A Productive Day.

I've been a busy girl today.
     Firstly, of course, I am back at work. It went better than I expected, considering. I'm still quite wobbly and muddle-headed, though, as until tomorrow morning I am still taking the medication (codeine is fantastic stuff).
     Then I very productively went to bed - after mummy made me lunch. She is being very helpful toward my recovery - for two whole hours. After that though, I sprang back into action and provided moral support while mother grappled with the task of feeding the car with oil. Uncle Guy had informed us (after completing his half-term check) that it was not simply running low - as he had expected it would be after six weeks - but had run out all together, which is a very very bad thing. So we had to 'pop t'hood' and pour the oil into the right hole, then check the level with the stick thingy. Very complex stuff for two people such as us; maladroit and terminally ignorant in the majority of practical matters (which would be why we rely on other people to do what should relatively simple things for us, like checking to see if the car has enough oil in it).
     After that, with the muse still being upon me after its unexpected appearance yesterday, I knocked out a page and a half more of the ghost story that's been rattling around in my head while mother - recovering after the car feeding business - drank a cup of tea. It's going quite well overall and I think the premise is good. I just need to keep hacking at it and actually finish the damn thing before moving on to something else. I checked the other day: I have 20 stories that have been started, carried on with for varying lengths of time and then abandoned. Not good. But it isn't my fault. If you're going to blame anyone, blame my Muse; it's her/him that does this to me.
     Then on to another unpleasant task: getting the paperwork ready for the science and music lessons that mother has been pre-booked to do for the next school term. This involves several stages.
STAGE 1.
The reading (and also understanding) of incredibly badly written tables supposedly that supposedly aid but actually hinder the planning process. And very unfortunately have "essential" bits mixed in that you need to be able to prove you've read (and carried out) in the event of an inspection.
STAGE 2.
The jotting down of endless reams of notes (to be written out in a neat and professional looking way later) and the passing back and forth of ideas and problems and various other things.
STAGE 3.
The typing out the "learning objectives" and the "steps-to-success" and the "assignment progression stages" drivel that the government loves; because it sounds and looks all impressive, and the teachers hate; because it has no practical use and wastes a good deal of time, and the children couldn't care less about; because it doesn't affect them one way of the other.
STAGE 4 (the bit that mother dreads the most).
The inevitable scour of the internet for lots of "teaching resources" (because stuff out of books or on the blackboard just isn't good enough any more: all lessons and activities have to be as "web-based" - their words not ours - as possible).
STAGE 5 (the bit where I look like a god because I am quite good at this stuff).
The equally inevitable converting and/or transferring of all of the information and activities from computer to paper because one thing that you can pretty much guarantee is that at any given time at any given school, most if not all of the computers will not work when you want them to.
STAGE 6.
A final quick scan of the "teaching resources" to check if anything has been missed and a final quick scan of the memory stick (am I the only one that misses floppy disks?) and hard-drive to make sure that everything has been saved as and where it should be.
STAGE.7
Mother goes limp with relief; because apart from writing out her notes in best it's all over with for at least a week until the lesson occurs and the whole messy procedure starts all over again.

So! That's been my day so far. Now we intend to go and order a Chinese takeaway meal for our (a first for us), which we will eat while watching the second half of an episode of Columbo. Then once it's gone down, we will take the dog for a walk.

...Our life is fraught with excitement like that.

Toodles.
Alice x