This week has felt like an Eternity! However, before I get started on that, I thought I'd share today's outfit with you:
The context of this is, I am playing my flute for my new church's carol service, Carols on the Green, which will take place on the village green, opposite the church and next to the pub.
This means layers are necessary!
Under this blue/teal cashmere polo neck from Edinburgh Woollen Mill, I'm wearing a breton striped cotton top.
Under this charity-shopped Indian Rayon skirt, I am wearing black Cashmere joggers (charity shopped)
Along with my Esoteric London star necklace and earrings (sample sale) and a handknitted hat made by my friend Ellie and made for her daughter when she was young, I am wearing my Fatface down-filled gilet which CBC bought me as a Christmas present in 2012.
How perfectly apt was it, that these floral embossed Dr Martens, that I bought from Lorelai Le Quillec, second hand (bargainous £10 + postage- they are MINT condition!) arrived this morning. I was wearing black boots but I changed once I opened the parcel! They are so comfortable- I am chuffed!
I am also going to wear my Parka coat plus you might have spotted my recycled cashmere fingerless gloves from TurtleDoves in the first picture?
So, this week...
Well, I awoke to a text message on Monday at 7am from my Deputy Head saying that School was closed because of the snow.
"Snow????" I asked, looking out the window at my own frost but definitely snow-free garden.
Yes, it was indeed so. Where I work had had a lot of snow, as had my mum,my sister, my Dad, my stepmum and sister BUT my sister still had to go to school! CBC's school was also snow-free and was open, but he'd been pretty unwell all weekend and took the day off (possibly the second day he's ever had off except when he's had Covid).
I prepared online lessons for the children and put away washing. Thankfully, they didn't send us loads of CPD training to do, it was thankfully, a proper snow day- almost, except for the lessons! I was quite glad not to be at school in some ways as I'd made veg and lentil soup the night before and it had affected me internally a bit!!!
My mother-in-law was due over to us and arrived around 8pm. CBC cooked salmon and veg and we had a jolly evening.
I was anxious about not being at school because I was supposed to have had the final in-school rehearsal for Year 3-4's carol service in the morning and taught all Year 3 classes their first lesson on Jingle Bells- I can't teach Jingle Bells in January and the carol service rehearsal was important. Already, I began to worry about whether we would be able to go to the church on Thursday. I discussed plans on the phone with my Deputy to try and fit both year 3-4 AND year 5-6 in for their rehearsal the next morning, before the dining hall would have to be set up for Reception lunch at 11am.
The next day, I awoke around 6.45am with a confirmation text that school was open and got myself all wrapped up on my bike to ride to the station for day 1 of train strikes. The first train of the day, the 7:38 train arrived and got me to my interchange station. The snow increased as I travelled. When I got to that station, I had to go and wait for 29 minutes on a cold platform for the next train (not the usual 2-5min wait) so I went and bought myself a hot sausage sandwich from the bakery and a roll for lunch. I arrived at school at 9am and quickly tried to get things across to the dining hall for the first Dress rehearsal for the carol service. One class was 8 minutes late (I gave them evil looks!). We got started and lots of songs went well but lots of the readers read too fast or quietly and a few children forgot about interludes between verses! One of the French twins was being really rude during our French carol, Il est ne le divin enfant by sticking his fingers in his ears (he gets cross at mispronounciation though he's told me I have a good French accent, "You sound like a proper French person!") so I told him off and he gave me dark looks for the rest of the assembly. The choir hadn't expected a rehearsal and none of them had their words nor had I got my piano parts so we had to miss those out. We overran by 8 minutes (grr) and the children were very fidgety!
Years 5-6 were all waiting outside the doors to come in. Their rehearsal was much more efficient although again, I didn't have the music ready for choir, nor had I had time to tell drumming club to fetch their drums so it wasn't complete. Most of the readers were pretty good.
After playtime, I took my year 5 class and, because I'd missed one class's lesson for the carol practices, I decided not to do music with the others to make sure my classes are all in the same place. Instead, I taught my first class to make Origami stars out of a whole load of old flyers from my orchestra concerts.It was very hard doing origami with 30children at the same time!
In the afternoon, I taught my year 6 children who were creating their own performances of a Baroque Chiaccona and then made the folded, cut paper Christmas trees out of the remaining magazines with the remaining year 5 class. Much easier than the Origami! They were all chuffed with their makes though!
Choir after school was a bit mad as the children hadn't been allowed out to playtime because of all the ice so they were hyper. I finished early because of the train strike and headed off to the station after having a quick discussion with my Deputy about whether we would be able to walk the mile to the church for our carol rehearsals the next day. It was precarious as it was so cold that the snow had frozen over on the pavements and whilst I was ok cycling on the main road for a bit, the side streets and the walk up the hill to the station on the pavement was treacherous! I ended up waiting at the station for 20mins for the train- SO cold! It was late. At my connection station, I had to wait 25mins in the cold!
I had to take the train to the terminus as I was singing as part of CBC's school carol service. There was a tense 15minutes waiting for a taxi at the train station as none were coming! I arrived to the church with 10minutes to spare.
The carol service was gorgeous. His girls plus esteemed adult guests did a fantastic job! I sang tenor with 2 other men and 2 other women (we were the smallest part). CBC did a brilliant job as his first turn as head of music. Disappointing that no PTA members were there to serve refreshments and it was up to the mums of CBC and his colleague to do that. At the end, I did some frantic hoovering to help the elderly churchwarden who was awaiting our exit.
CBC , his mum and I headed to the Thai restaurant for dinner! When we got home, I discovered that David, lovely church warden at the church had OFSTED in the morning (he's chair of governors at a couple of schools) and so wouldn't be there to let us in the next morning so I prepared carol sheets just in case for the kids! At midnight, I went to bed.
Wednesday morning, I awoke anxiously- would the roads be clear for the carol service? Alas, I had a text from my Deputy Head saying, No, it was too risky. Woe!!!
Train strike day 2 made my journey identical except that I chose a egg mayonnaise and crispy bacon roll for my breakfast.Oh, and the train was 20minutes delayed, meaning I got to school at 9.20! I walked with our Lunch time provision supervisor who slipped on the ice just in front of me!
I didn't have to teach any of my first class as cover was in place.
After that, I had to go and cover in year 1 and did a sequencing of the Christmas story RE activity. Very hard at times with a class with quite a few SEN children without any support!
My roll was delicious at lunchtime - Brie, Bacon and Avocado!
After lunch, I had about an hour to get some prep done for school and then I went to cover in Year 3 as a teacher had to go. Remember my worry about Jingle Bells? I cunningly came up with a plan and persuaded the other two teachers to bring their children into the large Year 3 classroom I was in so I could do the teaching input on reading the stave so they'd be able to do Jingle Bells next Monday. My bribery was to give the teachers 25minutes to go and do some work whilst I juggled the 90 kids. Thy then set the kids on the task of identifying the note names when they took them back.
After school, we had an INSET and then I had to dash to the station to catch my train. Again, freezing cold, very precarious, icy pavements. Train was delayed on the way home, had 30mins waiting on an arctic platform as the waiting room was full again.
At home, I did very little except we ate more of the purple lentil soup and cry about the fact I'd worked SO hard this term to get the carol services ready, so many extra practices and grappling against technology (no working projector or computer all half term until last Wednesday), done so much admin to get it all ready and prepared and knowing it probably wasn't going to happen and my poor kids would be denied the chance to do a proper performance and visit the beautiful church (not our usual church but my old childhood church. I'd told the children childhood memories of it and they kept asking me if they'd see things I'd talked about)
The next morning, hurrah, there were no train strikes. I rode to the station super early though, anxious to find out whether we'd be able to go to the church with the 360 kids (180 morning, 180 afternoon). Ahrgh, I was super early and the train was SUPER delayed!!!! It was freezing on the platform and I eventually got to school at 9ish.Sigh. Alas, they made the decision that no, the roads weren't sufficiently safe to walk 180 children. So, our alternative plan was to squash everyone into the dining room, morning and afternoon to perform.
The Year 3-4's did REALLY well in the morning. The readers, whilst not perfect, were much better than previously, and my choir did really well and didn't shout and all the kids sang really well and behaved in between! IN between, I walked from school to the care home (see below) to vet the state of the pavements for walking conditions.
In the afternoon, Year 5-6 did a superb performance. The readers were brilliant- pretty much all of them had memorised their readings and did stacks of expression. Choir and drummers did a super job and the year 6 instrumentalists all did really well in their solo song!
After school, choir practised their carols and we starting learning a new song for our Royal Albert Hall concert in March. I gave them all Covid tests and chocolate lollies to go home with. The tests were because we were due to go to a residential care home for the elderly to sing the next day. But would we be allowed to go? All the children were begging me but I had to explain it wasn't my decision..
I was supposed to go to Gamelan but had an absolute splitting headache so headed home. Had a cold 15minute wait between trains. CBC was out in London watching The Life of Pi so I bought dinner from the chippie and lay on the sofa watching Doctor Who and Gilmore Girls!
The next morning, I had a nasty shock to discover there was ANOTHER train strike I didn't know about! Luckily, CBC mentioned it as I was getting dressed and I managed to dash, despite icy roads, to make the 7:51 train. Had to wait 25mins for the next train which was then....DELAYED!
At school, I took Year 1-2 to perform and film THEIR nativity songs in the dining hall. They did well on the collective songs though lots of them a bit starry-eyed on their solos!
I dashed over to Year 6 to take Baroque Chiaccona lesson no.2 of the week, still hadn't had time to see the Head to see if we could go to the care home. Ambushed by choir members multiple times to find out if we were going. At playtime, I caught him where he agonised over whether we should go or not. Finally, he said, "The people in the care home will really appreciate your visit so you can go BUT you can only take 12 children maximum as that is easier to monitor them!"
Ahrgh, how to choose?!!?! I decided to take Year 6 only as there were 10 who had sent back their Covid test negative results. The year 5's were understandably upset but the Year 6's were euphoric!!
I taught Chiaccona lesson no.3of the week and did my Covid test and helped one of the Year 6 girls whose mum had forgotten to do it, do hers with many giggles and watering eyes!
We headed off at 1.40pm and managed to get there without any slips.
Despite their only being 10 of them, they sang amazingly and I accompanied on my mini accordion (badly- the kids gave me 7 out of 10!). The care home residents were really appreciative and sang along and the staff super friendly. They gave the kids presents and snacks and the kids chatted to the residents. They were buzzing as we left, saying how lovely it was and how nice the residents were and how they really wanted to go back! On the way back, they jubilantly sang the parts of the Chiaccona together and we got back without any mishaps!
All the staff were excitedly chatting about the Christmas do, which was last night. I hadn't booked to go- good thing as I wouldn't have got home!
Stupid train was delayed by 20minutes. Considering I'd got there 10minutes early, after an icy trudge as my bike lights had run out of charge, this was annoying. I fretted about whether I'd make my connection as this was the LAST train because of the strike!!! Luckily, it came just!!
When I got home, CBC was sleepy on the sofa. I made us dinner whilst we watched 'Christmas with a prince- a royal Wedding'.
Honestly,this week had felt SO long with all the strikes, delays, rehearsals, performances and anxiety over changes of plans.
Tomorrow, CBC and I are singing carols at a winebar-I'm singing Tenor again!
2 more days left of school- THANK THE LORD as I've started to get a sore throat!!!
xx
We had a really lovely time and we really felt festive after this experience (you can see one of the ski lifts above!)
