You won't find any political correctness here, oh no!

But you won't find any nastiness either, I hope.  I am such a bad blogger; I'm very easily distracted.  I keep thinking of things for the blog, but I've been working hard on the novel and it's been such a busy summer and blah blah BLAH!

This blog is going to be a bit random.

When you go back to work after a period of absence there's always this little interchange:
-Hi, good holiday?
-Great, thanks. You?
-Lovely, thanks.
-What did you do?  (Said whilst parking in chair and starting to clear bottom desk drawer of rotten apples, cheese flavoured polystyrene snacks, mould growths.)
-We spent six weeks on an Argentinian cattle ranch castrating bullocks.
-Great.  We had a caravan in Cromer for three days.
Lovely
(Pause)
-Students look stroppy this year.
-Yeah.  And there's a load of new paperwork.
And then we settle contendedly into mild grumbling.

It's probably exacerbated for teachers as those of us who are paid term-time only are away for such a long time. 

The girls and I went to Anglesey for a week this summer.  People in Anglesey are very nice.  I made a lovely friend in the doctors' surgery where Olivia and I were having emergency treatment for matching ear infections.  One day the lovely beach was invaded by the population of Liverpool which arrived in groups of no fewer than 8.  The women were a strange orange colour with high peep toe sandals and black hair  and they guys were very bare and red.  One group lined up very close to our beach towels and pointed themselves at the sun, even though this meant turning their backs on the beautiful sea and their drowning children (Destiny, Paige and Tyler) and facing the road.  They were also facing us, which was disconcerting.  I found this very amusing and told the girls that I was going to sing a few songs and pass my sunhat round but they forbade me from doing any such thing.  Our lovely holiday cottage featured a fountain with pink and purple lights, gnomes, plaster hedgehogs and flamingoes. 

Interesting about names.  That Katie woman who was on The Apprentice has been getting into trouble for stating that you can judge class and parenting style from children's names.  She is hilarious.  I was reminded of her yesterday in church when I noticed that the three children up for baptism were Harrison, Tyler and Skylar.  If I were the vicar I would take Skylar's parents to one side before the service and have a chat with them....
'Seriously guys, are you really going to burden your lovely little girl with a name like Skylar?'
'We love it, vic, it's really unusual.'
'Yes.  It is.  She's going to spend her whole life having to spell it out, and being called "Skylark".  Or worse.'
'Well, OK.  We could change it to Shaneesha.'
'Bless you.  Handkerchief?'
'Or Looseee Mae Leee.  We liked that.  Or Shardonneigh.'
'Er, I'm begining to warm to Skylar...'

I hope I haven't offended anyone today....