Half-term

Again, it's been a while since the last post, so apologies for that. Its been a pretty busy couple of weeks!

Last weekend I had a formal dinner at the rugby club which was loads of fun. It's the first time the ladies team have been invited, & we certainly made our mark! It helped that the club captain ended up buying our ladies table 5 bottles of champagne during the course of the evening... That, along with the 4 bottles of wine already on the table for dinner, meant the evening was a lot of fun! My lovely husband picked me up at around midnight, but I stayed long enough to witness some of the guys strip off & do some naked laps of the pitch! What is it about rugby players & nudity??!

School has been pretty busy of late, & I can't quite believe how quickly the weeks are going by. Today was speech day at school. This starts with a Chapel service at 11am, followed by the prize-giving ceremony in a big marquee on the headmaster's lawn. The guest of honour this year was the 8th Duke of Montrose who is a peer in the House of Lords. We then have a buffet lunch, followed by the CCF (cadet force) enacting a mock battle on south terrace. It's quite sad in some ways thinking that I've had my last Bearwood College speech day...

I'm now on half-term for a week, but have loads to do in that time. I have my final school reports to write, I need to do a bit of work on Will's house to get it ready to go on the market, & I also need to think about organising a removal company for mid July (when we leave for Africa on July 15th we also need to leave our school property, so will ship everything out in a container). I want to do some planning for the Africa trip, make it to the gym quite a bit, & also watch season two of 24 which I've borrowed off a friend. Hopefully it is all possible in a week! A bit of R&R would also be nice, but I'm not too sure that is going to happen!

Will is away this weekend at a stag do in Cambridge so I have the house to myself. Tonight I'm off to Claire's place for a combined birthday/housewarming party.

Am delighted that the Chiefs have made their first ever super-14 final! I got home from speech day in time to catch the second half of the Crusaders/Bulls games. Unfortunately the Chiefs are off to Pretoria for the final which is bit of a shame. It's going to be a tough ask, the Bulls looked pretty good, & they also have the altitude to contend with. Here's hoping...

Feels like summer

Firstly, before I get stuck into this post, a big apology to my lovely cousin Renee & her equally lovely fiance Jeremy. When struggling to remember what I got up to last weekend, I clean forgot that they had travelled from London to pay Will & I a visit on the bank holiday Monday! That's not to say their visit was in any way forgettable!!! We had a very nice afternoon catching up, eating nice food (which they were kind enough to bring with them) & snowboarding on the wii. Sorry guys, it's nothing personal!

This weekend was very enjoyable, despite me feeling a bit off colour. I think I'm just a bit run down & the body is trying to fight something off. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's not swine flu! The kids at school were getting a bit excited last week because according to them, if 5 more cases were reported in Berkshire, the school would have to shut down... Not sure how true that was, but they seemed to believe it!

Will left Saturday lunchtime to travel to Nottingham as there is a robotics workshop up there. It is the first time he has been invited to be the key-note speaker, so quite a big deal. He gives his talk Monday lunchtime & I'm sure it will go well. He's back home late Monday evening.

On Saturday night I attended Mumsy's 50th birthday bash up at the rugby club. Mumsy is one of those iconic figures that most sports clubs tend to have. She played for Reading ladies for ages, & lately has been involved in coaching some of the junior boys teams. Her party started in the afternoon with some touch rugby, followed by a BBQ, followed by a DJ, followed by a curry dinner, followed by a live band! Quite a few of my rugby team were camping overnight on the rugby pitches, & that was initially my plan as well. However because I was a bit off colour I didn't really feel like drinking much. I had 2 drinks over about 7 hours, so decided to drive home & get a good nights sleep instead. Our super-king 4-poster bed did seem rather large without Will in it...

My friend Nic was down for the weekend staying at Claire's new house, so Sunday morning I went over for brunch. It was a gorgeously hot day & I didn't end up leaving until 3pm. We had a lovely time eating good food, sitting in the sunshine, & enjoying the Sunday papers. I had baked some blueberry muffins to take around and they went down well. Nicola finally returned my Dan Carter poster which I had lent her over 3 years ago. It was always on the proviso that she returned it when she found herself a nice boyfriend, & now that she has her lovely Tom she thought it was about time she gave it back... He has been reinstated in the bathroom next to the one of Dan doing his sit ups... What a beautiful man :-)

That's all for this post. 2 weeks & counting until half-term. Bring it on!!!

Time is ticking by...

It's been a little longer than usual since the last post, but nothing overly exciting has really been happening of late! Will & I enjoyed the Bank Holiday weekend that has just passed. On the Saturday we drove to a pub near Pangbourne to meet Will's new head of school at Victoria Uni for lunch. Him & his wife are holidaying in the UK at the moment as their daughter is over here on her OE. He seemed a really nice guy, & at least Will will know another face when he starts there in September (taking it to a grand total of two!).

Sunday was pretty relaxed, so much so that I can't actually remember what I did! I do seem to recall that the morning involved a long sleep-in... The weather was surprisingly good for a Bank Holiday weekend, & I enjoyed reading the Sunday papers in the garden. Monday was similarly relaxed. My HOD Scottie had lent me the DVD box set of the first season of 24, so we have been really enjoying that. Quite a few of them got watched over the long weekend! We've also been watching 1 or 2 per evening this week, & now have only 5 episodes of the 24 to go. It really is brilliant, even if it does get me on the edge of my seat & I need my 'scary cushion' on occasion to hide behind. I know, I really am the biggest wimp in the world...

We had our first 'proper' touch game last night, & our efforts in the grading round the previous week meant we are in division 1 again. We drew 6-all last night. It wasn't a bad result, but was pretty frustrating because we scored a winning try right on full-time, but the opposition called a touch (even though it clearly wasn't!) & the ref had to play the touch. However we do get an extra bonus point for playing 3 women on the field the whole time, whereas the opposition only played 2.

That's pretty much all my news. School is quite busy at the moment, but there is only another 2 weeks until half-term. I think I'm going to miss my 1 week half-term breaks when I'm back in NZ! I lose my GCSE class at half-term so that will lighten my load a bit.