after rain

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse.  Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen:  may it happen for you.

Ah . . . back in the room again. I've decided that I should reconfigure myself as the Sisyphus of the Dishwasher. What is it about bloody dishwashers?  Every time I come down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea I have to empty the damned thing. Am I forever condemned to the meaningless task of emptying it and endlessly refilling it? Anyway, on to more important matters . . .

I can't start to explain how ridiculous the last few weeks have been. Honestly, I can't.

We seem to have finally got the house in order after the fire but it wasn't until this week that that happened. I spent most of the half term break fighting the demands of wandering through a building site and marking exams. The anomie created by the builders/decorators/Bogey men won out. Little really got done. However, one student cheered me up completely by writing an essay about a film called I, Robert which evidently was about a time when the world got tired of all the Roberts and wanted to get rid of them all. Can't wait for my friend Robert to come back off of holiday . . . 

Last weekend we spent the whole weekend painting all of the bits of woodwork that the Insurance decorators weren't going to paint. Which was most of it. Let's face it, I live in a three storey Edwardian town house, so that's a lot of stair spindles, dado rails and skirting boards. I lifted the carpet ready for Wednesday's visit by the carpet fitters. Tuesday night, I lifted* the underlay which meant I spent all of Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning trying to extricate my slippers from the grippers (poetic, eh?). The three o'clock visit to the bathroom involved some swearing. However, the biggest surprise of all was . . .  Ofsted decided to inspect us on Wednesday and Thursday. Okay, so now I'm behind in exam marking, the carpet people are coming tomorrow and now Satan's representatives on Earth are paying a visit? What else could go wrong?

Well. After my first lesson on Wednesday morning on the other site (our school - sorry, Academy - is on two sites) I went out to the car in a hurry assuming that I'd probably be observed next lesson. The car wouldn't open. When I put the key into the door all Hell broke lose. Whilst, in truth only the lights were flashing on and off (with the extraordinarily loud beeping), it seemed as though the roof and doors were opening as in some surreal dream of the worst clown's car in the worst circus your wildest nightmares could conjure. Real Ray Bradbury stuff.  Whilst I stood there in absolute disbelief watching the seconds tick by like Rod Taylor in the 1960 version of The Time Machine watching ladies fashions changing every few seconds, a friend came to my rescue. Evidently, these modern keys don't even have batteries - you need to alternate the keys if you have more than one as the car charges it (or some such rubbish).

I wasn't observed. Not at all. Over both days - which is enough to decide whether after all the years of training and actually doing the job - Ofsted deemed it unnecessary to see me. Well, I've no time for Ofsted and, quite clearly, they've no time for me. However, as I drove home that evening hoping that the carpet fitters had been and that it all looked okay.

The pile of carpet offcuts and underlay lying on the front garden suggested that they'd been. Opening the front door suggested that they'd also decided that they didn't have to clear up after themselves either. A quick trip to the Tip and an hour with the Dyson soon sorted it all out. Most of the hour was spent trying to work out how to work the damned thing. The last time I'd "hoovered" the stairs was, literally using a Hoover. What's going on with all that Space Age Dyson stuff? They look like drawings from a D&K cutaway book.

Anyway, Ofsted have gone leaving only the smell behind them. Life goes on - we survived. I won't go into any boring detail except to say that we can get on with life now. No Damoclean Sword hanging over us for the last few weeks of the academic year (not forgetting that this has been hanging over us ALL YEAR).  We can get on with our marking (I'm exceptionally late this year with it but the Exam Board have kindly given me an extension). 

In the meantime, I've reacquainted myself with Clive Gregson & Christine Collister's ouevre, watched most of The Eagles' documentary and am looking forward to seeing John Etheridge and a pickup band on Sunday night 200 yards from my house. So, life's not all bad. The weather isn't great but after the rain this afternoon, the garden seemed fresh. However, whilst out foraging, I've not been able to find any elderflowers yet. I want to make some Elderflower Champagne. For once, we've got loads of stoppered bottles but no bloody elderflowers.

Oh well, I'd better go and empty the dishwasher, it seems to have finished its cycle . . .
And the sky never leaves me

I couldn't find the words to say
First we take it easy
Then we take it day by day 

After rain, after rain

We can walk in green fields once again
And all my life I'll read the sky 

* I mean, of course, tore up and pulled all tacks, nails and staples.
PS Blogger is playing up again. The amount of time I've spent trying to stop it putting white bands around every line is ridiculous. And as for re-ordering the labels . . .well!