I should not keep on saying ‘all being well’ but – h’m.  I’ll explain, with apologies to the Sage for being personal.

The thing is, his appetite has diminished and the result is that he’s lost a fair bit of weight.  Taking my advice (once I discovered his clandestine cream cake and jam tart habit) he pretty well cut them out and that seemed to account for  a fair bit, but now he eats less than me at some meals and that seems a bit extreme.  We’ve been to the doctor, he’s had blood tests and so on and nothing has shown up and it may  just be a blip or long-term stabilisation.  All the same, he was referred for more tests.

And this is going to be the main point of this post – that the NHS is much maligned but i reckon it’s still fantastic.

Asked for an appointment yesterday – was given with our own GP today.  Follow-up next Friday.  He had blood tests last week, another yesterday, also ECG and other basic tests.  At the GP surgery, we were given a form to take to the drop-in x-ray clinic at the N&N hospital in Norwich.  We were in and out of there in ten minutes.  Fantastic efficiency.  We’d taken the newspaper, expecting a lengthy wait.

He’s also having an ultrasound scan, to check there isn’t anything nasty – we may well be notified of the appointment tomorrow, which should be in 7 – 10 days.

I know it isn’t like that in every town or city, and our local surgery has always been wonderful in the 28 years we’ve lived here.  All the same, the NHS may struggle sometimes, but it isn’t broken.  The worst isn’t the norm.  Either we’ve been very lucky on every occasion or it’s pretty damn good, in spite of all.  I cannot tell you how proud and respectful I am of our NHS.  Heart right out there on sleeve, darlings.

Mind you, an unexpected visit to Norwich (following an unexpected doctor’s appointment) has completely buggered my day.  I’ve done pretty well nothing that I meant to do.

One of the governors, who has her ear to the – um, not grindstone, what do I mean? – anyway, she keeps aware of what’s going on, said that she knows of a couple of local chairmen of governors who are paid now.  “How much?” I asked suspiciously, expecting much the answer I got – “About £4,000.”  I said they’d be foolish to take it.  That means they’ll sign a contract of employment, committing them to all sorts of things, and be paid peanuts, considering the responsibility and time involved.  I’ll work for free, but I’m not being undervalued.

But to better things – all being well, I’m planning to go down to visit Wink again at the end of next month, and blog meets are being planned.  I’m so excited – all being well, I’ll meet at least five friends for the first time, and at least one more again.  Added to that, several days with my lovely sister – just after the end of term, it’ll be just what I need.  All being well is the caveat, however, things a bit uncertain at this end at the moment.

A long meeting this morning, to revise our staff pay policy – no great changes but several minor tweaks to take in new legislation and make sure we do what it says and it says what we do.  It took three hours, with the Acting Head, other governors, the Finance Director and our HR person to advise.

Afterwards, two governors and I had another long talk about how we’re structured as a governing body, our workload, how effective we are and how efficient – the fact is, I’ve been aware for several months that, whilst we were running really well a year ago, it’s all a bit of a scramble now.  I’ve been a governor here for nearly sixteen years, this is my fifth year as chairman, but for the first time I’m barely coping.  It’s the paperwork that is failing me – I’m horribly behind and finding it extremely hard to get to grips with it.  That’s not the cause of me not coping, but it has been the effect of it.  There are several causes, one of which is sheer workload.

Acknowledging a problem is half the battle and most of the rest is working out what to do about it.  I’m quite good at that – we’re big on self-evaluation in schools nowadays – and I know that the work has crept up, so what we need to do is make sure that everything is covered, but that it’s not over-covered.  There’s more overlap than there used to be.  It’s not easy for me to evaluate that, as I go to nearly all committee meetings (I know, darlings – I never claimed not to be boring) so as to get the whole picture, to be able to make links.  So the other two are going to meet up and make a start – look at the committee structure and membership, links with school departments and so on.  This isn’t the first time this has been done of course, but things have changed radically in the school in the past few years – becoming an academy, taking pupils from Year 7 instead of Year 9 (we used to liaise with two middle schools, for the most part, now we’ve a lot of feeder primaries, some of them out of catchment area), taking on the management of our vocational centre, of which I’m a director (there’s a perk here: they’re building an aeroplane and I’m laying claim to a flight in it), the enlargement of the school to take in the two years wasn’t physically possible so now our 6th form is on a separate site – we’re all stretched thinner.  If I’m feeling it, so are others.  And my lovely, stalwart Vice-chairman is leaving the governing body at the end of term and all she does will have to be covered.  In addition, I’ve got to prepare for standing down myself in due course, so that the incoming Chairman will know what he (or she) has to do.

It sounds daunting, but actually I feel better for taking it out and looking at it and talking about it.

The aforementioned arse.

Zerlina wanted me to take her photo, but getting her and Gus together, both smiling and no one sticking their tongue out was not as simple as it sounded. I managed it in the end. Then she wanted to take photos on my phone. That was nerve-wracking, I can tell you, the thought of her dropping my phone from a moving train…she didn’t, though. Having just uploaded them to my computer, I’ve discovered she took nearly 100 photos, most of them of the track and of the shrubs alongside, one of my rear end, a selfie – I’ve put up several on Facebook, but it takes ages to upload photos here, so I’ve given up for the night.

If you remember, I bought a rose called ‘Hot Chocolate’ in Cambridge a few weeks ago and it has a single beautiful flower on it now.

The grass down the drive was cut last week and I raked it up and put some in the chicken run.  They had a great time scratching around in it.  Edweena also loves hay and likes to burrow down in it to sleep.  She has a big piece of bark, large enough to use as a refuge, in the cold frame that we use as her shelter, but there’s another area that she likes too, so I’ve put a glazed window, propped at an angle, to keep her warm and dry, and that’s where she has a hay bed.

Hadrian came over for the morning whilst his mother was teaching – we watched the tractor load up the big bales of hay from the front field, went for a walk down to the local store, which sells all sorts of stuff, electrical, building materials, wood, hardware, gardening stuff, pet food and accessories and even tropical fish and small pets – there was a single lop-eared rabbit and a few guinea pigs today, so they’ve evidently had a busy weekend.  They’re always beautifully looked after and never there for more than a few days before they find new homes.  The going rate for a pet rabbit is £25 now, it seems, which quite startled me.

Ah – some of the pictures have uploaded after all.  Here you are –

Today was very jolly – until, briefly, it wasn’t – because we met Weeza and the children at a small local light railway and chuffed merrily about on small local trains for a couple of hours.

Before that, however, I filled a bowl with eggs and took it to church.  Last year’s bantams are laying prolifically at present and we are getting between 10 and 20 eggs a day, whilst we can eat half a dozen a day at best, and sometimes only two.  So, in a week, we’d built up rather a lot, even though I’d made Cakes and was sneaking an egg or two into Ben’s dinner.  I’m very happy to say that, between friends at church (who gratefully thanked me for the lovely eggs – though I assured them I was grateful to get rid of them) and Weeza, the eggmountain is no more.  All we have in stock is the half dozen laid between noon and close of play tonight.

Ashmanhaugh – pronounced Ashman-O rather like Westward Ho! or (if you love Cold Comfort Farm) the Pioneers-O – light railway is delightful.  Here it is, if you want to know more – they were busy today, unsurprisingly, because it was one of those rare occasions, a Perfect English Summer’s Day.  The sun was hot enough to need lotion but not enough to cause sunstroke, there was enough breeze for it not to be oppressive, but not so much that you needed a jacket,  it was lovely.  Possibly, today was summer, in which case I hope you had the chance to enjoy it. It’s great for younger children, though older ones might find that a trip round the (very picturesque*) tracks palls after a few times – the ticket entitles you to as many trips as you want, so you can get off the train after your journey and join the queue for the next go.  Zerlina had her birthday party there a couple of years ago and Augustus will have his third birthday party there in August – it’s now £100, but for that they open up specially for 20 children and accompanying adults and give as many train rides as wanted, and there is a lovely space for picnics and you can buy drinks and ice cream at a reasonable price.

Afterwards, we went back to Weeza and Phil’s house, and that was where I became a bit unchuffed, on the journey.  It was a single track road and a young woman came bombing through – Weeza managed to pull into a passing place, but there wasn’t one for me and we clashed wing mirrors, though I’d stopped – she was going too fast.  “I was only going about 30” she said (and then some, darlings) and I politely but quite firmly said that’s too fast for a single track road, you should always be ready to pull in and stop.  Anyway, the glass wasn’t broken but the back is lost.

But it isn’t like a person getting hurt, so hey ho.  Phil had been cycling in the Norfolk 100 miles trip today, so had arrived home and put dinner on.  He had to get to Norwich first, of course, and then cycle home, so it was 140 miles overall (he said he went a bit further down the road and back to pull in that final half mile!).  The builders have been going great guns and there are now three more rooms upstairs – bedrooms four and five and a bathroom (other bedrooms have en suites – what is it with bathrooms nowadays?  Some houses have more lavatories than there are bedrooms).  And they’re being put on mains drainage in the next few weeks, so they are very happy (dearly as I love a septic tank, their sewage arrangements leave a bit to be desired and need pumping out every few weeks because the previous owner was a chap who never quite completed a task and there’s a vital bit missing).

So things are nearly all ok at the Zedary.  And in the next few days, I’ll be sending out a casual email to a few of you, to confirm whether you’re coming to the blog party on the 14th – it’s an open and informal do and a lot of us met here for the first time, so if you’ve never met us, don’t think it would be unnerving to come along.  We have beds and a warm welcome if you’ve a way to come, you will meet lovely people, some  of whom are my family.  It’ll be fun.

*now look, darlings, how do you pronounce picturesque?  I say picture-esk, but the locals say picture-skew … this makes me giggle a bit, but what do I know?