The weekend that was. Farewell Blue School.

I finished teaching at The Blue School on Friday afternoon. I'm not a fan of goodbyes and I always hate the last day of school because it is a mess of a day and nothing ever gets done. So when you leave a school on the last day it sucks twice over. I had a great time teaching Year 1. Kay, my teaching assistant, was wonderful and made every day a lot easier. I love the fact that neither of us were English (Kay's Irish) and neither of us were C of E (we're both Catholic) but there we were teaching in the oldest C of E school in England (The Blue School was founded in 1630)! It's a strange feeling teaching in a school that is older than the country that you were born in! Photo - Stuart, Karen and Davina.

Luckily, I had lots on this weekend to keep my mind occupied from the fact that I am now, once again, unemployed. Friday night I went to the end of school staff night down in Middlesex. Ended up drinking up a storm with Shannon (Aussie Reception teacher) and Mary (Irish Year 3 teacher) as well as Kay, Jim (caretaker) and a bunch of the dinner ladies. Then headed out for Chinese with Mary, Shannon and Kate (English Year 5 teaching assistant), Caroline (Cockney Year 3 teaching assistant) and Shelia (English Year 2 teaching assistant).

On Saturday Karen offered to take me to her library in Victoria because I am trying to curb my addiction to buying books here. We set off up Chiswick High Street to get some brunch first (yummy pancakes and awesome pineapple juice) and then walked to Turnham Green train station. At this point I think I should reiterate my "passion" for op-shops. I stopped at 6 on the way to the train station and you'll never guess what I bought?????? That's right, books! I ended up buying 6 books before I even stepped foot on the train to get to Victoria. I blame Karen really. It is all her fault for not dragging me along the pavement and forbidding me to enter the op-shops in the first place! Photo - Davina, Matt and Rachael.

Finally made it to Victoria library where I borrowed a few books. Visited the NEXT (clothing store like Sussans) sale and then headed home before going to Davina's farewell 62MG party. Davina is moving to Spain for a month to keep learning her Spanish language skills and is then finding a new place to live because she has been having flatmate issues. Although it was sad to know that this was the last 62MG party we would be going to, it's the best decision for Davina. Photo - Karen, Tom, (haven't a clue who is behind us), Barry and Me.

Also managed to catch up with my god-brother (his parents are my godparents), Stuart, which was really cool. He came along to Davina's party and it was such a good blast from the past. I hadn't seen Stuart for 11 years or so. Funny how you have this image of someone in your head from the last time you saw them and they are still that person just all grown up. I sound like a Nana I know. Stuart missed the last train home after we had made it to the Shepherd's Bush Walkabout so he crashed on our couch and then came to the World Music Festival on Sunday with us too.

The World Music Festival was held at Ealing Broadway and featured bands from around the globe. A lot of the music I heard was drumming sounds from Africa but when it's played by pigmys you've just got to get up and bop about with everyone else! Karen's school buddy Lisa P ran the marketing campaign for the Ealing Summer Festival which was what the World Music Day was for. We had already gone to a comedy night for it the previous Sunday which was a great night too.

And so here I am. Monday morning and I'm chatting to Simon on MSN. He is a medic in the Australian Army station in the back end of Malaysia somewhere. Apart from reading some of the millions of books I have accumulated and heading up to the post office to send some of the ones I've already read to Vic in Canada, I'm pretty free this week. That's not a bad thing though because I have to figure out what my next job is going to be when school goes back in September. Photo - Me, Stuart and Karen.