The Forty Fifth Republic - Can I get a hair appointment before the summer term starts?

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

Do not give the staffroom password to non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation. Do not sit on the chairs and do wear a mask

Born - I second honey's idea. That is how we've managed to recruit English and Maths staff in my school for the last couple of years (including part timers with difficult time table requests!). No-one ever seems to formally apply when jobs go up normally... wonder why .

Also - I have a hair appointment today. Yay! But still a badly bruised skull from a minor accident nothing serious but bloody painful. Not so yay. Hoping the hair dresser is careful! Too desperate for a cut to cancel.

I was observed by someone who asked me what was the most important thing I did to help my learners succeed. I said, send them into the exam smiling. She thought I was joking, but it was true.
So true. I stand outside the exam hall with a pocket full of lucky paper clips. Anyone who wants one gets one. They think I'm mad 🤷‍♀️

I once said to a student as he was going "good luck". His reply was "I don't need luck. Men at some time are masters of their fate". Love that kid 😂

mrshamlet and born - legends!

Yep, legends.

I try to hold back my bizarreness a bit in class but the lucky paper clip story has just encouraged me to let a bit more out

No work today! I cooked ds breakfast (never happens) and got him off to school on time. Have had my groceries delivery and packed it away and unloaded the dishwasher and put some washing on and am now mn'ing and eying up the lovely blue sky outside. Might take a wander shortly to drop off some bits to my parents house.

It's actually crazy how much impact the gym has on my mood and energy levels. Both times they shut it down in lockdown this school year had such a negative impact. I'm not some crazy exercise person - still just in the obese bracket and only really go on the treadmill and walk a long way fast uphill - yet it definitely is really beneficial for me.

I can't go for a drink in a pub garden because all 4 of the pubs in our village (we used to have 5 - clearly we have more than our fair share of drinkers for a village) have elected not to reopen yet. However the gym reopening on the same day I had to go back to work was a blessing - the yay of the gym outweighed the oh fuck of work and made it more than worth getting up early to go before work. Doing the same tomorrow.

Gym is really important to me too. I've been overweight my entire adult life, yet always been a member of a gym, and go regularly every day for years and years like z total obsessive

Get back from Cornwall Wednesday night, booked into gym at 8am Thursday. I'm going to alternate 'uphill walking' and swimming, at 6am every week day. It's what got me through December.

Has the smell gone Rule?

Nice rule. I’m so fixated on swimming in the sea in summer that the thought of going back to a chlorinated indoor pool has no appeal at the minute plus it’s a hair saga that I cba with, especially in the morning before work.

Smell has gone! There will be sea swimming later today. 9 degrees though, and no wetsuit... so, I say 'swimming' but mean 'dipping'.

Now I'm really jealous. Just reading that gave me that gasping chesty feeling you get when you submerge yourself in cold water Enjoy.

I sea swim whenever I'm away in the UK. Husband thinks I'm insane but I just love it. Bit far to travel on a daily basis!

Got an afternoon of TAG inset. As Ted says ‘god give me strength’

Afternoon all! Glorious here in Wolves! DD is at a football camp today, for DS’ hair cut (yay!) and been gardening for the last hour. If I didn’t have to drive to collect DD I would be cracking open the gin!

Really wish i had the energy for early up doing stuff.
Also even indoor swimming pools are generally freezing to me!

Great for all the ppl getting appts as over 45.
Our la is over 60% 16+ vaxxed which seems really high.
They Are onto at least 44yo so dp nearly 42 still waiting.

You cold water swimmers are amazing. I like nice warm water.
Swam in a lake in Tajikistan (as you do!). I thought I was going to die of cold!!

God I hate swimming, it's so boring.

And sea swimming is just yuck. I hate the beach too.

Ray of sunshine, I am.

You just haven't found the right sea yet noble. You'll swim in dahab.

given we'd have to go in the summer holidays and temperatures are close to 50 degrees sometimes you would definitely want to get in the sea actually! It's a bay and most of the time the water is flat and stunning and sparkling and there's no yuk and it's not boring if you put a mask on and look at the fishies and the reef.

Oh and it's not beach like you'd think of beach. There are mountains behind you and ahead of you over the water are the pink mountains of Saudi Arabia. Everything is blue and shades of pink and orange. Making myself homesick now.

It sounds absolutely idyllic Honey. I'll swim anywhere but that sounds glorious! Beautiful weather here today - cold and crisp but sunny. I've been mainly doing gardening and All The Laundry, and musing over the fact that this would be my life if I didn't have to work.

It’s one of my ambitions to go wild swimming. Not a fan of the sea but tarns and lakes, definitely.
We found a perfect one up near Coniston last spring, but I hadn’t planned for it and DS said if I got in in my underwear he would be scarred for life and never achieve any of his life goals and it would all be my fault . Then I saw a freshwater leech and went off the idea, although a large part of my childhood holidays was spent picking leeches nonchalantly off my shins after straying into the leechy bit of Windermere.

We have a river running alongside our garden. DH goes swimming in it every morning. There's a stretch where he swims against the current, so he actually stays still relative to the bank. If it's raining, he runs down there so as not to get wet! He says it does wonders for his mood, I certainly notice if he's missed a day or so.

Saucery when our kids skive in the summer, it's often because they've "gone up Coniston"

Your beach sounds brilliant Honey. I'm desperate to get away.

I love swimming, but haven't done it in ages. I used to be a member of a gym just for the swimming pool, but then they started blocking off a lane for swimming lessons at the times I could go, which meant there wasn't actually a lane for adult swimming that was wide enough for 2 people to be able to pass each other. So I stopped going. I go walking now. It's significantly cheaper than paying for gym membership. And I feel better for it, even in the rain (or snow a few days ago). I think nature has as much to do with my improved mood as the exercise.

I've been gardening today. It's bloody hard work. I'm used to gardening being planting nice things in pots, not digging up plants that have taken over a border. I'm knackered, but that stupid plant is gone!!! It took me about 3 hours to get it all. Now I'm ready to put in all the compost, plant a couple of new lavender plants and some wild flowers for the bees and butterflies. I'll be happy once it's finished, and probably won't touch it again for another couple of years.

I have to be nice to Bob. Note any factors that need to be taken into account such as fish dying, stubbing his toe in the morning of a test etc.