Just pleasantly floundering around.....

I have never had an issue with swear words and have always explained to my children that some people can be offended by certain (swear) words, so don't use them outside the home unless you want the possibility of people judging you harshly. Obviously I say it in Kidsspeak. To me, unless swear words are aimed at me aggressively, they are just harmless sounds. Actually, I lie a bit, I do sometimes use them for impact to stress a point of passion. Last Friday night, my whole family wandered into the off-licence after a street walk so that Andy Chap could buy himself a bottle of posh cider. Recently he's become a bit of an alcohol snob. While in the shop, a couple of women entered that were clearly on their way to some drunken fun. They asked the lad behind the counter that was surrounded by 'no ID no sale signs' (that I had been staring at because I felt I should ask him for some ID - he looked twelve like all the policemen) for a particular type of beer. He pointed to a s...

For ten weeks every term, my daughter attends a drama session in the Maddermarket Theatre in central Norwich. Consequently, on many Saturdays I get and hour and a quarter to wander round town ALL ON MY OWN. Not being overly into shopping, I mostly watch the buskers (photo is of 'puppet man' - not exactly a 'busker' but well known and loved in Norwich. He plays pop tunes on his cassette player, wiggles hand puppets around to the music and places all the coins he's given in neat lines on his cardboard box), look at shops (they are quite pretty), lap up the atmosphere and enjoy bumping into people I know. The other thing I love to do is sit at the 'STUDY ONLY - no drinks or food allowed at this table' table in Waterstones and read books from the Oxford 'Very short introduction to.... lots of interesting subjects ' series. (That is after I visit the education section and force all my books into very noticeable positions). The table is very near the till...

Despite my two and a half house fires and my little forest fire, the fact I gained not even the tiniest bit of pleasure in any of them proves that I am not actually a pyromaniac. O.K. that has been established. My second house fire, like my first, started after a night filled up by drinking capability-altering-liquid. Now before you suggest that there is a pattern forming, I was entirely sober during my forest fire. I was 12 after all. I had spent a lovely evening with several dear friends. Food, red wine and much hilarity. Upon my return I didn't feel like going to sleep straightaway so I put on some music and lit a candle - so that I could lose myself in ponderous ponderings. I often find alcohol can make things seem more profound and candlelight seems to enhance this delusion further. The candle I lit stood in a very wobbly candle holder that I had bought from QD stores for 40p. One could just about make it stand upright by fiddling around with it for a while - so it wasn...

I am not a pyromaniac. Perhaps I say that in the same spirit as an alcoholic denies their alcoholism. Let me see....... Evidence for pyromania: *Two and a half house fires *A forest fire *An exceptionally good understanding of what burns well *Never getting past the sugar volcano experiment in my chemistry set *A father that would get instantly angry at the sight of me with a naked flame (of any kind and I tried a few out for size) *The only song my brother wrote about me was called 'Closet Pyromaniac' (it was a statement about how I always had a fire when I felt my life needed to completely change in direction...but this all happened on an unconscious level of course) Evidence against pyromania *I can never find a light when I need one *You can grow out of things right? ****fuzziness to denote back in time******* It was the very last night I was to spend in our very mouldy student shared house that had been home for the second academic year of my degree. My eccentric friend Lo...

You know how stories from your past disappear and then come back to you again, well this was one such story I re-told recently for the first time in a long while.... I was a teacher of a Year 6 class in a very tough school. It was tough because of the children's behaviour, the lack of support for staff and the general 'divide and rule' tactics of the leadership i.e. very little team playing! That sets the scene a bit. On this particular day, the kids had all come back to class after lunchtime especially full of 'issues' - more so than normal. So and so had done this and that to so and so etc, etc. They were in a terrible state and I knew that the planned history lesson was unlikely to be less than a good ten minutes away - due to the necessity of significant calming down. So I changed tack and decided we would go back outside and let off steam in an organised physical activity way. My class loved hockey. Despite each pupil having such a potentially dangerous tool to...

A few years ago I was persuaded to go to a reunion at my university (UEA). It was for alumni that had started their undergrad degree in the 80s. I remember wondering at the time if a reunion was one of those things that sounded pleasant enough in theory but in reality would be awful. I was convinced attendance would be fun by posse of Norwich residing UEA graduates that I already knew, so in spite of my reservations I figured it would be just like a night out with friends - if nothing else. How wrong I was. I think the whole thing disturbed me considerably! When I arrived it was apparent that if anyone I knew from my university days was there - I certainly wasn't recognising them. Some people had come for the whole weekend and a very well-planned agenda took them to old haunts and let them re-enjoy the delights of Norwich. I (and my friends) had just dipped into a meal in the campus canteen(!) and an 80s disco on the Saturday evening. The meal was pleasant enough (mostly an opportu...

Death is one of our culture's taboos. We're not very good at death. You'd think there would be a useful protocols by now - we've been at it (dying) for eons! Because death's not really spoken about nobody appears to know what might help in such testing times - certainly not if my closest experience with it is anything to go by...... My dad was an unusual character - extremely unorthodox and very angry. We never got to the bottom of whatever made him like he was because the tiniest hint of digging below the surface always provoked an angry outburst. He could go from nought to full rage in less than a second and my siblings and I got very good at treading on eggshells as children. He was incredibly academically clever and capable: good at constructing things (made me a beautiful wooden magic roundabout), a practical scientist - could build radios and all sorts of gadgets, creative - pretty good at painting, a linguist (spoke Spanish, translated French documents for ai...

In the year above me at school, when I was about nine, there was a boy that had a skin condition that to this day I still have no idea what it possibly could have been. I remember my mum explaining it to me as his pores not working properly. My mum's explanations always came with a 'that's gonna have to do you' air about them. Anyway, the result was a very red, sore looking skin. As it went in those days, such an abnormality warranted some name calling (oh how better we understand emotional health and well being now!). It was somewhat unimaginative, but he became known as Tomato Head to everyone in the school. So one playtime, I am there clowning around as usual when Tomato Head passes close-by. This prompts a discussion amongst my friends about who was going to dare call him by his nasty nick-name. I saw that as 'barely-a-dare' so volunteered confidently and delivered instantly. The response was not as I had anticipated. Tomato Head looked directly at me, with ...

Because I potentially work with all of Norfolk's four hundred primary schools, I get to drive around this huge county and feel I know it pretty well now. I love the undulation of north-west Norfolk, the fantastic coastal views and pretty flint villages in the north, the quaint 'Suffolk style' villages in the south and the amazing views in the east around the broads and waterways. I think it is a little harsh to call Norfolk a sixty mile cul de sac or declare it's beauty is only in its skies! The one area I visit however, that I feel that I 'just don't get', is where I drove yesterday: the Norfolk Fens. Once you have crossed the River Ouse (and the New Cut) you enter a strange place where any mound you spot will be a river bank or a heap of sugar beet waiting to go to Wissington Factory. The road edges often drop away into huge water filled ditches, the fields are worryingly lower than the rivers (I do understand land reclaimation, but it just feels weird) an...

This Thursday I went to Cambridge to receive more training on something called 'the Healthy Schools' Enhancement Model'. In a nutshell, it's a robust model for implementing health improvement change in schools. However, catch is, there is no nutshell. Now I appreciate that I am probably down the opposite end of the spectrum (whatever that spectrum is) from the people that designed this tool but.......it goes like this...... After completing their online annual review to maintain their National Healthy Schools' Status (should only take a few hours), schools pull together a task force of appropriate people (a head, a governor and a chicken in some Norfolk schools I should think) that will oversee all of this work. Their first task is to interpret and analyse local data to 'adopt' one local (from the national indicators) and one school priority - priorities a school alone could not 'sort out' but something they can go part way to addressing. For each of...

I took my son to 'hostipol' today for a small operation on his hand (sorting a trigger thumb). It is always weird to be a temporary visitor of those large, well-oiled (if not a little erratically maintained) places that are the coalface of hardcore health! You go to hospital to have babies, to watch people die and to hope to be mended - I guess they are bound to stir up some kind of emotion in everyone. My son's right hand is fixed now, but it currently looks like he's about to go in a boxing ring...bless him!

I visited a school in south Norfolk about a month ago that the staff said (quite casually) was haunted by a headteacher that was raped and murdered in the bungalow next door in the 80s. Apparently the perpetrator was due to be released and paranormal activity had stepped up a gear in recent weeks. This had included the sound of someone pacing up and down, doors banging and keys turning round and round in locks. And - yes - the hairs on the back of my neck did stand up on end as we sat in what had been that headteacher's office. So I returned to my office and recounted the tale to some colleagues. All I can say, is I have been surprised by how many people have a story of the paranormal. One colleague embarked upon a monologue about his childhood home. There were regular goings-on: strange shadows, baby crying noises and levitations. So much so that when he was offered the house later in life (for a bargain price) he declined. Another colleague started his story with 'I really do...

Having spent a few years now dragging small children around the countryside (they WILL enjoy it), we realise we have quite an extensive list of short, mostly circular, mostly off-road walks in Norfolk. In no particular order: • Earthwork circle at Warham near wells - atmospheric • Wolterton Hall - feels spacious, nice walk round the lake • The network of footpaths around Saxlingham Nethergate (derelict church adds atmosphere) • Castle Acre – steep! • The network of footpaths around Shotesham –very open • Hockering Wood - better than Foxley Wood for bluebells, great small leafed lime trees (lloks like a wood you would find Little Red Riding Hood in) and have never met another person there! • Whitlingham – woods and broad • The Roman Villa – Caister – handy for Norwich and good for blowing the cobwebs away on a windy day! • Foxley Wood – especially when all the bluebells are out • Ashwelthorpe Wood – small but pretty • Surlingham Broad – there are lots of walks along this bit of the Yare...

Today I met, for the second time, one of the many crazy headteachers in the world. Of course you have to be a little mad to undertake a job of such scope, with ridiculous stress levels and little thanks, but most masquerade as reasonably sane. Me - I love the overtly mad ones. This particular character looks like a cross between Barry Manilow and Willy Wonker. He said many randomly bizarre things but my favourite of all he said today was: "The animal kingdom have got a lot right - I mean they are not destroying the planet in the way we are, but you have to ask - do they do music like us humans do? When animals are making their music, it's either to say get away from my territory or come over to my place - if you know what I mean. I am a big fan of music - human music that is." Long may he be in charge of impressionable little minds.

I received and e mail from ancestry.co.uk suggesting a Charles Harvey Potter 23rd March 1931 - 8th May 2008 might be linked to my family tree. I have researched my genealogy and have drawn up quite an extensive family tree and I think I might have struggled had I failed to identify my own father! Still I guess he's well and truly and ancestor now!

One of my favourite photos. Kids are great aren't they! P.S We didn't really compost him.

We're looking to move...nightmare stuff! Don't ask me about it! We might get there one day but this viewing didn't help...... Recently we went to look at a house that seemed like quite a bargain. I met a neighbour on the way in who informed us that the old man who had lived there had died. That wouldn't bother me. She also wished me good luck (which seemed a slightly odd thing to say!) Upon entering, a terrible smell hit us but it was covered up a bit by a lot of mustiness. The estate agent rushed to open the back door to let some air in. Looking into the first room it was instantly apparent that the estate agent was showing us around before the house clearance had removed everything (which seems a little eager on the estate agent's part) but sader still, the house looked as if the owner had just popped out. His gardening shoes were parked by the back door, his glasses were on his bedside table and there was some washing up still in the sink...with some pretty manky...

I was outside a supermarket parking my bike when I received a full frontal blast of cigarette smoke from someone having a fag break. Strange but it took me straight back to fun times in the pub a few years ago. They say smell is the sense most strongly linked to memory but with it being a rare thing to smell these days, it's funny to think that such a choking smell will cause people to reminisce!!!!