andyram

And his departure from the King Power may have a lot to do with why Leicester have struggled so much this season whilst Chelsea have massively improved. Small matter of the East Midlands / A52 Derby today. Important to many and crucial in our household. I will be heading off to Pride Park shortly to join the home fans whilst Sarah will stay at home, supporting the other lot, in front of the television. Difficult game to call as both are on winning runs. Derby have struggled to score at times this season but have not conceded many. Forest score loads, but concede plenty. Form goes out of the window in the madness of these games it could be 0-0 or 4-4. Usually there are controversial decisions and the a red card or two. Some fans look forward to these games, but I hate them as there is rarely any quality football and there is an underlying sinister undercurrent amongst the hard core idiots that mix in with the normal fans of both sides. The only game I enjoyed was when we battered them 5-0 a few years ago. A repeat would be fantastic, but I am not confident this morning. Time will tell.

Good evening all and many congratulations to Kelly. That is great news. Thanks to NHN for posting the pictures from today. There looks to be a lot of happy people and both elves seem to be very jolly ladies. Today has been a busy day with Amber's birthday party. It seemed to go well and the young lady loved being centre of attention and had a great time. We followed the party with a meal in the pub with the inlaws and one of Sarah's old school friends. I had hoped to get over to Gresley for the club open day afterwards, but there really was not time. I may make it over tomorrow afternoon, but that rather depends on my mood around 2pm. Tomorrow is the small matter of Derby County v Nottingham Forest - a rather important football match in this part of the world and, considering my wife's allegiance, an extremely important game in this household. One of us will be smiling and holding the bragging rights tomorrow night.

Excellent idea.

Post them anyway!

Track plan seems to progressing well Andy. Hope you are feeling better soon. I was planning to venture over to the open day this afternoon, but the youngster's birthday party ran later than expected. I may make it over tomorrow afternoon, depending on what mood I am in around 2pm when the Derby v Forest game has finished.

That sounds like a situation that calls for serious lubrication!

You both seem to think I have a thing for student teachers. I also believe in model railways for Christmas.

That was our though. Real ale supped at home from empty mulled wine bottles.

Interviews are next Friday!

That is close. Recovering after post Christmas Fayre real ales.

Evening all. The end of a long week has been reached in a slightly squiffy state. We purchased a keg of ale to sell at the Christmas Fayre, but only 3 of the 36 pints were sold. This means quite a hole in the profit. However a few of the staff decided good ale should not go to waste and so, after consuming a small amount, the rest was decanted into any sealed container possible for home consumption. I reckon I have now had at least four pints that were brought home in empty mulled wine bottles. Still I am celebrating.....,but sadly it is not celebrating being shortlisted. Instead it is a celebration of winning first prize in the raffle, amounting to a huge hamper of festive goodies which should help boost our festive celebrations. In terms of the job...silence! On the subject of silence I am a little concerned by chrisf's silence since his appointment. I do hope he is ok.

Evening all. I hope today finds you well. Best wishes to those who are ailing and to those facing medical appointments. Here another day has lurched by. No real problems at work today, although I have a feeling of some appearing around the corner. At this time of year the timetable gets forgotten about and other stuff takes over. Not what someone who is supposed to be "improving" needs. One of the teachers toured the school looking at books today and took my Maths books away. Typically they will be the ones which have unfinished work in them...I am waiting for the latest bomb to go off! At home Sarah's supportive nature has wained somewhat. It is back to criticism of not helping enough around the house again. The argument that I have just spent all afternoon and three hours in the evening on paperwork for school does not cut any ice. I am back to being the world's worst husband again. As for the application...interviews are the end of next week so I would expect to hear soon if I have made it that far. Enjoy your Friday. I hope for you it will be a POETS day. Not for us though. A 7am start at school will be followed by a 8pm finish due to the school's Christmas Fayre in the evening.

Does that mean your Christmas presents are easy to open?

That Wickham Trolley looks a fine piece of kit.

Especially if sung by an X Factor winner

I think the boss overheard her rant but left me to deal with it. After all it is part of my current role and the teaching assistant was moaning that I had not told her about changes of arrangement for today. The fact is, I had told her - in fact I had told her twice!

So the deed is done. I completed the email this morning, attached the form and the supporting letter and sat debating whether to click send. Then one of the TA's decided to have a rant at me and I duely pressed the button! Thanks for the good wishes I will update when I have more news. Returning to all matters ER I have been a little guilty of skim reading at times. I have been aware of some bad news for some and would like to pass on my condolences and good wishes as appropriate.

Application form written, just one date to check. Letter completed. All will be emailed off in the morning.

Morning awl. Greetings, congrats and commiserations as appropriate. Thoughts to Chris. I hope the appointment later this week goes well. So last night's plan was to complete as much of the application as I can but sadly things did not progress as well as I had hoped. After leaving work soon after the end of the day to pick the girls up from swimming, I helped Amber finish trimming the tree. As I mentioned last night I seemed to be on a very short fuse after another trying day. Then, as Sarah got Amber ready for bed, I nipped out to collect some outstanding Avon books for Sarah. It should have been a quick job but I stopped off at my parent's to pick up my file of qualification certificates and could not get away. The result was I only managed to complete the rest of the form, but have not touched the application letter yet. That means I will have to do that all this evening if I am going to meet tomorrow's closing date. Considering the length of such a letter, and the need to match to the job and person specs, it is not a quick job. Pressure is on! Late start this morning as I have been given release time to go and see Amber in her school play. For some reason her school are not doing an evening performance. Fortunately my current school have been understanding on this matter. Have a good day.

Really sounds like an odd trio. What films have you been watching?

Evening awl. Just taking a few minutes at the end of another very testing day. I was all geared up for the team teaching session this morning only to arrive to find out the head had triple booked himself and had cancelled the session. Other dramas involving support staff meant that, despite rushing around like the fly with cold bum, I was barely ready for the session. It did seem to go well though. The rest of the day has remained a rush. During part of the morning I met the head to discuss "pupil progress". This is a standard meeting, but it gave me a chance to discuss my plans. I think the head was surprised, but did admit he would support my application whilst stating he did not want me to leave. I have been promised a reference. Tonight the doubts have set in a little, especially knowing how much I have to do on the application before tomorrow night. But the fact that I am "flying off the handle" at Amber over the small matter of trimming the tree shows how stressed I have become! If nothing else that should convince me I am attempting to do the right thing. Anyway on more important matters my best wishes go to Aditi. I hope things are ok.

Evening all. A very thoughtful weekend has come to an end and I am now contemplating / but slightly dreading going into work tomorrow. The first team teaching session beckons first thing, apparently needed because I am so carp these days. I cannot say it is something I am looking forward to. This afternoon I received an email from the head at the possible new school, informing me to apply anyway despite my lack of experience with the older age group. All weekend I have started to think through possible interview question answers. This may be jumping ahead at this point - but thinking this through has started to make me believe I could do the job. The result - I have started to fill out the application form this evening. Still quite a bit to do before the Wednesday deadline. Hopefully I can least complete a passable application in such a short space of time.

After that there was a pelican and a puffin.

Morning awl. Once again many thanks for the advice and kind messages. Yesterday proved to be a quiet day. With Sarah and Amber staying over at her mum's post Forest match I was able to benefit from a good, and much needed, lie in. Then it was off to Cromford to visit the Hornby outlet at Masson Mill in order to return the Hornby locomotive I purchased last weekend. I thought I had picked up a bargain during their whole store 20% off sale - a weathered Thompson O1 already reduced to £90, became £72 with the additional discount. I had not gone to buy a loco but could not resist. When I arrived home I opened the box to find the box contained a weathered Churchwood 28xx instead. It was still a great looking model, but not what I purchased so it got returned and they refunded my money with no questions asked. They have promised to contact me should they receive another weathered 01. I had a relaxing festive roast turkey dinner in their resturant before picking the girls up. We came home with a loaded car, full of some of Sarah's old "junk" that she has cleared out of her mum's prior to their house move next weekend. It contained bags of soft toys and more folders containing her collection of pin badges. I am not sure where we will be able to store them. In the evening Sarah was out with the playgroup committee. Perhaps I should have spent the evening marking the pile of books I had bought home from school. Somehow I could not find the motivation to do so. Instead I downed a couple of bottles of strong, dark ages in front of the television. A Facebook friend of mine had told me that he had found the old BBC series "The Train Now Departing" on IPlayer. I had enjoyed this series in the past and have long wanted to see it again so I searched it out and enjoyed the episode about the Fort William to Mallaig steam service. I would have watched more, but I spent 40 minutes on the phone talking to an old colleague of mine. She retired a couple of years ago and filled me in on a few more negative aspects about the current school management. These were things I did not know and she also encouraged me to apply for the deputy headship post. As a previous mentor to me during my training, and a valued colleague and friend for over 15 years she reminded of how she, and many other people rate my teaching ability. I think she is under the impression it is "my turn" to be forced out. She felt that she was driven to retirement a year after the new head arrived and since then three other staff members have left with two facing similar circumstances to myself. The evening also saw a nice chat over Facebook with my old school mate. Our lives have rather taken different directions in recent years. He has struggled with depression and anxiety for many years. The loss of his dad last year has added to those problems and now he struggles to leave the house. When he does venture out he struggles to walk far due to arthritis in his left knee. This problem first appeared in his late teens and early twenties and prevented him from pursuing a career as a professional footballer. He had trials at Aston Villa and Derby County. He was due to have trials at West Brom, but a coach there detected his problem as he was warming up before the trial. He was also watched by a Nottingham Forest scout a couple of years later during a game we both played in. He scored a wonder goal that day, but nothing ever came of it. The chat last night was enjoyable. We have promised to catch up over the Christmas holidays and I will make the effort to go round to his flat. He also advised me to apply for the new job. Anyway time to go and make the little ones breakfast. Have a good day.

Of course it could have escaped.