Lie In

I woke up and didn’t go for a run and went back to sleep. I got out of bed at six o’ clock. I had a shower. I went downstairs to look at the washing, but it didn’t seem quite dry, so I went back upstairs and tried to put on my purple shirt. My purple shirt has been lying on the floor all weekend, so it was really crumpled. This would have necessitated ironing the shirt before going to work in it. I didn’t want to do any ironing so I put on my tracksuit bottoms.

Now all I had to do was find a t-shirt with an adidas logo. I have three t-shirts with adidas logos that I have purchased for wearing to school on p.e. days. I found all three at the bottom of the red washing basket in the kitchen.

I decided not to wear any of these dirty and stinky shirts. Instead I found a big green t-shirt and wore that. I put on my yellow adidas track suit top to wear with it and relaxed about what I would wear to school. There was no need to worry about what I was going to wear, because I was wearing it. All except my trainers, but I knew that I would be wearing them, so I wasn’t tense about that.



I then had to decide what to eat. I should have eaten a bowl of porridge with an apple. Instead I ate 5 pieces of toast with margarine and marmite and red Leicester cheese.

Then I put some lentil and tomato soup in a transparent blue plastic box and walked out of the door with my keys in my hand.



I got into the car, which smells of dog and magic tree and another really horrible air freshener which was hanging on the air vent when we purchased the car.



The new car no longer has loads of dog hair all over it, because I spent 3 hours vacuuming it at the weekend and then drove up and down with all the windows open on Sunday morning from 7 o’ clock until 9 o’ clock.

That was great fun because the usually locked up Cambridge roads were totally empty which meant I could drive around really fast until I set off a speed camera. I am already on 8 points. Maybe I can get an ASBO?

It still smells of dog despite the ASBO so this morning I drove to my local supermarket to buy some febreeze. I got the idea of buying febreeze off my friend Julie. I said to her “Julie, you’ve got dogs, how do I get rid of the smell of dogs?” and she instantly said “Febreeze” in the tone of somebody who knows all about getting rid of the smell of dogs.

I waited until the supermarket opened and ran in and got Febreeze and ran out and sprayed it all over my car and opened the windows and drove to school and froze gently.



I walked into my classroom, placed my lentil soup on my desk and spoke to my trim trail team teacher about what we would teach today. We decided that after play we would go into the hall to run through the Christmas play.



I then went to myself a cup of coffee. My cafetiere was on my desk so I had a cup of chamomile tea instead.



I was slightly excited that Ollie has got the loudhailer sorted. We now have a loudhailer that we can wear around our heads Madonna / Gym Class Leader style to shout at the kids with during P.E. lessons, and Ollie was using it to usher the children in like a goatherd.

He has only purchased value batteries for it though, so it’ll only work for 5 minutes and then it’ll get put into a cupboard along with the megaphone and only get dug out for sports day.

The children file in. I read out their names in the register and only mark one absent child in. Luckily there is a note in the register telling me that she is absent, so I turn a / into an O and then send the register back, neglecting to write a note to say that one of the children in my class is absent and that his house should be phoned in case he has been abducted.



Later on my Teaching Assistant asks me where that child is and I tell her to go to the office and tell them that he’s not at school and she comes back and tells me that he is not at school because he has had an asthma attack. Phew.



After the register I tell the class all about Samuel’s heart operation, and we discuss how he is great now, totally back to normal, but how we’ve got to all look out for him in the playground and tell an adult if his lips go blue or if he gets breathless. The I send him around the school with the aforementioned teaching assistant to spread the message re: blue lips and breathlessness.

We have an interesting assembly where the Head makes us all laugh by postulating the idea that chimpanzee’s might say “after you” in posh accents.

After assembly I discuss the nativity play with my class. We then split for Literacy where we try to learn the difference between fiction and non-fiction books by looking at lots of books and making piles of fiction and non-fiction books, then looking at all the non-fiction books and listing the common features in small groups, then coming together as a whole class and mind mapping the common features of a non-fiction book. I try to take photos of the children as they are doing their book analysis but I have left my compact flash card at home. These are seven year olds.



After playtime where take Mick out to look at my new car and smell the dog and discuss Febreeze and then squeeze in a cup of coffee we go into the hall and ask the children to run through the Christmas play for the first time. It is hair pullingly frustrating but my trim trail team teacher does a lot of caring and sharing and I do some crowd control.

I take one child out to the playground and make him really shout at me over and over again until I have proved that he can shout. I then get him to stand on the other side of the playground and shout at me. Once he has done this and I am happy with the volume of his shouting I ask him to accompany me back to the hall and tell him that this is what I expect of his performance.

We return to the classroom for 5 minutes of the most boring game in the world called heads down thumbs up – type it into google if you want to know more. I tell the children that they are last into lunch, they groan and then I send them out.



I eat my lentil soup. One person says “that smells like porridge.” One person says “that looks nice,” One person says “that one’s not home made,” – the same person says “looks nice, tastes disgusting,” another person says “that looks nice David, what is it?”



We then discuss fireworks and getting hurt and safety and battery reared children and playing out for the rest of lunchtime. The head teacher brings in a cup of my tea which has gone really mouldy and tries to make me look at it, but I refuse. It has been in the library for at least 2 months now, and I can imagine what it looks like. He is disgusted with me.



I go outside to show Ollie my new car but don’t show him the smell of dog. He then uses his new loudhailer Madonna mic to call the children in from lunch again, and tells us all how cool it is. I call him names and then take the children in.



In the afternoon we do some reading, then look at pictures of children putting forks into plug sockets and discuss whether this is a good thing or not. The children then write explanations of why this is unsafe in their books.



Finally I read George’s Marvellous Medicine for half an hour, staring at the clock every thirty seconds.



At three o’ clock the head teacher hands me today’s complaining email from a parent who is unhappy with me for telling her child off. I check it out, hand it back to the head, say something to him about it which I’m not going to share with you all here, then run off to my car.

I open up the car door and am disgusted. It now smells of Dog, Air Freshener and Febreeze. I drive home with the windows open until my ears get all cold.