we could leave right now

I still don't know what I was waiting for

And my time was running wild

A million dead-end streets

Every time I thought I'd got it made

It seemed the taste

was not so sweet

So I turned myself to face me

But I've never caught a glimpse

Of how the others must see the faker

I'm much too fast to take that test

Sometimes I think I've had a charmed life. I don't mean that in any glib way - there have been plenty of problems and hard time a-plenty, don't worry. Still, to get to this grand old age and feel that I could possibly make some major ch-ch-changes that could make things seem a little better suggests to me that, at least, there must be someone up there smiling down on me occasionally.  Mind you, it's probably the same smile I've witnessed over the years from students that pass me in the corridors. It's the beaky nose, isn't it?

Still, Life changes at certain points in our lives and this month we've reached one of those points.

Earlier this month we paid off our Mortgage and felt that we were able to start thinking about the future as a less frenetic and busy time. Okay, not quite retirement but an easing of responsibilities and less hours spent standing in classrooms wondering why I'd ended up as one of the teachers I used to torture with poor behaviour back in the early seventies. What goes around comes around, I suppose. Mind you, we were much more clever in those days - so much more subtle.

Ah well, this could all be for another time- perhaps when I've hours to spend thinking and writing. Retirement.  Not quite there but decisions have been reached. I'm going to try for three days a week next year and drop English teaching as much as possible. Perhaps there'll be plenty of time to experiment with writing and actually bothering to learn how to play one of those things that hang on my walls properly.

Maybe.

But suddenly, as of today, things are looking up.