Snow!

I wouldn't have thought it possible to snow in October, but last night at around 11pm, just as we were getting ready for bed, Will told me to look out the window. Sure enough it was snowing! A little bit stuck & was still around this morning.

Update: I've just heard on the news that this is the first time it has snowed in the London area in October since 1934!

Half-term -Harvest Time

With the first frost of the season forecast for tomorrow, Will & I decided to harvest the last of the produce from our vege garden. It looks like we'll be eating a LOT of pumpkin soup! I may even carve one of the pumpkins for Halloween. All we have left in the garden now are some runner beans which we are letting go to seed to use for next year.

My last week of school passed in a blur. It was lovely having Jon stay on Thursday & Friday night. I hadn't seen him since Will & I spent Christmas with him & his wife at their house in Canada.

I don't have a huge amount planned for my week off. I was supposed to go walking in Devon for a few days with my friend Nicola, but had to cancel due to my injured knee. It is making progress, but I still don't have full range of movement yet. My physio thinks that I should have better movement after 3 weeks if it is just ligament damage as initially diagnosed. She is now wondering whether I have damaged the meniscus. I'll do loads of re-hab work over the week, already I'm noticing a big improvement from doing some exercises in the hydrotherapy pool at the gym. Aside from that, I have loads of school reports to write. They are due a couple of weeks after I get back but the more I knock off this week the better.

Will is working late tonight, he has been asked to chair the Cafe Scientifique evening at a pub near the university. Tonight the speaker is one of his colleagues who has created the worlds first robot controlled by a biological brain. If you're interested in a bit more information the link is:

http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/Events/Event17802.asp

1 week till half-term...

This week has also vanished without a trace. During the week Will & I managed to book a very cute little cottage for 4 nights from December 15th. We are staying in the UK & having Christmas with his family this year, so we thought a few days away together before Christmas would be nice. The cottage we chose is an old converted dairy a few miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. It looks very quaint & cosy. There is a pub a few hundred yards away which was also a deciding factor in choosing this particular property! This weekend was very busy. On Friday night a large group from school had a good night at the pub. We stayed until closing, & then somehow the decision was made to carry on at our place.

After quite a few more drinks & a bit of poker we managed to get the place to ourselves at 3:30am! I did feel a bit guilty in the morning, & baked some blueberry muffins as a peace offering for our upstairs neighbours (certain drunk art & textiles teachers, & South Africans with big booming voices make quite a lot of noise!). Claire is very cool though, & said it was no problem. In fact her partner was out on a bender of his own & didn't get home until after we had finished.

Saturday was understandably quiet... I did a lot of mooching around the house & watched a bit of rugby on the box. It was another Heineken cup weekend, meaning 5 back to back rugby games! That evening we had a 40th birthday party for one of Will's friends. We didn't stay late, & I decided to drive, so wasn't drinking.

Today we had a lovely day at Will's parents place. We arrived for lunch -a very English meal of toad-in-the-hole with beans & potatoes from their garden. Will then went off to his korfball matches which he was refereeing in Oxford, & I stayed with his parents & we watched some more rugby, followed by Andy Murry's victory in the Madrid masters tennis. I also got some marking done, as well as making a start on the Sunday paper. Will arrived back a few hours later & we also stayed for dinner. It was a really nice relaxed day.

This week is busy. Tomorrow night I have an 'all you can eat' Chinese meal with the 6th form international students from school. It's at a Chinese restaurant just down the road which does amazing food. Tuesday night I'm on duty in the boarding house, then Wednesday night I'll go to rugby training for the first time since injuring my knee. I'm not expecting to be able to do much, maybe just a bit of light jogging & a few handling skills if I'm lucky. On Thursday night my friend Jon is visiting for two nights. His Scottish school has half-term one week earlier than mine, & he is visiting family in Wales. He decided he might as well pay us a visit as well as he doesn't get down this way very often. Then it's my turn for one week of holiday. Bring it on!!!

2 weeks until half-term!

Well, I'm one day later than I usually write, but I'm sure you have all coped! The pic below isn't really anything to do with this post, but it's a lovely view of our house looking from across the horse paddock, & I haven't posted any pictures for a while... Firstly an injury update... I went to the doctor Friday morning who just confirmed my initial self-diagnosis; a partial tear of the medial ligament. He thought I'd be out for around 4 weeks, but we shall see. I'm usually a pretty quick healer... The NHS isn't very well set up for sports injuries over here. The doctor said that physio would be useful in my recovery, but then said the waiting list in the area is 3 weeks. I could go privately, but I'm too tight to fork out £30 per session! One of the girls in my rugby team is a physio & has given me some exercises to do, and has said she'll do some ultra-sound on me when it settles down a bit. One of my colleagues at school who lives on-site has a wife who is also a physio & he said he's sure she wouldn't mind taking a look at it if I wanted.

The week passed by very quickly, although I was pretty shattered, as I hadn't been sleeping well due to the knee. Only being able to hobble is also tiring, it takes me forever to get up the stairs to my classroom! I have been doing far too much school work out of hours lately, most nights I've had at least a couple of hours of marking.

On Friday night we had a visit from Will's half-sister Caroline, her two children Oscar & Emma, plus a couple of extra family friends. They were over from Denmark & were the only remaining members of Will's immediate family I hadn't met. I cooked a roasted butter-nut squash risotto for dinner & we had a lovely evening getting to know each other.

Saturday was pretty quiet. I survived my morning touch rugby session at school by reffing from the sideline. It was then home to bake some scones for lunch - very domesticated I know... I watched a bit of rugby in the afternoon & pretty much just chilled out. I even managed a siesta for a few hours while Will was at volleyball. Dinner Saturday night was pan-fried salmon fillets with some veges from the garden.

On Sunday I went to watch my rugby team play. They drew 12-all against Camberly & it was pretty frustrating being on the sideline & not being able to do anything. They played well, but I think they should have won. It was a glorious day, one of the sunniest in ages. Poor old Will didn't get a sleep-in as he was off to the University to attend some seminars given by outside speakers that were relevant to his field. Unfortunately, because I was such a slacker on Saturday I had LOADS of schoolwork to do Sunday after I got back from rugby, so the rest of the evening was spent on that. However I did find time to cook a roast-chicken, with corn on the cob, & mashed potatoes & gravy for dinner. I was really in the mood for cooking this weekend for some strange reason. Work avoidance probably...

Busy times

This weekend was a goody with loads happening. We kicked it off Friday night with a wine & cheese tasting evening at school. It was open to parents as well, but there were only a few there, & they were nice ones... It was run by Laithwaites which is a huge local wine supplier/importer. We 'tasted' 8 different wines, but while the guy was introducing & talking about them we would take the opportunity to top up our glasses... Eventually the parents all left & it was only the staff left. We ended up taking a lot of the half-fill bottles through to the common room & carried on the 'tasting' there. It was a really enjoyable night.

Saturday morning was open morning, but it didn't really effect me too much. I just turned up for session 2 & ran my usual touch rugby activity. That finished at 1pm, then from 2-5pm I was up at the rugby club. The Reading men's' first team were playing at home, & my ladies team was washing cars for a bit of fundraising. We made £225 which was a pretty good effort for a few hours of (enjoyable) work. The men won & I got to watch a bit of the match in-between car washing, so it was a good afternoon.

That night Will & I, along with Steve & Kate headed over to Annabel's for dinner. We had bit of a team effort constructing a very nice prawn Thai green curry which went down very well. We then headed up to the mansion for a house-warming party for the new textiles teacher. She has a cool flat on the 5th floor which has a private door that leads up to the tower. I think we were all suffering from the excesses of too much wine the previous evening, so it wasn't a big night by any means. I think I was in bed by 11:30pm. Must be old age kicking in...

This morning begun in a very nice way with a call from the Roes in Dunedin. Will & I are planning a holiday in Africa with them & another couple from Bearwood in July which is very exciting. It was lovely to start making a few plans & catch up on all their news. I then had to leave for rugby which was an away match in Ealing, just out of London. The good news is we won 15-0. The bad news is that I bust my 'good' knee after 30 minutes... This is the knee that has seen no damage at all in over 10 years of playing. I've done the medial ligament, but probably won't know how bad it is for a few days. All I can do at the moment is ice it & stay off it as much as I can. It's really frustrating & it hurts like hell, so I'm not a happy camper at the moment. I was really looking forward to playing touch rugby tomorrow night since I really enjoyed my two matches last week, but that is out of the question now.

The ironic thing is I have a day off school tomorrow to go on a rugby coaching course. I'll still go on it (it is a day off school after all!) but I just won't be able to take an active part in any of the practical stuff. Should still be good though...

That's about all my news. School has been pretty hectic lately, & I've been a bit stressed writing UCAS references for my upper sixth tutees. It's for the kids university applications, so are pretty important! The whole uni application process is totally different over here compared to NZ. They are all finished now thank goodness. Will happens to be a university admissions tutor, so his advice was invaluable while I was writing them, & he checked them over for me when I had finished. He is a good husband :-)