Another traumatic day. The Nursery team, including me, are marking time in the last few days of term helping out in the infant department.
Today we were able, having no nursery children, to take part in a memorial service to celebrate the life of Mickael, the 5 year old from Beech class who was killed earlier in the year. Staff and parents had contributed to a "Friendship Bench" to be placed in the playground and this was dedicated to his memory, with various classmates recalling happy things about their friend. This brought lumps to our throats, but the difficult moments came when the deputy head read the story "Badger's Parting Gifts" by Susan Varley.
The story describes Badger's death in a child-friendly way and goes on to depict the grief of his younger animal friends, which is gradually replaced by happy memories of his friendly and kind ways and happy days together.
The truly difficult thing was that every adult there knows that our deputy head has terminal breast cancer, and was talking about herself as well as Mickael when she read the story. You can see why we struggled to hold it together in front of the children.
Roll on Friday!

That's how the Nursery team felt this afternoon as the packers took away the last of our crates of stuff; the shelves and fixtures were removed, and the nursery was officially handed over to the building contractors and became a "hard hat area."
We had planned to eat a last picnic lunch on the premises before going to the main school to offer our by now well honed packing services over there - but a heavy shower precluded a picnic outdoors, and the workmen had already taken up residence in the empty staffroom for their own sandwiches, so we slunk off to the main staffroom instead, feeling very sorry for ourselves.
I spent a quiet afternoon stripping the draperies and posters from the infants' library and then CAME HOME EARLY! There are some perks then!

We went to see "The Order of the Phoenix" today. As usual, I enjoyed it and Ed endured it, although he didn't nod off to sleep this time. I think as a series, you need to have read the books to like the films. All film adaptations of books leave lots out, but in these there are numerous fleeting references to things that are given much coverage in the books that only serve to confuse if you don't know the background. Whereas if you've read and enjoyed the books, the films are excellent illustrations, filling in lots of the visuals.

Today was in effect our last day of term; we have another week to work, but as the Nursery is due for a complete refurbishment as it transforms into a Children's Centre, we closed to children today, to allow for the strip and packers to come in on Monday.

It was a traumatic day. We will miss all the children, but some of them attach themselves particularly closely to our hearts and it is hard to say goodbye.

We had lots of lovely presents. I have to say that had our ages been reversed and she the teacher and me 4 years old, I would have chosen a beautiful lighting-up glass angel for Kayleigh!

I also received a jewel encrusted pen and a personally decorated coffee mug, both of which I shall treasure; not to mention a smart new teddy bear to take to next year's Teddy Bears' Picnic.

Amongst a shedload of chocolates and armfuls of flowers and almost a case of wine, we also received a cake to share between us, made by Chloe, ably assisted by her little brother Taylor who is due in my class in September. We duly admired the pink icing, but fell about laughing when we cut it and discovered a blood red cake! Their Mum had murmured something about a bottle of food colour! Anyway, it really was delicious, and the half that's left is carefully wrapped in foil for us to finish on Monday.

The kicks? Poor John couldn't cope with all the changes going on around him and had a tantrum or three. As he likes me the best, I got the worst of it, and in removing him from the other children, came in for slaps, punches, kicks and a nasty bite on the thigh. I felt so sad, because in the end, after he kicked the third child I had to call his mother to come and rescue us - a sorry end to his year in the nursery for him to be "expelled" for the rest of the day. Both his Mum and I shed a few tears - he is one of the heart-string pullers for me and I hated it to end like that...

So I came home and had a coffee in an interestingly decorated mug ("It's a red bus going to the seaside" "Of course it is") and shared a few chocs with Ed.

We were going to a BBQ yesterday and I'd planned on taking a bean salad with our burgers and wine. I cooked and sliced the green beans and opened the tin of sweetcorn and then the red kidney beans I meant to complete the dish with. But behold - they weren't kidney beans at all, but baked beans with kidney beans in a chili sauce - not the same thing at all.
So I rushed round to Tesco for the red beans I needed, completed the salad and off we went.
As it happened, our burgers were superfluous to needs, so we brought them home. Today I thought we may as well have them with the chili beans I'd accidentally opened yesterday.
I don't know quite how it happened, but whilst getting the dish out of the fridge, it flipped out of my hands, spraying beans and juice all over me, the ceiling, the fridge, the kitchen units and everywhere before landing, upside down naturally, on the floor.
Ed came to see what the crash and cursing was about - he laughed, commented helpfully "You'll have trouble getting the splashes off the ceiling" and disappeared back to the telly.
Well I did get it off the ceiling, units, and the floor eventually, although certain tresses of hair feel rather stiff yet.
So what did we have for dinner?
Burgers and off-the-floor beans, of course - I'm not going to be beaten by fate!

Today was our school Sports Day. We had a carousel of 6 events, with one person staying put in charge of each event, and another person in charge of each class group as they circulated. I was the sheepdog taking my afternoon children round the field.
Talk about hilarious. It was the first time the Nursery gang had taken part in anything like this and they are not used to lining up, queuing and moving about in an orderly group to do anything! They have been quite good at getting into partners and being walked over to the main school to watch a concert recently, but that's the limit of their experience of crowd control.
So taking a bunch of 20 (luckily a few are on holiday or ill!) round a large field, with their Mummies watching from the sidelines, and then expecting them to make 5 lines of 4 ready for an obstacle race was a large ask. And then for them to understand the rules of the game and carry them out and go to the back of the line so the next person could have a turn, was nigh impossible. You can imagine it:
"Take your partner's hand and walk over here. Now let go of your partner's hand and stand here. No, here. You sit down. No not you, you stand up and go here. No, not you, you sit down again. No not you... Where's John?"
"Throw this into there, then run to Mrs A. Stop! Mrs A, not Mrs R on the far side of the field! Come back! No, not you, you keep going."
"You two stop pushing in, he hasn't had a turn yet. Yes you do want a turn. Where's John?"
"Right, everybody take your partner's hand and walk over here..."
We had a parachute game; a dressing up race; an obstacle course (hilarious, not one went the proper route); a throwing game; a balance the bean bag race (they ALL cheated), and a running race. As they were all relay races and nobody had any idea who was at the back of the line, or barely what line they were in, we didn't bother with winners or losers, but kept circulating until the siren went after each 10 minute turn.
And guess who had the timer and siren?
Great fun, honestly. And I didn't lose John.

I sent a lady called Susan Reynolds a picture I had, plus the one I'd cropped it from, of Walter Creasey, a distant relative of mine who died in the first World War. She sent me back a copy of this rather nice scrap-booked version of the pictures, which she had created digitally.
I'd heard about the hobby of scrapbooking, but not this digital version, which made a lovely illustration for my family tree.
I can see I'll have to learn the art.