I just called, to say.... ?

Hello readers, another week another blog. On Saturday, me and Selena went in to Birmingham because about a month a go she got herself a good deal on an upgrade with O2 and now my contract was up and I wanted a good deal as well (I love a bargain!)

So off we went. After following Selenas directions to park on top of Selfridges (because I didn't know you had to drive round it 3 times before getting to the car park entrance!) we went down to the shopping level where I wandered right past the O2 shop abut was quickly retrieved by Selena. (well, bright blue neon signs just blend in with everything, don't they?) I got talking to a lady-person about upgrading my handset as well as modifying my contract. They did me an in store deal where I pay a few pounds per month extra but get 5 times as many minutes, twice the number of texts plus free calls at weekends. My handset got upgraded to a Sony Ericsson K800i for free, plus I got myself a 1Gb M2 memory card... Nice.

After giving the lady-person my details and signing the contract (why are they all 18 months now?) we left and I was dead chuffed about my brand-spanking-new phone.

Nothing big has happened much during the rest of the week except for yesterday. It was Woodrushes annual open day and as usual I was on-hand to help out. I did a lot more talking to parents this year but this is down to the Deputy Head Teacher talking about Woodrush as being "the only school in the area to have a full time art specialist working along side teachers as an assistant, to further enrich the artistic abilities of every pupil." I was wondering to myself who the hell she was talking about, when I noticed her waving parents in my direction...

... Great, now I'm a damned "specialist." Don't get me wrong, it's a nice way of being introduced, but the fact that I hadn't even qualified for a name-tag like all the other members of staff, and that when the refreshments came round all I got was a carton of out-of-date blackcurrant juice, it made me wonder if what she had said was, in fact, a load of bollocks and that she was just trying to impress people...


... So there I was, surrounded by people asking me about various paintings that had been laid out, kids prodding at the various paintings that had been laid out, and all the dads saying stuff like "Uh, I can't draw at all... I don't know how" (what? you don't know how to pick up a pencil, and scrape the black bit over a piece of paper???) or the nerdy dads, who tried talking to me about their favorite artists. Things like "Oh yes, I love art, yes, I always wanted to be a painter..." (Well if you're that eager there's some paint in the cupboard, and some paper in the stock-room... Knock yourself out... you tit.) The highlight of the evening was one dozy woman who told me that she was a pupil at Woodrush 25 years ago. She gave a vacant stare in to space and said "it's changed a bit since I was here" (Well yes I suppose over the course of 25 years, it fucking-well has!)

After entertaining nearly a thousand people, Me, sally, and Hannah (i.e. me and 2 of the 3 art teachers) left at about 9:00pm. We were all completely shattered. I shot home, got changed and went up to the Swan to meet the usual crowd of friendly faces. (It was a relief, believe me!)

So thats the week in full, I'm afraid. Not much to this blog but stay tuned, things are bound to get better!

TTFN readers!

The mis-adventures of yours truly.

Hello readers, and it's time for another blog. And what a blog it will be! I have much to tell... We are in to the second week of being back to school and it's business as usual. I have been doing cover lessons in the art studios because of slight staff shortages and so have had some real experience at proper teaching...

... the up-shot of this is the fact that I'm already in need of another holiday, and my reputation as the only person in the school who doesn't shout has been quickly quelled and replaced with the reputation as the only person in school who can go from nicey-nicey to bastard in 0.4 seconds.

Anyway, I'm not going to use this blog just for complaining, it's supposed to be a happy place! So I will get on with telling you all about my little trip with some of the year 10s to Avoncroft museum.

Last thursday I was asked to accompany some year 10s to Avoncroft Museum! They are learning about "construction" and can get a qualification in it (apparently!) The first session (of which there are about 6) involved learning about health and safety. I knew i was in for a difficult day when I had to tell one of the lads how to spell "Woodrush" and was told that "All this writin' is unfair" by the majority of them. (It should be noted that they had only filled out one little form by this point!) They were in for a shock, because the entire day involved writing things down and taking notes. Even lunch time wasn't a relief because I had to contend with them running round the outer gardens and refusing to come in. Anyway, the day ran it's course, the kids complained and I came away thinking that maybe it was a bit of a waste of time.

We got back to Woodrush at 3:00pm and they all went home, leaving me to go and find a nice quiet corner of the staff room, so that I could have a cup of coffee.

I was a wreck after that day (and I'm going again tomorrow!)

Fortunately my sanity was saved at the weekend by Adam, suggesting that we go to the Hatton Country Park. I thought that this was a good idea and so on Saturday morning, Me, Adam, Jenny, Carl, and Marcus set off in Adams car. We got to the museum for about 11:00ish and went straight in to the bit you have to pay for. Jenny had a voucher so we got in slightly cheaper and made a bee-line for the little zoo... Where they had some dogs in a pen... yes, dogs. Strange I know but they were special working dogs as bred by the local shepperd (apparently) along with some pigs, rabbits, ducks, sheep, donkeys and guinney pigs. When we had petted just about every living thing in sight we went round the rest of the enclosure. We had a particularly good laugh when we came to the cow pen... Adam went trotting over to the field saying, "Wow, cows are cool, man" just as one reared it's head and sneezed over him! It was gross. His entire right shoulder was covered in speckled cow-snot! (He wasn't very happy about it.) We then saw a gay falconer trying to make an owl (called "Mopser") to work off-hand and by voice only.... It worked for about 10 minutes, and then the owl got bored and refused to move. The guy was obviously a fan of the botty because he was trying to get the owl to fly by calling "Come on Mopser, Come on, girl" while smiling and batting his eyelids at the poor creature. Honestly, I think even I could have done a better job! The birds of prey were cool, though, and they were all on display. I took one of a falcon as seen below.

Nice isn't he? I tried to tempt him on to my arm but he was having none of it... It would have just torn through my wrists, anyway, with it's talons, I think.

The day ended with the Duckdog trials. (yes reader, you read that correct) like a sheepdog, but with ducks! The herder got everyone in a circle with their feet apart, and he got the dog to lead the ducks through everyones legs, much like a giant, circular slalom, I got a photo of Marcus and Jenny because i thought that if anyone was going to be pecked in the crotch, then undoubtably, it would be Marcus... Much to his delight, (and my dismay) there was no crotch pecking to be had. Still, Marcus looks like he's enjoying it, doesn't he?

We left Hatton at about 5:00ish and went for a drink. The intention was to go for a bite to eat and get changed to be back in Solihull for 7:00 to go for a night out. This was eventually done and we were back in Weatherspoons (minus Adam, because he was knackered) for about 8:00pm. We moved on to Casa at 10:00 and stayed there for the evening. Afterwards we went back to Marcus's and watched Only Fools And Horses! Another quality night out...!

On Monday, Me and Selena, along with Kieron went to the driving range in Solihull with Debbie and Kevin. Kev' (who plays regularly) corrected my swing and got me hitting 150 yards with an 8 Iron. Lovely... I'm now looking on Ebay for some cheap Golf Clubs!

Ah well, I've sat here typing this now since god-knows-when and I'm getting bored and want to play Chromehounds... So I will!

TTFN readers.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to work I go

Hello readers. It's time for another spiffing update from yours truly. September is here and that means it's back to work for me. In fact, as I sit at my PC typing this, I have just finished the first day back...

... It was hell.

But before I come to rant about work I have much to blog. The other week I went, with Father and sister, to the annual Town & Country Festival. It's a gathering of all-sorts, from falconry, to classic cars, to Monster trucks!

It was a good day out, and half way round the classic motors I came across my dad's favorite car of all time... The MKII Jaguar, as seen below.

It truly is a marvel of engineering. Gentle enough for Inspector Morse, yet fast enough for London Gangsters. After the classics came a section of modern motoring greats, and someone had this brand new Aston Martin V8 Volante to display.....

.... Git. When can I have one? thats what I want to know!

Ah, the Volante, it's basically a V8 Vantage with a bigger engine and a tweeked chassis. I think it costs a good £10,000 more as well.

Anyway, after we had done all that ther was to do, it was back home for tea at my nans. The following day I was out and about with the usual crowd and someone mentioned Bank Holiday Monday, and what we were going to make of it. We came to the conclusion that we would all go to the Black Country museum for the day (since none of us had been for a number of years.)

So on the morning of the Bank Holiday, I turned up at Jenny's house with John where Carl, Marcus, and Adam were waiting. I set off with carl behind me and we arrived at the Museum at about 11:15am-ish, however it was a bank holiday... So guess how long the queue was to get in? Thats right... It went from the foyer of the main building, along the side of the building and down on to the car-park. Fortunately it was a moving queue, not a "stand here for half an hour and then move one step forward" kind of queue. We joined the back and was in the museum for about 11:40. We didn't bother doing the indoors bit, we went straight outside to look at the old mill engine, which I took a photo of. I tried explaining how it worked but no-body was really interested except for Marcus who looked up at the counterweight beam and said "cor, 's bloody amazin', man!" ha-ha, (I think thats his way of saying "I say, what a marvellous display of 18th century craftsmanship.) Anyway I took a photo from the outside...

What i should have done is taken one of the actual engine inside the hut, since thats where most of the working parts are... But I didn't... Sorry.

Next we went down to the village with the intention of buying fish and chips from the shop there (it's worth the entrance fee alone... Just for those chips!) We queued for about an hour, during which time a bloke on an old Sunbeam came riding down the road. It was a really nice bike so I got a quick shot of it.

I can't remember what year it was made but it looked brand new. We eventually got our chips and sat by the canal eating them. Afterwards we washed the fish and chips down with a pint of real ale from the pub, and then joined yet another queue for the mine. In the queue we were just infront of the most common, foul mouthed, sweaty family you could imagine. The father looked like he dredged canals with his teeth, the mother was a living Waynetta Slob, the daughter looked like Vicky Pollard and the youngest tried to start a fight with Carl! And none of them could speak any quieter than 120 decibels.

As we got out of the mine it started to rain quite hard so we took refuge in the school house. We decided to make a run for it and go inside the main museum near the entrance. We killed an hour wandering round and eventually left at about 5:00pm. I took an "involuntary detour" on the way home (i.e. I got lost) but managed to get home in time to go to the pub! So we all ended up in the Packhorse just in time to play "Quizzgo" the game thats a quiz and bingo... All rolled in to one massively stupid, yet fun, game. We came 3rd I think which wasn't to bad, although there weren't many people playing. I was home for about 11:30pm and went to bed.

The rest of the weekhas been taken up with Kate's present, now I have the photo's here for you but IT'S A SECRET!!!!!!!! So I don't want her finding out about them. Basically, ages ago she wanted me to produce a drawing of an orchid. But what I have done is paint 3 of them in oils, on canvases. The first 2 are finished, but the 3rd still needs completing (which is what I will do after I finish typing this!)

And here they are...

I don't think they are too bad. I purposely found pictures of species of orchid that were a little bit unusual, to try and give the work some flair and originality. I hope she will like them, and hang them on her wall. (Which is what she was going to do with the drawing she wanted)

And on that note, I've now got to go and finish the 3rd picture.

TTFN readers.