Which Do You Want First?

We have a variety of news to report, very mixed. I will get the bad news over with early. I was contacted by my oncologist (never a good sign) to say that my most recent scan shows that I have another tumour. It is in my pelvic area and although small, it is of course an indication that the disease has spread into another part. We are knocked, to be honest with you. It is hard to reconcile to a positive view point and it seriously tests faith. However, life at the moment is a day by day thing and the great advantage of faith is that it widens the range of possibilities and means that you don't have to abandon hope even when the 'inevitable road' seems nearer. So ... we are hanging in there.

Now, onto happier things. Mary and I have been married for nineteen years! Hardly seems any time at all since that sunny day in 1988. We looked back at the wedding album ... quite a sight. We could both pass for fourteen. Thankfully I now only look thirty five years older than I did back then. The scary thing is that the twenty five year milestone is almost in sight. I remember my parents' silver wedding and at the time I regarded them pretty much as pensioners, who had lived the best part of their lives and were probably ready to apply for a warden controlled flat. My mother was only five years older then than I am now!

The truly great news, however, is that I survived the school Sports Day. Thank you for all your prayers of support! After a near-violent incident last year between the mother of a Year 3 boy and a nervous line judge, I had the job of choosing who was first across the line. Nightmare!! Here is the flow of consciousness I had as the infants began the walking egg and spoon race:

'...Okay, some children have begun to run and this is a walking egg and spoon race. Hopefully they'll drop the egg. Drat ... the runner is in the lead and is going to win. I should disqualify her, but she is only five; she's just over excited. Mind you, if I let her win, do I let the older 'running children' win in the next race? At what age should I start disqualifying children for running? Oh no, she has dropped the egg and has crossed the line ... first, but eggless. Does that count? Mum's on her feet and embracing her, shouting 'You've won darling! You've won!' I'll just give her first place .. no one will care. Why is there a group of mums standing together over there? Mrs Jones, whose daughter came second... she is storming over. Her daughter is sobbing and has thrown her egg into the hedge! If I were to disqualify the part-running, laterally-eggless winner claiming that she failed a doping test, would it make the press? "Hi Mrs Jones..."

Finally ... calm yourselves, but I have at last finished my MBA. I graduated on 12th July from Leicester University It only took me 7 years! I did, in my defence, have four years off in the middle. My tutor who during that period sent me an email simply asking "Where are you?" and another stating "Your time is up!" was very gracious and it all ended happily. My thesis is a rivetting read!! "Managing Primary Schools in Crisis" ... oh yes, I know how to party!

Anyway, enough for now. I will leave you with a brief poem about people hanging onto hope by the skin of their teeth:

.

.

.

.

Abraham

A father of nations?

Is that what you were told

as you stood there, childless,

like a dry tree, old and

creaking in the cold

of your constant winter?

Sarah, four score and more,

did she feel life flicker

deep inside an empty core?

Okay Father Abraham,

I'll put down this pen

and you tell me again ... and again ... and again.

May Day! May Day!

Now, I hope that title hasn't filled you with a sense of alarm as it is, after all, a radio cry for help. Funnily enough in recent years I have come to associate May Day with the desire to cry and plead for help, because in school life it can be a very big event. I had the honour last weekend of going down to my previous school and crowning what used to be the 'May Queen', but is now the 'Summer Gala' Queen. The May Day Gala became the Summer Gala in the year that I left. It had been unchanged and untouched for several milleniums and there are those who will hold that particular transition against me to the end of my natural life and on into eternity. (Apparently, the un-edited version of the Book of Genesis states that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the one, central tree not because it represented knowledge, but because it had been laced with ribbons for my old school's first May Pole dance.) Anyway, I took the invitation to return as a sign of forgiveness and it was lovely to meet up with past pupils who only two years ago were tender Year 6s, but who are now 5 ft 8, shaving twice a day and growling in bass baritone voices. Some of the boys had changed as well...
In my current school we don't have a May Day celebration or even a Summer Gala. Instead we have a School Summer Fayre...a time when past pupils can come in and steal from us.

I also had a chance to visit our old church in Kettering. We were given a very warm and touching welcome. It is a truly humbling realisation that people, in the midst of their own lives and problems, are not only concerned about us but willing to spend time praying for us as a family. It was an absolute tonic.

We continue to look forward to the holidays as term nears its end. My health is still stable at the moment and we remain hopeful that it will remain so throughout the summer at least. Joel is currently preparing to leave his mainstream school as he was allocated a place in an excellent 'special school' nearby. We are sure that he is going to blossom there. We hope that those of you planning to have a few days/weeks away enjoy the break and get some bearable weather. I end this 'post' with a short poem that was written in honour of my previous school's May Day celebrations and the centuries of non-change that it represented...until that headteacher got the job!



Midnight On May Day

When the church bell tolls farewell
to the first day of May,
and the milky midnight moon
paints the playground frosty grey,
you can hear the snapped-stick clicking
of dusty brittle bones as
forgotten pupils from centuries ago
climb out of their cold churchyard plots.
Silently, they make their way down the hill,
push on the old school gate and rattle and scrape
towards the centre of the empty playground.
Slowly, in the loneliness they start to dance
round the memory of a Maypole,
getting faster and faster,
the wind rushing right through them
as they leap, skip and dash to their places.
They end in a circle, rib cages heaving,
and stand for a time clutching each other
like the bare strands of an old funeral wreath.
Finally, they turn to share frozen smiles
as if to say, "Now ...
that's how it should be done!"