Well mine are anyway. We have several who are new to English. One, who has never been to a nursery before and has no-one there who speaks her language, but is nevertheless very sociable, firmly believes in the total immersion theory of modern EAL practice - she speaks to us in her own language, repeating herself clearly and gives us lots of supporting gestures and visual clues. She came outside today, dressed in role as a road mender, looked around for an absent box, and asked me for the hard hats. I obediently fetched them for her; she grinned at me, selected a yellow one and went off happy. I'm sure we'll all be fluent in cantonese in no time!

I'm not quite sure why teaching a mere handful (so far) of 3 year olds should be so exhausting, but so it appears to be! I'm getting home shattered from work each evening. But happy in my work, so I don't mind. The team continues to pull well together and the children, already settling in (and starting to throw their weight about a bit) are proving to be interesting and manageable. I spent a fascinating quarter hour operating a set of traffic lights for three children, previously unknown to each other, who were circulating the garden paths on various wheeled vehicles. At first playing individually alongside each other, they gradually started to make eye contact and imitate each other to show complicity. When I strayed from the traffic lights, they all came together to find out how they worked, and ended up chatting, with two of the three giving each other rides on a pull along cart, taking turns and sharing beautifully. Delightful.
Went to Tesco to do the weekly shop on the way home on Thursday and came back loaded with food, to find the fridge/freezer had packed up - after only 19 years. My friend Lissa suggested a "Defunct Freezer Party" for the neighbours, and Mum enquired if the neighbours had helped out. Well there wasn't enough in the freezer for a party (and I'm not that hospitable anyway!) and it didn't occur to me to bother the neighbours, so we are just eating our way through the perishables and I expect I'll have to throw out the non-survivors, or poison my beloved. The new fridge/freezer will arrive Tuesday.

No, we didn't go this year. We intended to, but the places we fancied seeing - some of the old Gentlemen's clubs in Picadilly - were already fully booked by the time we got round to enquiring, and then Ed needed to get on with an essay, and I needed to sort out the garden, so we stayed at home instead.

You know I like flower pictures. Here are the fuchsias in the pot on the deck, that Dad brought for me when he and Mum came in August, adding lovely late colour.

Not everyone was working in the garden. Some of the residents were taking advantage of the Indian Summer weather.

Others, who were supposed to be writing an essay, but were actually engaged in all sorts of displacement activities, were finally reduced to photographing the worker.

Obviously he was so blinded by the smile that his camera wobbled, hence the slight soft focus effect.

The new nursery team at Woodside, myself included, have been busy home-visiting our new pupils for the last two weeks. It's been great fun meeting all the children in their respective homes, and very helpful in literally telling us where the children are coming from, but we got a bit brain numb giving out the same information and filling in the same form, some fifty times, so we were glad it was all over on Wednesday. We've been working hard in between visits, getting all the admin sorted ready and setting out the nursery and garden in a welcoming and attractive way.
So today was the day. It didn't help that after a fortnight of warm and sunny weather - great for our trekking about - it tipped down with rain yesterday, blowing down quite a lot of leaves, so we had to clean up the garden frantically this morning, with minutes to spare. Although the rain had stopped, it was dull and decidedly chilly, specially for the morning children.
We were all really nervous just before the off, as the moment finally arrived for children to start appearing. It was Irene's class who came, for their pre-school visit, accompanied by anxious parents (some anxious about leaving their beloved baby, some anxious to leave their beloved baby!) and Liz, Sandy, Julie and I, who hadn't been with Irene and Caroline on their home visits, tried to match as many names to faces as we could. A very large number of this year's intake are younger siblings of children who have already been through the school, so it was nice to see some familiar faces, if only the Mums'. The hours they were in seemed to fly by, with myself mainly outside helping to make sandcastles, commiserating with children who can't quite turn the pedals on the larger trikes yet, and showing them the easy way up the climbing frame to get to the slide.
One little chap revealed himself as a "transporter" - in no time at all, he had stacked up a hand cart with a motley collection of sand and sport equipment and taken it to the opposite end of the playground; he proceeded to do the same with a trailer trike. I showed him the trolley and milk crates and he happily moved those around for most of the remaining session.
We had no tears until home time, when one or two were disconsolate about having to leave, which was a promising sign.
We were all shattered by the end of the day. On Monday it will be the turn of "my children". A new era begins!

OK, I'm an old woman. Will someone explain what a tag is?

So here's one more. I thought I'd spread the load as my other site is getting full, and have my diary here. This is by way of a test run. Also, as Rick says, a blog can answer back, too, which may or may not be fun!