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!!!