Goodbye June

What a month, we've had highs and lows.  Bad times, long times waiting followed by lovely good times.  It has been an interesting month and I'm sad to see it go but I am also quite glad because July looks like it will lots of fun.

Hebden Handmade Parade

Are you going to the Handmade Parade?  How had I not known it was on?  I drove past the signs twice a day, five days a week for a month.  We had nothing planned so we decided to check it out, it wouldn't be that exciting.  How wrong was I! 

Stepping on the train it was like being in London at rush hour.  Well if London rush hour had like, 12 people involved.

The milky bars are on me!

It pays to be a good citizen.

The day the inspectors left I decided to treat myself to a nice dinner, I popped in to the local supermarket.  Walking back to the car I saw a £20 note I picked it up, result!  It wasn't a £20, it was a heck of a lot more.  What to do?  I needed a windfall to boost my bank account, but what if this was a little old lady's pension, or it could even be drug money.  I couldn't keep it, I considered handing it in to the supermarket, but, well, you never know...  So I went to hand it in to the police, only to discover that our local station is only open on Mondays.  I called the police non emergency line and asked their advice.  "We can send an officer round to yours or you can drop it at a different station." The thought of police coming round and the neighbours' curtains twitching appalled me. "I'll drop it off!"  I said hastily. 

At the police station I was told that if it wasn't claimed in four weeks it would be mine.  I am not going to lie I secretly hoped it wouldn't be claimed.  People always says don't think about it and just get on with things and I've always wondered how you do that.  Surprisingly, I managed to do it, apart from the occasional fleeting moment I didn't think about much at all.  Then I realised time was up and called in to the station, after a half an hour wait including a call to the supermarket to see if anyone had claimed it, I was given a lovely little windfall.  

Summer Bucket list

On the longest day, the first official day of summer,  it seems only fitting to add a summer bucket list. I feel like a bit of a cheat as I have already ticked off some of the things on my list and have plans to tick off a few more. 

Only in for two seconds GO edit

As I was having my scan GO got into my phone and finished my post about today.  You can see what he added as I have highlighted it with bold font.  Enjoy 

Today is the day and I had any awful nights sleep.  Even in the middle of all this my sleep was disturbed by dreams of school.  How can it be so all consuming that when you are dealing with a potential end of life scenario your

mind is still in work mode?

GO has gone to work, he's on the early shift and is convinced he can pick me up and get me to my appointment by ten.

After spending the whole day with Mamilein at her appointment at Easter I am better prepared today and pack a picnic of sorts.  The letter says that from initial appointment to going home can take up to four hours.  

As I get into the car I can hold it in no longer, after weeks of bottling it up I look at GO and as tears stream down my face I manage to whisper "I'm scared."  As he's driving he holds my hand gives it a squeeze and says "I know, but whatever this is we're in it together."  

We arrive at the hospital half an hour early, then begins a thirty minute farce of finding the right department.  We follow the signs for the hospital and then start looking for outpatients, the sat nav can only take you so far.  After a few minutes I give up and ask a couple of sexy lady's which where smoking and looking good not they said you need to be in the other side of the road me lad Yorkshire accent and I said really pet 😂so we drove off full speed ahead sharp turn and dumped out of the car and ran to reception proper bo I tell theee to be told I need to be at the other reception o fxxk I said so got back in car and drove off like a hound dog making my way to reception and then told to go to outgoing patients in another entrance by ekc I said this is confusing but got there in the nick of time (to be continued)😀

Only in for two seconds

Today is the day and I had an awful nights sleep.  Even in the middle of all this my sleep was disturbed by dreams of school.  How can it be so all consuming that when you are dealing with a potential end of life scenario your mind is still in work mode?

GO has gone to work, he's on the early shift and is convinced he can pick me up and get me to my appointment by ten.

After spending the whole day with Mamilein at her appointment at Easter I am better prepared today and pack a picnic of sorts.  The letter says that from initial appointment to going home can take up to four hours.  

As I get into the car I can hold it in no longer, after weeks of bottling it up I look at GO and as tears stream down my face I manage to whisper "I'm scared."  As he's driving he holds my hand gives it a squeeze and says "I know, but whatever this is we're in it together."  

We arrive at the hospital half an hour early, then begins a thirty minute farce of finding the right department.  We follow the signs for the hospital and then start looking for outpatients (which is where my letter tells me to go), the sat nav can only take you so far.  After a few minutes I give up and ask a couple of ladies for directions.  Turns out that we were at the wrong site.  Our spare time is ticking away as we make our way over.  GO makes a wrong turn I can wait no longer so get out and run.  The automated system doesn't work, I ask the receptionist who says I need to be at surgical outpatients which is across the road.  Back in the car we race back to the first site and can't find the way to the main entrance so again I hop out and run for any open door.  I am close but still not where I should be.  Finally I make it to the receptionist panting "Am I where I should be?"  Yes she smiled, handed me some leaflets about the Breast Clinic and tells me to wait.

I am feeling sick.  I send GO a text

and wait for him to arrive, hopefully before I get called in.

When I am called in I am asked lots of questions about my medical history and when I found d the lump.  I am then assessed by the consultant how pulls and prods and asks me where I feel the lump.  I show him and he has a quizzical look on his face.  "Hmm he say that's not in your breast that is your skin!"  I  sent some tests.

First of all I am taken for a mammogram, it won't hurt the radiologist says.  It doesn't hurt but it's not a pleasant experience.  Quick as a flash I'm done and back in the waiting room.  Then I have a scan, the new radiologist (a much more smiley lady) asks me about my lump, makes a mark on it and then scans it.  She stops and begins to ask me questions about it saying that she can see a tiny cyst and did it ever have a head on it like a spot?  I can't really remember I have obsessed over it for 23 days now but can't remember anything about it at that precise moment.  I mention that while we were camping a bee flew into my top but I can't remember if it stung me.  She is interested but says that it has nothing to do with it.  She says she is going to look at the other scans and I'll be right back.  

So this is it, in this room that hasn't been decorated since 2001 with a hideous combination of wallpaper and border and a pictures of six little children climbing over a fence while a shaggy dog sits and watches, not doubt in judgement, I will hear my fate.

Radiographer comes back in and says it looks like it is a sebaceous cyst that has filled fluid.  That's it I'm done.  I ask what happens next, I have to go back to outpatients to get me results (hasn't she just given me them?) and take to the consultant.  I ask if that's it, she says if it was bigger then they may drain it but even then puncturing the cyst opens it up to infection.  Ok I say.  I mumble something about listening to those who told me not to worry and walk back to outpatients.  

 

I wait in outpatients to talk to the doctor for over three hours before he calls me in to say "there is nothing to worry about it's only a cyst."  Three hours waiting two seconds in with the consultant, at least it was good news.

Trip to Africa

We took a trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park, I am not really an animal lover but I had quite a nice day with my little class.  It was the hottest day of the year, boy did I feel it, and by the time I got home I was exhausted and filthy.  School trips are always hard work, I am a typical German constantly counting and like it all to be organised just so.  My natural worrier kicks in and the 'what ifs' take over making it a long a stressful day.  The most relaxing trip I have ever been on was with Brightwell when the whole school went to the living rainforest and we took over the whole place, we had so many hands on deck it felt like each child was being supervised by at least three pairs of eyes, quite a luxury. Schools want you to take children on trips but they make it quite difficult to justify not being in class "learning" my class learned more about Africa and the animals who live there in one day than if we had spent a whole term on the topic (oh wait, we did!)

 

    

Don't ya just love em?

You've got to love the way children's minds work.  I've just been told by a little lovely "I've seen unicorns, well it was one but it's lost its horn and looks like a horse now!"

Don't ask

 

It's that time of year again, I don't want to do it but it comes with the territory.

  

Reports!  

 

The bane of all teachers lives, they are a killer to write, they take up all of your free time and are just a snap shot of a child's life.  

I have "lost" days of my life to report writing for what?  

For the parent who reads the report and laughs "who were you writing about that's not my child!"  

Or the parent whose child was a mute when they arrived and leaves you as one of the most confident, popular littles girls and comments "she hasn't improved her writing what have you been doing?"  

Then there's the parent who tears up when reading the report and says "I knew he was just like his father, he has a temper too!"  

 

I don't write them for these parents, or the SLT or even the supportive parents "she has blossomed under your care, thank you."  

I write the report for the thirty or forty year old grown up who is sat in the attic looking back on school days and laughing about the time the most important thing in the world was to remember capital letters and full stops.

 

I love reading my old reports and giggleing about how I was very shy and quiet and needed to speak out a bit more.

For you guys I write these reports and giggle at how absurd education is today.  What strange world this is!

Hello June

 

A tad late but at least I remembered eventually

Long way for a barbecue, but worth it

I picked up Lemanie late, I had slept in and wasn't ready to leave when I had planned, then I arrived at her house to find the sat nav on my phone had taken me to the house she lived in years ago.  By the time I got to her house we were almost two hours late setting off and we had another three hours to go to get to the house warming.

Three hours on the M1 usually drags but three hours with one of my most favourite people who I hadn't seen in too long was great.  We caught up on each others lives and reminisced about the good days in PRS and how Facebook made ten years feel like five minutes.  I does help that I have the ability to carry on a conversation years later without a thought for the passing of time. 

The barbecue was lovely, it was nice to meet up with people that I hadn't actually talked to in such a long time, life does have a way of rushing past in the blink of an eye.  We made promises to meet up again soon somewhere more central now that we mostly all lived up North.  What made me laugh was that it was almost six years to the day from Lelly's last barbecue and the last time I saw Clairebear and Jodes (who couldn't make this event).

The last time we saw each other was at Helen's wedding, I love finding old photos and using them.

Normal service will resume shortly

I am having a bit of a personal crisis at the moment will be back soon with an update.