Nice November

November hurtled onwards towards the Advent season. My one and a half days became 4 or 5, as I stepped in for various colleagues. Our French teacher, Barbara (who is Italian and wonderfully multilingual) had rushed to Italy, where her father had been taken ill; another colleague was ill with a chest infection; and my former year group partner, now teaching Maths and sport, tested positive for Covid-19.

It was, initially, quite a lot of fun and I certainly felt incredibly useful as I knew the routines and all the children in the various classes I covered, so it was relatively easy for everyone concerned. However, the third week – when I was also due to help invigilate the entrance assessment into Year 7, taken by all Year 6 children – was quite chaotic as I had no timetable given me, so just wandered from one lesson to another, picking up the reins as I went.

 I still managed to fit in a few extra duties as well, to help relieve the pressure, as mid-November we were inspected by ISI.

The inspection had been a long time coming and preparation had been intense, with countless new initiatives introduced and reams of paperwork completed. Somewhat galling to discover, after hours days of planning, that Ofsted itself (which inspects ISI, the independent schools’ inspectorate) no longer requires planning, preferring to look at what the children actually learn rather than what is taught. Yes, there can be a difference!

As a part-time teacher, I had more time than most to prepare and was quite relaxed. Nevertheless, I was observed twice in both of the departments I work in. Not unexpected, as I teach so much of the R.E. and I was assuming that the inspectors would look at least one lesson, if not more. All seemed to go well... the report will be out in December.

The other project which took up quite a chunk of emotional energy was that of finishing up the hard-standing Richard was preparing for the motorhome. It had taken quite a bit of organisation: booking a cement mixer to deliver and pour a load of ready-mixed concrete; hiring tools to help spread and smooth the cement as it poured into the slab; and organising friends to come and help, particularly Martyn who is highly expert at All Things Building.

But it was not easy. Richard caught the worst cold he had had in years and had to cancel; the second week, the lorry broke down, so yet more cancellations all round; but, finally, it was all done.

This in spite of Covid, with numbers of those infected increasing rapidly. Nevertheless, the proportion of those double vaccinated testing positive only amounted to 2%, as compared to approximately 15% of those unvaccinated. We started to find several friends suddenly testing positive and I was contact traced several times as children at school came down with it.

Nature in November was nice. Not many wet and gloomy days: in fact, on one of the aborted ‘cement’ days we sat outside the front door, drinking coffee with friends, for several hours. There were some stunning sunrises and sunsets, and so many sightings of buzzards, harriers and kestrels that we lost count. The garden  shone with luminescent nerines, their pink trumpets almost seeming to glow in the dark, while several shrubs produced an abundance of red berries, which the blackbirds slowly and methodically stripped off the branches. The potato flower, meanwhile, continued to rampage, almost drowning the oil tank and climbing up to the top of the prunus rusticana which shades our patio.

And then, the last weekend brought the beginning of Advent: but that is next month's story....