So it’s the holidays, but some of you just can’t stay away, if the chat on the TES Forums is anything to go by. Waterfin has a long list of jobs to do in school over the summer, including: build a computer desk, move furniture, label resources, organise shelves and repair a curtain. So much for a six-week break: Waterfin will be in school in the first and last weeks of the holidays, but at least she’ll have her kids for company, although this comes at a price. “They love it as they play in the playground and use the IWBpaints etc,” she says. “But it means I can’t get as involved in what I want to do as normal.”
She’s not alone. Paulie86 worries that two days in school will not be enough to prepare for the new term, and says: “I am so worried that my classroom will be a bombsite come September.” Meanwhile loubutin_heels has already been in for two days and still has a list of tasks a page-and-a-half long. Iamagoodgirl plans to go in for a week near the end of the summer to do the first week’s planning - the head wants it on their desk the first day back.
Any ideas that teachers were just waiting for the end of term to collapse in a heap are scotched by lbainbridge, who wants to get preparation out of the way so it doesn’t overshadow the rest of the summer. But lardylegs has other plans entirely: “I will not be going into school at all in my holidays. I will be marinating in Pimm’s.”
On to matters domestic, and bedingfield is worried that her husband is having a midlife crisis. He has taken up cycling in his mid-40s and now owns four bikes, a cycling jersey and, most worringly, Lycra shorts. This is not his first hobby: at Easter it was radio-controlled boats. “I currently have a 5ft-tall radio-controlled sailing yacht in the middle of my living room because it is too fragile to be in the garage,” bedingfield laments. “Is this just a phase that he will grow out of, or do I have to resign myself to the fact that he is entering his second childhood?”
Lurk_much is no comfort, saying that “the joy of being middle aged is in the opportunity to be daft”. But such antics are not limited to men who haven’t grown up. Jonha’s mother recently said she wanted to join ice-hockey training. “She had bought all the best gear and even taught herself to skate without any of us knowing,” says Jonha. “My team-mates thought she was marvellous, but I have since tried to put a restraining order on her.”
If cycling seems like too much effort, Uncertainty has a good game for the holidays: which film has the greatest opening sequence? Trainspotting, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Apocalypse Now and Once Upon a Time in the West make Uncertainty’s list. But Bonkers704 says: “For jaw-dropping, attention-demanding beginnings, it’s difficult to imagine the two Spielberg films Saving Private Ryan and Amistad being surpassed.” Thebigonion goes back to a magical moment from the late 1970s: “What about the opening sequence to the original Star Wars - particularly the rumbling of the Star Destroyer as it looms over the audience.” Still brings a tingle.
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