A good twelve hours in bed wasn’t quite enough to put me right, but the short nap I took after taking Elle to school was.  I didn’t go to the lecture, which I’m really disappointed to have missed, but I seem to be fine except for an inability to eat meals.  Chocolate biscuits and cake – and a green salad for supper – seem to go down all right.  Oh, and I’ve lost the taste for alcohol.  I trust that is temporary.

Elle brought home her report yesterday and a paper for me to sign confirming she is leaving the school. Each of her teachers had to sign it too and all of them said they’d refuse to do so if it meant that she’d stay.  I think it’s fair to say that she’s popular.  She’s done wonderfully well, moving to a foreign country and staying with a succession of strangers, most regularly with a couple old enough to be her grandparents – well, in the Sage’s case, great-grandparent – and taking several subjects and being successful in them.  She’s coming back in the summer to take the second part of her Psychology AS Level, in fact.  And she may well come back again in July to go with her friends to go to the Latitude festival.  I suspect this will depend on whether her parents stump up the money for a ticket…  As for me, she assures me that her whole family loves me, whether they’ve met me or not.  That is, I’ve only met her dad as yet, though her mum and sister will be coming to stay at the end of next week.

The tickets for the Aldeburgh concerts have arrived, which is very cheering.  I haven’t been for a while, maybe three or four years, and I never used to miss going there.  I didn’t always go to the Festival, though, because June is a busy month – it will be again, but no matter.  Concerts at the Proms in August were easier to be sure I’d be able to go to.  For some years, it was very difficult to go away on holiday at all, and I treated Snape concerts as my summer holiday and went to as many as possible.

Well, that was embarrassing.  I’ve been going into lessons at school this week, and today was a Food Tech lesson – it’s not that I’m linked to that department but that I’ve been looking at Teaching Assistants.  I’d not met the teacher before, though I knew her by sight, and she was very charming and friendly and showed me one girl’s portfolio of written work, which took about ten minutes, and then offered to take me into the kitchen to see the cooking being done.  I said I’d love to, but I was afraid I needed to sit down for a few minutes first because I felt a bit faint (though there was no ‘bit’ about it, I had about 15 seconds before I’d have keeled over.

I’ve got a chest infection and have been exceptionally busy, and this morning I had been up and down several staircases and been outside without a coat on, and then I went into a warm room and was almost undone.  I had to sit there, head on table, for quite some time.  The teacher wanted to call for help for me, but it wasn’t necessary – anyway, eventually I felt well enough to go into the other room and soon after I recovered and was able to do the nosy governor bit.

However, I am going to bed early and staying there for twelve hours.  Approx.  I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead again and there’s nothing I can easily miss.  Well, there is one thing I can miss, a Nadfas lecture in the morning, but I don’t want to.

It’s just occurred to me – maybe it’s blogging withdrawal symptoms.  H’m.

I had a post planned for this evening, but plans have changed since reading about our dear friend Pat’s loss.  Pat is my oldest (in terms of long standing) blog friend: she left the first ever comment here, nearly seven years ago.  Many of us have read her wonderful account of her and MTL’s love story and know how they have appreciated every minute of their years together.  

Wink and I went over to have lunch with Weeza and Gus today.  The Sage was invited to come, but got cold feet at the thought of all that togetherness and asked to be dropped off in Norwich instead, coming home on the bus during the afternoon.

I’m not going to fuss about the Hon Sec situation.  The AGM is at the end of March, but the next meeting is in October and, if the worst happens and I don’t have anyone to take over from me this spring (I think someone will come along) then there’s another chance in the autumn.  Not fussing is best.

Having said that, I had a bit of a heart to heart with Wink this evening that made me cry – again.  I’m afraid the waterworks have been turned on all too much of late.  In this instance, it was age-related…I’m approaching the age at which my father died.  If I live to the 25th March (disregarding Leap Years, I haven’t done the math, as they say) I’ll have outlived my father.  This gives me no feeling of satisfaction, rather the opposite.  Wink said the same: that she was very aware of her age at that time. We both adored him and he died far too young.  I’m so grateful that she was able to share my feelings and wish she’d been able to say the same a few years ago, though I don’t know if I’d have quite understood.  Maybe some of you do.

Gus, in the last week, has gone from walking if you held his hand, and crawling for the sake of speed otherwise, to choosing to walk and being thrilled by the ability, in the week since I saw him last.  He’s such a cheerful little boy, great fun.  His big sister is the same – very happy to have won one of the weekly class awards, the one for being kind and friendly and generally helpful (Angel), for the third time.  She’s won the one for hard work and progress (Diamond) once, there’s the biggest award (can’t remember what it’s called) that she hasn’t won yet but, her birthday being at the end of August, she’s the youngest in the school and it’s marvellous that she’s getting on so well and is happy.

Weeza and Phil’s car was in the garage for a service today and they’d explained they had an appointment at 4.30 so it was vital the car was returned by 4 at latest.  5.15 it was returned, what a good job that I was there so they could use my car.  I have Weeza as a named driver, but she’d have been 3rd party insured anyway.  Not that the garage knew that.  Pfft.