Cruella de Ville

No full length photo available, I'm afraid.

New laptop

Yesterday I had a surprise present from Keith - a brand new laptop! 100gb serial ATA hard drive, dual core Intel processor, 1gb DDR dual channel RAM, wireless LAN, card reader, DVD Rewriter AND a hard screen!
He wanted my old one to give to Giles so that he could have Giles's which has as COM port, which he needs for...
oh who cares? I got me a new laptop! That's all that matters! :)

Right hand turn

On Thursday afternoon the two Infant classes are taken for dance by a visiting teacher. Today, the teaching assistant and I were watching them running round in a circle and she commented on the fact that she had noticed that children always tend to run anti-clockwise if not directed otherwise. This led to my wondering aloud if this phenomenon is similar to that of water going down a plug-hole. Perhaps in Australia, children run clockwise.
So, I'm asking Michelle and any other readers of this blog who hail from the southern hemisphere, if they could do a little observation for me and let me know whether my theory is right.
Then I can write a thesis on it and get world-wide acclaim...
Oh, all-right, perhaps not, but it would be interesting to know!

Mega minibeasts

On Wednesday we had a visit from Zoolabs, which is an organistation that visits schools with large-sized exotic minibeasts. So we had a visit from a large stick insect, an African land snail, a hissing cockroach, a large millipede, a corn snake among other creatures. Oh and there was a Chilean Rose Tarantula, but I was almost out of the room for that one and was grateful for the fact that it stayed locked away in its tank.

I was quite happy to hold the millipede and the corn snake, though.

Dalmation, please

I have to dress up for school on Friday. Not that I don't make the effort every day, you understand - smart casual and practical usually, but this is for Book Day. All the children and staff are expected to appear on Friday morning dressed as a character from a book. In the past, I have fallen back on my stock in trade St Trinian's schoolgirl - short(ish) skirt, black, holey tights, oversized shirt (I can borrow that from Keith, of course), backcombed hair or red wig, black nail varnish and an overload of orangey make-up. Something like the photo, in fact.

However, this time I might have a change. Cruella de Ville, I thought - a touch of elegance. All I need now is a dalmation. Any offers?

Holidaymakers!

A nice little gem to amuse you from Elder Daughter.

These were taken from a newspaper article about the travel industry and the complaints made by tourists:

"No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."
"We had to queue outside with no air conditioning."

"It is your duty as tour operators to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."
"I was bitten by a mosquito - no one said they could bite."
"We booked an excursion to the water park but no one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels."
"The brochure stated : 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers, will we be ok staying here?"
"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."
"I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends'three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."
"It took us nine hours to fly to Jamaica from England - it only took the Americans three hours."
"There were too many Spanish people. The receptionist spoke Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."
"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the rooms that we booked."

Comment moderation

Our 'friend' Anonymous has been raising his head again this weekend and obviously has little to do so he has been filling in his spare moments by leaving yet more ascerbic comments, which I have deleted as soon as I have spotted them. In fact, I wouldn't even dignify them by calling them ascerbic - just plain spiteful is nearer the mark.
As a result I have decided to give 'comment moderation' a go so that I can get to these comments first and delete them before anyone else has to read them. I apologise for any inconvenience and I hope it won't deter anyone else from commenting - even you, Craig! ;)