Shoe Leather and Snow

Thursday was the longest day of the year so far. It started at 2am and went on until nearly midnight. I taught 6 lessons, then stayed for a parents' evening. The last appointment was meant to be at 18.50, but I was still there at 19.45. By the last appointment I could hear myself begin to say things to the parents, then drift off, whilst they were still looking at me expectantly. I made Nick talk to me on the phone the whole way home to stop me falling asleep at the wheel. It takes getting on for an hour, so it's not funny.

Friday, I was still black under the eyes. I caught a train to Birmingham and signed up with a number of agencies. I trudged round a whole load more that claimed not to do the sort of thing I was looking for. In fact I'm not sure the ones I did sign with do the sort of thing I'm looking for either, but I've got to start somewhere. My feet hurt afterwards, and I'm sure I wore away the soles of my shoes with all the walking.

By Saturday I was just feeling jet-lagged. I didn't go to the gym like usual, I just sat and watched the kids swimming lessons. In the afternoon I filled in three application forms for jobs I probably wont get. Two of them wanted Chemistry teachers, rather than Biologists (my speciality). It's still worth filling them in in case they can't get a Chemist. Then they'll interview any scientist available. The other one was a state-maintained boarding school, which means it would be full of lovely polite kids and would expect me to work about 20 hours a day. To be fair, this isn't too far off what I'm doing now, but without the feeling of job satisfaction!

So, today, I am still shattered, but I feel like I have achieved something. Nick says only 5% of any effort is worth it, but the trouble is: you never know which 5%. Never a truer word!

I skipped the usual Sunday swim too, and just watched Saskia's swimming lessons. Then we popped into Mum's to see how she's doing. Uncle Mikey (my brother) was pruning the apple trees. Saskia did a Mr Men jigsaw.

We came home and I crawled back into bed, where I managed to stay all afternoon. I finished my book on climbing Mt Kennedy in Alaska, and wrote 4 letters. Donny joined me and wrote to her penpal too. Saskia joined me and went to sleep. Eartha joined me and wrote a letter to the Snow Fairy, which she was planning to put outside this evening.

We have been threatened with snow by the Met Office. It is supposed to dump tons of the stuff all over Britain over the next two days. I just hope it dumps enough so I don't have to drive all that way through it tomorrow morning. So far we have just had a few flakes dancing in the breeze, like midges on a summer's evening. Nothing is sticking.

Meanwhile Nick has been wheezing because he ran out of asthma medication. His repeat prescription wont be ready until Tuesday, so he finally made the executive decision to go off to the hospital and get some emergency treatment. He drove himself there, and has just come back (2 hours later) looking and sounding much happier. They put him on a nebuliser and pumped him full of exciting drugs, which are making him shake, but at least he can breathe properly again now.