Catch Up

My lovely SIL reminded me that I hadn't told anyone any news for two weeks! (Not that I think many people are interested anyway, but here goes)

Something not-so-nice happened at school: I teach a boy who's parents in their wisdom decided to give him a strange name, with a strange spelling - why do parents do that? It almost always sets them up to be "different". Anyway, back to J - he does strange things in my class (like pretends to be a cell-phone etc) and has been a real problem for me for nearly 18 months. (He has been moved into different classes quite a few times and unfortunately I have ended up with him.) His mother wrote an email to the Dean in which amongst other things she said that she had heard from the partner of someone who works at our school that I am a known racist. Well, those of you who know me will know what that did to me - I was furious. Then a meeting was set up between his family and myself including the Principal, Dean, my HoD (who held my hand under the table for the full hour that the meeting took, the Maori teacher and the RTLB. And J was supposed to be there but disappeared well and truely so that two people could not find him. Firstly the discussion was about his behavioural problem in class. Then the dean asked the mother where the statement she made came from. Of course, she had problems remembering about it. My HoD read out to her the statement she had made. She refused to say "who" this person was/is. The dad was really taken aback and very embarrassed and he apologised as did the family friend who came with them. I had so much support from our staff - it was wonderful! Our feeling at the end was that this woman had made up the lie that she used. I did go back to class feeling great. I still haven't told Adrian about it as I know he would hit the roof!

In between this, I went scrapping last Saturday - had a great day - just what I needed! I did quite a few l/os of which I finished two yesterday.

Our dollar is so good against the US$ at the moment that I have bought some WishBlade sticky mats. They also fit the Silhouette so if anyone is reading this and wants a pack of two mats, I do have extras to sell. They will be about $45 including postage to you in NZ.


We have had Labour weekend here this weekend which means Monday is a holiday. We've even had good weather! The weather has been appalling here with almost constant rain. Yesterday we met our lovely godson and family at the Zoo and then came home to have a late impromptu BBQ.
Today we went out to a beautiful garden called Efil Doog (read it backwards). The gardens were beautiful and peaceful and we took a picnic with us. Some faces blurred in the photos

Picnic

A beautiful path

The boys

The girls


We have come home really tired but having had a wonderful little holiday.

A Sally update: she has two growths - one on her spleen and the other on her liver each about the size of a $2 coin. Now it is just a matter of waiting. Our wonderful vet did say that there was the option of a big operation and chemo but that if it were her cat she would just make sure that the cat was having a good life. And that's what we are doing.

And tomorrow we can all sleep in again!