Half term happiness

 Hi All,

Greetings and hope you are well!  It's the last night of the half term holiday and I've finally made it here onto the blog to show my face!

I have to say, this holiday has been a really good one for a few reasons and has been a much needed antidote for me.

• We spent 6 days in Antwerp plus night at a hotel 5 minutes walk from St Pancras station. 6 nights away in a new place!
• Having a complete change of scene was just what we needed
• The weather blessed us for much of the time in Belgium there was sun and not too cold- made such a difference to mood.
• We had a really lovely apartment in a really nice and salubrious part of the city
• Really comfortable bed meant I had lots of sleep.
• Most nights we went to bed at a reasonable hour (e.g. before 11pm and slept through the night till 9am). I didn't have my waking up fretting at 5am for no apparent reason despite being exhausted and not being able to go back to sleep again.
• Eating lunch and dinner out for 6 days made such a difference in terms of energy and enthusiasm
• Antwerp is lovely!
• I got to meet one of my favourite blogging friends (more on that soon!) and feel so grateful and glad for our friendship.
• Bought a couple of nice things in Antwerp (see previous point!) 
• Feeling so refreshed, having got home on Thursday night around 9.30pm, the next morning, we awoke at a reasonable hour and because I felt so replenished, I was able to get right on with hoovering, some cleaning and tidying, putting washing in, putting washing away and getting on with the previously insurmountable pile of marking that had been building for a term and a half.  I am ashamed to say I had got completely behind on all that marking and had not been recording the results in my assessment sheets. Well, I worked my way through pretty much all of it and put the data on sheets. I was then able to do my 540 reports (fairly easy as only had to report an effort and progress grade but doing that for 540 pupils,checking against data takes a while) and get on with some of the planning that I had got behind on. I still have some work to do on that (but because I haven't got Mount Marking looming lugubriously behind me, I don't feel so worried and overwhelmed about it) and one or two other bits but I will get it done.
• Doing the marking, I was very proud of my Year 6's who nearly all did well in their Listening to Baroque cantatas and concerti and were able to name an impressive array of Baroque composers as part of one question.  This was work from that last day of the half term and the kids were really enthusiastic during their listening lesson.  I told the children about Bach's Coffee Cantata as an example, a secular cantata about a girl who was obsessed with Coffee which they found hilarious. At the end of the lesson, they begged to hear it (we'd been listening to a cantata about hunting) and when they listened, one of the 'cool' boys found it so entertaining and funny that the girl was singing, "Coffee! Coffee!" in an operatic voice, that he kept giggling!
• Read 3.5 good children's books which I look forward to sharing with kids at school.
• Had a nice lunch out on Saturday late afternoon- new cafe in town was empty and we had it to ourselves for a yummy lunch.  Whilst waiting for my food, I managed to nip to the library to get a book out (I think it was National Libraries day on Saturday or something?) and nipped into the Charity shop and picked up a cute lightweight top, a brilliant Jennie Maisels pop-up Grammar book and a Harry Potter for the school library.
• Put together some cute outfits- felt inspired to do this!

I'm going back tomorrow feeling lighter and long may that feeling last.

Hope you too are well and refreshed!

xx

Life recently

 Hello there friends,

I hope you are well. I've struggled a lot this past week or so.  I've found many things hard. I've just felt miserable about everything.   School and the fact it's looking likely that the building issues won't be worked on and won't be finished this year at all- the thought I'll have to be nomadic for longer than a year.  Everyone who ends up in a conversation with me about it says, "Get a job closer to home," yet, they don't seem to think about the fact that my type of job doesn't come up that often and the fact that I really do love my school. Just searched and nothing.  Also got lots of work but don't seem to be able to finish it.  Also miserable in general.  I really want to be able to talk about my feelings and how I am feeling and why and realising that I just don't have that close female friend who I can talk to about things that might help.  Felt like I'm on egg shells.  Also anxious about the world in general. I've come to realise how much I overthink and worry about things and then bottle up my feelings and then when they come out, they don't come out how I want to. Feeling misunderstood etc.    The housework is never ending and everything just gets dirty and messy as fast as I clear up and there's never time to completely finish it.  Waking up early when I really need to sleep.   Having a mild cold this week (did 4 Lateral tests- all negative). Wanting to go somewhere at half term but CBC and I not being able to make a decision about where and it getting closer and closer and then feeling really annoyed and him having FOMO about everyone else having more fun in life. I'd love to just lie by a pool but a) flights- not eco friendly and b) he doesn't like that type of holiday.

All of this is curtailing my imagination when it comes to writing blog posts. I really want to but just feeling sad.

On the plus side, had a lovely orchestra rehearsal on Tuesday night- first one back with my Kensington Chamber Orchestra.  Playing Haydn makes me happy. 

Had a fantastic concert with City of London Winds today in Angel- only about 30 in the audience but we played really well. Visited nice market on Chapel street in Angel- I got 5 large Chicories for £2- plastic free- in your face Waitrose- the only place we can usually get Chicory (NB. CBC is the one who buys it- in plastic)  and 5 mini cucumbers for £1,bag of vine tomatoes for £1 and 3 peppers for £1. All very pleasing.  Also smug feeling of waiting exactly at the right places on all my train platforms so I lined up with the exit.  Only to be understood by saddo commuters in London who don't like getting stuck behind slow people or wasting time.

I ended up buying a Yaz Khan shirt on eBay  Shouldn't have done but it came up and I was feeling sad. As usual, I asked the seller to reuse packaging if possible and she sent a lovely message saying how refreshing it was to hear me say that as people usually moan if she uses old packaging. Shirt came and is lovely!

Year 6 kids did really well on their Binary structure rhythm pieces on Friday morning. I made a new approach to introducing the Year 5's to the Renaissance era this week via Spider-diagrams and a memory game which was hugely successful and they had great fun- good to try a new approach.  A lot of positivity with Year 4 learning about Bach and Bartok on Monday. One child who I have not seen shown an ounce of empathy towards any other human being in the 4 years I've been teaching him, said, "How sad is that Miss, that Bach's parents died when he was only 10."  I could see him thinking about it for a while and it touched me. When people say that these great composers are too far removed from ordinary children's lives, this reminds me that actually, everyone faces tragedy, no matter the age. Lovely time with Drumming club on Thursday night-teaching them the rhythm from Gustav Holst's 'Mars, the bringer of war' and our group interpretation of this.

Also, I made EXCELLENT roast potatoes on Monday night.  They really were excellent despite me pulling off sprouts from them that were about 10cm long!

We went to CBC's brother's yesterday as it was his birthday. We walked about 5 miles from his flat to Hoxton to an amazing Vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant. It was so delicious!!! Well worth the dark walk and late night!

Found out last night that one of my oldest blogging friends, the lovely Lauren is blogging again. This was joyous!

As always, each of you leaving me comments of love and support or just a giggle is always a joy in my week. I wish non-bloggers could understand this friendship we have and how you lot (and indeed I) are not 'internet weirdos' but indeed friends who value each other. But until they know that bond that we all have, they cannot understand!

Hope you have a wonderful week.

xx

The week that was

As before, I've been a bit reluctant to spend any extra time online- I have been trying to come and do some visiting but I just didn't have the energy reserves to blog properly apart from my book review post which was long overview!

So, I'm taking the form of the 'Lately' post that I pinched from Bev a while back to catch up.

 

Eating...

Indian Takeaway for two nights from Monsoon plus left over red cabbage

Veggie Heck sausages plus roast potatoes, roasted tomatoes and courgettes and red cabbage.

Sweet potato and Kale red lentil Dhal with Coconut chutney and red cabbage x2

Instant Noodles with peas and sweet corn.

Hummus, carrots, olives, 

Olive bread

Donuts

Greggs' Bacon and Omelette baguette. It's been a bit of a meaty week- I've had meat 3 times with the bacon and 2 meals from the Indian Takeaway!

After Eight mints

Drumstick squashies

Watching...

Dawson's Creek (Netflix)

Masterchef the Professionals (Netflix)

Come Dine with me Couples (Netflix)

Neighbours (Netflix)

Doctor Who Day of the Doctors (DVD)

Sherlock (BBCiPlayer)

All Creatures Great and Small (the original one on YouTube)

Reading...

Mr Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore by Robin Sloan

Playing...

ScrabbleGo  This past week, has been a good one. I am in the Sapphire league (for the arena games) which is the 2nd highest,  scored my highest score for a single word 140 points for Sturdies (thank you double triple word score) and my longest word ever - Inequalities.  This started as Equal, then became equalities and finally inequalities. I love playing Scrabble!  Trying to ween myself off it a bit though!

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A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

Wishing...

That everyone would get down on their knees and pray about the state of our world and for the health of our country and world.

Buying...

A teapot from Portmerion and a teatowel for my Stepmum's birthday (Wrendale designs) - ordered on Wednesday- they arrived Thursday!

A second hand Whistles shirt worn on Doctor Who which I IDed and miraculously found! This is my one purchase for January. Trying to only buy one thing a month

Teaching...

A lot!  It's been another full on week of lesson creation. I have had technical hitches again although I am fathoming them a bit more now.   I found that Monday was hell as things went wrong and had to be resolved and then I fathomed some solutions. I am so grateful to one of the mums in Year 2 as she sent me a lovely video last week of her daughter playing London's Burning on my online glockenspiel helped by her older sister (who was one of my star pupils before she left 3 years ago- I used to sponsor her learning the cornet) and a sweet message accompanying it. On Tuesday morning, after I posted the lesson link to the interactive powerpoint with videos, audio and pictures, she messaged me to say that it wouldn't download at all.  I then tried uploading in a different form (which took another hour or so....after spending most of the previous afternoon on it) and asked if she could test things for me and she was brilliant with feedback on what worked and what didn't. Later, she sent a wonderful video of her daughters performing a fireworks piece using the recycling (which was the final outcome of the lesson).

I thought I was doing ok for being ready for next week's lessons (As I am in school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday taking the Year 4 keyworker bubble) but I got to Friday 4pm and realised I didn't have any complete powerpoints - I'd recorded videos and audio but nothing complete so I ended up having a frantic scamper through putting together the powerpoints (still not complete- will have to do some work tomorrow) till about 8.30pm.  I realised I'd spent waaaay too long preparing for my Year 2 lesson for next week- I've prepared recordings with interactive questionning (on a great site called EdPuzzle where you can insert question at key moments into YouTube videos) which was perfect for my year 2 lesson where they have to listen to and compare 2 great pieces about Fireworks (by Stravinsky and Handel) - I started trying to create a series of posters featuring instruments of the orchestra from different angles including playing position to help the children recognise the instruments in the videos and it seemed to take a whole load of time getting instruments out and photographing them (and getting distracted playing the clarinet and flute), messaging various friends to see if they'd take photos also.

Next week is going to be busy and tricky.

Other doings...

I have taken three walks this week apart from my last Sunday trek- I walked for an hour on Thursday night and Friday and CBC and I walked this afternoon. We parked our car about 2 miles away and did a short circular walk of about a mile or so and then when we got back to the car, I decided to walk home. CBC said he'd nip to the COOP on the way back and I said I'd meet him there. He was incredulous that I'd actually get there in time. I immediately got my skates on and he was still in the COOP when I walked back- I did do some running also! I also beat him home (I went via the Chipshop!)

Drawing and colouring food pictures for my Year 3 lesson

Listening to:

Stravinsky Fireworks

Handel Music from the Royal Fireworks.

Henry Wood variations on sea songs- Sailor's Hornpipe- 

Creating a body percussion version for my year 5's- it took me ages to record it as I kept getting it wrong!

Playing...

The Cat from Peter and the Wolf (on the clarinet)

Vivaldi's Goldfinch concerto (recorded a little video for family)

Bach E major flute sonata

Life Lately

Here's what I have been up to in the form of verbs:

Watching... Still Neighboours on 5od. I'm a bit obsessed with it and I'm rather fond of Finn Kelly- hope he doesn't turn out evil again!  Gardener's World on BBC iPlayer. Monty Don, thank you for your excellent advice about tomato growing.  Apart from that, I've only been watching Jeeves and Wooster on DVD.

Playing... Orchestrally... in my London orchestra, we've performed Ian Stephens' brilliant new Clarinet Concerto, Beethoven's 4th symphony, CPE Bach's Sinfonia. In my Essex orchestra, playing my viola, I've been playing all manner of film music.  In my flute quartet, been playing an entirely French programme ready for our recital in 2 weeks time!

Arranging... the most incredibly cheesy arrangements of Singin' in the rain and Portsmouth Point for my drumming club and recorder clubs

Singing... er, not so much apart from One bird flying high in year 1 and Singin' in the rain!

Eating...  tonight, as CBC lies conked out on the bed, I have eaten a pouch of Beef Pho soup I found in the cupboard with added sweetcorn.  Lovely and spicy. As well as that, I found a mini Pepperoni pizza in the freezer and stuck it in the oven with a sweet potato cut up into tiny chips with Paprika.
And the rest of the week, Wild Garlic pesto wholemeal pasta with lots of veg (all of this achieved totally plastic free!) and then tinned Veggie spaghetti, veggie Ravioli and left-over wholemeal bagels from Magic Breakfast.

Drinking...As well as lots of Whittards' loose leaf Earl Grey and apple juice from the Milk Man, in a cunning use of the used honey jars that CBC left on the counter, I've been making honey and lemon by filling the empty jars with boiling water and then pouring the honey water into a mug and adding squeezed lemon. Much needed because...

Feeling... like my tonsils are becoming swollen. Hence the soup and above drink.
Wearing... right now, a charity shopped knitted stripy rainbow top, green wide-legged trouser and a rainbow shaker bear brooch. This week, various shirts and tops with trousers.

Laughing.... at the funny incidents I have been...

Reading... in The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

Moaning about.... horrid year 6's

Buying...a second-hand flute book on eBay which is a Boosey and Hawkes compilation of pieces that I borrowed from the Guildhall library at uni and wanted one piece from.  Also buying a vintage black floral playsuit for £5 on eBay and a new Network railcard.

Worrying about... apathy towards recycling and plastic reduction,what on earth Year 6 are going to be like for the next half term,

Disgusted by... utter selfish wazzocks like Nigel Farrage who are responsible for all sorts of horrid things

Delighted by... the beautiful flowering Currants in the garden.

Hoping...that the Green Party get more European seats and that Farrage falls down a rabbit hole.

Planting...leek plants, bean plants that are not happy, blueberry plant,

Wishing... that I were less indecisive and that we could make a plan for next weekend!

Looking forward to... Half term; My work colleagues coming to my flute recital; receiving an exciting parcel from Ann in June; reading the latest Katherine Woodfine book that my work colleague's daughter has lent me; the strawberries that are

Grateful for... lovely Year 5's, beautiful music, a lovely home, delightful garden.


What about you?
xxx