Day 37: AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

I'll say that again.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!

Oh snakes alive, if ever there was a day to stick my head in a bucket of chocolate, this was it.
Just as I thought I'd defeated the chocolate gremlins, they come right back to haunt me.
Last night I thought it would be a good idea to get our currency ordered so we could pick it up from the airport, so I got on to the interweb and put the order in. The payment didn't work. I phoned my bank. Lo, their very efficient (annoyingly too efficient) anti-fraud system thought it looked suspicious. Spoke to a nice lady who gave me a number to ring and I resolved to try again the next morning.

Got up in the middle of the night (6am) to make sure I was all ready with hair combed and make-up on in order to phone the anti-fraud line at 8am (good impressions count). Phoned the line to find there were no actual people there, but a somewhat weird question system which I used the keypad to answer. It was a bit like trying to communicate with aliens, but still, it seemed to work until it asked me to confirm some recent purchases. There were quite a lot of them. All on Saturday morning. Hmmm.

Anyhoo, buoyed by this success I tried again. It didn't work. Phoned the bank again and spoke to two nice people who assured me all is well and fixed now. Would have tried again but had to gallop to work.
Went through the whole fandango again in my lunch break. Gave up, thought I'd ring up instead. Checked the website and saw the lines close at 5.30. Perfect.

Left work, bought last minute essential medication and the like and hoofed it up the hill in a manner to rival my 1996 land speed record for a flip-flop wearer success. Grabbed phone at 5.15, ring ring, 'thank you for calling......our lines are now closed' WHAT???!!! 'Our opening hours are 9 am to 5pm, please call back then.
Yes, I will call you then, but in the meantime I shall send you a very cross email.
I believe this places me at roughly point 4 on the 'losing it' scale i.e. 'a visit to strop central'

Ooooof.
OK off to pack my 'reasonable amount of reading material for the flight'. Choices, choices.

Day 36: packing is for wimps

Hmmm, really ought to do some packing.

Today I bought home all the donated loot from school and tried to take a photo of it. There was so much of it that it completely covered the settee and I couldn't fit it all in the frame.
Tally so far:
Posters (30)
Coloured paper (345 sheets)
Finger paints (32)
Plastic letters (4 random containers)
Wax crayons (168)
Coouring pencils (318)

and oodles more besides. Pity the poor drama teacher who offered me a lift home only to then have a box of loot shoved in his arms while I went to fetch the other one from the staff room. Then I remembered the massive cool box was still in library so fetched that too and in no time at all the car was full.

Unlike my rucksack which currently has nothing in it.

Day 35: Wooo! Back on the information superhighway

So many good things going on.
Yesterday I read 'Out of Shadows' by Jason Wallace, which is jolly terrific and gives you loads to think about and really, you should be rushing out right now to get your mitts on a copy (unless you are a young person as it's quite violent). (Well, really violent).

The dog is here! He had a major sneezing fit earlier but is all recovered now.

I got yet more splendid things to take to Nepal, and yesterday our lovely caretaker, Mr Cage, helped me wrestle the posters into a cardboard tube so they wouldn't get flattened on the way there.

I managed to buy someone a Mars Bar this morning and got it all the way to work and safely delivered without hoovering it up.
I fended off a 6th former who was trying to sell me some chocolate at lunchtime (behold my superb willpower!)

I met the nice dog from down the terrace who looks terrifying but turns out to be quite nice (at least while I'm hiding behind a gate).

OK, Mr Halford is determined we should do some packing, can't argue with that, only 3 more sleeps to go!

Day 34:(I'm not here, I've lost internet access)

(No, really.)

Day 33: new shoes!

New shoes! And a big day out in London with Mr Halford and Mum and Dad. And lots of sunshine and everything.
Giving up chocolate is proving a bit financially ruinous; yesterday I bought a pair of shoes, two frocks and two tops. Where will it all end?
Bankrupcy, possibly.
On the plus side my lovely Mum bought a majestic bag of crayons over today for us to stuff in our rucksacks.
Eeeep!
Only 5 more sleeps to go!

Day 32: not even any cheating or anything

Snakes alive, I have made it to day 32 without any cheating. How very unlikely.
Achieved almost nothing off my 'to do' list yesterday bar buying stocks of bird food.
I got very distracted by buying frocks and summery things, then discovered my small neice was over at the outlaws and so went over to play with her, then ended the day by having a trot round Hatfield Forest and baking some biscuits.
As a consequence I now have quite a lot to do before my parents arrive at 10am Sunday.
Also, all my library books arrived - finally - so I now have 4 to read before we jet off on Friday. And we haven't packed yet.
I wouldn't have time to eat any chocolate even if I wanted to!

Day 31: Fridays are the new Fridays (official)

Oh at last, Fridays have returned to being Fridays. Once again a beautifully warm and sunny day, so smiles all round.
I bagged a lift to work with a colleague for the second morning in a row (luckily, as I was trying to carry a hugemungous cool box down the road) and completed the hat trick as I got a lift home earlier in the week too.
Such are my nice friendly work colleagues - yesterday I was offered a lift while conspicuously carrying a tin of biscuits, today I it was a cool box that could possibly be full of beer (it wasn't, which will guarantee no lift on Monday).

All sorts of random excitement around school today - an ice lolly sale at break time which went incredibly well, and a visiting band (twenty twenty) with many a swooning teenage girl at break time. I was given some more goodies to take to Nepal and had to make a second collection box to put in the staff room.

My lovely friendly 6th formers were planning a get together at one of their houses tonight, 'til I reminded the potential host that the last time this happened he was found in the library wailing 'my house is in tatters because of you!'. They then decided to hold it at the house of the friend who wasn't present. Good thinking.

Then, even better, I got home to find I had won a book in a competition.

Nicely played Friday, good recovery.