Snowday!

It's been a while loyal/random/drunk/lost reader. Apologies for the long absence. It's due to finally having started teaching. However, I am not as school today. Due to the inclement weather, I am sat in my dressing gown typing away at you (nice mental image eh?)

Being back in a new school has been interesting, tiring and a little bit deflating at times, but generally it's good to be back in the saddle. I have enjoyed being fielded the same old questions:-

• Are you French? (I get this a lot)
• Do you use sun beds?
• You got kids?
• You married Sir?
• You gay then Sir? (S'okay if you iz Sir)
• How do you spell GCSE RE?
• When are you leaving us Sir?
• You've got sommink inya innit? (another reference to being slightly darker skinned than the local populace)

A footnote on that last question. I only really noticed it when someone pointed it out to me, but a lot of the kids look very similar. Light brown/blond hair and blue eyes. Not exactly an Aryan super race, but worryingly easy to explain. Nobody ever seems to leave! Some of the staff are ex-pupils as are many of the Mums and Dads of the kids. If they didn't go to my school, they went to the rival school across the road. It does give the place a rather cosy family feel, bordering on the odd. I'd just be happier if they would reach out to extended family. Perhaps outside a mile radius of the school. For the gene pool's sake. I myself, with my swarthy skin and non estuary accent am regarded as a foreigner (I was born and brought up 12 miles away) and manifestly eyed with suspicion and mistrust.

Apart from one incident where talking about queen Elizabeth to year 8's & hinting at her lack of a husband. "what do people my age start to do?" "Retire?", the staff and kids have been great. I'm happy to be there and they're happy to have me. It's only a maternity cover, with very little prospect of being kept on so I have been applying for other jobs. My good friend Paul suggested sleeping with as many history teachers as possible so I can get continuous maternity cover. Laughingly I told this to my head of department this. Her earnest response was "you could do, but you'd have to get your timing right." Can nobody else see the flaw in this plan?

Moving on. I have a new love in my life. Lumps in all the right places but the harder I try the more difficult it is to get my hands on them! Mile End Climbing Wall is a great place! It was my good friend Ian's idea to do a weekend beginners climbing course there. As soon as the instructor saw me, he knew that I was ambitious, determined and likely to fall apart at a moments notice. And how right he was! I sit here and not climbing because I injured tendon in my foot whilst climbing, which means I cannot walk, let alone climb!

I still love it though and yearn to return. For beginners like me, it's an amazing core workout. I have to do my marking before I go, as my grip is so knackered by it, I can't hold a pen afterwards. I nearly had to sign out with a shaky X once, leading the wall attendant to wonder if I was actually literate.

It's very friendly down there and packed with young fit trendy looking people, so I provide a nice contrast. I am a bit of a minor celebrity there having landed myself the membership number 123456. Guy behind the desk said they staff had been talking about this magic member and shook my hand when he found out it was me. More famous as a number than for my climbing but I'll take what I can get.

However, since the course and before the injury I was making real progress. I bought some climbing boots, chalk bag and finger tape, so I at least I look the part. Being a man, I love the kit. I enjoy the ritual of squeezing my feet in the extremely snug boots and then doing them up as tightly as possible lacing all the way from the bottom (as I was told to). I don't care that the good flash climbers climb without even tying theirs up. I may not be very good, but at least I feel I might me. It does not matter what has been going on all day at work. When you climb you focus on nothing else. You are instantly transported back to being a six year old boy climbing trees. It's only the day after you're reminded you're almost 30!

Well it's a snow day so not in school. I shall leave you with the advice given to me by a deputy head in an e-mail this morning about what to do during the close down:

"This morning, Loose Women and Doctors Can I recommend Quantum Leap on ITV 4, also hoping to catch an episode of Diagnosis Murder or Murder She Wrote."

TTFN.