Father's Day 2020

Happy Father's Day to the most wonderful Dad any girl could wish for.  Dad may have spent most of today not feeling very well due to his tooth, but hopefully the special curry dinner Matt cooked, the trifle Mum made and the 'Make your own Gin kit' I found will go just a little way to showing just how much we all love and appreciate him.

There isn't much to report this week, apart from the fact that the cats have done the first leg of their journey home!!! I know, big news indeed!  We've been waiting for this for so long.  The next 10 days are going to go SO slowly!  The boys flew from Shanghai to Guangzhou on Saturday.  It was a short flight and they are now in a cattery, snuggling together, looking a little bit happier than yesterday.  They have to wait a week to have their tests and blood work done, then they should fly direct to London and land on Wednesday in 10 days time.  We should be able to pick them up from Heathrow after their 8 hour quarantine at the airport.  Then, the fun of introducing them to the house and Lola can begin!  I'm sure they will be cross with us for a few days, but hopefully will settle in quickly.  I can't wait to give them both a big cuddle.

We've been for a few walks in the forest and to the beach this week.

Matt had his final week of teaching at Dulwich this week too.  He now only has one job! Yay!  He will start going into school on Monday afternoons to supervise some classes, from tomorrow.  I'm not sure he quite knows what to do with all his free time.  He said that it was so strange not being at the end of year assembly.  My office sent photos of their last day of term, but honestly, I feel like i've not been a part of Dulwich for such a long time.  Well, it's been since January really.  Lots of teachers who weren't meant to be leaving have decided to leave, so I guess that leaves the school in a bit of a pickle.  A few who were due to leave are now staying, since they can't leave China now because the boarders are closed.  It's all a bit of a mess really.  As it is with every school in the world at the moment.

I found out this week that the summer school that is part of my contract will be happening, but i'm not sure for how many weeks or how exactly it is going to work at the moment.  More information next week probably.  To be honest, it's such hard work in school at the moment, I was quite looking forward to being furloughed for the summer.  Never mind!

Wild Orchids

It's been a good week - quite tiring at work, but at least we have been given jobs to do now, rather than just sitting there watching the kids draw pictures.  We have been getting the books ready for next year and re-backing the display boards for the teachers in their new classrooms.  All very useful jobs.

We've not had great weather this week, but did at least manage to squeeze in a couple of BBQs.  Matt picked me up from work one day and we drove to Wilverley Plain for a walk.  There happened to be an ice cream truck in the car park, so it would have been rude not to get one.  Supporting local businesses and all that.

On Saturday evening, we had the usual online video call with Matt's family.  His Dad had put together lots of old photos of everyone from various weddings, christenings, family holidays and birthdays, and it was fun to look through them all.  It was quite amusing that lots of people couldn't tell which was their baby and which was one of the other cousins!

We all went for a walk today to Wilverley and saw these tiny, wild orchids which are so beautiful.  Orchids are my favourite flower and i've never seen one in the wild before, so it was very special to see.  They were dotted around everywhere, and really are very very small and so cute!

It's been a bit of a wet and dreary week weather-wise, but things look set to clear up next week, which is great.  This was Wilverley Plain today, where the ponies look like they were all social distancing...

Back to Work

There really aren't many photos to show for this week.  I went back to work this week.  I'm now working from 12.30-3.30pm everyday and I have to admit that it really is very dull.  The teacher-student ratio is 1:3, which is absolutely unnecessary, since all the kids are doing in the afternoons is drawing or painting.  I'm doing quite a lot of trying-to-look-busy, but so is everyone else, so it's not really working.  The other teaching assistants are very nice and chatty, but overall I have to admit that this is the most unfriendly place I have ever worked in.  I walked into a staff room full of 8 people one day when I arrived at school and said hello.  It was a silent room, and not one person said anything to me.

Still, I am very glad to have a job at the moment as I know that lots of people don't.

We've now had our mortgage approved and are getting the survey done tomorrow, so house-things are progressing nicely.

It's been a miserable weather week, but at least today is looking more cheerful.  The sun is actually shining and it's quite pleasantly warm.  Maybe some sunshine will put me in a better mood!

Matt and I had a Chinese takeaway on Thursday.  It was so delicious and I didn't feel guilty about it at all.  English Chinese food tastes nothing at all like Chinese food in China, so we'd been craving it for a while.  Yum!

We've been for a few walks along the cliff top, and just this week I noticed that the houses on top of the cafe on the cliff top are colourful!  They are so lovely and cheerful.

Week 10 - Walks, BBQs and NASA

It's half term this week! Yay!  Except that doesn't actually mean anything because it's my turn not to be in work anyway, and Matt is still doing work for Shanghai, who aren't on half term!  Actually, on Friday, he only had one lesson and was finished by 7.30am, so he had more of a long weekend than a week off.  He managed to finish his big data project for his new school by Tuesday and everyone was apparently very impressed by it, which is great.  We did have a slight panic on Tuesday when he though he'd deleted the entire thing, but it all worked out in the end.  He's only got 3 more weeks working for China, and will be glad when it's over, since it's very hard work doing two full time jobs!

I am back at work every day from Monday.  Monday is a teacher training day to work out how we are going to manage with the year 6s coming back on Tuesday and to make sure that everyone is on the same page teaching-wise.  The after school club is stopping until September and i'll be in as a teaching assistant from 12.30-3.30 every day, working with the key worker kids.  I've been furloughed from my after school club job and will be in from Monday as a volunteer, which I have been assured by the Education Advisor for the government is perfectly OK to do, despite it sounding a bit dodgy.  I'm not used to working every day and i'm going to be exhausted by the end of next week I think!

The rest of this week has been nice.  We've been for a few nice long walks, and Matt and I went for a picnic on Wednesday to Yew Tree Bottom in the New Forest.  We pretty much had the place to ourselves.  It was lovely.

We all went for a nice walk to Hengistbury Head today.  It was fairly busy even at 9am, but it was so lovely to be somewhere different for a walk!

This week we have also spent quite a lot of time watching NASA live TV, watching the first ever commercial rocket launch.  It went from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, the first time American's have taken off from American soil in 9 years.  The two astronauts were both experienced test pilots and have gone to space before.  We just now finished watching them enter the International Space Station and get interviewed.  The first thing one of them did was cut his head, live on TV in front of millions of people.  We could lip read his conversation with his fellow astronauts and it was quite funny!

Fish 'n' Chips

Matt has had a very very busy week working his two jobs, but now at least it's the start of half term at his UK school.  He still has lots of data work to do for them, but at least he doesn't have lessons to teach.  We've been going on our evening walks, which has been lovely and we've been on a couple of walks in the forest now that Matt is on the car insurance.  One was to Brockenhurst, where we saw ponies frolicking, which was wonderful.  The second was today and was to Holmsley enclosure, where we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

I love how all the ponies walked over the bridge even though it was only a tiny ditch they had to step over!

Lola was upset that we didn't take her out with us into the forest and showed her displeasure from the stairs...

The pony we named mabel that is a new resident of Barton common was getting a bit cross with Matt and wouldn't let him walk past her on one of our walks.

Yesterday, we went for our usual walk around Barton on sea, but instead of visiting the coffee shop, we accidentally ended up with fish, chips and a battered sausage on a park bench.  It felt so naughty, but it was so delicious!  I regret nothing.

The sea was incredibly rough and we sat for a while watching the waves crash against the rocks at the beach.  I had to tie my hair up because it kept swiping me in the face, and Matt got a face full of spikey gorse bush - not much fun for him!

Week 8!

It's week 8 thousand (or so it feels) of lockdown, but don't worry, here is a cute photo of Lola waiting for Matt to throw a tennis ball in order to cheer you up.

This week has gone both painfully slow and super speedily.  My two weeks away from work are up and i'm back in from tomorrow.  It's surprising just how quickly those two weeks go by.

This week, Matt and I have been on lots of nice walks over the common and down to the beach to collect pebbles (more on that in a minute). We take Lola if we go in the evening.  I had a bit of a wobble on the common on Monday, when I didn't feel well, but that was over pretty quick.  No medical emergencies this week and no calling ambulances, which is always a good thing!

I took, or tried to take some photos of the birds in the garden this week.  They move so quickly, it's impossible.  Plus, they all fly off the second you get your camera out and only come back once you've packed up for the day.  I think they do it on purpose.  I even resorted to some excellent camouflage...

On Saturday night, for our weekly Harris Family skype, we had a horses and dogs racing night, which was fun.  My horses/dogs won 3 out of 12 races, and Matt's won 2, so we didn't do particularly well, but it was fun.  Afterwards there was a James Bond quiz, which Matt scored 16 out of 16.  James Bond would definitely be his Mastermind specialist subject.

Matt had done a quiz on Friday night too, with a group of friends.  It was a quiz on YouTube and they came 17th out of 383 teams, and only 5 points behind the joint winning teams!  He got to bed at 1.30am!

This is the rock that Matt and I found on our walk a couple of weeks ago.  We walked past the same spot 2 days later and it was gone, but it must have inspired someone, because a week later 'Barton on Sea Rocks' had sprung up!  It's a painted rock swap.  Mum and I painted some to add to the collection.  We came back the next day and 4 out of 5 of ours were gone.  Off to live in someone's garden in our neighbourhood.  I love the idea, so Matt and I went on a rock collecting mission to the beach on Thursday and Mum and I did some more painting.

We're going to start our own collection in the front garden, and i'm also going to start one with the kids at school.  I think they are going to really enjoy it.  We'll keep the school ones in the reception so that they don't get taken though, for the teachers and kids to enjoy!

I particularly like my half eaten m&m chocolate rock!

Matt and I went for a walk yesterday, going via the roads, trying to avoid the very busy beaches now that people are allowed to sit on them all day if they want to.  We found an open bakery that sold bacon butties and a coffee shop too, where we sat on a bench on the cliff top watching the para-gliders.  We enjoyed so much going out for a coffee.  I still can't decide if that's incredibly sad, or if it's just making us appreciate the little things in life more.

We went for a walk today too, as Matt is now on the car insurance.  We wanted a change of scenery, so drove to Brockenhurst and had a walk on the plain, where there were so many horses and cows.  We saw several lines of 6 or 7 horses, galloping just for the fun of it.  It was wonderful to see.

Matt collected a computer monitor from school this week, to help him with his data analysis.  It happened to coincide with the restart of the German football...