Just pleasantly floundering around.....

Does anyone else have their driving instructor’s voice in their head when they drive? Good Old Rod from 17+. He’s not there all the time (that would be ridiculous, I need to let other people in the car) but just odd moments like: • When I go up a hill, I can sometimes hear him saying, ‘you need push that throttle – it’s a hill you know – you need more gas for hills.’ • There’s a bridge (in Cringleford) we often crossed on a learning route and every time I go over it I hear, ‘you can fit two cars at the same time, if they drive carefully across this bridge, but not a van and a car, and certainly not a lorry and a car.’ If my passenger is lucky – I actually say it our loud. Funny that a bridge can turn one into a manoeuvre bore. • ‘That wasn’t left.’ To which I would reply – how am I meant to know which left you mean? Chap has taken over this role. When I get the wrong left, I think of Rod. • ‘You only need a car and a half’s length gap to parallel park. People think going in front wheel...

Last weekend, I was having a bit of a muck out. This is prompted when I either cannot a) find something or b) move. It's quite ugly to watch. The equation is: slight irritation about lost thing + bullish person + extreme chaos in physical surroundings = irritation, even more bullish person, unsettled dust and nothing achieved. (I appreciate this isn't mathematically sound but I wouldn't risk pointing it out if I were you; I'm still in chaos). I was trying to find the visitors' book that we had in our toilet for many years to share some of the wonderful comments people had written, but failed. Instead I found what I used to call, 'my self esteem dossier'. It is full of newspaper clippings of stuff I have done, special cards people have made for me and various other 'feel good' bits and pieces from a variety of places. A look through is guaranteed to make me glow from deep inside. As a teacher, I used to invest a lot in developing and preserving pupils...

I have given three wedding speeches in the past and some have been more successful than others. My first wedding speech was certainly a little sloppy?....well you judge for yourself. My sister and I had just spent a truly amazing week in Istanbul. Rest and healthy living were certainly not on the agenda and we were returning to the UK desperately in need of vitamin C and sleep. My friend's wedding was in the afternoon following the morning flight home. The speech I was to deliver had not been considered at all during my time in Turkey and on the plane, I decided to write a poem about the fantastic couple Jack and Jackie (last name: Frost - no kidding). I can remember the first two lines: When Jackie first showed me Jack I thought she was joking This provoked a ripple of laughter but other than that, the rest of the 'poem' was overshadowed by just four words. On the plane my sister had suggested the line, 'Jackie has got elephantitus' and I had written it down. It ma...

This is a film Johnny, who I call Louise, made of us while we were locked out of his house - having just returned him home. I think it sums my family up nicely. http://www.youtube.com/user/dumbopenguin#p/a/u/0/4pjRQ5JBx-M (I'm afraid it's a cut and paste job - my link thing never works.)

I didn't actually get kicked out but this is what happened........ I went to a book club for a couple of years ending in early 2004. It comprised of about eight women - half 'mums at home' and half 'workers'. I went to the first meeting with lots to say about the crap book we had read. In those early meetings the wine always flowed abundantly but we did usually consider the book - a bit. Slowly over the months, it definitely became less and less about the books because there were always a significant fraction who had not read it (I always did). I was OK with that but I was beginning to lose interest. I didn't really 'fit in' with everyone anyway. I used to try and spice the meetings up a bit by taking things along. It was around this time that I first encountered the Myers Briggs personality types and I took what I had along to what turned out to be my last meeting and 'diagnosed' everyone. It was actually quite hard work because people were quit...

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...

This is from my collection of funny stories that I encounter because of my job. It made me smile! A Year 3 pupil (aged 7) asked her teacher, "how do you spell 'f*ck'?" The teacher was obviously taken aback, coughed and replied, "What is it exactly you are trying to write?" To which the girl replied, "I've got the 'Nor', I just need the 'fuck'!" . . 'Norfolk' for those of you that might not have got there. A county that's beauty is found in its skies.

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...

I had a bit of an accident yesterday. Several glasses of white wine fell into my mouth. It was remarkable. I was sitting, all civilised, eating lovely food in a fine restaurant with work colleagues, celebrating the birth of little baby Jesus, when I had the accident. It rendered me unable to speak or even walk properly. Funny thing is, I would recommend it, as I had fantastic fun - but not too often. So even though a hangover is somewhat like an old friend, it's not conducive to bountiful blogging. So my offering today is a poster my daughter made when we were decorating. Poor - I know - but I am still re-hydrating, rubbing bruises and moving in slow motion. xxxx

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 ...

With a job that is basically about persuading schools to teach sex ed, it probably does not surprise you to hear I have to have to wade through no end of innuendo, double entendres and funny euphemisms when training people. It's OK, I've become quite good at graciously pretending that I am hearing something for the first time. However, occasionally I am lucky enough to collect a gem of a true story. Like this one told to me by a male teacher (a story, he said, the parent in it, had told him)...... An eight year old girl approached her mum and asked, 'Mum what does 'ejaculate' mean?' This was a mother who had sworn to herself that she would always answer her children's questions - whatever they were - openly and honestly. So she took a deep breath and, with the help of pen and paper, proceeded to explain what this term meant in great detail. The eight year old listened attentively. At the end of the description, the mother put down her pencil and enquired, ...

One day he'll go to a real hairdresser and they will ask (like they do), 'who HAVE you been letting cut your hair?' It's a good job he's not vain.

What a funny idea - me writing a blog about housekeeping. As you know, I'm all pinnies, Ajax and rubber gloves. I am actually referring to that boring bit at the beginning of a conference or training day where you tell people where the toilets are, what the lunch arrangements are, what to do in case of a fire (and if there are any drills planned) and where to go and have a cigarette if you smoke. Yawn, yawn yawn. To be honest, wouldn't it be ever-so-slightly more interesting just to let people find out for themselves. Well today, I made a few lame jokes along the lines of 'if there's a fire - get out , if you need to smoke get out' . Ha, ha, ha. Rip roaring. But if my more sensible colleagues had not been present (my adjective 'pile of poo' got a frown today), I would love to really spice things up: Dressed in a blue and white hostess outfit with long white gloves, a white paper hat secured with several kirby grips and a mouth painted with bright red lipstic...