The postman always knocks twice...and is strangely knowledgeable...

I have just opened the door to the postie (not an unusual occurrence) and he greeted me by my first name. Like he knew me...! To say it was odd would be a bit of an understatement. He also knew that the package of DVDs from Amazon was for me, although admittedly, knowing my name and seeing it on the package is not a huge leap of logic. But knowing my name, seeing it on the package, and recognising me in person is rather an impressive combination. The big thing is that I'm pretty sure I have NEVER met our current postie before! Either the postal service is way more personal than ever before or I have a stalker on my hands. Hm.

I am at home thinking conspiracy theories, watching my brand new DVDs hand delivered by a stalker, and looking after the dog, who is recently nutless and understandably peeved about it. I have inspected the operation site and feel that they've gone a little overboard with the shaving. Poor, poor dear. This is what happens when I go away and leave him at the mercy of my mother; he ends up mostly bald and completely impotent. ...and it's chilly out. I might have to knit him a merkin.

Could this be....THE BEST JOB EVER!!!...?

Two posts in a week! I know. Sheer insanity! ...and I am now humming 'High and Dry' by Radiohead. Cosmic balancing is very in right now. I've just got from the church where all the lovely boys were doing a little singing for a concert this evening. We have to sit there and try not to look as though bored to tears. I took a book as it is only the rehearsal. I'm very much enjoying 'The Maltese Falcon'. I saw the film for the first time the other day - shame on me, I know, but I just hadn't come across it before and it was showing at the NFT. Rather good actually. I was surprised by how closely the film sticks to the book. I shall be using the phrase 'Shoo her in, Darling, shoo her in' as much as humanly possible over the coming weeks.

I've been putting up a display in my classroom this week. Having been all 'yes, I'll be keeping this one simple: just putting stuff up, nothing complicated' I've ended up cutting out a massive and stupidly detailed map of Britain and Ireland. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, the holiday work at this time of the year is not the same as at Christmas, when you're stuck indoors all the time beavering away in the classroom, like some kind of troll. It's not done. All the wibbley bits around the West coast of Scotland are proving to be a bit of a bloody nightmare. Especially as I am wielding a pair of scissors that look like those old-fashioned shears for trimming the grass. Showing my age there. Yes. I am pre-strimmer. In fact, there was a terrifying moment when I was able to point out something similar to a computer we had owned when I was a small child. In the Science Museum! For shame. The boys were hysterical. "Look, Miss, it's even in a specially enclosed plastic box! Hermetically sealed! It'll dissolve on contact with the air...hahahahaha!' Bastards. How dare they use science to mock me?! The Science museum was excellent, actually. The highlight of the trip for me was in the gift shop where there was a man with THE BEST JOB EVER!!!

Clearly, all that THE BEST JOB EVER!!! involved was playing with all the cool science museum toys in full view of demanding children and their long suffering parents. When I first saw him he had this little plane thing that flew in a perfect circle, so that it flew back to your hand unerringly every time. He was young and smug about having THE BEST JOB EVER!!!, as well he might be. A group of people had gathered to watch him nonchalantly chucking this thing about. He then turned it up a notch and started to throw it in a vertical circle as well as horizontal. Whilst watching, I leaned over to one of the boys and said "Isn't it incredible, with all these people about, he hasn't hi...." at which exact moment the little plane flew in a perfect semi-circle straight into a lady's particularly curly hairdo. There was an audible 'poc!' as it whacked her in the head. At this moment I gave an involuntary shout of laughter and then had to retreat to the frozen space food area to have a thoroughly unprofessional fit of the giggles.

See? Playing with science-y toys, showing off in front of children, doing things your mother told you not to: throwing things in a crowded enclosed area, beaning tourists...

THE BEST JOB EVER!!!



In other news: Where's the point in the insert key? Does anyone ever use it? Obviously, I mean apart from pressing it by accident and then losing letters when you try and type something in previously written text. Besides, surely 'insert' key is a bit of a misnomer here? If you try and insert a letter, you lose another. It should be called the 'replace' key. Or the 'interfere' key. If only it were large enough for me to tippex the word 'shenanigans' on it...

Release the hounds!!

Good Lord! I've been so lazy that even writing this has proved to be beyond my weak and pointless self. I've not even been that busy. I have been wallowing in pre Easter holidays and of course, now I'm back here, rather than doing something useful like washing my skanky clothes, I'm now drinking copious amounts of overstewed tea and trying to account for myself here. All of this holidaying makes Disco Stoat a rather profane girl. It takes me a while to get the language back to school-safe. I must check everything I say until I can speak like a normal person. This morning it took a huge effort not to say something innappropriate to the nun whilst she was taking some sundries to the workmen. ("Nice buns, Sister!!")

It's been nice to be back. Oh yes. Even when having to deal with the boys and all that that entails. We took them out yesterday to frolic in nature. They are funny. They learnt that sap from a particular tree could be used as an antibacterial anti-septic. Then they roamed around injuring each other and then trying to apply sap to the wound. Good plan. It was nice for them to get out of London for a little while. Anything to stop them throwing some kind of Whitney Houston-esque tantrum about a nearly invisible scrape. Usually resulting from walking into something that didn't get out of their way, like a tree or a rock. We travelled in the minibus and at first I decided to be all chummy and sit in the back with the boys. Stupid really, as they spend the whole time rambling on about nothing. Usually all at the same time with no consideration for each other. Bless. It's the Christian way. On the way home, I was having none of that and sat up in front where I was afflicted by rampaging narcolepsy and crashed in and out of a comatose state for the entire trip. Unfortunately this is the time when I am most likely to talk in my sleep, because I wake up and am about to make some relevant and interesting comment about a current event. Due to my sudden awakening, this process takes a little while and just as I am marshalling myself ready to speak, I am unwillingly plunged into sleep again. Then the next time I wake up, the remark that seemed so relevant five minutes ago will suddenly seem most peculiar. But I'll still end up saying it! Thankfully, this only happened once, and towards the window so I hope no one heard.

Well. After a good night's sleep and absolutely no watching of 'Bones' (my latest secret shame...) I am feeling mostly refreshed and back to the city girl I always am. I'll put away 'County Stoat' for my next holiday! I'm working today, ish. Which seems to involve getting the boys outside as much as possible to work off all that excess energy the young always seem to have. I refer to this as 'releasing the hounds'. I shall expect you to remember that for next time. I hope you're making detailed notes for revision purposes.

When I had released the hounds... Hm. Now it sounds like some glorious euphemism for taking a crap or similar. Never mind!! ...Whilst the hounds were released, and playing a very diva-ish game of football, (lots of falling gracefully and rolling around clutching themselves and shrieking as if in agony) one of the guys who works at the church came over to join in with them. I'm always a bit suspicious of fully grown men who feel the need to partake in football with a group of boys. You could see that in his head he was nothing less than Pele himself. "I'll show these young 'uns how it's done." The boys were rather nonplussed, to be honest. They weren't sure whether to tackle him or not, after all - he was a man of God. Having twatted about with the ball for a while and clapped his own performance a few times, he actually managed to score a goal. He ran down the pitch, arms extended triumphantly, roaring with delight. Unfortunately he had also taken down the keeper, who was about nine years old and about three foot tall. Written down like that it sounds rather tragic. It was, I'm afraid to say, completely hilarious. When he felled another small boy with a rather ham-fisted tackle I had to step in and subtly move them around so all the little ones were on his team. Very sensibly, they stopped trying to tackle him at all and instead gave him a wide berth. I did manage to contain myself for the whole event and only gave in to hysterical giggling as he left, saying breezily: "Good to have a bit of a kickabout with the lads!" and one of the boys said to me in an ENORMOUS stage whisper "Miss... I think he's been drinking..."

Sadly enough, he was completely sober. Just a bit of an arse. You'll be pleased to know that I managed not to respond with that. Just about.