Shortly before

the fun turned into an injury.

Corin used some copper pipe to blow foam 'nerf' bullets around, in the style of a glorified blowdart. The nerf bullets have a hard plastic tip on the end.

Then James joined in.

I was sat in the front room, with the door open to the garden and I started to get bombarded by nerf bullets. I started taking photos.

I should have been worried when the two of them started improving their accuracy and hitting the camera directly.

So, when I went outside to join in and was loading my copper pipe up, Corin bent over and shot a pellet at me (he was effectively upside down looking back through his own legs) and it got me just under my left eye.

Let me tell you, it bloody well hurt. I really screamed, and for a brief moment genuinely believed that I might well have been seriously damaged. After a couple of minutes, when my eye would open and it stopped watering, I was relieved to find I had a lucky escape. I have iced it and I think have avoided bruising, although there is a little bit, my eye is bloodshot and it's a bit 'puffy'. It's still sore.

So, lessons to be learned:
My husband is a crack shot with a dart gun
When playing stupid games with my son and my husband I should wear safety equipment including goggles and a hard hart.

In other news....mixed feelings about GCSE results. I won't go into it in specific detail, but suffice to say, we have been affected by the problem being described in the press, and for anyone who doesn't believe it is a real problem, I strongly beg to differ. I feel very sorry for students who have been playing on one playing field and found that when it came to score the final goal, the posts had moved to another field. I, and my fellow colleagues, can take the inevitable fallout that it will create - we will continue to work our backsides off and do our very best for our students, regardless of what the external agencies say and what decisions are made on our behalf. But really, the people who really lose out here are the students and I feel for them so much.

Teaching is not 'just a job' - good teachers, my colleagues, feel every bump in the road, they go through the torment, the pain barriers, and when it results in well earned success, we are often too quick to move on and not recognise the achievements of our students, and ourselves. When the bump in the road stops us dead, we can't help but despair for the students that we have tried so hard for and the inevitable 'post mortem' will be drawn out and cause a great deal of angst.

We have had significant successes as well and it will be important for these not to be lost in the fallout ...

My biggest regret today - I was so tied up in chasing possible reasons, following the developing news, that I didn't get to speak to any of my students - in 17 years, that is the first results day where I have failed to speak to the students personally. That hurts like hell.

It's been a tough day.

(I did manage to have a tooth drilled and filled without pain relief this afternoon though...I think I was just numb all over!)