First Week Back

I can't believe that we have only been back for one week.  It's been really long!  As promised, below is a photo from my night out last week.  Above is of Matt making friends with the cat that lives downstairs.  I kept turfing it out of the flat, and Matt kept letting it back in.  She's good for a snuggle though, so I can understand why!

The week started out with me covering the Little Dragons, as you know, not my favourite place to be.  One wouldn't stop wailing, so it set the rest of them off, and was a bit of a miserable day.  In the afternoon, I was in a French lesson for year 8, observing the children that I will be working with three lessons a week.  TAing in another language was quite stressful, but at least it will be English lessons from now on.  My first proper session will be tomorrow, and I must admit i'm a bit nervous about working with the older kids.

On Tuesday I was covering Year 2.  They were hard work because the teacher lets them run riot.  They were talking over each other and me, but they were quite nice really.

Wednesday was parents evening, so all the kids go home at lunch time.  The teachers get a long break and then have to be in until 7pm!  For the TAs it meant normal working hours, and getting lots done.  We have 3 storage cupboards and an art room that are all swapping around, so we made a start on that/. It's dirty work, but quite satisfying.  I think we may be off time table for a bit next week to try to get some more done, because it's slow progress.

Matt has had a very busy week, dealing with a child on the brink of expulsion who is in a childrens home, so his week has been stressful.  His friend, Hutchy is here this weekend though which is lovely.  They went to the pub and casino with some of the lads from work yesterday, and are due back from watching Dortmund football team any minute.  We're off out for dinner too, which will be nice.

Heidelberg

Half term has been really wonderful, I can't believe how fast it's gone!  Last Saturday morning we headed off to Heidelberg, a beautiful city in the south of Germany.  It was a 3 and a half hour train ride (first class!  We had our own little compartment).  The city is very pretty.  It's a university town, and our hotel was on a campus, which was rather odd.  But the hotel itself was lovely.  The weather was perfect; quite cold but lovely and sunny; it only turned on Wednesday, which was the day we came back.  Winter has officially hit Germany and now it's super cold!

On the first full day of the holiday we went to the zoo, which was close to our hotel.  It was a small zoo, but quite nicely done, which lots of space for most of the animals.  I love sea lions, and we watched a show where they were doing all sorts of tricks.  The day we went happened to be a 'behind the scenes' day, so there were special events on, such as us trying bread and fruit to a tree which was then lowered into the monkey area for them to feed.  That was quite fun, but i'm really glad we didn't actually have to be in with the monkeys - i'm not a monkey fan!

Gorillas are always Matt's favourite, and this big boy was no exception.  We watched feeding time, where he was just going around grabbing food from the smaller ones.  They had hidden nuts in this box in the photo below, and he was clever enough to find a stick and poke them out.  

Heidelberg is in a valley with the river Nekar running through it, with high hills on both sides.  There is a very old Funicular railway that runs up one side, with stops at the castle and also at the top of the hill.  The railway is very steep, and to get all the way to the top you have to change from the modern railway to the rickety old one, with an actual driver.  It goes up really slowly, but you get great views.  At the top, we stopped for a beer, and a walk around the nature reserve in the sunshine.

Heidelberg castle is beautiful.  It's made from sandstone, so has a lovely colour.  It was a residential castle for various kings, but unfortunately it is mostly ruins just through ware and tear - it was built in the 16th century.  (on a side note, Heidelberg wasn't particularly bombed during the war, which is why it still holds all of its 16/17th century charm).  We did a tour of the castle, because you can only see the few inside bits that are still there, via tour.  They have a couple of hallways laid out in 16th century style, which were very grand, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos of it because some of the furniture was borrowed from snobby rich people!

Above is a barrel that was used for wine making.  It hasn't been used for many many years, until a few years ago when they made a batch of wine to celebrate the university being open for however many years.

We did a lovely walk on the hill opposite the castle called the Philosophers Walk, and of course found a playground to mess about on.

We went up the church tower in the middle of the city for a good view all around, and then rewarded ourselves with a selection of Lindors at the Lindt shop (one of those flavours is fine herb!)

We ate out every night and because it's a university town there are lots of different types of food, so we had Indian, Thai, Italian and German on the 4 nights we were there.  There were lots of stops for beer, sitting outside enjoying the last of the sunshine too.  It was a wonderful trip, and I would definitely recommend Heidelberg to anyone.

Enough photos for now.  I'll post some of the rest of the half term next week!

Castle Bilstein

It's that time of year again when the year 4 residential comes along, so last Wednesday we set off for Castle Bilstein.  We went a few weeks earlier than last year, which meant it was a bit warmer, however the weather was actually worse, because we had constant drizzle for the entire trip.  It was a shame, but the kids still had a brilliant time.

Last year I was in the actual castle on my own, but this year I was in the gate house on my own instead.  Those two windows that you can see in the photo above were my bedroom windows, overlooking the courtyard.  A much nicer (quick) walk back to my bedroom this time, and no scary castle to roam around in the dark! 

The trip was good fun, but very tiring.  We played lots of outside games, had a tour of the dungeon, painted sheilds, and had a banquet where some of the kids were our servants for the night!  They were performing servants, and even did a few dances for us.  We had a campfire one night and because of the rain it was taking ages to get it lit.  The kids were all waiting around to toast their rolls and were getting a bit restless, so I taught them some campfire songs that I remembered from Scout family camp, many many years ago.  They loved the songs, and the 'Everywhere we go, people always ask us, who we are, where we come from, and we always tell them, we're from St. Georges, mighty St. Georges' song was very popular, and ended up being sung throughout the entire trip, even when we were getting off the coach to meet the parents when we got back.  I'm sure that song will be driving everyone mad within a few weeks, when they still haven't forgotten it!

They were even asleep by 10 o'clock on the first night, and 10:30 on the second!

We went to an indoor playhouse on the Friday, which I joined in with on the bouncy castle and jungle gym - it was really fun playing and messing about with the kids.

A Surprise Party

This week has been very busy, getting back into work after a week off with a chest infection.  I was feeling much better, but now think that I am getting another cold; still, it hopefully won't be as bad as last week.  As long as it's done by Wednesday, which is residential time, all will be well.

This week, we went back to our old road (not to visit the crazy landlady, don't worry!), but to visit our friend in hospital (which happens to be on our old road).  His lung has just about healed, so hopefully he will be out of hospital on Wednesday.  I did nearly faint on him, when he showed me the tube sticking out of his side, that leads into a clear box full of his blood.  When he coughs, all the blood wizzes up the tube into the box.  It made me feel rather peculiar, I must admit.  I had to sit down sharpish!

Thursday night I went over to my friends for dinner; one of our other friends cooked a vegetarian curry, which was lovely.  We ended up drinking a few bottles of prosecco, and they were both a bit worse for wear on Friday.  I drank considerably less, so was actually OK!

On Saturday, the Primary School lot headed to nearby Bochum (I say nearby, it took us an hour and a half to get there - I can't believe our friend we were visiting does that journey twice a day!).  We were there for a surprise house party for our friend Emily's 25th birthday.  Another friend had taken her out for dinner to allow us all to arrive in secret, but then Emily didn't want to come home because she was having too much fun!  We were at her house for nearly an hour before she got there!  She was very surprised, and we had a great evening dancing in her living room!  Because of the long journey, I didn't get home until 1.30am, so am feeling pretty tired today.

Matt went into Dusseldorf last night to watch the England Vs Australia rugby world cup match.  England lost, and are now out of the world cup, which is very disappointing.  Matt is feeling a bit worse for wear today!

I went out for lunch today with the girlfriend of the friend who is in hospital, which was lovely, and now we're just having a chilled out evening in watching 24.