Come into the light, Carole-Ann!

I recently bought myself a new camera, which I love almost as much as if it were my own child. If I manage to work out the whole getting the pictures on the computer thing then I'll try and showcase my 'gift' (fnar) on here.

I know very little about photography. It's all about the light, dude. But beyond that, I am a yokel in the big city. One of my lovely collegues sat me down and went through some stuff with me. The basic basics, if you will. Then, The Pook and I went off to Kew Gardens on the boat and I spent the afternoon crouching and muttering, fiddling with buttons and generally behaving like a total dad on holiday. The Pook left me staring into bushes on several occasions and then I had to fight my way through jungles (Yes. Literally.) to try and find her. Kew gardens, in case you were unaware, is WICKED. I had an enormous uncaged lizard run at me and was stabbed by every damn spiky plant in the whole place. We plan to go back soon and I can annoy her further by taking ages to take one picture that ends up a completely white square. As I did several times yesterday.

The worst bit of Kew was this new tree top walkway shenanigan. Basically a rusted metal structure, around 300 ft off the ground with what appears to be chicken wire over a rather sparse bit of framework to walk on. The Pook and I climb up and start to wander around. I'm not scared of heights, but I couldn't help feeling a little peculiar and took to running my hands along the barrier at the top of the walls. Thankfully, The Pook pointed out the sheer volume of bird shit before I ran my hands through that. We wandered gently around trying not to look through the floor and ignoring the fact that the wire seemed to bend and buckle as you walked. After a while, we stopped to have a browse of our surroundings as The Pook's mother had told us 'you get a fantastic view of tits from the top.' Well, who could resist?

Once we'd stopped walking we suddenly became aware that the whole damn structure was wobbling gently in the air backwards and forwards. Well, holy crap! I think it was the sheer volume of milling people moving on it, but it gave one the impression that death was imminent. I completed the rest of the tree top walk with a little more haste than before, got down the stairs and thoroughly embarrassed The Pook by shrieking "Land! Thank God! Land!" as soon as I reached the ground. Right in front of the people waiting to go up.

It was a fun day out. Now I am completely knackered.

The agony of breakfast...

Today's hysterical breakfast conversation with the boys:

Sneeb: We strung up all these beads in our cubicle...

Me: Beards?! What the...?

Sneeb: No. Beads, and...

Me: (Rudely interrupting.) God. Imagine, having all these beards in your bedroom. Where would you get them from?

H: People's faces. Obviously

Me: What like some kind of serial killer keepsake? Wow. Were I a serial killer, I would take people's beards and make them into some kind of beard necklace.

G: Or a total beard outfit.

Me: (By this point entirely helpless with laughter.) Like in silence of the Lambs? I cannot rest until I complete my beard-suit!!

H: You could put it on and look at yourself in the mirror...!

Me: Doing a little dance...!

At this point we all choke on our cereal.

Me: Wow. I really need to get a proper night's sleep.

Later, discussing the weird new shower curtains around the baths.

H: Well, at least you can have your privacy.

Me: Yeah, but you have to go into this weird room full of shower curtains and then can't find the way to the door. It's really claustrophobic.

H: That sounds grim. (Mimes screaming and banging with fists to escape.)

Me: Uh... H, it's a shower curtain. If you did that you'd just fall through it.

G: Naked.

Me: Apart from a fine sheen of bubbles!!

More choking.

Me: At least you'd have your privacy. Naked. Face down on the floor. Yeah.

God. If unprofessional breakfast sniggering is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Racing sandals

I'm working on the assumption that I have to start teaching a lesson in about 10 mins. Yes. I'm correct, but to sprint about the room in sandals to ascertain this fact. (They're Birkenstocks. Not Jesus Creepers. You can shut up now.) I know at some point there will be some RS going on. A first lesson with my new class that I always lovingly entitle 'Where's the point in prayer?'

What's the point in anything?! Actually, I'm feeling a heck of a lot better than I did at the beginning of this week. Or at the end of the holidays even. Today I met Derryn Brown's identical twin. Well, I don't think he's related, but the similarity is decidedly ooky. The boys have still been making me laugh, but are now growing to be irritating in equal measures. I had the rather annoying experience of discovering that my image has been used and if you google my name, a photo of me comes up. (bigbrotherbigbrotherbigbrother...) But at least it is not the one that was used in the newspaper. That would be laaaaaame. I'm still getting used to the fact that my job, whilst offering me all sorts of fun experiences, also means that as a teacher here, I end up being involved in all sorts of things that a shy and retiring soul, like myself can't really deal with. A bad photograph of you: one thing. A bad photograph of you in a national newspaper: Quite another.

Plus, one of the kids in my new class might be filmed as part of a programme and there's a small chance they may ask me to be in it. A world of no. Does that cover it?! Right. Must teach...something.

Not crazy in love. Just plain crazy.

It's been a long-ass summer. I'm really not sure whether I'm glad to be back at work or not. I've been dealing with the feeling of being a little bit lost and confused for reasons best not known to anyone else by either being completely down in the dumps or in full on hysterics. Much though I suspected that returning to work would be a total pain in the arse, getting to hang out with the boys has been so much fun this week that I don't think I could have managed without them. Not that my recent behaviour at the lunch and supper table will be getting me anymore responsibility or respect about the workplace. Wednesday lunchtime's pea extravaganza pretty much put paid to that. Yesterday at supper, the very idea of a film called plainly "ASS" rendered me completely unable to eat the large tomato I had recently put into my mouth. These are 12 year olds! Who gave them the right to be so goddamn funny?

Then they were asking each other for the ketchup in French. Incidentally, in case you didn't know, the french for ketchup is "Le 'chup". Hearing someone say "Ah, le 'chup. Por vous" in an affectionate tone really cracked me up. Not to mention that later the same day, the year 6 boys and I completely fell about laughing at the naked people in the Science text book. Very 70s. As I said to them once we'd recovered, 'I really will have to grow up some time soon.'

Well. That's the plan, anyway.

In other news: what is this whole 'sticky keys' thing? How many people press the shift key 5 times in a row regularly? Try it! It's like a secret weapon hidden on your keyboard.