Reality check - the silent motorbike version. in the start of the next part... Autumn 2014.

WHERE: lying in bed, rich is watching motor gp on his phone with his headphones on. It’s very relaxing to watch the bikes with no noise.

WEARING: a duvet…

FITNESS UPDATE: my four miles of cycling a day are becoming much easier and I’m falling properly in love with cycling again! I love to take corners with as little brake as possible and lean right into them, battling head winds and taking advantage of their opposite friends, the ones push me along. I had forgotten how much I love cycling in weather. A sunny cycle is calm, happy and peaceful whereas a windy cycle is invigorating and empowering. A snowy cycle hasn’t happened in many years as, during my time in London, it didn’t snow so my last one was probably cycling to my job at social services in Yorkshire during the early nineties. Whatever the weather is like, I know that I will arrive at work in a much better mood and with more energy than if I drive.

Weight wise, I have 7lbs to go to be back where I was but it seems to have plateaud once more. That’s fine though as I really want to lose it naturally through eating no sugars.

IN THE NEWS: in Madrid thirteen people either with Ebola or suspected Ebola are being kept in quarantine in the hospital. I’m fed up of scary shit, all I want to do is bring my kids up and I find the world disintegrating around me and I can’t do anything to stop it.

READING: I’ve just finished I Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven by Fannie Flagg and am now pondering what to read next. Her next book isn’t out in paperback until March and my hands can no longer hold hardbacks, it hurts too much. I still have several Spanish books to read so I guess I’ll get back to them for the time being. I still haven’t finished Marina, I’m really enjoying it but my brain does seem to need a break every so often.

ACTIVITIES TODAY: taking Lila to her swimming lesson and going to town to move money around between banks. It will be girly night tonight and tally needs to take it easy after a virus this week. I was a mean mummy and sent her to school on Thursday despite her announcing that she felt sick on Wednesday night. All the teachers for our year were off for one reason or another on Thursday, we had one supply in, a student teacher plus three TA’s and a learning mentor. It sounds like a lot of staff but there are ninety kids of which a huge percentage have behavioural issues. I think we all went home and had (a) a glass of wine (b) a bottle of vodka (c) a hot, Lush bath. Anyway, I seem to have slipped into tangent land. I think that today will be a low key one.

THINKING ABOUT: school seems to be mostly on my mind. Yesterday I taught maths. Firstly, this seems hard to believe but I finally grasped it last year when I was doing the year six SATs. I still don’t think I could do a gcse without a heck of a lot of extra work but I can certainly do primary. Secondly, my maths group did consist of a child who is being statemented and a Portuguese boy with very little English. He is incredibly bright and was misbehaving from boredom as he didn’t know what was going on do I’ve been on a rapid Portuguese learning curve while trying to use the English math terms alongside Portuguese. Then, this week, a Spanish girl started. Again she’s bright so she was added to my group. I was teaching tri-lingually and it was fab, especially as I want to become an EAL teacher for foreign children in our town. It’s so important that these kids don’t fall behind because of language difficulties. It’s also really nice that the two boys in my group have become good friends despite language differences and their completely opposite levels of ability.

PLANNING: I love my job, I really do. It’s taken a while to grow on me but it has got there. However, I have learned so much that I’m more than ready for half term break in one and a half weeks! The Girls want to go to the zoo and I’m going to take them swimming too. Tally has passed her level one climbing award so she can go to the climbing wall on speck, there are three sessions that she’s allowed to go for, and get instruction, work with a partner and work towards her level two.
I’m also planning to go to the loo!