So. I've just realised I've not blogged for over two years! Crikey, time goes past quickly. A lot has happened in that time, and my life has turned round and upside down in many ways, good and bad.

The bad: In Feb 2011 I had a car accident. At first, I got away uninjured, but then later on that night it transpired I hadn't been quite so lucky. I was in a lot of pain, and then all I wanted to do was sleep. 18 months later, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

In October 2011, I FINALLY had the break I'd been looking for, and got another full time teaching job *megahappydance*. However, it was an hour away, so two hours travelling on top of the stress of teaching, too long out of a classroom, and still really struggling after the accident, it didn't work out, and just three months later my contract was ended (as in, I was taken into a meeting and told that my contract was being ended there and then). Other than private tuition, I've not taught since.

In December 2011, I went home to Yorkshire for Christmas to be met with the news that nanna was poorly and in hospital. She looked so frail, but luckily got stronger, and eventually went into a carehome. When I next saw her at Easter she was almost back to her old self, however over the summer, she went downhill, and sadly died in October 2012.


But I did also say there has been good news: permanent, full time work!! Losing my last teaching job was a horrible experience, and I was sat there knowing I didn't have money in savings to support myself any further, and knowing how difficult it had been to get a job previously. I got home, and straight away started applying for anything and everything. One place I sent my CV off to was looking for a French and Spanish speaking customer service advisor, advertised through an agency. Just 15 mins after submitting my CV I had a call asking if I was still interested. When I said yes, he got in touch with the company and set up an interview for the following day. The interview was on a Friday, and I had absolutely no idea how it had gone, with it being the first non-teaching interview I'd done in so long. So it was a lovely surprise on the Monday to get a call offering me the job, and just two days later, two days after I'd lost my teaching job, I started.

I only intended it to be a stop gap job, but I've really enjoyed working there (most of the time!), I'm good at my job, it really uses my degree, and over 18 months later I'm still there.


Hobbies wise, I'm still very much Guiding. The new job meant that I couldn't get to Guides so easily, so made the decision a year ago to move to the unit close to home. I've also taken over as camp advisor, which has brought with it another huge job!

I've also taken up geocaching, hunting for tupperware using multimillion dollar satellites!

Work, and update

Okay, it's been brought to my attention that I haven't updated this for a long time. So, what has been happening? I'm still working as a supply teacher, and still not enough work. I've applied for stupid amounts of jobs, both in teaching and outside, and have had one interview. ONE. I've sent off 7 forms in the last two weeks, so hopefully one of those will be "the one", but most are wanting French and German. Ho hum.

Tall Ships 2010

In June, I had the chance to go on leg 3 of GGUK's Tall Ship voyage, a 100 day voyage round the UK on a Tall Ship

I travelled up to Aberdeen, spent the night in a hotel, then dropped off my bags to spend the day in Aberdeen. At 4pm, I headed to the ship, and met the other watch leaders. We spent the night relaxing, before doing the 10-2am harbour watch. I took the first part of this. Just before, we were briefed by the crew, and it seemed there was an awful lot of alarms to watch out for!

The following day, we had our final briefings, and then met our watches! My watch, Forward Port, was the first to be allowed to board. Once down in the lower mess, the chaos started! My watch were shown to their bunks, then stood in a queue to sign on collect their harnesses, oilies and wellies.

Once everyone was signed on, everyone assembled in the lower mess for our briefings from the permanent crew. Captain Clare showed us where we were to be sailing, and suddenly the voyage was very, very real!

One of the first things we had to do was an evacuation drill. As a WL, I had to be part of the evacuation team, assembling at the bottom of the mess stairs along with two designated members of my watch, and three people from the other forward watch. The other two watches manned the bar staircase. The alarm was sounded, everyone else headed to their muster stations, and we evacuated one of the two wheelchair users, using a pulley to drag the wheelchair backwards up the stairs. Once this was done we were dismissed and joined our watches, but there can be up to eight wheelchair users on board, so this would have to be repeated until everyone was out.

After this, we got the chance to go aloft! Our harnesses were checked, we were shown how to climb, and we headed up! We were not fastened on climbing up the rigging, and this was scary. Near the top, there was an overhang, and we did have to clip on to climb over this bit. I was terrified as I went up that, and really wanted to go back down again, but Lesley, the BM, encouraged me, and I made it! Once everyone was on the platform, we were shown how to climb out onto the yards (the sails). I was the second person to climb up, but no matter what I did, I wasn’t able to balance myself properly, and didn’t have the strength in my arms to pull myself upright. I admitted defeat and climbed back down. Once everyone was up, though, I decided to try again, when I was in the middle and didn’t have to climb out to the end, and managed it fine that time. We then had to get the mesh sail in, then climb back down. Going back down was as scary as going up, especially as I got cramp in my foot! Luckily I was still fastened on at that point. We then learned how to brace the sails, which seemed very confusing at that point, and I wondered how on earth I would remember it all!

The following morning, everyone got ready to set off! We were all in place, but unfortunately, there was a delay! But eventually we were off. We headed out of the harbour, and straight into a bad swell when heading up the coast... And it didn’t take long for people to succumb! I was unfortunately one of those who was seasick. I should have been on watch in the evening, but in the end was sent to bed instead. This did mean I missed the Fraserborough life boat coming to play. The anchor was dropped at midnight to stabilise the ship to help those of us who were ill, and also as we had half watches turning up!

We had a two night stop in Edinburgh part way through our voyage. Whilst it would have been nice to have continued sailing, the vast majority of people on our voyage were aged 14-16 (JST’s usual minimum age is 16), so the stop was necessary as they were getting tired. It also meant we had chance to practise coming alongside before our final stop in Newcastle. As a WL, I was part of the team controlling the mooring lines, which definitely needed muscles. At one point, we were told to ‘heave harder’ – so I did. And slipped! I ended up sitting on the deck, the line above my head, still pulling on it!The following morning it was a lot calmer, and we were all feeling a lot better. We set off, and spent the day sailing. Subsequent days were the same – setting sails and going aloft, on watch, happy hour at 10am to clean the ship, a few assisted climbs so that those unable, or unwilling to climb up the rigging on their own had the chance as well, attached to a rope. On watch, we had two people on lookout, and one at the helm. Sometimes keeping the ship in a straight line was nice and easy, but not always! Sometimes, we could go for a whole four hour watch and see nothing else around us. We made it a third of the way to Norway, where we were well and truly out of mobile range. We also had to log the speed, bearing and weather hourly. Overnight watches could be tough. 8-12am wasn’t too bad as you knew you could get a fair amount of sleep after. We only did one of these whilst sailing, and at 11pm, as we were starting to flag, we were given a tour of the chart room. This also helped us to understand what was happening on the ship, and what everything is for. 12-4am were definitely the worst, as you either went to bed and got a very small amount of sleep before, or stayed awake, but then really started to feel tired mid watch. These were the coldest watches too, and at one point I was wearing SEVEN layers and was still cold! There were things to break it up, though, such as the wind dropping so much we dropped to just half a knot an hour. We had to get an engineer out of bed at 3am to put the engines on, and then had to put the sailed away, which also warms you up nicely.

Towards the end, we lost another day’s sailing thanks to the wind going from not strong enough to too strong! We anchored in a bay, and carried out anchor watch, where we were ‘entertained’ by people on the beach waving fire at us! Before this, we had to sea stow the sails. I realised that climbing up in Aberdeen had been a doddle when it was calm and the ship wasn’t moving!

It was sad to arrive in Newcastle, as that meant our voyage was over. It was ten amazing days, and something I really want to repeat. I now know what to do with the sails, what everything means, which at the beginning, I never imagined I would. I’m so glad I went for it and applied!

The work situation - update

I sent in a CV for Aerial Extreme (like Go Ape) ages ago, and a few weeks ago got invited to a recruitment morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get the job. They didn't contact those who didn't get it, so I don't know why. It could have been something as simple as not being able to work on their busiest week because of the centenary camp.

The supply situation is also not going well. In five weeks, I have worked for just two days. So I'm still trying to come up with alternative ways of making money...

However, for September it looks a bit brighter. I'm filling in an application for a job at the moment, though there is the risk the interviews could end up being when I'm on Tall Ships. It's a 200 mile a week commute, so if I get the job, I'll also be getting a new, and more economical car! (I really want a Citroen C3 Picasso. Had one as a hire car in Spain and managed 600km on half a tank of diesel!)

I also had a call from the agency about a long term post from September (not sure whether it's one or two terms, or even the whole year). However, this one has two drawbacks. One - the school teaches French and German, whereas I teach French and Spanish. I do have AS German, so can teach it to GCSE, but it'd mean far more work, and not something I want to do on my NQT year. The other, more major drawback - it's close by. Very close by. I live in the catchment area, and do get the kids from this school walking down my street, and all round the area...

So hopefully one of the two will work out. Fingers crossed!

Tall Ships!

Over summer, the Jubilee Sailing Trust (www.jst.org.uk) are sailing one of their ships from Glasgow right round the UK back to Glasgow, setting off TODAY! This is to celebrate the centenary of Guiding, as apart from the permanent crew on board, the crews are going to be made up entirely of members of Girlguiding UK. I am going to be a Watch Leader on leg 3, from Aberdeen to Newcastle, and I'm really looking forward to it now!!

I went to the training a few weeks ago, and had a sneak preview. Lets just hope for good weather...

The government

Well, the election result was not what I was expecting. Given the amount of anti-tory groups on Facebook, and the fact that very few people would admit to voting for them, I did not expect it.

I also didn't expect a coalition between two parties. I'm surprised at the amount of Facebook groups already against this, and also those lamenting the resignation of Gordon Brown (probably the same people who were against him before!). Okay, so it's not the ideal solution. A coalition didn't work last time in the UK. But that was a long time ago. Before I was even born. So who knows? I, for one, am quite excited about it, and I'm interested to see what happens. Big improvements in the education system and taking some of the pressure of teachers is high on my personal priorities. As are pay rises for people in key jobs. And free prescriptions. But we'll just have to see what happens. Hopefully, the coalition will give us the best of both parties, and not the worst.

Good look to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Turn this country round and do us proud.

Well, at least UKIP and the BNP didn't even get a look in!

Back to work??

Well, after having resigned from my job in February, I am finally cleared to work as a supply teacher. Unfortunately, a watched phone never rings, and I am yet to do a day's work as supply.

So I am attempting to come up with other money making schemes instead. Answers on a postcard, please!