Garden practice

I was pondering the other day the fact that every single job I've had since leaving university (thirteen years ago - whaaaaat?!) has been in education. I worked in all three of the Manchester universities, the majority of the schools in north Shropshire, schools in Zambia and now schools in Shropshire. The brilliant thing about this is that, even though I don't necessarily get the long school holidays entirely off, I do get to experience that glorious wind down at the end of July.

The rubbish part of this is that I feel like I'm constantly saying goodbye to people. It's amazing to see young people go off on gap years and to universities and jobs, but it's always a little sad to see them go.

Today we said goodbye to a colleague who is leaving youth work to train to be a vicar and then had our end of year choir social at the Haughton's.

For the second year running, we had the perfect combo of singing around the campfire while the sun set in front of us. But now I stink of smoke.