News

I've been leaving you all out of the loop lately. It's not that I've run out of steam or stories- but only that I realised that the young gremlins bounding around the room with questions about homework, the entire world, life and everything, was directly related to my late night blogging. The only way to be rid of themearlier than 2am would be to switch the computer off, make my bed and switch off the light. Sure I stay awake in the dark for an hour or two thinking about my day instead of blogging but it's peaceful. You may ask why I don't blog a little during my idle days- I can only plead the artistic temperament..

I will have to split my various news and anecdotes into separate posts but I think I should start with the main headline news:

- I booked my ticket to Bosnia and it's all arranged. Many thanks to The Smile-a-Lots, Bikey and miei genitori for helping me sort it out so fast. I'm told that my teacher-students are all young and friendly which hopefully means they'll be forgiving of a raw newbie teacher and not consider me a fraud.

- Young Y+F wore their poor father down with their begging for some kind of furry or feathery addition to the household. Their teacher was giving away her cat- some kind of tiny species that wouldn't grow above roughly A5 size. They wanted me to reassure their teacher that whatever unfortunate accidents had befallen their previous pet chicks were all their mother's fault and that they were wonderfully responsible. I refused partly because I was picturing the teacher as Rachel giving away her evil bald sphinx cat- she must be desperate to be flogging the poor thing on any hapless 10-year-old.

Anyhow we now have two chirpy budgies, grey, streaked with turqoise and yellow feathers, and a hamster is coming next week. Poor uncle seems to have an instinctive (rather Bengali) aversion to pets but the aunt added her voice to the insistent pro-pet chorus so he was rendered powerless. At first he tried to laugh away the suggestion, then to enlist the baby's support, citing her health as a concern, but it was to no avail. The kids ran to the shop two days later and bore their budgies home triumphantly.