cul's comfy corner

i haven't eaten in two days. 

i have no appetite whatsoever, thank you very much. 

none, nothing, nada.

it's quite alien to me and i'm not quite sure what to do about it.  

obviously, the stress of recent weeks has taken it's toll and i'm pretty run down and now that i've relaxed a little, my body has started to shut down.

the first day of the holidays for most teachers is like christmas day for a 4 year old.  we rip open presents, phone friends and family to share news, spend longer than necessary in pyjamas and eat our body weight in gifted chocolates.  not this time though.  i'm still not sleeping yet i feel tired all the time, things that are beyond my control are preying on my mind and  i feel strange. 

no matter what happens in my life, there's always something i can rely on to make me feel better - food.  good old comfort food can get me through any relationship problems, any family emergencies and even a fair amount of bereavement.

it seems that now is the time to say goodbye to that.  maybe, just maybe it's time to sort things out properly. 

where i don't ache isn't worth knowing about...

friday was the last day of school and was traumatic and terrifically stressful.  we had to get 200 children round to the church for the leavers service and back again safely, pack away all of their stuff, go out for lunch and then have another hour long assembly at the end of the day.  everything seemed to go at 200 miles an hour.  i don't think i stopped to take a breath.

i tried to keep it together, but was feeling emotional.  the kids in church were going over their favourite memories of their time at the school and every single one mentioned something about being in my class and then mentioned something about having fun in jen's class too.  i felt very flattered to be remembered, the kids usually just mention the last classes they've been in and as i'm the first, i don't usually get a look in.  i just kept looking back at the kids in my class and thinking about how much i'm going to miss them.  sparked tears every time. 

at the end of the day, when all of the kids had gone, my assistant g and i wanted to chill out and go home.  unfortunately, we then had to move all of our furniture on to the carpet so our floors could be clean.  that was another hour of manual labour i didn't want to do. it took us another hour to load up the car with presents from the kids and drive them round to g's house.  when i got home, i couldn't get my presents into the house because i was just so tired.  i managed to get as far as the garden but then i broke down and howled my eyes out in an emotional and extremely baking hot mess.

rob came in soon after that and said something about it all being over and how i could relax now for a few days and get my strength back up. 'nuh-uh' i told him, i had invited everyone over to mine the next day for a party and so i needed to tidy up.  friday night and all day saturday were spent washing clothes, hoovering, dusting and washing the floors on my hands and knees. 

i just about managed to get done by around 4pm yesterday and so had 10 minutes to lay down and fan myself before realising that i hadn't got any milk.  off to asda i flew in rolf, pulled into a parking space, raced into the shop, bought milk and a cd, raced back out, jumped in rolf, backed out of parking space and *clunk* something made a crunching noise under the car.  i got out and took a peek.  there was something huge under my little car, lots of material and some wooden poles too. 

wtf?  surely i would have seen them if i'd driven over them?  did i drag them from my house? i tried to pull them put without attracting any attention - how embarrassing - but that didn't work.  in the end i was flat on my back yanking two double-sized windbreakers from under my car.  someone came over and asked if she could help, 'can you pull my skirt down so my knickers arent' showing' came my reply as i pulled some more of the windbreaker from the guts of my car.  several minutes and some delicate manouvring of rolf forwards and backwards, i managed to pull the whole lot out and leave the carpark.  what was going to be a 10 minute jaunt out for some milk, took me an hour on my back in asda carpark.

when i finally got home, i jumped in the shower *again* and got ready for the party.  it was an old lady party, so i was wearing a nylon smock, a dead-old-lady wig, some blue furry slippers and some support stockings.  gorgeous.  i started getting the food out of the fridge and with one minute to go, finally pulled it all together and was ready.

that, of course, is when sod's law kicked in.  one of my naughty cats jumped over the fence into my garden with a little rabbit in his mouth.   i yelled at him until he dropped it and chased him away.  then i set about trying to catch the very scared hopper that was bounding about my greenhouse in a frenzy.  hopper caught in a flowerpot, i stroked him a little to calm him down and let him know i wasn't going to scare him before walking him to one of the orchards and releasing him - ever conscious of my outfit at the time.  one old dude walking past gave me some strange looks as he saw some pensioner crouching down trying to coax something from a flowerpot...

with all of that out of the way, my guests started arriving and 14 old ladies were ferried to an eaterie.  it was a scene from resevoir dogs gone wrong as mrs brown, mrs pink, mrs black et al strode through the car park to the restaurant.

ah, it was fun there with all of us in character.  we ate, gave g her stupid presents, danced, ate and had a good time.  all back to mine afterwards for more food and drinkies in the garden to cool down and the wigs and support stockings came off.  in an effort to negate the lasting memory of the night to be a colleague ju puking all over the road, all over herself and her hair (why? we were all pretty sober), we returned to the living room and had 13 old ladies having singstar battles until 2am. 

ooh, young man!

as the little ladybird says up there, it's the last day of school today.

it's going to be a very emotional day. moreso than usual with so many people leaving, including my assistant.  

i'm just trying to hold it all together.  

*deep breaths* 

i've been moping about a lot recently. i've felt very lonely, very isolated and very melancholy.

the stress levels shot up through the roof last week as we had a truly horrible week with thurday becoming the new tuesday with 2 of my kids in hospital, one child falling over and slitting her wrists (needing hospital treatment), one staff fight and numerous cleanup operations for seemingly incontinent children.

thursday evening, i sat at my computer and read back through my blog from last year to remember what was going on and to see if i was equally as stressed. then i found the page and read on and on and on. tears were rolling down my face as i read how awful last year was when jen died. then i read this:

11 july 2005

that was then, this is now. no-one has died. i choose to do this job and be surrounded by these people so i'd either better sort it out or shut the hell up about it. my 20 minutes is up and i'm moving on from the moaning and whining.

i went out to rochester castle grounds on friday evening with my colleagues and we danced the night away to 'dancing in the streets'. it was fantastic. i said my favourite word a lot and was invited back to someone's house for a threesome *grin* i went home though.

saturday came around and it was the designated day for our boss' leaving party and we realised that nothing had been organised, so my friend and i swung into action and gave him a party to be proud of with a mahoosive barbecue, gorilla-gram, singing, dancing, musical instruments and a brilliant raid of the PE cupboard for an impromptu drunken sports day.

we wrapped hundreds of stupid presents that took an hour to unwrap, each as equally stupid as the one before and a great time was had by all. the best thing about it all for me, was that i was completely sober. that's never happened before. i am usually pretty selfish at this sort of thing and just enjoy myself, but this time i took control and had a lovely time whilst organising the fun for everyone else.

so this is me, living my life today. i shall try it for a while. i think it suits me.

hope you've all had equally wonderful weekends *hugs*

as the little ladybird at the top of my page says, there's only 14 days until the end of school. hurrah.

i've had a shitty day, but there's only 14 more days that can be shitty, so i can be brave and strong for a little while longer. i can brave more days like today when two kids wet themselves, one soiled herself, two had a nosebleed, one was sick and one got carpetburns during an enthusiastic game. then my ill little boy had a minor allergic reaction so i was on nursing duty all day, coating him in cream and giving him medicine all day.

i broke down in tears in front of the class today. there was a letter going out to parents and i always read them to the kids so they know what's going on. it was to tell the parents how much money we had raised in jen's memory and to tell them about the new mosaic we have had dedicated to her. my class is the youngest and so didn't know jen, thus sprang lots of questions about her. who was she? was she your friend? where is she? why did she die? is she in heaven? what's cancer? i tried to be as informative as i could but i felt myself slipping away and crying in front of 30 gobsmacked kids. bless them, they all came and gave me cuddles and told me about their dead granma/grandpa/next door neighbour/goldfish.

there's a mental weekend ahead of me, so i'm gonna try to chill out tonight and be fresh for tomorrow. i'm off to a wedding and then to a charity night in jen's memory.

have a great weekend everyone [::]

if i have a nervous breakdown, i'll at least get some sleep.

i hate my job.  not the kids, i love them.  i just hate the shit that goes with it, including the attitude that i will just have to find more time to do things.  i've looked on ebay and i couldn't see anything resembling the extra 12 hours to cram into a day that i require. i pulled another all nighter last night.  not fun.

i feel like i'm trapped in a box and i can hear soil being poured over.  i'm suffocating.

i have decided that i need counselling, though i have no idea of how to go about getting something like that.  i have a lot of issues i need to deal with and having someone to talk to would be a good start.

the panic is rising, and it's not even because the end of term is nigh and there's so much to do before then. it's because the end of term is near, but september is nearer and starting all over again in 7 weeks fills me with horror.  if i didn't have this stupid mortgage, i would give up my job without a shadow of a doubt, not even a moments hesitation.

i'm just a big joke.  i'm the easily-led fall guy.  yeah, all nod and say stuff needs sorting out but no-one wants to do it. sure, i'll sort stuff out, it's what i do.  then everyone's tutting and saying things should have been done a different way.

newsflash - do it your fucking self next time, moron.

i feel my internet retirement coming on.  it's the closest thing i'm ever going to have to a break. 

a whole year ago, during live8 annie lennox was on stage singing 'why' when my friend and colleague jen passed away peacefully in her sleep aged 28.

there's not a day goes by when we don't think about her and mention her name. she's still a very big part of our lives.

i miss you jen

jen

we miss you now, our hearts are sore

as time goes by we miss you more

your loving smile, your gentle face

no-one can fill your vacant place