100th Post. How cool is that!

This is my 100th post. Which is really exciting, and I would so make more of it, only I'm really really tired after Kentwell today. Kentwell was really good. I'll write more about it when I'm not completely shattered. Kathleen - hen party - see Bekki's comment in my last post. Oh, and also Happy Wednesday to you all.

post 99

I'm off to Kentwell tomorrow which is really exciting.
Also I'm going home this weekend for a sort of hen party (it's just going out for a meal) and hopefully Daddy might let me borrow his camera to take some pictures of things I see everyday that I've been wanting to share with you all.
Gotta go now so that Imogen can get on with planning.

planes and lorries

I love working near an airport. I still get excited when I'm driving along the road and a plane goes right overhead and it's really close cos it's either taking off or landing. Obviously I do know which of the two it's doing, cos i know where the airport is in relation to the road, but it's exciting whichever it's doing. Well that covers the planes bit of the post, the lorries bit is a bit more complicated.

For a start, have I even spelt the plural of lorry correctly? I went for changing -y to -ies rather than adding an s, but what do I know. I just think I like the way lorries looks better than lorrys.

Anyway, for several months there were major roadworks on the motorway and lorries weren't using the motorway much because of the lane restrictions. Because of this I put aside my commutor ponderings and thought about different things, but now the roadworks are gone and the lorries are back. I'm re-developing the ability to identify the companies lorries belong to by their colour and shape. (Christian Salvesen ones are a doddle to spot, not entirely sure what they transport, but that's not the point). But more impotantly I've finally worked out why some of those really big trucks have wheels that don't actually go round, and in fact appear to be entirely usless.

This breakthrough occured the day I started wondering about number plates. After all you sometimes see the front bits of lorries, when it's just the cab bit because they don't have a load to transport (sorry for the lack of technical language, but I've just got to blog this, cos it's taken up a considerable part of my communting time to think it all through). I decided that they must have extra number plates so that when they do have a load they can stick their number plate on the very back so that it can be seen. Now I'm guessing they don't use velcro, but probably something similar. Although, maybe they're not actually detachable fter all, maybe each front only has one back bit it can be attached to, or maybe each one has several. But then, what if someone got confused and put the wrong front on the wrong back? What then huh?

You can probably tell that I've spend way too much time thinking about all this, but that's just what happens when you spend so much time on the motorway. But all this stuff about number plates did help me realise why the lorries don't always seem to be using all their wheels at once - it's because they have a set of wheels that they need when they are gonig along just as the cab part of the truck. But when the cab is connected up to the back bit (or load, as I've also called it), it doesn't need to use those wheels anymore. Perhaps it's a bit like stabilisers on childrens bikes - when they get bigger they don't need them anymore!

Well, there you go, if you've ever wondered about lorries, now you know, and if you've never wondered, well you also now know. Thanks to my family for bearing with me when I've come out with randon comments during phone conversations during my process of thinking all this through. And now that I've finally got it all down on my blog maybe I'll be able to stop thinking about lorries, and go for something like rear view mirrors in white vans (But that's a whole nother story).

Oh, and the sausages thing - just a kid in my class who wouldn't stop saying the word, which led to another child being really upset and having to be taken out ad calmed down. Pretty much all in a days work though, so not worth as much space on my blog as the lorry thoughts.

ps A note to my regular readers, if I have any. I'll try to come up with some slightly less random things to post about asap. Oh, and it's almost my 100th post. How cool is that!

a quick ps - to remind me for tomorrow what I was actually going to say today, but didn't

This afternoon at school the kids had PE and we were doing practice for sports day on Monday. And some of them were just hilarious. They were doing things like sack race, and skipping race, and some of them were just beyond belief. I spent quite a lot of the session skipping to try to teach one particular child to skip. I also discovered why it's best not to skip in bare feet (kept catching the rope in my toes), but why bare feet are better than flipflops (they fly off).

However, it did make me think about just how difficult skipping can be - There's group skipping, with a big rope, and he can do that if someone tells him when to run in.
But then there's skippig on your own. He is hopeless at skipping on the spot - doesn't know when to jump, and more often than not ends up on his backside on the floor.
But thirdly there's skipping and running at the same time, and that's what we were trying today. In the end I just had to get him to swing the rope over his head, and then not until it was on the ground in front of him did I tell him to step over the rope. Not sure if you can really count it as skipping - more stepping over a rope that you happen to be holding in front of you, but it was hard enough for him, and it gave him a sense of achievement to be able to actually do it. And hopefully he won't be embarassed when he does it on Monday.

Finally, no-one mention the word sausages ever again. But I'll explain that tomorrow. Maybe.

sleepy Debs

I'm in London for tonight and tomorrow and really really was gonna write something interesting on here (I've got this whole list of posts in my head, that might one day get written), but after catching up on loads of other blogs I got too sleepy to write anyting much. So instead I'm just gonna test your lung capacity by writing really long sentences, although chances are you won't be reading this out loud so that won't actually apply, and you've probably skipped to the next paragraph by now.

So, what I'm really trying to say is yes I'm alive and blogging, but that hopefully it might be more interesting tomorrow. Also, Kathleen did you spot the photo of me in my Kentwell costume? Cos I know you wanted to see it, but realsied that by putting another post up very soon afterwards it might have got lost down below the bottom of the screen! Hopefully I'll get some more photos taken to put on as well.

Oh, and the reason I came home to London?
Well, there are several, so you can latch onto whichever you feel most appropriate -
1. I forgot to take back the enamel mug I need to complete my costume for Kentwell, so came all this way just to get it.
2. Imogen is away till Saturday and I get lonely on my own in the house. It's just too quiet being stuck in a little village, especially at night, so I like to know there's someone else in the house. I grew up listening to police and fire-engine sirens going off, so how do you expect me to cope with the noise of the countryside (which is pretty much non-existant outside my bedroom, unless the cows have got out of their field and into the orchard behind the house. They did that once, or so my neighbours said, but I missed it cos I was too fast asleep - as I said I'm used to noise) Think I'd better stop going round in circles and get to reason 3.
3. I came to see my Mummy and Daddy, cos you know - I haven't seen them since last weekend, and I'd hate to let them get used to actually having the house to themselves for a change.

I'd say it's probably a mixture of all three. But now I'm off to bed, because, as you may have noticed, I'm just rabbitting on about nothing. And doing it in a very long way. Sorry about that. I won't take offense if you stopped reading halfway through, although you won't know that I won't cos you've already stopped reading...

Hmmm, so much for a short post... I'm gone.

1000 miles

I've officially driven 1000 miles in my new car already. That's a bit scary really, but I guess I do clock up the miles fairly quickly - driving 20 miles to school each day, not to mention trips home to London etc.

Bigs thanks to Bekki for taking the photo of me and putting it on my blog. I find it amusing that the one she put up was actually the one taken just as I decided to leave the kitchen and head into the dining room. I also like the juxta position between Tudor costume and modern technology!

Right, better get back to my chicken. It's the first chicken I've ever boughtand roasted all by myself (I've cooked roast dinners loads at home in London, but never one by myself). Potatoes to peel, carrots to cook, etc (ran out out alliteration ideas there in case you hadn't noticed)

Debs is ready for Kentwell

Debs is ready for Kentwell
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Bekki took lots of pictures, but this one was the best (Or so she says, cos she was the one that actually put this post up, or up till the brackets started, and then it was me adding extra comments. Also see what Bekki wrote about the costume so that I don't have to type it twice. Or actually so I don't have to type it cos she already did. Also, if you've actually clicked on the link you'll see that it takes you to Bekki's knitting blog, not her 'not knitting' blog, if that makes sense.)

Me and HP (I know that's not grammatically correct, but when I put 'HP and I' it looked wrong)

Back on Good Friday in 2005, HP and I were walking down Walthamstow market, having been to a service at St Mary's Church. Outside the library we saw a man taking photos. He came over to us and said he was putting together a collection of '1000 faces of Walthamstow', which was to be photos of people who lived in Walthamstow, and would show the diversity of people in this area.

HP and I agreed to have our photos taken, and here are the results. We are on the website, and you're welcome to browse to see if you can find us. I didn't link directly to those pages as they have our surname on, but I'm not gonna stop you if you want to work it out!

This photo gave me a bit of a shock because it was at the 'my hair is getting long, and I'm using clips to hold my fringe out of my eyes, but I'm not yet tying it back' stage, and I'd forgotten how that looked.

Also featured is my beloved purple fleece top which I've had for almost longer than I can remember, and which the prompted the children I work with to say "Miss P, if you lived in Tudor times you would have had to be rich, otherwise you wouldn't be able to wear your favourite colour"! They've also enjoyed spotting my new car and commenting on its colour :-)

This wasn't actually the post I had in mind when I came on the computer, but as I'm back in London for the afternoon (to pick up a sewing machine to sew my Kentwell costume) I thought I'd better make the most of the photos on this computer while I'm here.

Car insurance claim

GRRRRRRRR GRRRRRRR GRRRRRRRR
GRRRRRRRR GRRRRRRR GRRRRRRRR

Just spoke to them on the phone.
That just about sums it up.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I may be back later if I've vented some of my frustration and calmed down a bit, otherwise I'll probably try posting again tomorrow.

my "mini" adventure (although I don't have a mini, it's a mirca, but same concept)

Micra and Debs drive along the road to the swimming pool.
Debs notices micra has no left headlight.
Debs drives to garage.
Garage does not do headlights, only tyres and stuff like that.
Debs drives to second garage.
Nice garage man fits new bulbs.
Micra and Debs drive home happy.
End of Micra adventure

Ok, so the way I tell it it's a bit longer than the "mini" adventures, but still pretty cool methinks. And saves me having to describe how dreadfully loud the kids were today, and that we had class photos and a staff photo as well. Oh...

Monday. That was the night that...

...I saw a fox cub on my way home from work, helped Imogen figure out how to open the bonnet of her car (the problem was that to start with we didn't put the lever enough, and had to persuade the bonnet to realise it wasn't actually open, so that we could pull it harder the second time), saw a hedgehog, and saved the world.

Ok, so I didn't exactly save the world, but I did watch over the hedgehog until it was safely out of the road and hidden in the bushes, (and then in my dreams last night I think I also had to stand in the middle of the road to make a car stop so it didn't hit the hedgehog, and I think that's kind of like saving the world, or at least saving the hedgehogs world, even if the second time was only in my dreams). It's all getting a bit confusing, but basically whether it happened in reality or not I'm proud of the fact the I got to see the hedgehog (and tell Imogen what it was, cos she said she'd never seen one) and play a part in it's well being.

Come to that, I also didn't run over the fox cub. It was on the other side of the road and looked like it might run in front of my car, so I slowed right down and luckily it actualy ran back the way it had come. But still, it might not have done that if I hadn't slowed down, and personally I see enough dead animals on the roads round here without killing any of my own.

I think Bekki once hit a pheasant (not peasant in case you were worried), but that's another story. Talking of Bekki, she's got an exam today, this afternoon I think, so all the best to her with that. Once that's out of the way she's going to make me a costume. It's quite exciting, hang on, let me see if I can find a useful link...
Here we go - later on this month all of my class at school (the one I work in, rather than my class - as I'm always telling the kids "I've been to school already, so I'm not going to do the work for you") are going to Kentwell. Am I'm really looking forward to it. I'll update you more on the progress of the costume, and the trip itself as and when. I might even post a photo, if I don't look too silly!

I'm eating yoghurt covered oat and cranberry things from M&S, and they're yummy

This weekend has been even hotter than last weekend. Yesterday (Saturday) I went shopping in Cambridge with Imogen, and then we went on to a BBQ at the house of some friends of ours, Sarah and John, who are moving away from Cambridge in July, so this was a sort of goodbye meal. It was a beautiful day, with a breeze to keep the heat down a bit, which was probably part of the problem. Combine that with fairly old sun-cream, and you have an explanation for why certain bits of me are now looking a bit pink (in particular patches on my arms, legs, and my nose). I did put loads of sun-cream on, and re-apply it as well, so the only explanation I have is that it was just too old.

Today Bekki came home with me after church and we cooked some yummy couscous for lunch. Imogen has gone out to lunch with some people from her church. This afternoon Bekki is revising (she’s doing an open university course, and has an exam coming up) and I’ve done a bit of cleaning, and then a great deal of catching up with all my favourite blogs. I haven’t really had a chance to get on the computer this week, what with Imogen needing to plan for school, and also write reports for all the millions of children in her class (although we’re in the same age group class, the classes in my school are significantly smaller than hers, and I don’t envy her one bit!)

Sunday sunshine remembered

(This post was written last Tuesday and saved as a draft, talking about last Sunday, and although I never got round to actually putting it up on my blog till today (Sunday 11th June) it still gets filed under Tuesday's posts, so hope that isn't too confusing.)

On Sunday I went to Girton college (one of the Cambridge colleges) for the very first time. I’ve been past it, but never actually inside the grounds. I was invited to a picnic there by Imogen and her boyfriend (who is studying there at the moment). It was a really lovely afternoon, despite managing to lose the Cambridge ring road on my way there from church (I wasn’t lost, I just refused to let myself turn round. I knew where I was, it just wasn’t ideal for getting to Girton!).

We sat and ate our picnic by a pond in the grounds, and had the treat of watching the ducks, hundreds of fish, and even a terrapin (think that’s spelt right – one of those things that look a bit like a turtle or something). After lunch we had a walk down the road towards Girton village and beyond. It was a beautiful day, and only rained a bit in the evening.

I’m enjoying having my own car again and the freedom to get around as I need to, and especially being back in GC, although I miss the broadband connection to the internet!

car saga continues

I’ve got ‘Moon River’ (at least I’ve always assumed that’s what the words were) and ‘New York New York’ in my head courtesy of my insurance company. I just rang them up regarding the claim on my old car (it’s still not all sorted out) and ended up being put on hold for about forever – well, it was at least 5 songs that I had to listen to before the woman came back. Apparently they’ve mislaid (I’d say lost) my file about the value of my car, so she’s had to re-submit some of the information. She says that someone will get back to me asap. Well I’ll believe that when it happens.

purple purple purple

This is my new car. It's a micra, it's purple, what more can you say.
And, the tax disc even matches. Which is quite clever, because apparantly they are a different colour each month.

We put the deposit down on Tuesday, and then that evening we (me and my mum) decided to head off to Cheltenham to visit her parents for a couple of days. Having ring them at 6 that evening we set off after having some tea and done a bit of packing, and got to their house around 10.30pm. That was quite late I guess, and it was later still when we finally got to bed,
and it meant we got a whole day with them on Wednesday.














Then on Wednesday we went out for a picnic and a drive around lots of pretty countryside, which was really lovely, and we all enjoyed it. I also had my first icecream of the year. Obviously I have already eaten icecream this year, but icecream of the in a little packet, eaten sitting on a bench in the sunshine variety, rather than icecream on top of rhubarb crumble (which is what I'm planning to eat a little later this evening).

On Thursday we went into town and had a mooch. That's such a great word. And after lunch back at their house Mummy and I had to head back home to London. Oh, I forgot, we also got to see my uncle who lives with my Grandma and Grandad, but also also we saw another uncle and aunt and three of their children when they popped in on Tuesday evening.

Then on Thursday evening we had a church social, well it was actually for two of our small groups rather than the whole church. It was at someone's house, and was lots of fun. Everyone brought some food and or drink, and we had a lovely evening munching and chatting, and being entertained by various small children running about, and later some not so small children attempting to play football in the garden in the dark, without hitting any of the smaller children. (That last sentence makes sense to me if no-one else!)

Today I drove up to GC to pick up my insurance documents, and then back to London to go with my mum to pick up my new car. Having got the tax disc all sorted this afternoon I made the most of the broadband and caught up on my blog reading (discovering as a result that a couple of people in my church here in London have just got engaged :-) [to each other, in case you were confused])