Month: April 2006

We went to get our gossip mag with wrong TV schedules and some milk from the local supermarket today and they had changed everything around. Gwen and I didn’t even realise until we had got to the back of the shop. But when Gwen realised she was very annoyed.

Both girls have just been given in-liners (roller skates to me) and since the sun has finally come out this year they have been practising on them like mad. Mia flies around on them while Gwen is still rather hesitant.

Mia keyed in and illustrated the notice which was copied and sent to all parents in the school today. Meanwhile Gwen was teaching the younger pupils about steam engines. She was satisfied with the behaviour of her class but noticed that the girls were rather uninterested in the whole thing while the boys were bombarding her with questions.

The girls also go to the neighbour to walk their dogs. Ever since a new landowner in the vicinity took umbrage at the dogs being in his woods (which have hunting rights) our neighbours have felt compelled to have their dogs locked up most of the day and are grateful for anyone who is willing to give them a run. There is no convenient enclosed garden or yard so they spend most of their day locked in the horse stables.

Gwen and Mia have been visiting our neighbour to see the new foal who was born this week.

Meanwhile the grownups have been watching the whole of the first series of Green Wing back to back. Yes it’s rude and in terribly bad taste but very funny.

It is only just beginning to dawn on us how big the development just down the road is going to be. The new golf centre has been having open days over Easter so people can see what it is all about and how far they have got. The picture above is one of the summer houses which have been selling like hotcakes. We have also been getting quite a few displaced vistors because they seem to have printed the address as number 52 on the paper brochures people are using to get to the place and so we have had quite a few disoriented people stopping at our door wondering why there isn’t a golf course in our garden. Everyone except Anne has now been to see the development and got free sausages and beer into the bargain.

The hotel was great (the picture shows the indoor courtyards), the weather was perfect, there were flowers in profusion and the travel arrangements all went smoothly. The frogs were very vociferous in the hotel ponds and I wish I had brought my tennis raquet with me to take advantage of the dozen or so courts within the hotel grounds. I’m afraid that I did watch an Abba tribute act which then became a Boney M tribute act. Had nothing better to do.

I had been invited to give a talk and actually the rest of the conference was quite interesting as I can probably use what I learned there in one of the projects I am now suddenly in charge of. The conference was about peer mentoring and one of the projects had been about a Welsh secondary school which had trained some of its older pupils to be mentors to students from a local school for the mentally disabled. So people from both those groups were also at the conference which I thought was a great experience for them. There were also young peer mentors and mentees from Ireland and Portugal.

There were also about 5 students from Swansea FE college (Gorseinon) to help with the conference organising. They were the same type of students I used to teach in Cheltenham. I asked one of them how they had chosen who went on the conference and he replied it was simply those with the highest grades.

Before Mallorca I had been to a 2 day conference in Northern Denmark about IT developments. I forgot my coat in the hotel wardrobe and thought that was the end of it. But they sent it back to me free of charge so I don’t have to buy a new one after all which I’m very grateful for.

Now it is the Easter holiday and we have no specific plans about what to do during this week.