Reality check - the ice 'cream' version. in the start of the next part... Autumn 2014.

WHERE: on my sofa, watching NCIS, one of my guilty favourites. It’s 20:10 and it’s Friday night. I am not eating ice cream but you wouldn’t believe it if you saw me! I froze some chopped bananas, wuzzied them up in the wuzzy-up kitchen machine and added some cocoa powder as well as peanut butter. Oh. My. Goodness! Divinity on my tongue!

WEARING: my left foot has a plain black sock and my right foot has a black sock with purple toes and heal. My subtle odd socks are one of my ways of rebelling against work dress codes 😱. I also have red, checked pyjamas bottoms and a blue, checked shirt which is enriched with sweat after I was given a hefty tome on math to bring home and read this weekend, I put it in my backpack. And I cycle to work..!

FITNESS UPDATE: my running is on hold while I get used to the physical strain of work, but I’m getting 20 miles a week of cycling just from going to and from work. My weight, which has sat at 11 stone 3lbs for several weeks, has finally shifted down a pound! I reckon it’s a combination of cycling and that my lunch is pretty controlled!

IN THE NEWS: I must hang my head in shame and confess that I do not know. I can tell you that Obama flew over our town last week. I actually heard the plane, I remember thinking that it sounded different from the planes that usually went over but (a) I didn’t know he was coming and (b) I was on crowd control on the playground so I didn’t look up. I rarely miss the chance to look up at planes because I always get a little travel thrill when I see them! When I first started writing on OD I lived near Heathrow on the flight path. When the wind was in the right direction I would wake up early to watch the planes lining up to land, it was amazing! I just sat in bed, opened the curtains and watched the lights come closer.

READING: I’m having a Fanny Flagg fest at the moment. I think I need to crawl into a happy world through rose tinted book pages at the moment.

ACTIVITIES TODAY: I got up at 6:30, showered and ate breakfast while making mine and Lila’s lunch. The girls got dressed with very little nagging, although I had to hold tally in forced hugs a few times. When she loses it she lashes out, I hold her without pressure while she freaks out. Eventually she calms down and sinks into the hug.

I dropped the girls at breakfast club and cycled to my school. I got there about 15 minutes early because my teacher and I were discussing plans for the golden time chart on the wall. We made them together while discussing how to help a couple of kids who are struggling to keep up. After registration I took a small group of kids for phonics and, during our group, the headmaster walked in, looked around, apologised, then walked out. I’ve been pondering ever since about what he was thinking. Did he come to see what was happening? Thankfully the kids were all sitting where they should be and some had their hands in the air to answer a question I had just asked. However, I was struggling a little to keep them under control so we were making more noise than was probably necessary. However they (mostly) were really enthusiastic about the work. I was giving them trickier phonemes and asking them to come up with words with those phonemes. It’s really playing on my mind sigh. Anyways, we then moved onto math, break and then literacy. After lunch the kids went home and I helped run the after school club until 3. I peddled like mad to the girls school and helped them de-tangle their lock. We cycled home together - I love doing that - and I force hugged tally another couple of times! We went out for dinner - a usual Friday night activity, rich and I propped each other up, vaguely aware of the girls playing in the pub play area… We were supposed to be picking up some cinema tickets that Lila won in a colouring competition at the self same pub during the summer. No one seemed to know much about it and there were promises to phone the managerto find out. Then the herds arrived!! So we left, knowing that they wouldn’t have time to do anything.

THINKING ABOUT: work. It just won’t go away. The constant ‘am I doing it right?’ ‘what do they think of me?’ ‘Will I make it to the end of my five month probation?’ ‘Will my contract be made permanent in a year or will I be out of here?’ Then the more specific ‘should I have done that differently?’ And ‘why did the head come in my room today?’. There will be a meeting at six weeks about my progress. I will, hopefully, feel better after that.... chews nails.

PLANNING: to read a huge tome on maths this weekend! As well as spending some time with my family, forced cuddles and all smiles