I love a bit of sailor/nautical sartorial-styling! Last week, my Year 5's were writing and performing their own sea shanties and this week, we were looking at the Sailor's Hornpipe!
In this outfit, there are two pieces that I bought for cosplay for Classic Who companion, Romana. The red tiered skirt and the Sailor jacket. Both were bought second hand for cosplays but get worn in other combinations regularly but I don't think they've featured outside cosplay posts! The Laura Ashley t-shirt was bought from a Loue charity shop and is so comfortable. The hat is from ASOS and the boots second hand Vegan Dr Martens. I wore this on the lovely sunny day we had our Kensington Chamber Orchestra concert. I sat on the steps reading my book and several people commented that I looked like a painting! It was funny. I do love the combination of Navy, red and White.
The necklace was a present for Christmas from my friend Lara.
I woke up early, ahead of my alarm-clock (although on that subject, I MISS sleeping through the night- whhhy, can't I sleep?!?!) and managed to phone my Doctor's to get an appointment for today. I then left early and made it into Lidl before school to get some breakfast and also picked up a Good-to-Go £1.50 veg/fruit box which I haven't seen in a while. It wasn't hugely full but it had Broccoli (which alone is around £1 recently), lettuce, a few oranges, satsumas, plums and a few potatoes.
I got to school and took Singing assembly for Reception, Year 1 and 2 and then it was time for the rescheduled lesson which was being filmed by Anglia Ruskin university for their BEd in Primary Teaching course. I am pleased to say that the children were absolutely fantastic and they were really enthusiastic and worked really hard. I would be proud for people to watch that lesson. I was teaching the children about The Baroque Sonata and Domenico Scarlatti.
We started with a recap of their feedback from their Chiaccona performances last week and then I introduced them to Domenico Scarlatti. Fun facts for you: He was born in the same year as J.S Bach and G.F. Handel and was the son of a composer, Alessandro Scarlatti. He was born in Italy but moved to Spain with his patron later in life. He took part in a contest with Georg Handel to find out who was the better keyboard player. Whilst Handel was declared the master of the organ, Domenico was acclaimed as being as equally good at the Harpsichord as Handel. He was a real virtuoso!
I introduced them to the structure of the Sonata and then we listened to this one and answered some questions about it. After that, we composed a piece of music in Binary form as a class, which we performed and they did a superb performance which they were really proud of. M, the lecturer from AR was really impressed and couldn't believe what my Year 6's achieved in the lesson. I may also go to the University next year to teach a lesson to the undergraduate students which is exciting!
After that, I had my second class who also produced a great piece. This made me happy as the 3rd class, who I have on Thursday afternoons, were very apathetic and disengaged, though their performance was ok.
At lunch, orchestra had a good rehearsal and then I ate a delicious combination of Hummus and pomegranate seeds on toast (another staff member didn't want her large pot of seeds- I am the staff room dustbin) .
In the afternoon, after some PPA time, I collected my Guided Reading group who are always excited to see me and we had our session outside. We had a great session. Just one moment where I went into spasmodic coughing and the children were sitting there, saying, "Are you ok? Oooh, you're really red! You have tears running down your face!" I had to go and get water. As they said how worried they were, I made some macabre joke about how it wouldn't have been fun if their music teacher had died in front of them. One of them said, "Hmmmm, that would make a good story..." and later, another one said she was going to write said story! I am happy to be writing inspiration, no matter how dark!
After my group, I headed homeward for my appointment and came home.
Now had to do some work tidying my house as my younger sister and her boyfriend are coming over tomorrow. It's lovely because I saw my older sister last night as she came over because my niece goes to a trampolining session in my town!
I had some really exciting (for me!) news two days ago which I'm not allowed to share yet but I hope to soon!
Here to finish is my poem for the week. The brief word was 'Trumpet'. I actually used this word the other week but I came up with the standard use of the word. Not my favourite poem I've ever written but I suppose it will do!
Last featured in August 2021 and originally in October 2020, this Yasmin Khan outfit from Doctor Who series 12 makes me very frustrated! I adore the beautiful ikat top worn by Yaz but can I find where it is from? Nope! So it's been a series of alts!
Let's look at the inspiration:
My own screenshots but the original images belong to the BBC.
Consisting of a beautiful ikat top, a blue vest worn underneath, her ubiquitous All Saints Leather jacket, jeans, Alex Monroe posy loop necklace and some sort of footwear.
Anyway, here's my 2025 appearance :
Actually pretty pleased with this. The top is a size 18 top from Peacocks I saw on Vinted for £3. Worn backwards and tied at the waist is the closest I am going to get so far. It's very soft and comfortable.
As usual, my black trousers, charity shopped jacket and the trainers are my Clara ones.
The necklace was my 40th birthday present.
Here's the top worn alone.
Had a very hard day at school. My voice has gone again so I struggled all day with teaching my lessons. Trying not to feel down so...
Things I am grateful for:
1. Was able to wear alternative coat, not my rain one.
2. My 1st train came into platform 4 at my interchange station and then my 2nd train was opposite on platform 3. Casually walked across. No mad frantic scarper along the platform, down stairs and along corridor and up stairs with bike.
3. We've booked a holiday to Madeira for the holiday. 7 nights and a lovely hotel.
4. My year 2 class were really good at learning their Bartok today! The classes yesterday, not so much but this lot were great!
5. I've made CBC and I salads for the past 2 days for our lunches and they've been healthy and yummy.
6. Delicious loaf from the bakery, bought last Friday, is lasting well and great for lunch accompaniment.
7. I have wild garlic!
8. I'm so grateful to be home and not be out tonight. So tired.
9. Was so nice to see my Mum on Sunday.
10. Chatted to the nice guy, who fixed my bike chain a while back, on the train home. He also had a cold and offered me a strawberry Strepsil. They are nice!! Grateful to remember the kind people there are everywhere.
The Daffodils were at their absolute peak on Saturday at Warley Place. I needed some fresh air and solitude and this was just the tonic I needed. No more words, just pictures.
Greetings from the sofa. I didn't go to work today- my first day off sick in a long time. I have been really losing my voice a lot this week, it got to the end of choir yesterday and I was struggling. As I went home, it started to hurt a lot and I spent most of the night awake, trying to swallow as my throat and tonsils felt very swollen. My stomach felt a bit upset too and I had a headache and I was struggling to speak. Unfortunately, I was supposed to be filmed teaching Year 6 for Anglia Ruskin university's PGCE course this morning but there was absolutely no way I could do a good job feeling like I did.
I feel more improved than I did in the morning but my voice is still struggling. I am grateful for the rest but I do feel guilty.
Anyway, enough of me, I'm fine!
Today is World Poetry Day. I have really had fun these past few months writing poems. I've written them over the years but in September 2022, my school was trying to introduce more poetry into the curriculum which reminded me about writing poetry. Subsequently, back in March 2023, I attended an online Children's Poetry writing workshop with an old friend from Gamelan, Kate Wakeling. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed it and I had written the odd poem over the year after it, but it wasn't till this September that I started writing more poems. There's a few reasons for this I think. The first being that , following my old blog pal, Sarah Ziman on Insta (she's a brilliant, published poet), I've seen a lot of poetry and similarly, following my friend Kate. The second was attending a poetry Open Mic night, called Testing Ground, at Bard Books in Mile End to support my friend John, who is one of the organisers. Hearing people share their poetry was inspiring but my friend John read this wonderful poem called 'Feedback' which was about a child who we both taught and the thing he said, in his pre-spiel was, Write about what you know. That stayed in my mind and as I was sitting in a tedious orchestra rehearsal in which I was tacet for 2 movements of the Shostakovitch symphony we were playing in October, I had an idea for that poetry mag, for a poem with a musical theme. I sat there writing it and then the piccolo player asked me what I was doing. I told her, rather bashfully, and she asked to read it. She was delighted by it and laughed at the 'punchline' and told me I should write some more. I then wrote that poem about the Snail-kissing incident and a few others. Subsequently, I wrote a poem for my work colleague, who likes toilet humour. He laughed out loud and read it to the entire staffroom who also laughed. I guess, the reaction and having a spare couple of minutes in rehearsals made it a good activity to do.
In addition, I had a go at submitting the odd to a free online children's poetry mag (nothing has been chosen for publication, but it was fun writing for a purpose).
I've checked and seen that I have written 64 poems since September which is crazy (don't worry, I'm not going to inflict them on you- I get, from the reaction, that poems, or my poems in particular, are not for most of the people who read this blog- this is fine but I like sharing them so I will share the odd one here and there) . I've really enjoyed writing them and since discovering The Toy magazine's Word of the Week prompt, I've had a reason to write regularly.
So, that's my current poetry story!
This week's prompt word is 'Fuzzy' and this is what I wrote.
Ha, it's 2 years, practically, since I last featured this outfit on the blog- in fact, I mentioned the Albert Hall concert in the post.
I ended up throwing this sweater on for church on Sunday morning - not sure how it ended up being in a position for quick grabbing but it did! I was very late! I just had to throw on clothes as I got out of bed!
The outfit is worn by Yaz in my favourite series 11 episode, Kerblam.
It features her series 11 staple- a jumper and jeans with her All Saints Jacket worn over the top
This outfit has one of the cosplay world's elusive items- the sweater from a brand called Maison De Nimes.
Here's me in it!
It's a simple outfit - the sweater, which I am lucky enough to own the Screen Accurate version, is comfy and fits me well. I wore my black ASOS trousers and my Ash Bowie trainers plus my charity-shopped leather jacket.
Confession- I didn't wear that jacket for church- I wore my Barbour jacket instead as it was warmer!
When I got back, I ended up doing some housework, having some breakfast.
I have a funny story.
Yesterday, the door went and it was my neighbour Martyn. He his opening comment was, "I'm going to pick up some Alpaca poo tomorrow...would you like me to get some also?"
I laughed a lot! This morning (Sunday, when I wrote this), I heard the intercom on my door go and I pressed the button and said, "Hello, Martyn, have you got poo for me??!?"
Luckily, when I opened the door, it WAS Martyn- would have been really embarrassing if it had been anyone else!?!?!
I spread it over my raised bed along with some top soil and I'd already put a load of raked leaves on there too. I need some more topsoil.
We've got this massive palm tree in the garden and it's getting to be a bit of a problem. I was cutting it back this afternoon and it's got these massive spikes and one of them is caught in my middle finger knuckle- I can't get it out!
I bought some cornflour from the refill shop and we used it for the first time to crisp up some tofu- may need to figure out how to give it a bit more flavour but it was was ok for a first try!
Here's a card I made for our friend's 90th birthday.
We went to our music camp to celebrate with her. The celebrations included chamber music, an orchestra session, drinks and nibbles and a 3 course dinner.
We arrived around 2.30pm- CBC went to play chamber music and I had a walk in the woods with a friend Ellie. We had tea at around 4pm and then we played Beethoven' Pastoral symphony with the birthday girl leading. After that, we had drinks and delicious canapes. The dinner was really lovely and the barn had been so beautifully decorated. There was an absolute mound of cheese to eat after the 3 courses- it was a real feast!!! We chatted to lots of lovely friends and finally left waaaay too late. We arrived home at around 1.15am!!!
The birthday girl is a violinist who is also a keen gardener. After the success of my floral piano card, I decided to adapt the design I used for a card for CBC. I printed off a picture of the side of a violin and used it as a template to cut around some purple floral paper (realised I missed a trick of using paper with pansies on so we could have the pun of violas with a viola). I then drew on the F hole and the purfling around the edge of the fiddle shape. I stuck it to some lilac card and decided I wanted a patterned edge so I used my flower paper edge punch to decorate the edge.
The final detail was to add a Happy Birthday in irritatingly small silver outline stickers.
As an extra geeky touch, I wrote the birthday girl 's name in fancy Calligraphy on the envelope and used the Segno for the S of her name.
I was watching a video on Insta about the largest gap at Bank station (can't find the post as it vanished mid read (you can read about it here though) and then recalled an embarrassing incident in my first month of blogging. No one commented on the original post.
Mind the Pigeon!"
I had two embarrassing mishaps yesterday! 1.) I was entering City University for my Gamelan rehearsal and think I held the door open too long, as a pigeon seemed to fly through the door with me. I attempted to sneak up on it as it stood in the corridor looking at me, and then it decided to fly down the corridor with myself in hot pursuit. We reached the stairwell before the music office where it perched on the banister, where I knew all was lost if it went downstairs! I approached it from the other side, and it flew into the computer room, followed closely by myself.... And was greeted by a class of students, I looked at them, and looked at the pigeon who had flown up to the pipe at the top of the room (and who was blatantly thinking "ner ner ner ner ner"), and just collapsed into laughter. I just slowly backed out of the room and made my way to my rehearsal. Wonder where it is now... 2.) Wending my weary way from the rehearsal later on, after a lovely chat with Gamelan friends in the pub, I made the dash up the spiral stairway at Bank, to run to catch the Central line eastbound. We London-dwellers, must all have grown used to the Dalek-like voice which orders one to "Mind the Gap". Well, I must have been away with the fairies, and most certainly DIDN'T mind the gap, and found myself falling straight into the gap beside the train. I looked at the ankles of other late-night commuters in silence, and as someone hauled me out of the gap, burst into raucuous laughter. I ask you, How is one supposed to regain one's self-respect whilst reading a Famous Five book, clutching an R2D2 handbag surrounded by witnesses to such an embarrassing mistake?!
I'm pleased to say that Tuesday was without Vomiting. Or any other accidents. The concert went well and the children enjoyed it. I was a bit stressed about timings and things but the parents and children had a great time. I have to say that the children behaved really well and they were really patient considering lots of things overran. We didn't get back to school until 11.10pm but we were incredibly lucky as we were one of the first schools to be called to go and we were really close to all the exits. I marched the kids straight out of the Albert Hall without any toilet trips (it was a bit of a gamble, I'll be honest! But it paid off) and our coach driver had found a prime position parking spot and we were off immediately. My friend's school's coach didn't get till 11.50pm. My assistant Head dropped me off at my interchange station and I JUST made the train at 00.08. I got home just before 1am!
The next day, my Head teacher kindly said I could come in for second lesson and I spent the rest of the day teaching year 4 which was probably the best day to have on such a late night as I felt like I had a hangover! Dehydration I think. Spent the day teaching year 4 Rocky Mountain.
We had to go to another school for our INSET training and as it is close to my Godmother's house, that's when I saw her after it.
Today was nearly all Year 5 composing sea shanties. I think I've finally perfected that lesson after 15 years of teaching it!
Here's my poem this week for the Toy Press' word of the week: Pet. I'm also writing another one which is more memories.
My Mum and older sister didn't like it or get it. My niece and old work colleague enjoyed it.
My different pets
My cat who always farts.
TRUMPET?
My budgie who eats messily.
CRUMPET?
My guinea-pig who loves journeys in the Porsche.
CARPET?
My dog who will never grow up.
PUPPET?
My bunny who has no energy.
LIMPET?
My hamster who enjoys sky-diving.
PARAPET?
This weekend, we have a 90th birthday party for a lovely friend from Music Camp! I've not been there this time of year before! I am looking forward to it!
Oh, the SUN, the SUN! It has been glorious! It puts one in such a good mood! I ate my breakfast in the garden both days of this weekend and it was a joy!
I walked with my friend Margaret this afternoon which was also a joy- we travelled to and walked along Southend Seafront to Thorpe Bay and back.
The signs of Spring are here- my first Daffodils opened and I can see buds on my cherry blossom.
Yesterday, I made sure to wear clothes I can't usually on a bike- a long skirt and a hat!
And went for real sailor vibe.
This necklace was a present from my friend L for Christmas
Wore my Laura Ashley top bought in Loue last Summer along with my red tiered skirt (my Romana skirt!)
Added my sailor jacket (Zara via Vinted) and an ASOS felt hat.
You can't see my Dr Martens.
I wore this to travel up to London for my orchestra concert. It was a great concert and two of my colleagues came to watch it- it was so nice to have them there, particularly as one of them had been fasting all day for Ramadan and was very hungry! They were so sweet and enthusiastic!
This week, I am taking the choir to the ROyal Albert Hall. Hopefully, there won't be any catastrophes like Vomit-gate like last time!
Yesterday, in my World book day poem post, I mentioned that our theme for World Book Day this year was Fairy tales/folk tales/traditional tales, possibly with a twist!
Our new English lead wanted some ideas of what we could suggest the children could dress as that wouldn't cost them anything.
I suggested the children make some sort of cardboard tabard or sandwich board to wear. It could be a setting image, a book cover, a character or an item from a folk tale.
I gave her two examples I made of a Gingerbread house and a ladybird.
Here is the tabard I made
One side is the pumpkin (and that's my wand for the fairy godmother- this was made for a choir concert about 5 years ago)
The other side is the coach that the pumpkin turns into!
My dress is actually one of my wedding dresses- bought on eBay in 2012 from Vivien of Holloway originally. It still fits, 12 years later!
I WAS going to wear my silver glittery shoes and a tiara but I had such a headache today, I couldn't face it. I was hypersensitive to smells today- everyone's room made me reel with artificial smells and cleaning products! I got through the day though. Just wore my blue boots!
I also made another tabard example from The Hare and the Tortoise:
It is also double-sided:
I had fun making these.
L, a year 3 teacher was dressed as Prince Charming- we had a photo together.
A, the English lead was dressed as Rumaysa, who is a retelling of Rapunzel but who uses her hijab to escape from the tower she is trapped in, instead of being rescued by a prince. She then helps other female characters to escape their own fates! It's a great story! She looked amazing and she had 3 light pink scarves plaited and attached to her hijab and added flowers to it- she looked so beautiful!
A girl in her class, who I lent my copy of Rumaysa to, also came as Rumaysa and had made herself a tabard of the book cover- it was marvellous!
There was a brilliant child dressed as the Gingerbread man- a massive cardboard face!
There were some other brilliant ones!
I loved Dog in Boots, one of my choir boys came dressed as an alternative version of Puss in Boots.
The office staff came as The three little wolves and the big bad pig. This is a real book and is really funny!
There were a myriad Red Riding Hoods, Little Red Riding Hoodie, Little Red Running Shorts.
The three little minions (who I told they had to write the story to go with it and they did!)
For TARDIS Tuesday this week, I taking a look at a simple work look that Yasmin Khan wears in the episode, Eve of the Daleks and from the series 13 promo materials. I last featured it in 2021 and I read the post as I was looking for the link. It was at the time when I was still without my music room and I'd had a difficult day in terms of that. I am so unbelievably glad to have my own room back and I think it's important to remember when things were so much harder and that things can and do get better at different times in life!
Anyway, today, I felt like I was happy to return to this outfit. Shall we take a look at it?
It consists of a dark shirt with red/orange splotches- there's a question as whether it is an Oasis shirt or a Topshop one.
She wears one of her idiosyncratic All saints Leather jackets- black or brown it seems
black high-waisted trousers, black high biker boots (Dr Martens we think) and then a brown belt plus her Alex Monroe Posy loop necklace.
Here I am:
I am going to state that I am wearing all the same as last time but I chose different boots.
My charity-shopped £3 fake leather jacket is starting to fall apart which is a shame but it still does its job.
I wore my Clarks brogue boots this time as I think they are more like Yaz's ones.
I did actually downsize on this shirt. I found this one, same as my old one, in my local charity shop and it was 2 sizes smaller which worked better for me. I love the big sleeves on it.
Wearing my same ASOS trousers and my Mum's brown belt. Sadly, you can't really see my beautiful necklace so well.
I became a multiple of 11 last week. I decided I would like to involve my family in my celebrations.
On Thursday night, I spent the evening making sure the house was as clean and tidy as I could. I got to bed around 1.30am, stupidly writing a poem as I was going to sleep as I had an idea for World Book day/
Friday, after school, my Mum, older sister, her husband and my niece came to our house. We had a cup of tea and chat and then we all chose what we wanted from the local Chinese takeaway. My BiL and I drove round to pick it up. Unfortunately, they made one mistake on our order so we went back and picked up the correct one again!
The dinner was tasty but there was loads left over. We then set up our coffee table for a game. We started with one of my favourites, The Big Taboo.
If you have ever played Articulate, Pictionary or Cranium, it has aspects of all of those.
If you land on the red Taboo square, it is a describing round where you have to communicate words to your team without using certain Taboo words.
If you land on the yellow Drawing square, it is a drawing round where you have to communicate words to your team by drawing it.
If you land on the green 15 words square, it is a describing round where you have to communicate a word to your team but ONLY using 15 words in the ENTIRE round, so you have to be as minimal and sparing with words as you can. The best I have ever done at this is my team has guessed 8 different words from my only saying 15 words.
If you land on the blue Bendy Bob square, it is a puppetry round where you have to communicate words to your team by manipulating Bendy Bob, a purple flexible puppet, to act them out.
There are also 2 purple Memory round squares which are ALL PLAY rounds where a team member has to take all the cards that have been played already and describe them to both teams by only using 2 words.
It is a raucous, hilarious game, especially Bendy Bob round. CBC was a asleep in an armchair and so my BiL and I were on one team and then my sister, niece and Mum were on the other team. My team TROUNCED the other team.
We then played the 5-second rule game which is great fun. In this game, you have cards which say "Name 3..." and then you have to name 3 of whatever is on there by the time the 5 second timer has run out. If you fail to do it, then the next person in the circle has a go (don't name an already named one!) and then the next... I won!
I was sad when they went home but it had been fun!
The next morning, CBC and I woke fairly late, he later than I!
I did a little bit of resetting and tidying up and did some work in the garden and then at around 3.30pm, my Dad, Stepmum, my other sister and the dog arrived. We had a cup of tea and then set off in the cards to take a walk where the HMS Beagle's final resting place is supposed to be in a village called Paglesham. We then went to a pub for dinner. It was very nice but very expensive!
We drove back home which took a little while and had crisps and tea and then played 2 board games.
We began with Qwirkle Cubes which was a birthday present from my Brother in Law, CBC's brother. I ADORE Qwirkle so it was fun to play an alternative version! I won!
We then had a quick game of 'Pass the Bomb' which is a word game. You draw card with a 2-3 string of letters e.g. ELL. You roll the dice and that determines if there are any exclusions, e.g. You cannot use the letters at the START of the word or at the END. The first player then picks up the 'bomb' which has a variable timer on it. It ticks and you pass it around the group, saying a word that uses the letter sequence e.g. HELLO, BELLY, JELLY, BELLOW, FELLOW, FELLOWS, FELLOWSHIP. At some point, the bomb will 'explode' (sound effect). Whoever has it in their hand has to keep the card and then at the end of 13 cards,whoever has the least cards is the winner. If there is a tie, the people in contention play until sudden death. It got to tie between CBC and I and he won!
They went home fairly late.
The next morning, I got up for church. It was a lovely service. After that, I ate some breakfast and then lunch whilst reading and then decided to go for a walk (CBC was out cycling) as the weather was so beautiful! I walked about 3.5 miles and decided to call in at my friends Richard and Jenny from church. They were delighted to see me and we had a lovely chat in their conservatory. I then walked home and then read and we ate leftover Chinese for dinner whilst watching Gladiators.
I got some nice presents. CBC got me a beautiful pair of Indian Block print pajamas from a shop in Hexham as well as a cute squirrel music box jewellery box that plays music from Mozart's Magic Flute. Mum gave me some money to pay for my new Saxophone case and got me some edibles including a kilo of Cacao. My sisters both got me edibles plus some cute green beaded hoop earrings from my younger sister, my Dad and Stepmum got me some nice balsamic vinegars and a Booktoken, CBC's Mum got me a book I wanted, my Godmother got me a lovely travel mug and a book on boardgames and my BiL got me Qwirkle cubes.
It was a lovely birthday weekend and I am very grateful.
