Light and shade

I know it's not in focus, but the shadows on the petal will remind me that it was sunny this afternoon, a bit. Bitterly cold day though, and the starry sky night makes me glad my plants are still wrapped up in their winter fleeces (and to think on Monday I was going to take plants out of the cold frame for fear they would boil in there).

Usual Thursday morning rush to get everything sorted for my classes with the little kids, though made easier by a decision to use The Simpsons in my lesson on 'The Family'. It certainly cheered up the crying boy, since he turned out to be a bit of an expert on the show.

With all that out of the way, a bit of financial admin with Mr B which may have bought us a welcome breathing space in a tricky procedure to exit our dealings with one of the Banks we all love to hate. Then on to the lunch-time class with the older kids. Last lesson one of the boys quietly and politely requested that we do an AC/DC song. Since all the other kids were just screaming and shouting out ideas, he won. So I translated Back in Black and the kids thrashed air guitars around the room and largely ignored the words. Having taken CarbBoy's super-loud ipod player in instead of my very quiet one, I was able to turn the volume to 11....

Unfortunately I didn't keep a very close eye on time, and the Headmistress (whose classroom we use) arrived just as half the class were standing on chairs headbanging and the remainder were spinning on their backs with various classroom equipment being used as guitars. Hmmm. She didn't look altogether happy and told me that I really have to tell her if things are getting out of hand and she'll stop those kids coming to my sessions. (Of course I actually think it's great - they learn a few phrases, hear some new music, and get a 'fun' impression of learning English.) Perhaps the teacher had other issues on her mind, as our school I found out this evening is to be part of a national survey into levels of foreign language teaching...

Later still, Mr B and I finally, finally, finally managed to file our company tax return which seems to have been made so fiendishly difficult that I'm honestly surprised any companies have time for doing business.

Ah well. Duck and chips for tea, and as usual it feels like the start of the weekend already.