School Holidays

as of today I have two glorious weeks ( and a day ) stretching in front of me. I'm in a current insomnia cycle which is why I'm blogging g at 4am. The HG is off for week 2 so there'll be days out and maybe a cheeky stopover somewhere as yet undecided. The garden needs my attention. The housework needs my attention. My TV planner needs my attention. I've sewing and knitting craving my attention and a good deal of lazing to do.
This half term seemed to zoom by in a flash.
Or
'As quick as a chimpanzee'
As a cherub wrote in a story recently, desperate to flex their new simile muscles!!! Ive loved being in the class I've been in, despite my qualms about dual role, but after the holidays a new pastoral role will see me once more out of class full time. I'm really looking forward to it but it's going to be challenging!
Our school is 'safe' budget wise for people's jobs this next academic year, but after that is anyone's guess. Our school is set to see £48000 slashed from its budget year 2019. The high school my two went to will lose £925000
It's crazy.
I just saw a story on fb where a school held a mufti day, but asked its parents for a donation of loo rolls and glee sticks in order to help the school.
How on earth can we meet the ridiculous standards imposed by ofsted when there is no money for resources and staff?? All the services are being cut too. One being 'Safenet' which provides much needed expert support and programmes for children from homes where they've witnessed Domestic Violence. No more after Easter. Will DV stop too then???

A bit ranty, probably due to being tired and cranky and passed off at being awake. I've already been trying to get back to sleep since 3.02am.

My garden is springing back to life and thanks to the warm rainy season, everything is lush and green. Good rhubarb growth. Lots of new rose activity on the cuttings I took in October. My purple osteospurnamthingies are flowering. My beautiful but oh so stinky deep true blue hyacinths are at it and my red Japanese maple just woke up too. We need a new fence but can't decide on which one to get. Bloody weeds everywhere too. Sorry, my native wild flower collection is growing!! The peonies are growing at a rate of 5cm a day it seems. My bird feeders are being visited a lot.

TV shows I'm loving are the new Quiz '5 gold rings' with Mr Silver Fox Philip Schofield. Broadchurch is stacked up in my planner for next week's knitting. I'm a complete Walking Dead and Talking Dead addict and that's about it. We don't really watch much else. Lately it's been Emmerdale ( poor Ashley ) and then we've been romping through Dexter box sets- almost at the last series! More often than not though the TV is off.  I've a stack of books to read and really fancy the Game of Thrones books. My friend has leant them all to me. So I'm going to make a conscious effort to read at least once a day.

Right it's 4.37am. I feel sleepy now. So am going to try and snoooooooze.
Oh before I do

This is a new loo product I bought. I'll try anything new if it's on offer! 

You 'pipe' it straight onto the loo bowl.

This second effort is far superior to my first. But it does look like I stuck two hating sweets in my loo!! Smells nice. 

Here I'm having a go at making Flying Geese out of foxes! Got carried away and got cocky. 

Sewed some in back to front! 

But look! How clever - zig zags out of triangles. A bit mind blowing!! It will eventually become a little shopping bag. But it makes me laugh as I'm cutting up various bits of material, to see together to make....material!!! 

Right I'm done 

Lots of love from 

Rachel *pray for sleep and ignore any typing errors* Radiostar xxx