Last Week of School 2018

This seems like AGES ago!  School finished in a whirlwind of Christmas festivities, carol concerts and present giving.  We had our office secret Santa, where I received some gorgeous cat stationary.  We also had our Junior School secret Santa, where I received a lovely jewellery box.  My secret Santa's enjoyed their gifts very much too.  Sooty and Snowball got given scarves by an office friend.  Sooty hated his and had managed to get it off within a few minutes.  Snowball was pretty chilled and kept his on for a while.  They looked very handsome!

Matt went out for cocktails with his colleagues.

I received this gorgeous cat card from my friends daughter, who also made the bunny next to it. So cute.

Christmas Market and Cheesecake Factory

Here are some Christmas fluffies for your enjoyment!  Snowball loved his so much, he was purring away.  Sooty's face says it all really.  Not a happy camper!

well, my week started off with some rather exciting news.  The photo below is going to be featured in the Christmas edition of Amateur Photographer of the Year magazine.  (it comes out on the 18th December - go buy it!).  It means that my photo came in the top 30 of the travel category for Amateur Photographer of the Year.  Pretty exciting stuff.  I'm thrilled.

 The rest of the week was nice and Christmassy.  It was the busiest week at school - I think a last surge before a very quiet week next week for my department.  Our transition classes get cancelled in the last week, so that's 2 out of 3 of the classes I teach cancelled.  And my other class I will only see once.  I still have in class support, but that's only 2 lessons a day, so pretty quiet. Gives me a chance to catch up on some things.

On Friday night, we went to the German brewery Christmas market, which was lovely, but very very cold and wet.  It went from 20 degrees t-shirt weather the weekend before, to 2 degrees and torrential rain. We were freezing!  Good practice for our trip to Harbin where it will be minus 20 in January.  Still, it was fun and Christmassy, and as always the company was great.

On Saturday, I did nothing at all, which was just what I wanted to do!  Matt played in the Dulwich football tournament, and they won all 4 games, which made them the champions. The Dulwich netball team also won.  In the evening it was the 12 pubs of Puxi, a Christmas themed pub crawl.  Matt went to about 5 of the pubs before giving up, when things started getting a bit silly.  A pub crawl isn't really my thing, so I stayed at home and watched Christmas movies instead.

On Sunday, we went to the Cheesecake factory with our friends.  The food there is so delicious and it's in Disney town, so it's just magical and wonderful. There was even a little Disney christmas market and ice skating - so cute!  Matt and I shared a buffalo sauce chicken burger, the usual mac 'n' cheese balls and peanut butter cheesecake. delicious!

Unfortunately, when I got home I was very unwell - having picked up a winter vomiting bug from somewhere.  I was sick throughout the night, and off from work yesterday.  I'm still not 100% better, and people keep telling me that I look pale, but i'm getting there.  Hopefully, that's my winter illness done and dusted for the year!

Christmas Spirit!

Christmas really hit us this week!  We started the week with an office birthday, which was lovely, and meant cake. Yay!

Matt completed Movember (where you grow just a mustache for the month of November to raise money and awareness for men's health).  The mustache has finally gone. It just kept reminding me of Grandad! haha!

Friday was our work Christmas party, which was really good fun.  I had the first beer in 3 months and really enjoyed it!!!  The staff band played and there was lots of dancing and general merriment.  The party was in an old theatre, so the venue is super cool. I believe it's now used for Chinese burlesque shows!  My office ladies are just the best, and they really know how to make you laugh until you cry!

Saturday was our winter fair at school.  We both had the first shift - I was on a bouncy castle and Matt on a surfboard/bouncy castle thing.  Matt's broke within half an hour, so he went off to find food, while I was on the bouncy castle duty with a lovely year 6 teacher.  The parent organisers of the fair were getting seriously stressed about the bouncy castle situation because it was a bit of a free for all, when they were suppose to pay £1.50 per child for 10 minutes.  Difficult to police 4 entrances with only 2 people, and very difficult to check who has been on for 10 minutes when there are about 40 kids on this enormous thing. Still, we had a laugh, and didn't let it stress us at all.

We had a wander around the fair, buying a few Christmas presents. I saw the lady who had the next door stall to me at the Concordia fair, so stopped for a chat.  It was lovely and festive.  Oh, and 20 degrees! I was doing bouncy castle duty in jeans and a t-shirt!!! The weather here is so odd at the moment. Next Saturday it's meant to snow, and we have rain all week. The pollution has also been absolutely awful this week, so the kids have been stuck inside all day.

Today was also super festive, but you'll have to pop over to my crafty blog to see what i've been up to. http://creative-faye.blogspot.com

Only 2 weeks to go now!!!

Thanksgiving

Being English, Thanksgiving is not something we celebrate at all.  One thing I really love about living internationally, and having friends from all over the world, is getting to know the customs and celebrations that mean so much to other people. And slowly, they start to mean things to us too.  This is our second year of celebrating thanksgiving, and we did it at The Cook, a lovely restaurant that puts on a spectacular thanksgiving buffet.  Our best friends here are American, and it is their favourite holiday of the year, so we all make a real effort to make it a special day.  

We have so much to be thankful for this year - wonderful friends and family, good jobs, and most importantly our health, something I think we have taken for granted up until now.  I feel like I actually look like myself again in these photos; not thin and pale, not chubby faced from all the steroids. Just me, having fun.

Our group teamed up with the year 5 teachers who also happened to be going to this restaurant for a team dinner on the same night.  This photo really sums up our group. Year 5 are in the background having a serious discussion about school... and we're pretending to be walruses with chopsticks! I know which group i'd rather be in!

This week generally has been really good. I've made another booking for a family photo session - yay!  That's two now from the Christmas fair. So pleased.

Thanksgiving was on Thursday, and on Friday I went to Pistoleras for dinner with Amy who was in my office but left at the end of this year to move to Saudi. It was lovely to see her, but strange not to be drinking with her - I think it's the first time we've ever been out for dinner and not had alcohol.  I must be growing up!  On the same night, Matt was at a Korean BBQ restaurant in Puxi with all the heads of subject for their end of term meal. He had a nice time, especially as it was paid for by school!

We've had very quiet weekend, which is nice since it's going to be very busy from now on. Yesterday, we went to the gym, went to the market to buy veg and generally just lazed about. Today was the same, except the pollution was what forced us to stay in. Now we're both relaxed and ready for a busy week ahead.  Today, we also put up some Christmas decorations. I'm not sure how long the tree will last. The cats have knocked it over at least 10 times already and it's starting to get annoying!

Only 3 more weeks of school until Christmas holidays! Whooo!

Look at Snowball eyeing up the tinsel! And Sooty is guardian of the tree!

Christmas Fair

It has been a busy week preparing for the winter fair at the school around the corner from my school.  Most evenings have been taken up with preparing things for the fair, so not much time to anything else.

The market was yesterday and it went well.  I had to be at the school at 6.30am though!!! Very early, considering the fair didn't start until 10am!  VIP shopping started at 8.30, but there weren't many people there.  Actually, the entire day was fairly quiet compared to what I remembered from being there as a visitor last year.  I was in the second gym, which definitely had less people than the main gym, but that's just the luck of the draw.  I had lots of people coming to talk to me, and managed to make one booking, which paid for the stall, so it was definitely worth it.  It's my first booking where I have no connection to the client, so i'm making progress.   I have a couple of people on WeChat who look likely to book later on next week, so keep your fingers crossed!

Lots of friends came to see me too, which was nice.  I was absolutely exhausted at 4pm when the fair finished. at 3.45 a parent of a child I teach came to chat to me, so I ended up having a bit of a parent-teacher conference, so tired I almost felt drunk!

On Thursday, I managed to get out for the evening to DTL, which is a furniture store. They put on food and get everyone drunk so they buy really expensive furniture. It was good fun!

A busy week next week, with testing starting for all my students.  Only 4 weeks until the end of term, then we are pretty much half way through the year - it's going so quick!

Basketball and Photoshoots

Well, I can finally say that it's been a quick week - very unusual!

We were off on Monday and Tuesday due to the Chinese President being in Shanghai for an expo.  On Monday, I took some photos for my friends with their baby girl Tizzy.  I love how the photos have come out and so do they. Helen has been showing everyone at school and i've already had an enquiry about doing a family shoot for someone else - an actual paid one! Yay!

I got paid in BBQs for Mondays one, which was fine by me, since I offered to take the photos in the first place.  They were worth it if I get some referrals. I just enjoyed taking the photos anyway!

On Tuesday, we were still off, but Matt had a doctors appointment for his arm, which was fine except for it being a bit painful. He was basically being poked by needles for half an hour. I would have been awful if it was me, but he's a brave thing, so was fine! We went to Al's Diner for breakfast after and that seemed to help!

On Wednesday, it was the only day with the kids at school, so it was a bit of an odd one.  Thursday, I had a couple of parent meetings, and spent the rest of the day writing reports for my 17 students - a long and boring process - at least they are all done now!

On Friday, we had training, which was interesting, and involved getting up and making wallys of ourselves, which made it more fun!

Yesterday, we went to see the American College basketball with Andy and Becky - it was Cal Vs Yale, and Yale won. It was good fun actually.  The fast pace meant I didn't get bored like in the baseball.  Some of the players are so tall!

Today, we've had a snuggly day with the kitties. Matt's currently roasting a pork joint and has been for the last 4 hours. It smells amazing!  We're getting our Christmas on by watching a christmas movie this evening! Yay!