Post number 200!

Saturday was Stevo's beer festival. It was a very enjoyable afternoon/evening. Lots of ales to sample, plus croquet and space hopper racing on the lawn to keep people entertained...

Sunday was a full day of work on Will's house which we are getting ready to put on the market. We did loads of de-cluttering and made a couple of trips to the dump. We also bought & laid some new lino in the bathroom. It is slowly getting there!

School is really starting to wind down, with only 2 weeks to go. College exams are on at the moment which means a few days without any teaching, just lots of invigilation & marking to do. Tomorrow is a particularly good day for me, I only have an invigilation period 1, then am free for the rest of the day. I'll have a couple of classes worth of papers to mark by then, so if it's a nice day I might come home & mark them in the garden.

Last night was our final touch game of the season. We were playing off for 3rd & 4th in division 1 & unfortunately we lost 4-3 in a very frustrating game. It hasn't been as enjoyable as usual this season for some reason. We did drown our sorrows with a BBQ round at Ric's which lasted into the wee small hours... It was a nice feeling knowing that we didn't have any actual teaching to do today!

Ben and Anna's wedding

This week went by quickly, as usual! Unfortunately the good weather couldn't last & it did rain for most of the week. On Wednesday night my touch team won 11-2, putting us into the semi-finals this week. I have now finished all my reports which is a great feeling! It'll be quite a while before I need to write another school report...
Saturday was Ben & Anna's wedding. Ben used to be a research assistant in Will's department at the Uni, & Anna used to work as a receptionist, also in Cybernetics. They had a midday church ceremony at St Peter's Church in Reading, followed by a reception at Aldermarston Manor, which is a stately home just out of Reading, very similar to Bearwood.

The rain managed to hold off long enough for some photos outside, & then we enjoyed a very nice wedding breakfast, followed by a live band and DJ. We left at about midnight, & decided to call into Bearwood on our way home. Steve & Gemma had organised a Bond themed dinner & casino evening to raise money for their world challenge trip to Brazil in 2010. The same trip I was meant to be going on with Steve, before I knew we were heading back to NZ! The party was still raging by the time we arrived, so we stayed for a bit before heading home. One skype call home to the folks later, & we eventually made it to bed in the wee small hours!

That's about all the latest happenings... School is really starting to wind down for the year. We have 3 weeks to go tomorrow. On Saturday it's Steve's annual Bearwood Beer festival, so the next post will no doubt have all the news from that!

A good week

I have had a very nice week off. It helped that the weather has been absolutely GLORIOUS. We had sunshine nearly every single day, and it got up to about 26 degrees on Friday, which is pretty impressive for England at this time of the year! It's really not a bad place to live when the sun is shining...

As for my long list of half-term jobs... I didn't do too badly really. All my reports that are due tomorrow are done, and entered on the school network, & I've made a pretty good start on the next lot which are due Monday week. It is a bit less painful writing them when I can sit outside in the garden, writing them on my laptop & working on the tan at the same time!

I managed to get to the gym a bit, a couple of times it was for workout, then another day I met Ric there for a game of badminton, & the next day Jason & Nat joined us for some doubles. Us girls took the boys on & we won the first 3 games, but they then managed to sneak the next one. I hadn't played for 8 or 9 months so was a bit out of touch. It was good fun though, I think i'll start playing again when I move back to NZ. Keeping on the fitness theme we won our touch game on Wednesday night & are currently second on the table with one league match to go. We've got the bottom team to play so are assured of a semi-final spot.

Will & I spent Saturday doing some work on his house. It was far too nice to be inside so we've pretty much got the garden sorted. After lots of tidying up & trimming back it is looking a lot better. Will went back today & cut a tree down from in front that was blocking a fair bit of light. He has got real estate agents coming around on Monday & Tuesday for a look, so hopefully it will be on the market in the very near future.

On Saturday night we went to a BBQ round at Ric's place. It was to celebrate Ric gaining his British citizenship, and George's birthday. I particularly like Ric's 'flaming armpits' in the photo above! It was one of the first social outings for little Erin, George & Hannah's wee one. I don't really do babies, but I have to admit she is kind of cute!

It was a very good night, as most things round at Ric's are! The weather was perfect, the food was good, the pimms was flowing, & the company wasn't too bad either... Will & I made it home at around 2am.

Back to school tomorrow, but only 5 & a half weeks until the end of the school year. It's a bit scary really how much I have to do between now & then. The seniors have now left which lightens my load a bit. The 5th form have their final GCSE exam tomorrow morning, so Ric, Scottie & I went into school this evening for a couple of hours to help with any last-minute problems with our classes. I was quite impressed, out of my class of 12, 9 kids turned up for some extra help. Fingers crossed it will go well for them tomorrow...