Tea Room the Twentieth: The Greek Island

[asmallbunchofflowers]

Welcome to the twentieth (yes, really) Tea Room.

We find ourselves on a sun-kissed Greek island, where our whitewashed, blue-shuttered house nestles in the dappled shade of a gnarled old pine tree. In the olive grove, Mellors the gardener/handyman/factotum is tending the tea room menagerie of horses, camels, bison and guinea-pigs, recently joined by some recalcitrant old donkeys. The distressed chintz sofa, aga and cardboard cut-out of George Clooney have survived the relocation from the south of France and the aspidistra has pride of place on the mantelpiece.

Come in, put your feet up and join in the conversation. It may not make sense, but that's not important. What matters is the lovely people here and the chance simply to relax.

That is rubbish, Scout. After all, these girls are (I imagine) of the generation that has their mobile phone glued to their hand from the moment they wake up.

Have more brandy hot chocolate and a chuckle at Stephen Fry. UniS has put QI on the telly.

oh dear.

chocolate? and wine? much wine....pass us that mug lass.

These girls all have mobiles/emails/facebook. They all have my landline number, my mobile, my email, and half are FB friends (and all but two have FB and are therefore on our unit's page and could send me a message through that even if they're not "friends" with me). Please don't get me wrong some are VERY good at letting me know. And I understand the mom emailing me in the case of the friend's death because of the nature of the issue(though the daughter of the mom, and the friend for whom she also emailed on behalf of, are two of the three/four that are good at letting me know). I guess I'm not surprised, though three of them didn't show up to their Promise Ceremony celebrations which had been in the diary for two months.

They're good girls when they're there. And some of them are girls that "need" the movement if you know what I mean, and get things out of coming.

I'm just very unimpressed with them at the moment.

Yes please, here's my mug, fill 'er up with wine, lots and lots of wine!

Wine? Did someone say "wine"? Is it mulled?

Give me a bucket full to drown my sorrows!

I'll assume you're not thawed out yet, Donki?

Apologies for all of my rants today/tonight.

Hah!
The diverter valve is having one of its sporadic moments of working, so we are warm, briefly.
But see my other thread here

I know that other people have more serious problems - I don't mind much waiting. BUT I DO WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING!

And I resent having had to take time off work to no effect.

And having to hang on in a queue for 2 1/2 hours may not be the fault of the British Gas minion, but it is still ridiculous!

Plus I have serious issues at work.

My year 11 GCSE group. They are lovely. But I am finding that I have to go much more slowly than I am used to....but still have to try and cover the same amount of material. I cannot use the fall back of photocopying notes and relying on them to read them because often their language problems mean that it just doesn't get understood.

AND they have already missed 4 weeks worth of lessons this term for various reasons.

I am NOT going to finish the syllabus before the exams.

Aaaargh!

Rubbish Scout - rant away.
And if you have to apologise for ranting, I hate to think how many apologies I owe you all....

Good evening, ladies. Would anyone care for a relaxing and warming shoulder rub?

I don't suppose I could join the queue for a withers rub?

Good evening all. Are we really on a Greek island? Seems a tad chilly.

Have been busy for a while; AP ill, working nearly full time, Wriggle finding it difficult (as I have said, many times, I'm sure.) Have just had a mammoth catch-up session.

JM, yes, I have heard of Bach Flower Remedies and indeed use them myself. Some seem particularly effective. Have tried a couple for Wriggle on a very casual basis - Aspen for fears of a known origin and Mimulus for fears of an unknown origin, since she can't tell me which. She can talk, obviously, but is not a great communicator. I will try googling separation anxiety - I obviously need to get much for organised. A good idea to get more focussed - thank you.

Roslily and Donki, I like the idea of word routes -please share more. Talked to some of the children about their assessment today ... and 'wondered if they were even in the same classroom as me'. It's a church school. I talked to a reasonably able y5 girl who couldn't tell me which religion(s) believe in Jesus! At Christmas!!

UniS, I went to a very small village primary school, which was pretty bad - the headteacher taught mainly by fear and ridicule, then a very weak state comprehensive, which had the advantage of tiny A-level classes as so few children stayed on. In spite of that I did pretty well - who knows what I could have done with good schools? I think my mother was mainly responsible for any success I had. DH went to a very small very old fashioned French village school and then a state secondary which he never mentions and left school at 15 with no qualifications. Two years after arriving in the UK, in a foreign language, he went to university as a mature student and got a first-class degree. Who knows what he would have achieved with good schools (and a less destructive family)?

For Wriggle we would ideally like a couple of years' home ed and then the local very small and friendly primary, but who knows how things will turn out?

Growing up, did you leave anything out for Santa/Father Christmas to eat/drink on Christmas Eve and do your children leave anything out now? If so, what?

I was having this discussion with MrScout over the weekend and wonder if I've stumbled upon another major cultural difference in regards to Christmas....

We never left anything out for Father Christmas when I was young.

DH on the other hand did.

The Young Donk likes to leave out a treat - because DH thought it would be fun to do.

We left out mince pies when I was a child. Now we are refusing to have proper Christmas so Wriggle won't be doing anything this year.

I made a comment about "milk and cookies" and told I was very American and where was the brandy?

We leave out carrots for the reindeer (guess who gets to eat it!)

Mince pie for FC (DH scoffs that)

And Port (I get that - I don't like brandy)

I did milk and cookies for Santa and yes, carrots for the reindeer. But I didn't get into that part with MrScout in Tesco.

squash and a biscuit for Father Christmas... yes really, orange squash. mum's practically teetotal.

I judge not the orange squash. I am American, after all. I left milk.

Or maybe I wish I could get back that useful little tick on the toolbar which used to check my spelling.

We do sherry for Father Christmas (aka me), mince pie for Father Christmas (aka SmallBloke) and carrot for Rudolf (aka the veg on Christmas Day). But I'm wondering when the FC bubble will burst, now.

MrScout has said BabyScout can leave things out if I want, and whatever I want. Leaving milk and cookies is very American, isn't it?

It may be, Scout, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Racing
I often try show student patterns of meaning in words to help them remember.
e.g. Thermometer - therm = heat, meter = instrument for measuring. Then link this to the unfamiliar word such as thermister, to try and help them remember the new word.

Most of my examples would be science ones.

And one of my favourite puns...
trying to get them to learn the prefix kilo
"how many grams in a kilogram?"
"how many meters in a kilometer?"
"how many Joules in a kilojoule?"
"How many whales in a killer whale?"

Said absolutely deadpan on the back of the other questions....

But then I'm a languages geek - I love pattern spotting in languages...