Happy in my job

So one day I'm mopping up shite, the next I'm washing gravel for the school fish. One moment I'm giving out stickers and cuddles for learning how to count to ten, the next I'm marching sixth formers to the Principal after catching them smoking.

It's all in a day's work.

And they pay me too!

One month down

So we're only four weeks in to the school year and already the primary teacher's worst nightmare has dropped in to haunt me.

And I'm not talking about my hijacked lunch break because that happens all too often actually. This time it was a visit from a new addition to the class whose parents just decided he was ready to switch from Kindergarten (4 weeks into term? Takes all sorts I suppose) who I eventually dispatched to tour the building so I could go grab some lunch - fish fingers today, not to be missed. Only to be confronted with a sobbing class member who'd been caught fighting and needed calming down and debriefing. By the time I'd got past the indignant declarations of 'He started it!' and 'It wasn't me!' the rest of the class was heading my way and I had to manage on leftover morning snacks again.

Not long afterwards we had just completed a listening exercise on the carpet and several of the little darlings were showing signs of 'inattention' - lying on the floor, turning their backs to chat with the person behind, sighing, yawning, trying to fit all their limbs at once inside their t-shirt, singing... I eventually got the subtle hints. I reckoned a quick round of 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' would pep them up a bit, and sneakily reinforce the body parts curriculum unit (that'll show 'em; if you can't be arsed to listen I'll educate you on the sly while you think you're playing, [evil laugh].)

As we headed to the cd player somebody piped up with 'Someone's made a smell'. Sure enough there was a nasty odour pervading the air but I assumed it was a whiffy fart and carried on with the game. But I did notice a little boy right at the back who wasn't joining in. And by the end of the song the smell was worse than ever.

Oh yes, someone had pooped in their pants. Shit.

At least I found out why he was off school yesterday and I can put the right code in the register. However, a little heads up would have been nice.

But I got his mum back - by calling her away from work to collect her sick child and a particularly pungent bag of clothes. I like to share the joy.

Sod's Law wins

On the day my housekeeper told me off for not washing the floor cloths and then asked for more hours (roughly translated as a demand for a £5 per week pay rise) my new allergy has been diagnosed...

I am (mildly) allergic to house dust.

Love : fifteen to Sod's Law. But at least it wasn't the hamster making me sneeze.

I'll get you back.

Late Night

It is nearly 3am and I am blogging. This is not a good sign. It was less than a great day and I have had real trouble switching off, even to the relaxing strains of my Zen CD. I've actually been blogging for half an hour already but the computer just decided to invoke Sod's Law and erase everything I had already written in the line of therapeutic ranting all my issues off my chest and out of my brain so I can sleep.

Sodding computers. I hate 'em.

I hate Post Offices too; the world over, it seems, they are dens of frustration and bureaucracy and they could all do with short visit from a short range missile. I was mid-rant about my trip to my local PO when the computer spat its dummy out and erased it all and now I'm all wound up again. Grrr. I'll have to be brief this time.

Long day at the office (ha!), urgent bills to pay, urgent tax return to post, where you gonna go? I first went to the local shopping centre which is open till 8pm. This is at 6.15pm. The PO shut at 6pm. I then found a place open until 7pm, thanked my stars, left the kids in the car while I popped in and promptly fell into a bureacratic twilight zone.

There were six people ahead of me in the queue. Four wanted to pay bills, in cash. One had three parcels to send. One wanted a lottery ticket. Now, children, how long to you reckon that should take to process? I'll tell you: 25 minutes. Holy crap on a cracker what a chuffing palaver. I would have walked out but the security guard locked the doors at quarter to seven as the two queues were both 7 people deep and he must have known that it would take a long time to clear them. Oh. My. Goodness. The woman with the parcels was still wrapping them in the queue, clearly she knew she'd have time, I wish I'd taken in a copy of War and Peace, I could have made a good start on it.

When it was finally my turn, however, that's when the real nightmare began - I was the last customer anyway but a non-Hungarian speaker was the last person the lady at the window ever wanted to see at any time of day, least of all when her dinner is beckoning. I'd written down in Hungarian that I needed to send my envelope 'Registered Mail'. She refused to understand. She sent for the security guard. He ran over with a Serbian dictionary. I wondered how many ways there are of sending an envelope that it was so hard to understand what I was getting at. Surely she's seen stuff for the tax office before?

My bills had mounted up somewhat, given that I have forgotten the password for my online banking otherwise I would have paid them from the comfort of this very armchair. They added up, with the registered mail envelope, to about 80p over my bank card limit. So, you guessed it, my card was refused. She gestured for cash. Hmmm, let me see if I have £350 here in my bag. Yes, I know I did have the other day after payday but that is now safely stashed somewhere safe. I just don't carry that kind of cash, but clearly everyone else does because she got up and stomped away in frustration as I waved my English bank card at her and tried to think of the translation for 'don't give up now, try this one!' (actually it was something much ruder than that but this is a family blog.)

By the time I got back to the car - remember I'd left the kids there? - Poppet was crying thinking I had been kidnapped and they were both chewing on the seats with hunger having completed both judo and cricket lessons after school, hence why we were so late in the first place. When we got in I automatically kicked into food mode and it was almost 8pm before I realised why I was tripping over the dog every time I turned round. Lying across most of the kitchen was her subtle way of telling me she hadn't been fed herself yet and by the way where've you been all day Mummy? Oops.

Yes, well, you couldn't wedge a cigarette paper into my schedule at the moment let alone a wee or a cup of coffee. The epic adventure in the post office was the last thing I needed after an hour and a half at the end of a teaching day talking to a prospective parent with separation anxiety. (She told me it's her daughter that has the anxiety... after an hour and a half going through my agenda with a toothpick and still thinking she should wait until after Christmas to sign up I think I know better.)

Nobby didn't have a blinder himself so we had a cheeky vod over dinner. And that may also help explain my current insomnia as I promptly fell asleep in Pickle's bed when I went to say goodnight: no lunch + crazy day + vodka = crash out. It's basic maths, I should have known better.

Anyway, I am off to try again, listening to Lucky the hamster trying to make it to Australia on his little wheel has worn me out. At least now I've taken my allergy meds my nose is less stuffed up and having ranted a bit on here my head is a bit clearer. Cheers for listening, cyberspace.

Fifteen again

Twenty-odd years ago I took on my first 'proper' after-school job working a till at Safeways. And not one of these fancy bar code scanners either, this was a find-the-price-tag, punch in the right number, allocate the right department code minefield of potential problems.

But I enjoyed it, having never had a toy cash register when I was little and having to make do with the chord keys on my Casio organ to ring through purchases for my teddy bears. Not so nice was the ritual humiliation at the hands ofmy co-workers who all went to the same local school and rather objected to the private school b*tch daring to come onto their turf, despite blending in so nicely with the regulation orange uniform.

At least there was no initiation ceremony, such as the one I fell right into at the DIY store later on on my youth, when I eagerly ran to the stock room to ask for a skirting-board ladder to help out. Ha, at least I didn't get the tartan paint ruse, I was prepared for that one.

Pay day was the great day though. We all marched up to the cash office to collect a jingling envelope of coinage for the £1.29 per hour wages we had accumulated playing 'let's see if I can ring this all through quicker than you can pack it' with the customers and announcing 'price check checkout three' in a sing-song voice over the tannoy.

Well today was my first pay day for my new teaching job. In a weird twist of fate I did not get my bank details to the Business Manager by the deadline and, this being Eastern Europe, where cheque books are a work of fiction, I was handed over £1000 in cash.

If only I had a piggy bank to store it all in, my journey to through the time warp would be complete.

Lows and highs

The kids have been on the hot chocolate, Nobby and me are on the vodka again... that's a fair sign it's pelting with rain outside and we're all feeling the strain of the demise of summer. Even Tiggy is whining and restless; she's currently chasing an errant flea across her backside with her teeth, quite a trick if you can do it.

And not to be outdone, Lucky the Hamster has today taken it upon himself to chew up an entire loo roll innard, the same one he's been happily hiding inside and running through for a fortnight. Now it's just a pile of cardboard all over his wheel and he has nowhere to run to when Tiggy comes around, licking her lips.

Well, this has been coming on a little while I think, all the signs were there. Ever since the illegal Romanian satellite we've been tuned into for free pay-to-view TV was switched off last month, Nobby and me have borrowed the neighbour's box set of 'Boston Legal' for want of something to wind down with in the evenings. I have to say I am loving it; William Shatner still does it for me and he's clearly had an effect on Nobby who can be heard muttering 'Denny Crane' every time he walks past.

However, just last week we took to watching our daily fix *in bed on the laptop* rather than in the lounge. We've not watched TV in bed since we left the UK and it was really weird. But it did help me get to sleep after the crazy days at school; it's nice not to have to face the washing up or trudge the dog round the block once the titles appear. Just close the lid and close your eyes and try not to dream about Key Stage assessments or Curriculum conferences.

Today at school felt a little like drowning. Stupid me trying to teach Maths to the whole class and putting small plastic teddy bears in front of them to help the process. They enjoyed counting them out so much when I asked them to that they counted them out even when I didn't ask them to and you can imagine the rest. As a very wise someone once said, directing a bunch of small children is like herding cats.

I am not sure what they make of me really, giving out stickers one minute and making them practice walking in a line up and down the corridor 5 times the next (well, how many times to they need telling not run down the corridors? Perhaps I was supposed to be grateful they were running in from their break heading towards the classroom and not running screaming away from it...)

I do know one student and her mother was happy with the way last week went. In the flurry of attempting to release the right child to the right parent with all the right baggage and pictures etc on Friday evening one lady made her way through the throng to me and said,

'Thank you for making my little one's first week in big school go so well. You could probably use some of this...'

... and she thrust a large bar of Lindt caramel-laced chocolate into my hand.

See, I said this was the best job in the world.

Cocktails and confessions

It's Monday night and I am already one vodka and tonic and a bar of chocolate down. Who said kids can drive you to drink? Ha! Still, you should have seen me and a fellow teacher bonding on Friday night whilst we celebrated making it through our first week of school by working our way through the cocktail menu at Fat Mo's... it was quite a sight to behold. Apparently we didn't look too bad after the first Mojito and a wee Sex On The Beach because we found ourselves attracting the attentions of some Swedish businessmen who had also heard Fat Mo's was the happening place in town.

Actually, it might have been the pull of the Hungary vs Sweden football match being shown on several TV sets round the bar... but still, they could have walked on past without a glance once the final whistle blew. But instead we found ourselves bombarded with questions: 'Where are you from?', 'What are you drinking?', 'What brings you in here tonight?'

Considering we were in there until 2 in the morning doing some serious girlie bonding, we've decided Las Vegas rules apply and what happens in Fat Mo's, stays in Fat Mo's. But I will tell you this as future reference for any girlies wanting to get shot of inebriated tourists who like to pull out a Cuban cigar and ask 'Have you ever seen one like this before?' (Incidentally, standard answer: 'I've seen bigger.' You'll be falling off your bar stool at your wit, he'll be wondering what the hell you just said.)

Anyway, 'What brings me here tonight?' Grab the other girl's knee, lean in close and say, 'Actually, we're on our first date. We met over the internet.'

If you want confirmation of effectiveness, pop into Fat Mo's any time; I swear there are skid marks by the exit.

Primary power

My back is aching, my head is throbbing and I'm losing my voice. Unseasonal case of flu perhaps? Oh, no. My first week as a full-time Primary School Teacher has done this to me. But, you know, I'm not really bovvered. I'm having a bit of a laugh.

I have 14 five-year-olds now and they are all quite adorable in their own little ways. From the one who keeps trying to climb me like a tree to get a cuddle any time I stand near her, to the one who throws a screaming tantrum every time his Mum leaves the classroom. Welcome to the world of separation anxiety, uninhibited hugging, half hourly toilet breaks and 'let's see how much of the classroom we have to wreck before she loses her temper'.

Not to mention the regular snacks and the dreaded lunch-hour which resemble a chimpanzees tea party at the best of times and makes me feel like I've presided over a birthday party for 14, three times a day.

I am pleased to say that my tree is still standing despite the best efforts of a couple of them to knock it down today. My display boards are finally full of art work, having covered 'What I Did In the Holidays', self-portraits and finger painting already this week. Together they have almost mastered the correct responses to 'One, Two, Three: Eyes On Me!' which I blatantly stole from one of my role models during training. The expectation is that they stop what they are doing and look round at the teacher (me!)

One slight spanner is the five children who speak no English whatsoever who usually gaily continue with their activity instead. The proper response from me is to wait silently for them to realise what the rest of the class is doing. Unfortunately the rest of the class is much quicker at realising that those five are having a lot more fun than they are standing still doing nothing, and hence resume their colouring, reading or seeing how far they can chuck Barnaby the class Teddy Bear while I am left looking a bit of a spoon.

They are VERY good at '5..4..3..2..1..0' meaning they have to run to the carpet and sit cross legged, oh I am loving that power (evil laugh) though some of the boys are now making like Poppet and Pickle and leaving it until the 'z' of 'zero' to shift their arses. Clever little buggers.

Speaking of which, Poppet and Pickle are settling in to their new classes very well by all accounts, each having made a new friend on day one, thank the maker. And they look fantastic in their new M&S uniforms, courtesy of Nanna P who made the mercy dash for us back in the UK then kindly flew over here to babysit the small people while Mummy went out to work. I bet she's needing a proper holiday now.

This school uniform lark is a great invention though. It shaves at least ten minutes off the morning routine because gone are the cries of 'I haven't got a thing to wear!' from Poppet and 'Where are my clothes?' from Pickle. There are NO EXCUSES. Ha! And they arrive half an hour before the rest of the school because I go in early to set up my classroom so they have no excuses for not doing homework either. They are getting real homework every night now and they HATE it! although the tasks so far have actually been very stimulating once they get stuck in - Pickle had some very interesting insights into the lives of the Aztecs and the fabled Moctezuma though he wasn't impressed with my attempt at drawing an Aztec pyramid. 'No, Mummy, it's not Egyptian, it has a flat top with a temple on it, silly.'

I'm sure there'll be some corkers to report from my class in the coming weeks but in the meantime here is one from my beloved little girl. Whilst walking through a shopping centre last week I stupidly allowed myself to be collared by one of those beauty product demonstration stands. The girl was very persuasive and did something magical to my fingernails which captured my attention, along with the 'buy one got one free' offer on the gizmo she was wielding. Ten seconds later she's rubbing some gel onto my crows feet and asking Poppet to be the judge as to whether it's made any difference to my complexion. 'Oh yes Mummy! It's really working!' she piped up (I reckon the woman got to her while I was browsing in Zara.) But you mustn't settle for just the eye gel; next she's massaging other wrinkly bits with some night cream and other magic products to Poppet's increasing delight and, I confess, having just endured a week of classroom prep, I succumbed to the Retail Therapy Fairy and 'invested' in a couple of pots.

Three days later Poppet asks me: 'Mummy, when are you going to start using that new cream from that lady for the lines on your face?'

'Um, I've been using them twice a day for three days, darling.'

'Oh.'

And, suddenly the little girl with an answer for everything and the diplomacy skills of a breadknife couldn't think of a thing to say.