you get on SO well, and then the friendship continues. Ian and I were seated WITH the happy couple, at the “top” table (it was much more casually arranged than that, though), and I was quite touched! We actually had a great weekend, and the rain, threatening to ruin the day on Saturday, held off until Sunday. So that was nice! And supremely English to talk about it!
You know I can’t let a Christmas Message go by without mentioning the camping, don’t you? It’s rather sad that I missed last year, because that was the year my mate Jo came on holiday with us. Due to some rather sad circumstances, and a necessary cancellation from some other friends, Jo and her children (not Ed, he doesn't like camping) came with us on our Grand Tour of France. And it was brilliant. We drove down, via the Massif Central, stopping to camp near the Puy de Dome, to the Pyrenees, and finally up to the usual Atlantic coast site at which we normally stay. We had a glorious few days in the Massif, camping in an old Fort, now taken over by some Dutch people. That sounds as if they invaded directly after we’d been there - this is not, in fact, the case. They've owned the Fort for many years. The weather was gorgeous, the mosquitoes were biting, and the wine flowed. Then we drove to the Pyrenees - annoyingly enough the weather was completely pants - especially the night we had a massive thunderstorm ravage the valley! So it was with some relief we left the mountains - on the loveliest day we’d had there, showing my friends a mere glimpse of how fabulous the mountains can be. And onwards to the beach, which was quite as satisfying as expected. Lovely hot weather, smashing waves (sometimes literally, too!), and REALLY good food. I rather like going with other, proper grown ups, because we didn't end up just having the same old dish every night - there was actual variety.
That was SO good, we did the same again this year! Only we didn't stop at the Massif camp site (which was REALLY expensive, not to mention full of Dutch people), but stopped in Carcassonne for a night, and visited the city in the morning. This time the weather in the mountains was spectacular, and the trips I’d bigged up last year were able to come to fruition - thankfully everyone really enjoyed the Donjon des Aigles - especially Jo, Henry and Ellie, who ended up with parrots on them during the display. We also popped over into Spain for a picnic - a great chance to see the wonderful mountain scenery again - I've sort of missed that, you know. Sadly, the weather by the time we got to the beach was not brilliant, and we only managed two days of real sun. We did have a lovely boat trip across to Arcachon, which was a really good day - it’s a nice shopping town. We also had a crappy day looking for a launderette - how do we always end up looking for a launderette on the wettest days of the holidays? HOW?
Work and personal development continue apace - I keep saying it’s time I got a proper job, but there are a couple of things keeping me at the school. 1) I really like it. I mean REALLY! I've got unprecedented opportunities to learn new stuff, and all I have to do is put it with some facepalm moments from my users! Seriously, who wouldn't? And 2)... nope, it’s all there in number 1.
I started learning Spanish so that I could, perhaps, support Lizzy in her homework. Due to the school being very small, the children can’t just pick and choose their subjects in quite the way I was able, back in the day - so she’s ended up with two languages, and is loathing it! I've also started to refresh my knowledge of programming, but I find myself with kid-in-the-sweet-shop-itis, as I try to take on everything available. Never before has it struck me quite so strongly, that I will never, can never, know it all. You’d think that’d keep me from being so smug, wouldn't you?!
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