Happy Birthday Grandma!

Gma and Gpa arrived home from Austria late on Saturday -

After church on Sunday - we celebrated Gma's birthday at the Toby Carvery

With balloons! (ok - one balloon) and cake!

At Kelly's Wedding

The  years I worked with Kelly in Year one were marvelous - 

I loved nurturing her fantastic teaching  ability - 

and feel more than a bit of maternal pride in how she has grown.

Megs and I were so happy to be at her wedding to Nick - 

a beautiful day that was just so perfectly Kelly!

The start of Summer - Sunday

The end of a lovely, quiet weekend -

More crepes, more pokemon hunting -

But today with added seagulls!

Home at 7 o'clock - but we're back in a fortnight!

The start of Summer - Saturday

Al spent the morning at the RSPB reserve - 

while Meg and I  went to Llandudno to buy her new glasses 

{there was a glasses breaking, horseplay related incident on Friday evening}

The afternoon brought more crepes -

 a walk along the prom

and more pokemon hunting!

The start of Summer - Friday

The first  day of the Summer holidays - Megs, Ben and myself went out the caravan on Friday morning -

Al joined us after work.

We had a quiet day - with Ben reacquainting himself with his favourite strawberry ice cream and nutella crepes....

.... then after tea we chased the sunset  -

(and pokemon)

up the Orme and over to West Shore

When it's all worthwhile

Another year over - and teaching is getting harder and harder.

I am utterly fed up of  seeing good teachers made ill -

 even driven to break downs by the pressure.

I see children and young people stressed as never before -

many of Megs friends were crying in exams - or even overcome by panic attacks.

I am disgusted by the ever increasing politicisation of our education system -

of curriculums chopping and changing on a politicians whim -

nothing properly trialed -

nothing properly resourced.

But then - I get a letter of heartfelt thanks from  a parent - 

and it makes it all worthwhile - 

for a time longer at least.

Last Day of Year 10

Only one more year of High School left....

Romeo..... Juliet..... and Katherine!

We booked our tickets for Romeo and Juliet at the Garrick over a year ago -

once we realised that Ben would be doing this play for GCSE -

 we added a ticket  for him too

{I thought it would be a challenge for him -

 but that he would gain such a lot from seeing a live performance that it was worth the effort}

We traveled down on the Friday night - staying over a the PremierInn in Stratford -

On the Saturday morning we met up with Jonathan, Karen and Katheine - 

plus Gma and Gpa who were also down for the weekend.

{Checking the shelves in Foyles - Ben's iPod was last seen here in 2012!}

We spent a lovely {and surprisingly hot} morning at the Queen Elizabeth Park -

nearly 4 years to the day since  we were there for London 2012 -

Kathie enjoyed the water feature and the play ground -

the adults enjoyed chatting - 

and we all enjoyed ice creams!

We tubed to Leceister Square after a lunch in Westfield  -

ready for Romeo and Juliet.

(There were more than  a few cast changes - which was disappointing -

it was a good production - cool and stylish - 

but we were left with a feeling of having missed the best performances.)

Ben coped ok - hopefully it'll help him next year.

{We'll have to wait for Harry Potter - our tickets are for December!}

Then it was tea at Steak & Co -

and the train home

{Ben had an Explorer movie all-0nighter to get to!}