Is January nearly over yet?

This last week has been another full one...
Mon-Fri - working every hour I could stay awake (seriously - on Friday, I was the last person in school. The cleaners left and asked me to turn the lights off and lock up!)
Saturday - lovely, relaxing day - did no work at all, just watched telly and knitted all day long. Bliss.
Sunday - started well, nice day out shooting although very muddy and a bit chilly, then went rapidly downhill in the evening, culminating in a trip to the hospital and coming back alone at 2am, having had to leave Hubby behind.
Today: Overslept (still only 5 hours!) and rushed to work like thing posessed - barked at kids all day in some variety of foreign language though not neccessarily the right one - then home, and back to hospital with fresh clothes and washkit. Thank heaven for Mums - mine rushed around getting hubby new clothes and PJs today, then met me at home after school to deliver it all so I could rush straight into hospital and not face shops. Thanks Mum - brain had melted by then, incapable of rational thought. Going to go to bed and hope hubby is warm and comfy. I took him in some hand-knit socks, so at least I know his feet are ok.

Blue Monday

Tony Papper, 04/06/1936 - 19/01/2004

Still miss you, Dad.

Slowly getting back on top of it all...

Wow, I'd forgotton what hard work this teaching lark is. Not just over xmas: I've been on supply since September (harder behaviour management, but no planning and marking), and before that it was summer, so I've not been really teaching since last July. It's hard. Especiallyat the beginning. I'm three days in to a new school, new system, new classes, new colleagues, new buildings, new commute, and I feel like I know nothing - nobody's name, where anything is, where I'm going - it's really tough. I know that I will get there and it will all get easier soon if I just hang on in there and tough it out, but I'm shattered. The last three days I've been out of the house for 12 hours every day, with staff meetings and NQT meetings after school, in minus several degrees, (and my heating in my classroom is woefully inadequate!), the come home (each day to a lovely hot meal cooked for me by my wonderful hubby), and started right back in on the next 4 or 5 or 6 hours of work that need doing before the next day. And hubby's been right alongside me, doing all of the admin tasks he can to help out, anything that doesn't require a knowledge of languages! I would have collapsed by now if he hadn't been helping me out, and I still feel like I'm close. My foot is still really painful after my boxing day fall, and I'm having to just ignore it and limp around school as fast as I can because there's nothing I can do - but I had to move out of my classroom and traipse all round the school today because there are exams in there, and tomorrow will be worse - more classes, more room changes, spread out further across the school, in more rooms and buildings I don't know. I carried 5 huge bags all over the school all day today. I am knackered and not at all sure I can make it to the end of the week. And I have another 4 lessons to plan and resource (with no books or photocopying) by tomorrow.
Sorry for the lack of knitting content - don't have time to do any!

I have my own classroom!

I do!! See? Proof! And now I'm so tired that I can hardly breathe, so despite it not even being 9pm and my not having knit a single stitch today (or tomorrow most likely - out from 7am till 10pm - ouch!), I'm going to bed. Night night.

Oh dear... I've become an enabler!

Yes, I must own up to it. I'm a pusher. A corrupter of innocents... I have dedicated my life to the cause of corrupting as many innocent people as possible into the devilish..... delights..... of............ sock knitting!!

Why, what did you think I was talking about?

This xmas I gave 3 people sock knitting kits - some gorgeous yarn, a set of beautiful knitpicks multicoloured wooden DPNs, and my basic sock knitting instructions. I thought three people was probably enough to infect with this mania at one time, and they seemed really pleased (well, two of them... one hasn't had her present yet as I haven't seen her). Then, yesterday, we went all couple-y and grown-up (yeah, right) and had a dinner party (soooooo not posh. Is it posh to make your guests cook their own food? No!) and, at about midnight, one friend got her sock kit out of her handbag and starting asking questions.... (she's a new knitter and has just done her first two scarves, so she's being very brave) Why should she knit two rows of rib before joining in the round? Won't there be a slit at the top of the sock? Why should she slip the first stitch of each row on the heel flap? How does one 'pick up' the gusset stitches? *
...And in answering these and the other thirty-three questions (trying to think straight in my wine-soaked state and having picked up hubby's latest stripy sock to demonstrate) I realised two things. One: my other friend (who has always professed to be more interested in cross-stitch) was looking at us with a wistful sock-knitting kind of gleam in her eye, and Two: I need to write a photo-heavy tutorial for very basic sock-knitting to help me corrupt people. (Yes, I know there are probably millions out there already, but I have my own quirky style - I want to write my own!)
Oh, and friend #2 went home with some funky sock wool, some DPNs and some sock-knitting instructions. And a big smile on her face. I've corrupted another one!! Yay!!

*Answers, in order: 1. Because then it's almost impossible to accidentally twist when you join in the round (good thing, especially for beginners). 2. Yes, but it'll be tiny and you just sew it up when you're weaving in the end - you have to weave it in anyway! 3. To make larger loops down the side of the heel flap, making it much easier to pick up the gusset stitches. 4. Put the needle through these larger loops one at a time, collecting them all, then knit them as stitches on the next row.