Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Bleak Wednesday

First I'd like to start by throwing out some words and phrases that have been swimming around my head and need to come out before I explode. They are quite random and seemingly unconnected but they need to be spoken out loud (or in this case typed out loud).
           
          IGNORING                                                             RESPONSIBILITY
MATURITY                         USELESS                                                                    DISGUSTING
        RELIANT                           PRESSURE                          INCOMPETENT
 IGNORING SOMETHING DOESN'T MAKE IT GO AWAY.                                                                   DISCRIMINATION
                    DUTIES                                LAZY                                      LACK OF RESPECT
PAINS IN MY ASS                                                    PISSED OFF NOW

Okay, now I think we'll leave it at that - I could go on - you don't want to listen to me ranting random words all evening.

And so it was a bleak Wednesday, for many many reasons. But on a day when I have been slapped, spat at and repeatedly scratched.............. I think you get the picture.

I was actually just tracing the line of one of my scratches along my arm. Battle scars.

But as always things can happen that reaffirm your faith in man kind and my day did also have a few of those, it's just that the bleak moments heavily outweighed the life affirming ones.

The kids have really enjoyed their topic on the Orchestra and today one of my little boys (aged 4) drew a picture of a double bass, a trumpet and a french horn and then copied the letters to spell their names. He even drew me some musical notes and wrote my name just by sounding out the letters. Wicked (Life affirming)

Another of my little boys (again aged 4) drew me a picture of an orchestra with four players. One was playing the bongos, one playing the cymbals, one playing the guitar and one playing the "normal drum". It was amazing. (Again life affirming).

But as I said, most of the rest of the day sort of took the shine off it. Still you've got to cling on to those little rays of sunlight because they really are the only things that get you through the day.

I've planned an awesome activity for tomorrow. You're all gonna wanna try it yourselves. I guarantee.
So we're going to make edible music. Edible music? I hear you say. Well yes. We are going to use sheets of baking paper with lines on as though manuscript paper and then I have bought digestive biscuits and we are going to decorate them with either chocolate or icing (white or black notes) and then place them on the manuscript. Then I am going to play whatever tune they have them created. And of course they can take the biscuits home and eat them afterwards. Now, is that the future or what? Edible scores! Sounds genius to me. And it would definitely get more people into music. Though it also might make slightly more obese people. Ha ha. Anyhoo, can't wait to do that. The kids'll love it!

Chocca tube ride today. I was penned in so much that I couldn't even lift an arm up to hold on to anything. So I was thinking that the people around me had better be prepared to catch me if we jerk. Luckily it was a fairly smooth ride and I managed to alter my position enough times to balance.

Where do we sit in terms of over the shoulder reading? I personally hate it, but on the tube sometimes it's impossible not to. There's often no where to look but straight ahead and there's fifteen kindles in your face. I've tried looking down but then you get bored. I've tried looking up but then you always end up making eye contact with someone. Or people think you're staring at them. It's annoying

Though today I was enjoying some sly people watching and I was mesmerised by the different lines of peoples faces. One particular woman had such a beautiful shaped face and the angles of her cheek bones were just perfect and it was just really weird looking around the carriage. Everyone is so different (obvious I know)  and even in that one little carriage we spanned the spectrum of hair colour, face shape, eye colour, you name it.  

I realise there was little to no point to that last paragraph but sometimes I just need to blurt it all out, irrelevant of it's coherence or lack there of.

Well, things are looking up for the bleak Wednesday evening. A came back from work with a present for me, a book called: The Positively Productive Writer by Simon Whaley which looks awesome. And he is also currently making me chilli con carne. And we plan on watching a Numbers (we love it!) and possibly a film on the couch, in ultimate vege mode. Whoop. Shame there's no brownies left, could do with a calorie fest.

And whilst I began with a random set of words, I feel I should end on an equally random set of words, though these are words I like.

                  PARALLELOGRAM                                                              ACUTE                                                          CEREAL
                PIG                                          BASIC                                                                    GNARLED                                                                    WEIRD
      CONSCIENTIOUS                     OBSERVING                                  TWISTED                                                KNITTED
                                  BUM                                                   RECEIPT                                       PANCETTA

And I think that's enough of that as I may be carted off at any moment, by the guys in white coats.
As always thanks for being recipients of my rants. Without you I would actually implode and create a black whole worthy of sucking in the entire universe. So really you read to save the world. Think of it like that. Ha ha.

Okay, I'm gonna say lack of food is making me loopy. Bring on that chilli con carne.

Night. Have a good one.

May your Wednesdays never be as bleak as mine.       

Friday, February 24, 2012

Giants, tourists and common sense?

GIANT SIGHTING ON THE UNDERGROUND

So I'm on the tube coming home and there's this guy, easily 7ft tall. He's stood in the tallest part of the carriage, where it domes up in the middle and still he has his head cocked to one side. It was only as I exited behind him at King's Cross that I realised his waist was in line with my shoulders. My shoulders! I'd originally thought maybe his waist was on breast line, but no, shoulders. Amazing!

Keeping the tube theme, can I just say how thrilled I am at the sheer volume of tourists getting in my pissing way all the time. It's just wonderful. I mean, really, what's the excitement of London in February? Everyone's miserable and up until last week it was bloody freezing and everyone's ill.

COME TO LONDON, GET A VIRUS!

This should be the new tourist office slogan, because surely that's what's happening. If everyone who lives here is ill, then surely everyone who comes to stay here is going to be equally ill. And the public transport networks are just the best place to spread things.

Apart from Monday when (in the last blog) I mentioned the emptiness of carriage and my ability to sit down on a seat, at 9.20 in the morning........I still can't believe it..............the rest of the week has been murder. Packed to the rafters and full of irritating groups of various European tourists that all congregate outside Russell Square tube and block the pavements and just generally impede on my work route. Urgh!

Well I hope they all piss off by Monday morning as I'm supposed to be taking my massive xylophone to work with me and that's going to be very interesting. And by interesting I mean SHIT.

Oh and staying with the tube for one last moment. The heat is intensifying. Spring is approaching and we are almost at t-shirt mode. That familiar bead of sweat trickling down my back has resurfaced a couple of times this week, which has probably also been a combination of my fluctuating temperature and general manky illness. But still, it has been decidedly warmer this week and I have to say it's nice not to have to wear fifteen layers, hat, gloves, scarf and coat. But the age old problem of what to wear to balance out tube heat will be a constant drag. Ah, the issues of life.

Well, it's day number three without a voice (or much of one) and I'm back to slightly husky voice, with a touch of pain. And yes I know that it would probably heal quicker if I just shut the fuck up. But I can't. I'm a motormouth. I'm the actual model for Little Miss Chatterbox. And it's been my planning week at work, all about the instruments of the orchestra and so I couldn't exactly stop talking. However would my children learn otherwise?

But the only good thing is that a sore throat and loss of voice is usually the end of my cycle of illness. And by god I'm glad. It's been 3 weeks of snot and coughing and high temperatures and headaches and back ache and total lethargy. But despite the lack of voice I have felt much better the past three days and I've been having about 7 or 8 hours sleep..... I know, it's unheard of and it's only been because I was on lates and that meant I could stay in bed a little longer, but it's been good and I feel almost back to normal.

I really do have to stop though sometimes. I literally run myself into the ground. Work is insane at the moment and I have all the additional SEN stuff to do as well as all my usual roles and an Orchestra visit to prepare for. (Whoop the OAE are coming on the 28th Feb and 13th March). Besides that I have all my music lessons stuff to prepare and because I'm trying to be all professional, I'm updating parents and I made my own progress reports and certificates for the kids. Ha ha. I don't make life easy for myself.

And somewhere along the line, I'd probably better start writing again. It's been a while. I mean there's always notes and ideas and jottings, but no actual quality writing time in along time. I'm just gonna have to start being selfish and saying no to people, and refusing to take work home........

Doesn't seem likely does it? Ah well. I'll give it a whirl. At this rate I'll be about 45 before my book gets anywhere near a publisher. Eek!

Today I was a total tool. I got all my stuff ready for work. Had my list of additional things I had to do whilst there and on the way home, and I forgot my purse. MORON. Not only did several things I needed to do involve money, but I also had the SD card for work in my purse that I was bringing back to school. Urgh. Lo and behold, when I got home from work there was my purse on the arm of the couch. I could've sworn I'd put it in my bag. But clearly I was wrong. IDIOT.



Oh, I'm a right grumpy bitch aren't I? Anyhoo, I'll keep you posted on those common sense qualifications. I'm sure you all know a few people that could benefit.

And on that note, I'm going to leave you for a chilled Friday evening and a great weekend.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Radio active snot.

Eek. Not feeling too hot today. Well actually I'm burning up. And coupled with the headache and general sinus mankiness, its been an interesting morning. Ah well. I'm sure it's nothing sitting on the couch all day watching crap films won't cure.

So it's been a while. I am getting quite lax with the whole blog thing. There just seems so many other things to do at the moment.  Like all the music stuff for work and my music lessons and I'm also arranging a bell tune for my old marching band as well. Which is pretty cool but also making me really nostalgic. Tinkling on the old xylophone again was great.

Now that's how far I managed to get yesterday, not far at all. So I'm gonna continue and start with a most shocking Monday morning event.........

When I got on the tube today at 9.20, I actually got a seat. Yes. A seat! And not only that but there were other seats available too.

What I couldn't figure out was how? Or why? I mean what bizarre event could possibly be taking people off my tube? And on a Monday morning in the middle of rush hour. Well, I never came to a conclusion on that but whatever it was, it was quite nice and I wouldn't complain too much if that happened again. Let's face it, tomorrow I'll probably have to let three tubes go past because they're so full and then I'll have to cram in next to some smelly guy's arm pit, or have to inhale someone's hair (eek, I hate that). Still, it was nice while it lasted.

I just made a slightly huge dent in that chocolate bar A got me from Germany. I'd say easily half of it gone. Yum! And the worst part is that I could quite happily eat more, though I do fear for my waist. He he. I've got a good excuse though. I'm ill and it makes me feel better, or some other such bullshit.

Thankfully today my temperature has dissipated. I'm not sure I could've coped much longer with the need to wear a bikini in winter. In fact it's been a total opposite. I've been piling the layers back on. Freaky temperature fluctuations. it's very irritating.

Oh, that overload of chocolate is catching up with me now. Blurgh! Ha ha

Well I do seem to be rambling with no clear direction here, so I think I'll sign off on a great non-entity blog and try again next time.

Have a great week and try not to eat too much yummy German chocolate.

Helen

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Teeny toiletries, door stop sandwiches and bloody cyclists.

Hey guys

Just a short one today as I'm off to Germany tomorrow for a nice weekend away and we have to be up at ridiculous o'clock for our flight. But I owed you one as I hadn't ranted this week yet.

I went to pick up my euros today and needed a couple of bits, and I just realised how much the novelty of the teeny toiletries has not worn off yet. I only went in for a mini deoderant and came out with mini toothpaste and a mini facial scrub. The only reason being, because they're so teeny.

For some reason having the same facial wash just an eighth of the original size, makes it instantly miraculous. I guess it applies to other things too, such as children, a mini person, just a third of the size. And it defnintely applies to kiddie shoes (especially mini dolly shoes. They are too much). And now I've started thinking of other things like mini pizzas, mini cupcakes, mini biscuits, cocktail sausages.......yum.

But alas, I doubt the novelty will ever wear off for me. I love little things. He he.

A made me a mahoosive door stop chicken sandwich today, with the left over chicken from last night. It was amazing but did actually take me a good 15 minutes to eat it. I'm not kidding. It was massive!

Oh and finally (I told you it was quick one) I would like to rant yet again about cyclists and taxis and BLOODY ZEBRA FREAKIN' CROSSINGS!

Twice today I was almost run over, whilst on the freakin' crossing, because cyclists don't want to slow down for those big stripes in the road. And taxi's......well.......enough said really. But it just ticks me right off, especially when they swerve to avoid you and then tut as though YOU inconvenienced THEM.

Twats. Tossers. Wankers.

Those are my top three insults for misuse of the zebra crossing and I am often muttering them to myself when I eventually reach the other side unscathed. God, I really am a crank.

Anyhoo, if you could just stop being a bunch of knobs, you London cyclists, that would be much appreciated.

So, only one more extremely short sleep and then I will be on the 4.50am train to Gatwick airport. Whoop!
Cologne here we come! (Although if it could not be -10 as indicated on weather forecast that would be wonderful.)

Have a great weekend.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Maths, French and speed nappy trials.........

 Firstly I would like to start with a slightly belated Birthday wish to my lovely Flat 19, into which we moved three years ago yesterday. Happy Birthday!!!!! (I should've written the blog yesterday but cocktails happened and the motion of typing would definitely not have happened after I got back. Oh dear lord, no!)

Three years ago when we first moved in, we were graced with a snow day on the following day, 1st Feb. No such luck today. A Baltic day but no snow.

We've managed to live through the terrible two tantrums which have left us with broken taps in the bathroom, leaking pipes and a busted toilet flush. Not to mention all the appliances that broke recently, suddenly no longer compatible with our aging apartment. But it is still as wonderfully red, black and pretty as it always has been (and of course rammed packed with stuff!).

I am very excited for this next year, to add to my cloud wall in the bathroom, with some more of my cloud photographs. I'm just attempting to buy frames. And in true Helen form am being extremely picky. (No. Me? Never!) What I actually want is driftwood frames, but am struggling to find any and may have to give up the search and settle for white wood frames instead......We'll see.

Well Flat 19. Here's to the next 3 years and all the friends that will visit us, and all the people we will feed until they're close to death and all the writing I will do and all the holidays we will plan. We love you! You're an awesome place to live!!!!! (Could you just try and not incur anymore breakages please? Thank you.)

And now for a maths problem:

There are 5 ladies out for ladies night and 10 pitchers of cocktail. How much did the ladies drink each???
Now that's a maths question I can get on board with and I did with four lovely ladies last night -  thus the lack of Birthday blog.

Man we had a good night and a ridiculous amount of alcohol. But it was amazing and sort of their fault for making the alcohol so cheap and the happy hour run all night. Whoop!!!!! The Long Island Iced Tea was flowing as well as the apple fruity vodka thing that I can't remember the name of. And it was definitely what the Doctor ordered.

The food was awesome too. Big stodgy South American stuff! Yum Yum Yum! It definitely soaked up some of that alcohol, as I had to be up at 6am for work and I didn't have a hangover. Oh and I wore my new Irregular Choice shoes that I treated myself to at the weekend and they are so god darn pretty. (There is a pic on facebook and maybe one day I will learn how to put photos on here. I am a rem though when it comes to technology, as most of you know very well.)

Thank you L and T and J and J for a wonderful night and allowing me to tell the playdoughisms story again, twice!

One idea that was bandied about last night which I thought was genius, was that we should open a Coyote Ugly style bar, where they would all dance on the bar and I would sit in the corner singing. Ha ha. (Okay so the sitting in the corner singing thing was my idea...shock horror!) Definitely on to a winner there. We will discuss further over the next round of cocktails.

And the most amazing thing was when the bill came and we only owed 20 quid each and that was including tip! Whoop! Another ridiculously cheap and wonderful night out. And what's even better is that I'm gonna see L on Friday too! Twice in a week . Yipee!!!!!

Okay, so anyone else thinking this blog has been far too nice and not particularly ranty at all?????


I had to top up my monthly travel card this morning and had a nasty little shock. £112.60! Are you taking the piss??? I was told it wasn't going up this year because it went up last year and it's normally every other year it goes up. Freakin' scoundrels. An extra £6 a month when you get paid frick all, is actually quite a lot and a very nasty shock first thing on a Wednesday morning. TFL bastards.

It's feckin' freezing! Finally winter hit but a little late. It's supposed to be Spring in a month. The little baby animals ain't gonna be coming out, they're gonna take one step and freeze in their tracks. The flowers and leaves are gonna refuse to open out and the people are gonna get more and more miserable.

I knew it was cold today as I had to keep my coat on on the tube. (I hear you all gasp in shock). Granted it was unbuttoned and I had removed my scarf and hat, but still......Four layers of clothing and a coat and I wasn't sweating like a P I G........unheard of.

And now for an extremely rude French teacher. Oh my God. Some of the children take a French lesson on a Wednesday morning and today I was running around doing nappies at the speed of light to make sure they were all done on time. And when I went out to take another child one of the staff had a panic that one of the children was missing from the French lesson. So I just quickly peeped through the window and checked. "No. There are 7 and there are supposed to be 7." Okay, so everything was fine..................

Or not..........The French teacher came out and was all, "Can you please not look through the window, I'm trying to do a lesson here and the children are getting distracted."

So I said, "Oh I'm sorry but I just needed to quickly count the children."

Then she went off on one. "I am trying to do a lesson and you are watching like a show. I am not putting on a show for you to watch...." Blah blah blah fucking blah. Grumpy Bitch!

And then she finished with the extremely mature (baring in mind she must be at least mid thirties - not that that's old, I'm simply making the point that she ain't a little kid). "Do you get it?!" And stormed back in slamming the door behind her.

Oh, it's a good job I work with kids because if I was surrounded by adults at that point and she had spoken to my and my staff like that, I would have flipped. My temper flared and I could feel myself tensing. But typical Helen said nothing just went away muttering to myself that, "if she ever speaks to me or my staff like that again, I'll be lodging a formal complaint."

What a fucking cow. It's my classroom, my kids and my staff. I am in charge of the place and if I need to do a head count then she can just fuck off.

But then the funniest thing was that after she finished the lesson she sat on the carpet and was rude to another member of staff and then didn't move for about 10 minutes, whilst I continued the nappies, got the beds ready and started them washing their hands for lunch. I could tell she wanted to speak to me or say something, but again I was worried about having an outburst in front of the children, so I carried on doing what I was doing and ignored her.

Well, at the end of the day, if she wants to speak to me adult to adult, like a real person would, then all she has to say is, "Can I have a word please?" But sulking around on the carpet area and being a stuck up grumpy bitch means you don't deserve my time of day. And so eventually she got up and used the bathroom before leaving in a strop. Ahhh teenagers.........

So, I told my managers just in case she tried to lodge some sort of complaint about us and they completely agreed with me and said that if it happens again I can request a new teacher and say we don't want her anymore. Ha! In your face French teacher. Just try and cross me again next week. Muhahahahahahahahaha.

Psychotic Parent number 1 seems to have calmed down and is actually speaking to me again this week. But how quickly the psychotic can change. I ain't holding my breath, put it that way.

And on a random note, I think there should be speed nappy changing competitions between nurseries. It would be really funny! NO? Just me that finds that amusing. I'd be awesome at that. Ten nappies in 25 minutes, including one poo (though sometimes they can all be poos which would of course add to the time a bit) is not bad.

An over share???

He he. Anyway, I hope the last part was ranty enough for you. I think I'm gonna have to put my slippers on. My feet are freezing!

Looking forward to a nice night on the couch with A. It's been a long time.

Have a good rest of week where possible. Until the next blog........