Saturday, August 20, 2005
How hard can it be?
Wash your minds out! Flower arranging, I mean. (See previous posts). Well, it's giving me sleepless nights at the moment.
Get a life, I hear you cry. Well, I'm on holiday, so no work to stress over, so might as well stress over something else.
I volunteered to 'help out' our Flower Club as they decorate Sledmere House for charity this August bank holiday. By helping out, I meant grunt work: passing secateurs, trimming foliage, showing appreciation, that sort of thing.
Then I get the letter - "Thank you for offering to help. Your task (and you can't refuse it) is 2 arrangements, quite tall (I'll get on to that later), green and white, flanking the main staircase. Budget £45." OMG.
"Don't worry" I was told by our 'designer', "you have some good ideas". Well, thanks. But she's basing that on my being able to copy what she does, and arrange some items, pre-chosen by someone else, into a vaguely interesting arrangement, approximating what she has already done. When you have no direction, other than "quite tall, contemporary", its quite daunting. Like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Where to begin? Flying Saucers? Black Jacks?
So, how hard can it be? 6 days and counting. 10 trial runs so far. The flowers are the easy bit - you can't get much for £45 these days. The mechanics are harder (thats how you get it all to stay together, for the uninitiated). My mechanics include: 2 x 3' rectangular stand, 4 x cardboard tubes 2' high, painted black, 2 x piece garden mesh, bent into semi-circle, black grasses, bright green sizal, white twigs. Sounds good, eh?
More later. Somehow I don't think I will be giving up the day job.
Get a life, I hear you cry. Well, I'm on holiday, so no work to stress over, so might as well stress over something else.
I volunteered to 'help out' our Flower Club as they decorate Sledmere House for charity this August bank holiday. By helping out, I meant grunt work: passing secateurs, trimming foliage, showing appreciation, that sort of thing.
Then I get the letter - "Thank you for offering to help. Your task (and you can't refuse it) is 2 arrangements, quite tall (I'll get on to that later), green and white, flanking the main staircase. Budget £45." OMG.
"Don't worry" I was told by our 'designer', "you have some good ideas". Well, thanks. But she's basing that on my being able to copy what she does, and arrange some items, pre-chosen by someone else, into a vaguely interesting arrangement, approximating what she has already done. When you have no direction, other than "quite tall, contemporary", its quite daunting. Like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Where to begin? Flying Saucers? Black Jacks?
So, how hard can it be? 6 days and counting. 10 trial runs so far. The flowers are the easy bit - you can't get much for £45 these days. The mechanics are harder (thats how you get it all to stay together, for the uninitiated). My mechanics include: 2 x 3' rectangular stand, 4 x cardboard tubes 2' high, painted black, 2 x piece garden mesh, bent into semi-circle, black grasses, bright green sizal, white twigs. Sounds good, eh?
More later. Somehow I don't think I will be giving up the day job.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
We won!
The pub quiz, that is. We go every other week, with another couple, and frequently end up the bridesmaids, hardly ever the bride. Actually, winning is only part of it. Once you've won it, you still have the tricky question of which whisky tube to choose from the three on offer. Contents: £10 free drinks, 1 bottle of wine, 1 packet of crisps of your choice. But this week we triumphed on all counts, including a tie-break. So, most points, nearest answer in the tie-break AND the top prize. Lovely Jerry, the owner, even endorsed the docket so that we can redeem in a fortnight, our next scheduled outing. Whoopee!
In true, fun-loving, non-stressful competitive style, the quiz is actually very egalitarian. We won a prize on our first visit, over a year ago, even though we didn't actually win. If you get my drift. To make it clearer - top scoring team gets to choose a tube first, then second-to-last team chooses, and then a random, out-of-the-hat team gets whats left. Which could be first prize. Or last. So you could win, and not win. You could be second-to-last (nice touch that) and win. You could just waltz in for a beer, answer a few questions and be pulled out of the hat. We like the randomness of it. But we always want to win!
Its a lovely pub. You must visit sometime. We feel like locals. We get recognised when we go in, even though it's at two-weekly intervals. Now, thats good bar-keeping!
The tie-breaker? How long can a beaver hold its breath? Answer later.
In true, fun-loving, non-stressful competitive style, the quiz is actually very egalitarian. We won a prize on our first visit, over a year ago, even though we didn't actually win. If you get my drift. To make it clearer - top scoring team gets to choose a tube first, then second-to-last team chooses, and then a random, out-of-the-hat team gets whats left. Which could be first prize. Or last. So you could win, and not win. You could be second-to-last (nice touch that) and win. You could just waltz in for a beer, answer a few questions and be pulled out of the hat. We like the randomness of it. But we always want to win!
Its a lovely pub. You must visit sometime. We feel like locals. We get recognised when we go in, even though it's at two-weekly intervals. Now, thats good bar-keeping!
The tie-breaker? How long can a beaver hold its breath? Answer later.
Monday, August 01, 2005
Bored!!!
1 week down, 5 to go. The kids are bored already. Having to prise them off the computer and referee endless arguments about who's turn it is next. I think I want to go back to school. Oh, that's right, I am, tomorrow. We're having a revamp in our main teaching room, and guess who gets to do all the heavy lifting of filing cabinets, bookcases etc? That's right. Well, if you want a job doing right at school do it yourself. This will be the first time I have ever gone into school in the holidays in my teaching career. Committed, hey?
