Evidence that Fran is NOT married to George Clooney and therefore still goes to Tenby for holidays

So, the Spring term is over, and I couldn't be more pleased than if George Clooney knocked on my door right now and said, 'Okay, that's it, I have to admit it, you're what I've been waiting for all my life.'

'I know,' said George, scratching his head.  'I'm as puzzled as any of you
about why I didn't realise Fran was my ideal woman before!'

We're going on holiday tomorrow, revisiting a place we went to two years called Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Wales.  Our last visit spawned a series of Tenby posts which readers who were following me then may remember (and if you're still here, THAT is called stamina).  As I recall, one post involved sardines and rows of dead rats.  Oh yes, the usual quality you have grown to expect was evident back then, too.

Here is the post I wrote just before we went two years ago.  I could write you another one but, to be honest, though I'm ashamed to admit it, every single detail in here is going to be true of this holiday just as it was of that one ....


Evidence that Fran hasn't really moved on in any way whatsoever

Evidence that a week at a health spa doesn't always yield the results you're looking for

The fact that my daughter sent me a teabag in my Mother's Day card ('I thought I'd buy you a drink, Mum') reminded me of the teabag knickers I made once.

My sister press-ganged me a few years ago into going to a 7 Days of Torture Holiday, otherwise called a week at a health spa.  It was in a hotel in Scotland.  Before I tell you about the teabag knickers, here are my main memories from the week.

1. Having a bath in peat will mean that you will be expelling peat from myriad orifices for weeks afterwards and will still have dried mud in your bellybutton a year later.

2. If you will insist on eating a lake of porridge first thing in the morning, in panic that the rest of the day will only involve mung beans, you can expect to feel uncomfortable lying face-down for a massage ten minutes later while someone pummels your back as though tenderising steak.

3. A healthy walk along a loch usually involves involuntary ingestion of four thousand midges. See point 1 about orifices.

4. Going to a health spa with a sister who looks like you but is half the size is a bit like going around as your Before and After pictures.

5. Being wrapped in cling film for some therapy treatments makes you truly empathise with bacon in a way you never expected to.

Anyway, the teabag knickers.

When we had our sessions for the various therapies we usually had to take all our clothes off and were given a pair of these.

I took one look at them, then another look at the therapist, and thought, 'You're having a LARF!', then plucked up all my courage, resolved to do battle and protest, and said ...

Okay then, I'll put them on


the way you do when you are in an institution and daren't not conform.  What a loser.  All I could think of, while I was lying there, and she was slapping the Dead Sea combined with a paste made of cockroaches all over my body, was, 'Why don't they make teabags in larger sizes?'  Actually, I was also thinking, 'Will she run out of Dead Sea before she gets down to my knees?'

Not that I'm self-conscious about my size, or anything.

That evening, two of the men on the Week of Torture were talking to me and my sister at Mung Bean Time, and we asked them what happened when they had their massages.  Did they get to wear teabag knickers?  No, they said.  They were allowed to keep their normal pants on.

Sexist or what?

They wouldn't believe us about the teabag knickers and kept teasing us about them.  So, on the last day of the course, before breakfast, my sister and I filched a couple of teabags from the kitchen, found some string from somewhere and sat in our bedroom making teabag knickers for them.

You've never done that in a hotel bedroom before?  Where have you BEEN?  

We waited outside the guys' rooms to present them with their special gifts, only to find that they had overslept, having sneaked off in the night - the sods - to have a drinking and junk food session in the local town.  But when they finally woke up and staggered into the breakfast room, we ceremonially presented them with the knickers, much to the bewilderment of the other guests, I'm sure.

But, if you knew my sister and me, and the way we are when we're together, you'd understand that we had bewildered the other guests days before that.  The peat falling out of our trousers when we stood up wasn't a good start, it has to be said.

Evidence that Fran can celebrate World Poetry Day seriously without one reference to dead frogs

To celebrate World Poetry Day on Wednesday, I thought I'd post something a bit more ... well ... poetic, than the usual drivel.  And offer you a challenge.


This is one of my favourite poetry exercises and I've used it with adults and schoolchildren.  You write about people/relationships by comparing them to various things to create extended metaphors.  


1. Think of a person/relationship you would like to write about.


2. Ask yourself the question: If this  person were an animal/piece of clothing/piece of technology/building, what kind would they be?  Why?  What are the similarities?  Make some notes.


3. Now form your main ideas into a short poem.  


Here are some of my own efforts. 

Animal

He gathers food for winter in dark places,

scurrying between cupboards to check progress,

dropping nuts and seeds in his agitation.

He glances backwards, quickly, 

sniffing the air for thieves.

Clothing

She is hairshirt.

The sweater with the scratchy label.

The skirt that clings and crackles.

The shoes that rub feet to weeping.

Technology

We blank out on each other,

snap error messages until we’re exhausted,

press each other’s wrong buttons.

Then we can’t get back to where we were.

Building

Just when I think I know where I am

I visit her, and she has built another skyscraper,

a tower that blocks out the light.

The dust on her lounge furniture

sticks in my throat.

Why not have a go yourself and post one as a comment?

A few Fran thoughts for Mother's Day

My kids have all left home now, and don't live nearby, so Mother's Day is a bit different round here.  But then, on the other hand, Mother's Day with OUR family was always going to be different, whether they were here or not ...

Here are my Mother's Day thoughts:

1. If you pass on your bizarre and dark sense of humour to your son, you have only yourself to blame when your Mother's Day card is the birthday card you sent him earlier that month, recycled, and with all the irrelevant bits crossed out.

2. For the same reason, your older daughter's version of 'buying you a drink for Mother's Day' may involve her sellotaping a teabag inside your card.

3. Sending your youngest daughter a text saying, 'Happy Mother's Day.  Oops.  No.  That's YOUR line.' is likely to be taken offence at, however funny you thought it was at the time.

4. When your kids have left home, taking yourself and your husband out for a Mother's Day lunch is always going to feel a little strange as you sit there, surrounded by families of 33, on your table for two.  On the other hand, it is more peaceful than it was when they were young, not having to a) stop them singing and doing beat box/playing drums on the casserole dishes; b) stop them playing table football with vegetables.

Hubert wasn't going to be quite so gleeful when he realised that his parents, aunts, uncles,
grandparents and cousins had all sloped out of the restaurant, leaving him there alone

Evidence that rugby isn't one of Fran's specialist subjects

I'm watching rugby on the TV (England v Ireland) and, to be honest, I may as well be watching a Swedish film without subtitles for all I understand about what's going on.  Here are some things I have learned, however.

1. If someone leaps on someone from your team, leap on them too, in a male body equivalent of one-potato-two-potato-three-potato-four.  It's a fun game.

2. The more you resemble a double garage on two legs, the more use you are in a scrum.

3. Watching rugby on TV means that, when they kick the ball towards the goal (is it called a goal?) you, the viewer, are going 'did it go through?  did it?  did it?' because you can never tell from the angle

4. There are two opportunities for men without necks to be on TV.  One is as a player in a rugby game and the other is on 'Embarrassing Bodies'.

5. Only other people the size of a small island can withstand being launched into head-first by someone else the size of a small island.  Anyone else would die.

6. There are only two types of people in the world with thighs quite that big: a) rugby players; b) people who appear on 'The Fattest People in the World' programmes.  Neither, given natural laws, ought to be able to achieve forward motion.  But the rugby players manage it.

7. The TV studio that the pundits are in is either very small, or it just looks like that because the men in it each weigh 92 stone.  It's a wonder there's any oxygen left in there for them to have breath left for punding.

8. Calling what they score a 'try' seems weird when they managed it perfectly well.

Anyway, I'm only watching it to avoid doing marking as an alternative to other procrastination activities I have engaged in before.  These activities have included:

1. ironing a multi-pack of creased post-it notes
2. mowing the lawn with nail scissors
3. cleaning the grouting between the bathroom tiles with an inter-dental brush

England won over Ireland anyway.  Which I'm really pleased about, but don't ask me how they did it.

One thing Fran couldn't understand was why they didn't use a proper ball which
would make it all so much easier

Evidence that Fran cannot be trusted to take lesson observations seriously

I'm having one of my English lessons officially observed next week.  My friend, who's also a teacher, says I need to 'introduce an element of risk, because that's what they like'.

I am considering one or more of these strategies to introduce said element of risk:

Risk Strategy 1.  Teach coastal erosion.  I know nothing about coastal erosion, so this should definitely introduce an element of risk.  If I find a nifty little way of linking it into one of their GCSE Literature texts, I'm sure this will prove acceptable. ('Of Mice and Men' is about mice ... mice live behind skirting boards ... skirting boards are around the edge of rooms ... coasts are around the edges of land ... link sorted.)  In fact, I've got my essay title planned already.  'Coastal erosion and the Wall Street Crash: discuss.'

Lennie looked anxious.  'If ah tell George I was the one who pushed that ol' house nearly off
that damn cliff, he ain't gonna let me tend the rabbits,' he thought.  

Risk Strategy 2. Teach while dressed as a domino.  This should introduce into a lesson an aspect of surprise which will heighten the atmosphere and help the kids to keep focused.  My mum dressed me as a domino once for a fancy dress party when I was a kid.  She took a white pillowcase, found a marker pen, drew a thick black line across the middle of it and some dots above and below it, and then cut a hole in the top for my head.  My mum wasn't handy with a needle and this was the only idea she could come up with.  If I teach dressed as a domino, I'm sure this also counts as a cross-curricular link (2 dots plus 1 dot equals 3 dots equals link with numeracy.)

Fran was thrilled to find, on Google Images, evidence that others, too, spent
hours and hours on their fancy dress costumes.

Risk Strategy 3. Do the whole lesson in a Welsh accent.  When we're reading 'Of Mice and Men', this is definitely going to bring in some elements of risk, because it's very hard to say, 'I'm gunna git maself down to the cathouse and git maself a gal an' no one ain't gunna do nuttin' abou' it' as though you were born and bred in Abergavenny.   Saying that line in itself in the middle of an observed lesson on 'Of Mice and Men' is going to be risky anyway, because there's no such line in the book.  But you know what ah mean, sure ya do.

Fran prepared for her lesson by getting into the role and practising
saying 'Le's go and buck barley,' with a lilt