if it happened at all, it happened like that

Aaaahhhhh I've emailed the archery people this might be a thing that's happening!!!!

Their next beginners' course is next weekend, but hopefully they'll have another one soon if the waiting list is full, and I can't go on the Saturday unless it's after 5 because I'm working, but it'll probably be an afternoon thing. Fingers crossed the next one will be on one of my weekends off.

In other news, the first week back at work was rough, as expected. I actually fell asleep on the couch on Thursday night (which I never do), and of course we had the usual nonsense of management making changes that directly affect various people's actual jobs without any prior warning, which is always fun. But powering through! Actually doing my job once the kids are back is always much better than the endless start of term meetings on the first few days.

I've finished a couple of books recently which I wanted to share my thoughts about.

( Fen )

And also ( The Bedlam Stacks )

Sorry if that got a bit rambly, but I'm a bit tired and hungover and just wanted to spew some words out.

Ooft, it's been a bit of a week. This is going to be something of a rant.

We've had out-of-classroom enquiry-based group work this week with year 7&8, which we were alerted to last week, and in which I was playing a supporting role with organising the year 8 project. I kind of co-ran it last year with another member of staff, so when I hadn't heard anything I assumed he had it under control and was using what we had last year.
Until he came into my office last... Wednesday? and asked what we were doing. "I don't know pal," I thought, "You and the director of studies are the only ones named in the email", but of course, being eminently friendly and pathologically helpful person I am, ended up basically: creating a booklet for the kids, designing the activities for the morning, working out groups for the kids which would spark minimum arguments, and sorting out timetabling (there was a bit of conflict with the year 7 project in this regard) and staffing. As far as I'm aware he... invited a pal of his to come in for a talk? Which yeah, was an important part, but would have been pointless if I hadn't sorted everything else out.
Don't get me wrong, I like running these things and getting involved with them, but a little bit of a heads-up and some actual acknowledgement would be nice.

So, that was running on Thursday, and the year 7 one was running Wednesday-Friday, which my boss was helping out with. She went home for her half-day on Wednesday afternoon, and I got a text from her at ~5pm that she'd been to the doctor and has been signed off until half term. I do not begrudge her this at all - she's not been great since Christmas, and I'd rather she was off and getting herself better than making herself come in.
Anyway, this meant that I had to basically be three people at once, as I had to look after the library while helping out with the year 7&8 projects, which were both in different places (thankfully the year 7s did come to the library for a bit, which helped). We had enough staffing from their usual teachers, so that was good, but it was annoying that I couldn't see the end results of the kids' work after they (and I!) had put so much effort into it. (We had presentations from the year 8s about birth, marriage and death rituals in various places and cultures, and an assortment of presentations, posters, and boardgames about certain human and animal migrations from the year 7s - they were planning stuff to show to the local primary school kids, so hopefully i'll be able to go along to that).
Also on Thursday I was frantically liaising with our library assistants to sort out Friday cover for my boss (it's my day off as I work all day on a Saturday), while being overwhelmed with emails from SMT about it. I ended up just replying something like "I'm sorting it! We can deal! Just leave us to it!", but that situation didn't help with the rest of it.

While all of this was going on I was also trying to deal with the 6th formers who were absolutely aghast and disgusted that other year groups should dare to use the library. The 6th form have other places they can use to work, so I don't get why a whole 2 days (and not even whole days - 2 half days at most) of not being in sole possession of the space is such a big deal.

Friday was the awards night of a book group my boss runs with some students, which we have already had a massive issue with since it's a couple of weeks later this year than usual, so it coincides with our long weekend. To start out with, we had 3 students who couldn't make it as they had already arranged travel plans, and the ones who could come had altered theirs massively with their parents/guardians. My boss obviously couldn't go, and I couldn't lead it as I've not been through the training, but thankfully the guy who had volunteered to drive the minibus was trip leader trained, so it could go ahead without too much disruption.
That actually went really well: it's a night the students always really enjoy, as they get to meet the 5 authors on the shortlist they've been reading and get their books signed. Usually we have a manic fight through rush-hour traffic to get to the venue on time, but as school had a half day this year, we got to leave earlier, so we got there in plenty of time and the school even let us get some food, so we dropped into a nearby Nandos for an early dinner. It was a much more relaxed affair than usual, and since we only had 3 kids with us it wasn't at all stressful.
The awards went well - the book all of our group had voted for won, which they were delighted with.

In short: phew. I'm covering my boss this week, and she's hoping she'll be back by Thursday. Next week is a regular week so I should be fine by myself, and I have of course told her not to feel as though she has to rush back.

Anyway: today is a nice wee Saturday off for me (and I actually remembered to turn my 6.30am alarm off for once), so I'm going up to London to see David and Lynne, and hopefully get along to the National Gallery to see Rachel Maclean's The Lion and the Unicorn before it closes, because we are all stereotypical Scots Not Living In Scotland. We're going for dinner in a Mexican restaurant in Brixton that David is in love with, but I'm not exactly sure which one. Either Jalisco or Casa Morita - I suppose I'll find out.

Baking is done!

• Parsnip, parmesan and sage loaf (unyeasted as yeast is my mortal enemy, I am excited/terrified to find out what it's like)
• Chocolate Ginger Tart - this I have made a few times before, but only in miniature, and this is a full 25cm tart, so hopefully it'll be okay.

I'm heading up to London on the 12.15 train, so if I've time in the morning I might also whip up some peanut butter cookies, bc David always loses his mind over them, and his supply of Nutter Butters has been cut off now Lynne's moved back from the US.

I am feeling immeasurably better than I did earlier in the week, which is excellent, and meant I was able to go and play with the kittens today while waiting out various stages of baking. This was amazing because Belle actually let me pat her! She was distracted by what is apparently the most delicious cat food ever, but it still counts! She is still generally nervous around us, but is getting so much better every day. Sebastian is just a proper wee lad, and is in about everything constantly, so there are no worries on that front.

I'v been meaning to make a dreamwidth account for literal years, but never quite got round to it (or if I did - which I have a vague memory of doing during the LJ strikethough - it was with an old email and I've forgotten all the details), but here I am now! All you need is a push I guess.

I've missed this kind of set up during my time at tumblr - nested comment sections! Separation of interests! Functional tagging system! - and am a bit annoyed it's taken me this long to get back tbh.

So, here we are. I'm going to have to get into the swing of this format of internet again.

I'll likely be using this as a place to put fandom stuff as well as personal posts. If anyone happening upon this somehow has any tips or tricks for me while I'm finding my feet, please let me know!