First week back

So we're back to school; those words to strike dread into the hearts of teachers and parents alike! This week has been reasonably 'hitch-less', I've been up on time and fairly compos mentis, despite the small layer of snow that covered enough of the ground to make travelling by foot or car a pain in the arse, but not enough to make it a legitimate snow day. Why oh why does it choose to snow on the first day back at work?! For exactly the same reason why I got up this morning to find that the boiler didn't work. On a Saturday. It couldn't do this last week when M was off all week with man flu and would have been able to let a plumber in, nooo, it had to wait until the weekend, when we're going to both be at work for all the weeks after for ages.....And then it did work - hurrah! And then it didn't! And it's working again, but now I don't trust it. There is something not right in the electrickery part of the boiler switch. The thingy that makes the light come on and the time to show up n stuff. I tried my usual handyman fix-all and changed the fuse, which trust me, I didn't want to be doing at 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning. The same Saturday morning that I had to do my first teaching observation for my TESOL course by the way! So, no pressure there. Cold house. No heating. Imminent observation. Bowl of stress anyone? We were being videoed for our obs too. I actually didn't do too badly although I realised when we watched them back (postmortem constructive criticism, great fun - not!!) that I was maybe a little grammatical, so I'll have to remember to simplify things. It was a useful experience even if a tad completely terrifying. The others seemed to think that because I teach anyway, I wouldn't be nervous, but as I tried to explain to them, teaching to your peers is a completely different kettle of fish! I tend to teach teens, 13 years and upwards and alot of what you end up doing is crowd control! Keeping them focused and on task is a big part of the job. Adults just aren't like that, and your peers, well, they know when you've fluffed something, or when you've blanked or heaven forbid, got something completely wrong! After such a nerve wracking day, it was quite nice to come home and play M and Chalky on the Wii. I actually got five strikes in a row! Wow! Can you believe it! I was very proud of myself. This is what I was doing while I waited for my go:

Yes, my 'Go for Baroque' is actually start to look like a garment now, and not  like roadkill! I've just started one sleeve, that funny stumpy thing on the right hand side there! There'll also be a decorative panel along each front side too! I'm getting quite excited about this now! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've also been working on my BPT Hoodie, but that's very slow progress and it doesn't look very different to the last picture I showed you, so I thought there wasn't much point in showing you it until there was some real obvious progress! I'll probably knit a bit in bed in the morning whilst watching the Hollyoaks omnibus (a guilty pleasure!) and drinking copious amounts of Rose petal tea. You never know, I might even get an extra row in tonight. I'm just reloading my mp4 player with some new audio books. I've listened to all the books on there a couple of times now, so it's time for a change. It holds about 4 gigs of stuff which equates to alot of books! This new batch I'm putting on will be good, there'll be some books on there that I've read, and some that I haven't. Anne Rice, some Phillip Pullman, some of the new Star Wars stuff, a bit of Clive Barker and even some Emberto Eco. Should make for interesting night-time listening for those insomniac nights.  

I have a few ideas in the pipeline. I sometimes compile mood boards when I have an idea in my mind; it helps me clarify my thoughts, or sometimes if it's more 3d, I'll create a mood bowl. It's similar to a mood board except it's kind of a bowl where I collect objects for the next project. This is what I have in my mood bowl at the moment. Any guesses?

I have a ball of thick n thin yarn in a gorgious red and black colourway. There's some vintage embroidered ribbon with flowers on, red silk roses with gold glitter on them and assorted 'bits'. 

Coins, old bits of jewellery and ethnic styled earrings, Indian embellishments...

and some fantastic vintage brass buttons from my Granddads old army uniform. I also have a bag of cowrie shells somewhere....

This is my inspiration.

The yarn will go towards some falls to wear with the headdress. Obviously mine won't be the same as the one shown here, but will have my own individual spin on it. There's a definate colour scheme going on already. The ribbon has lead the way. It was too short to use for much else, and too nice to throw away.

So things are slowly getting back to normal. Yoga class has started again (thank goodness! I neeeed to stretch and relax!), college is in full swing once again, bellydancing will start again next week. I've worn my flowered jeans several times and people have adored them! I could have sold them a dozen times, but will have to settle for inspiring people to become creative. How's your week been?