Christmas is here

We got a lot of help from the dogs with the unwrapping. The floor was covered in paper and as ever there were wonderful opportunities for the dogs to have a chew on anything left unattended.

Christmas is coming

Our preparations for Christmas were accompanied by alterations to the house with Natasha moving upstairs again into a room made out of two rooms; the first the old computer room and the second Joe's bedroom. The builder knocked down the old wall dividing the two rooms enabling us to move Natasha in before Christmas (just!). Her old room is now a cross between a games room, study and Joe's bedroom when he is here.

The picture shows Joe and Glen enjoying the new room which has provided us with a lot more space including moving the piano into and freeing the dining room.

As well as that there are photos of the Christmas scenes from the Hoods' home on the 22nd.

Frosty weekend

With just a week to Christmas Day the weather has turned festive with lovely blue skies again and frost on the fields. We had a long walk toward Horton and you can see the tower in one of the pictures and two roe deer running off although the image is somewhat blurred.

Jim's Last Day

Thursday saw the final game of football at Oaklands for Jim who is off to a new school in the New Year. Celebrity appearances meant 8 a side but we still managed a competitive game in which we all took the chance to kick him for the final time.

Portland

On the way back from Plymouth we stopped off for Glen's match at Portland which resulted in a 4 - 3 win to Rossgarth and a happy return to Woodlands.

Roxanne's 18th

We set off for Plymouth quite late so I could listen to the football on 5 Live on the way down. It was a clear run and we got to Murdina's before 6 with the party starting after 7.30. You'll see lots of family in the pictures and we had a good time with lots of awful jokes and even worse accents, especially Joe's.

Busy weekend

The school play was fantastic with the theatre having been refurbished thanks to our recently acquired specialist status as a performing arts school. The lighting is state of the art with so many special effects along with new sound system, roving microphones and even a snow machine. As a Christmas spectacular it worked a treat. I also had the opportunity to speak to an ex student who starts his first professional acting job this week touring schools with a production of a play written by one of our drama teachers. Good to see so many students progressing well.

Following that it was off to Southampton for a meal which we got down to after 11p.m. to say goodbye to teacher leaving after many years. He started at the same time as me and will be greatly missed. The meal was very good but it was after 2 in the morning before I got to bed with trip to Plymouth to follow.

Random

Glen's team lost 4 - 1 in the cup last weekend to a team well above them in respect of divisions. It was a good performance in many ways which was encouraging after the prevous week in which they'd looked short of composure and organisation. It was quite a trip to Dorchester especially as I'd left the map of the ground behind!

We won 5 - 0 on Monday against a weakened opposition with contributions from Dave, Dom and John along with two from me. Most notably it is good to see the team unbeaten since Kevin took over in goal. We've won three and drawn three having lost the first two.

School is as manic as ever. I saw a Year 10 girl outside walking along with two other girls not from this school. She was not in uniform and was quite happy to stop and chat. I mentioned she had been seen on site yesterday although not in class and she told me it was because she'd come in to do hairdressing course. She was absent today because she had flu but wanted to see her friends at lunchtime. I asked whether her two friends had the flu as well and told it I must be in a different kind of world or something where it was ok to just come in to meet friends and then go home as she informed me her fatehr was happy with this arrangement. At the mention of Education Welfare she simply walked off and said she'd smash the school up if her dad got in trouble.

Yards away was another girl meant to be isolated from the other students. She had refused to do as told and had been in all her lessons despite teachers knowing she was out. She was not going to do as told by anyone.

One of the Heads of Department has resigned without another post to go to as she is so fed up and two others are in tears fairly frequently. Yet completing the self evaluation form shows how much the school is progressing and how much it is achieving which contradicts how some staff are feeling. It is hard work and must be so stressful when struggling with difficult groups. I'm not sure I could go on feeling like that but some clearly do. at least for a time.

Christmas can't come soon enough!