In the words of Roland Keating...

The assembly theme in the school I work in was 'say something that you don't mean to someone.'  I think that was it, anyway.  It could have been 'say something mean to someone,' but that seems unlikely. Like one of the worst kind of children that teachers are faced with I'm not always listening.  I'm there in body but my mind is elsewhere.  I'm still spending all day dreaming about going home to sit in my knitting nest or walk along the sea wall. I heard the teacher explain that if you went up to someone and told them that you didn't like their shoes then that would be mean, so it would be much better to go up and say, "I think your shoes are really nice."  She said that they should practise saying nice things to people to make them smile.

As the children left the assembly one looked at me and said, "Miss, I really like your make up, it makes you look like a......" her voice faded into the distance as the line trouped past back to their classroom.
Prostitute, drag queen, adult, clown, doll, different person, man and model were some of the suggestions my colleagues came up with in the staff room.  I'm not sure that this making an effort thing, so that people don't notice how totally crap I'm feeling, is actually working.

I'm being totally rubbish at work at the moment. I don't think the children have noticed, or if they have they are keeping quiet because they like playing singing games and bashing instruments in a random way.  It's caused by a mixture of grief, menopause, post-Ofsted slump (a recognised phenomenon for all teachers) and the summer term. If I had the energy then I'd feel guilty about it.

Who am I kidding? I do feel guilty about it. So guilty that I confessed my lack of interest in my job. You see, my problem is that I've always been too honest (except when writing). My headteacher said, "In the words of Roland Keating, it's OK to coast." I think that's what he said, anyway because I wasn't properly listening: my mind had wandered back to the knitting nest and was contemplating whether to unpick the sleeves that I'd sewn on upside down or just leave them as an interesting talking point. There definitely followed a conversation about rollercoasters and how they make me sick and as I was wondering who Roland was he said, "I'm expecting to read about this in your blog."
Whatever the conversation had been about it had cheered me up enormously.  I thought that maybe he had been following the theme of the assembly and had said something he didn't really mean to make me smile but it was the nicest thing anyone has said to me in the last few months and I have taken him at his word, spending as much time coasting as possible.

The dog is very keen on all this coasting.

Coasting along the edge of the world

Knitting nest waiting for my return