CATCOUK 100

HOORAY! Welcome to the 100th CATCOUK post. To think that just a mere 18 months ago, I could do anything I liked on Sunday evenings, and you lot all had work to do during the week…Proof! 100 Posts long!

Well, we’ve finally made it. Honest, we have hit the magical 100 this time. To celebrate this fact, I am making a little montage of all my favourite moments (okay, so bits and pieces that I could find), and putting it on YouTube. I hope you all enjoy it… (It will appear as soon as I’ve had time to finish it)

Well, it appears that the 100th post lines up nicely with a delightful cold that I now have. Writing this week’s post has been nothing but a pain in the backside. All I really want to do is sleep. Which is ironic really, because I imagine that anyone that reads this rubbish just wants to fall asleep as well. Is this how some of you get to sleep at night?

Because this week, I had put some considerable effort into a 100th post montage, I thought I could get away without writing much of anything. But to be honest, I have several things I really wanted to bring up. And although I’m ill, I don’t feel the need to bring up my last meal…

At the very beginning of the week, as usual, I was helping in Year 4 science. For the last few weeks, we have been looking at temperature. For the kids to investigate, each table is given 3 beakers of water. Obviously, kids being kids, we don’t do this until the last possible moment (stop fiddling). Each beaker is filled with water at a different temperature: cold, room temperature, and hot.

The class has a tap where we could get room temperature water from, but to get the other water meant a trip to the staff room. Whilst one of my colleagues emptied the water cooler, I set about filling a teapot from our boiler. We hurried back to class, and filled the beakers. Tap water, cold water, then finally my hot water. As I poured it out, I noticed that the hot water was… well not quite normal. As I noticed the colour of the water, I was thankful that I don’t drink hot drinks. What does this look like to you?Today children, we’re going to see if we can investigate which teacher provided each sample…

I told the caretaker, and showed him the photo. He insisted that I had fudged the photo, and that the boiler was filtered. Is it any wonder that there are loads of staff off ill? (and no I didn’t drink any, this must be a cold…)

Wednesday night, I had to work at Adult Ed. Mum had this cold, before kindly passing it on to me, so I covered her shift. To cut (you’ll get the pun in a mo) a long story short, I put a piece of paper, with someone’s details on it, through the shredder. I didn’t realise that I had done this until 9.05pm, about 25 minutes before home time.

You’re now thinking ‘What’s strange about that? Shredding personal details to prevent ID fraud. Data Protection and all that.’ Unfortunately I needed these details, so that I could pass the particulars onto the day staff. Upon the realisation of all this, I rushed to the shredder, and started trawling through it. Fortunately for me, it was on orange paper, so the pieces were rather easy to find.CSI eat your hearts out – the finished product.

After fishing the bits out, I was glad for watching late night re-runs of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (I do like the Las Vegas series). I carefully placed out the strips, and held them together with the weight of my pen on top. I still have no idea what the ladies name is, but we did manage to piece back together the phone number. You know, it’s much harder to do that it looks on TV.

On Thursday, I had once again got myself on a school trip. This was a good one as well (in my opinion). Instead of spending the day in school, we got to take the kids on a walk in the country, along an old Roman Road (Stane Street). We arrived in the car park at the start of our 7140 metre walk (that’s nearly 4 and a half miles), and were surprised that our Deputy Head had not yet arrived. He had taken the minibus several minutes before we left in the coaches, and he wasn’t here.

We tried to phone him, but we couldn’t get through on the number he’d given us. It later turned out to be the wrong number. Our Deputy Head is a great guy, and I don’t know of a single member of staff that doesn’t like him. But is one of the more… ‘senior’ members of staff, and as such, has a bit of a fear of technology. When we returned from the trip, I altered the school’s ‘school trip whiteboard’. We write up important trip details, like phone numbers, and medications… etc.A method of technology that our Deputy Head is more accustomed to…

Also on our trip, and also in the car park, I had other members of staff laughing at me. As I’m sure that anyone that knows me will know (wow, that’s a confusing phrase), I’m normally quite prepared. So naturally, I had come prepared to work in the outdoors. My fellow colleagues thought this was funny. My reply was, ‘Laugh all you like. I’m an Adventure Education student, and I have come prepared to work in the outdoors…’ Go University of Chichester…Mr. Clarke (I hate being called that) – the Adventure Education professional.

And that ends this week’s ramblings. I hope that you are all better than me, and I also hope I’m feeling better next week. Roll on Half Term!

If you are well, and would like to rub it in, why not leave a comment telling me how great it is to be healthy.

If you are also unwell, why not leave a comment telling me your symptoms, and I’ll see if you also have man-flu…

Quote of the Week: ‘Yes ma'am, we did discharge a firearm multiple times. We're okay but the raccoon is dead or at least dying and the duck may not make it, thanks for the concern, good night.’ This week’s quote comes from one of my American friends, Terry Robinson, who also writes on the net. He posts daily, but fortunately never more than a few sentences. If you would like some mild entertainment, why not check out ‘Suburban Adventure’?

Song of the Month: Royal Salute. The combined bands of TS Intrepid and TS Sturdy (sounded amazing on Sunday guys, roll on the Band Contest. 28th October, Burgess Hill Triangle Centre, come an support TS Intrepid!).