July

On the first Saturday of the month, as it was very warm (we had a mini-heatwave with temperatures up to 30 or more degrees for around a fortnight), Brian, Beccy and I went for a walk at Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve.  I was surprised that Beccy wanted to come with us but she brought a football and practised some tricks as we walked.  She also managed to find plenty of places to do some free-running!  We managed to see a young kestrel still sporting its fluffy feathers, an adult (probably keeping an eye on us while her young was hopping along any available high perch alongside us), a flock of long-tailed tits, a great tit, little grebe and little egret.  Ben had decided that playing some football in the park with his friend, Ben, was more exciting.

Earlier in the day, Beccy had started her referee training.  I dropped her off in Faversham at 9.30 for the day and returned to watch Ben compete in the school sports day (javelin, 1500m and 4x400m relay).  It was really hot and he looked exhausted afterwards.  His friend Rob, on taking the baton from Ben after the first lap, sprinted amazingly fast for around 300m, then obviously hit a wall which meant that he couldn't quite make it to the line.  The next runner had to prize the baton from his hand as he lay on the floor.  Apparently he took quite a while to recover but it was a brave attempt to catch his team up.  They came fourth in the end and I'm sure Rob's run helped.  Prior to the sports day, Ben had been at Rochester Cathedral for the Founder's Day ceremony where he had to carry out prefect duties for the first and last time (he'll have left school by next year's ceremony).

On the 7th, Beccy helped out at the talent show at school.  She was a stagehand this time as the sound was covered by a returning sixth former.  She is obviously keen to be there but not in the limelight.  During the day, Ben had travelled to Portsmouth University to their Open Day.  He went by train and spent the entire day in the biology department and the marine institute which, unfortunately, left him no time to see the accommodation and campus facilities before the event closed.  It isn't his first choice but was good to visit just in case something jumped out at him that wasn't in the prospectus.

On the 9th, Dan rang at around 6pm to say that Helen had gone to help get things ready for her sister's wedding the next day in Tonbridge and the car had broken down. It was the gear linkage and couldn't be fixed straight away.  The trouble was that they were travelling to the wedding the next day and then going camping for a week from Monday, they needed a car.  I said that they could borrow mine (I can easily manage without it if necessary, but we are all generally too lazy to cope with necessary!).  Helen arranged to get the RAC to tow her to our house so that she could collect my car and go home.  Poor thing, the guy didn't turn up until gone 9pm and she arrived at ours at 10.15pm.  She finally got home at 11.45pm and had to drive back to Tonbridge the next day.  Just to add to their lucky weekend, they got caught in a horrendous traffic jam on the way to the wedding caused by the closure of the southbound Blackwall Tunnel.  The traffic was stacked all the way back nearly to the M11 junction and they were stuck for 2 and a half hours in temperatures of 34 degrees!  Poor Alexander was a bit de-hydrated.  They arrived at the wedding just after the vows!  Apparently they enjoyed the rest of the day and made it back home OK.  Let hope they don't have any more travel bad luck!

On the 10th, Ben went to Gilwell Park for the Gilwell 24 event where they stay up and do activities for 24 hours.  He said it was far too hot to want to queue for anything and they tried to stay in the shade as much as possible, making it more of a non-event.  When he returned home on the Sunday morning he was tired but determined not to sleep too much so that he could have an extended sleep overnight.  To stay awake he went out to play tennis and have a water fight with Jeni.

Also on the 10th, Beccy did the final part of her referee training and came home very keen to get started.  We ordered her kit straight away so that she could be eligible to run the line at a ladies match sometime soon.  While she was there I visited Sandwich and Eastry and went looking for information about ancestors who came from there.  I didn't find anything much but did get an idea about buying a flat in that area, especially near the waterfront, so that we can rent it short term, long term or holiday let or we could use it as a base if we rented our own house out.  It's close enough to use if we were to re-arrange our working to only work three days a week and then two days at home.  Otherwise the travelling would be at least an hour each way.  I came back with my head full of ideas about this but, unfortunately, there aren't any available flats in Sandwich.  Still, we can afford to wait.

14th July - this was a good day for both Ben and Beccy.  First Beccy had her school sports day.  She won the long jump with a jump of 4.36m, then she won the 800m, then her team won the 100m relay.  Her house won the overall competition so she was really pleased.  The house system has only recently been brought in at her school and it has been, as far as Beccy is concerned, a great success.  It really added to the atmosphere of the sports day that students were cheering for their house rather than for individuals.  Unfortunately, there is a good chance that she will be doing work experience on sports day next year and the year after that will be on study leave and so she may not experience this again.

Ben was presented with the Trustee Prize for Physical Education at his school prizegiving.  This recognises his achievements in PE at the school and he was pleased.  He had to choose a book that the school put an insert into and presented to him on the night.  The book was called 'Diving the World' about the best dive sites.   Maybe he will try one or two out, although he was disappointed that they were almost all in the southern hemisphere and therefore more difficult to reach.

Beccy sat her referee exam. She went a bit early to do some revision before the exam started and then she had to sit 9 papers (some very short and some involving video clips to make refereeing decisions about).  She passed!  Her kit arrived the same day and so when she got home she could dress in the kit and blow her whistle.  We took a photo of her giving Brian a red card but he deleted it! The whistle was so loud it deafened us - it probably won't sound quite so loud on the football pitch but should do the job it was meant for.

Dan and Helen's bad luck continued when, on their way home from Norfolk, my car broke down!  They got the recovery service to get them home and then we arranged for our recovery service to bring the car to a local garage.  The cam belt had gone and, as they had been accelerating at the time, it had ripped the engine to pieces.  Luckily, Brian had fixed their car and it was ready for them to pick up, so they came down on the train with the car seat and were able to drive it home after we had been out bowling and eating for Sarah's birthday celebration.

What to do?  We have managed for over three weeks now without a car and haven't missed it.  Although it generally gets driven once a day, this is because either Brian isn't home in the evening and his car is, therefore, not available or because we have a choice of cars and mine is the most economical.  Obviously if we had to lose one car it would have been better to lose Brian's but you can't choose these things. The cost of repairing my car will just about match what it is worth.  We could sell it for dismantling and cover all our costs.  Then we can cash in the insurance, transfer the breakdown cover to Brian's car and cash in the tax and we will be quite well up at the end of the day. Both children were very happy to encourage their father to come home more often so that we can share the car more easily and I'm all for this as well. Ben's solution to the problem was to suggest getting a scooter (he wants a Vespa) that we all share and that gets used by anyone who is going out on their own (including Brian going to work when he doesn't have any equipment to move about). So we have started to look into this.

This week, Beccy visited Howletts Zoo (which she said was quite boring as they were marched around and she didn't get to see the creatures that interested her - like Ben, she likes the reptiles and sea creatures).  Ben visited the University of Greenwich and started the UCAS application process.  He also attended a talk on taking a gap year and decided that he wanted to take a gap '3 months' between leaving school and starting university - what a brilliant idea!  He needs to start looking into it now if that's what he wants to do.

Friday was my last day at work before the summer holiday.  We have been told that we are moving departments and staff rooms. This is no problem and should be a fairly painless move.  It is a bit worrying, however, that most of the implications of this in, especially in terms of resources, don't seem to have been considered.  It could be a disaster but we just need to work hard to make sure that this doesn't affect our students.  They were affected very badly last year due to staffing problems that I don't think anyone could have foreseen or done anything about but which, under our Head of Faculty at the time, were expertly handled so that the effect on the students was minimised.  Without this we may have lost many more students.  It should be an interesting year next year, especially in light of the many cuts that are likely to be put into place.

The weekend of the 24th/25th July was really quiet.  As the children have got older and have their own social lives, Brian and I have more and more time to ourselves.  I am in the process of learning how to fill that time but at the moment, I am often quite underemployed.  I have had the luxury of not having to depend on the TV for the last 30 years and now that I am sometimes at a loss for things to do there is, more often than not, nothing interesting on.  I keep the TV listings handy so that I can pinpoint things to watch or to find on replay and need to get a little better at this.  The big advantage of public transport is that it provide plenty of reading time, so I don't feel the need to do this at home.  In the next few years I won't have to be at home so much and can find entertainment in outside activities (I am really looking forward to doing some voluntary work as soon as possible).

Ben played at the Sundridge Park tennis tournament starting on Monday 26th.  He played in the under 18 and under 21 competitions.  He won his first match but lost his second in both competitions.  He went into the consolation draw for under 18s and won his next match.  This put him in the semi-final (small draw) with a very good chance as he had beaten his opponent before.  Unfortunately, winning this match would mean that he would need to get the train to Norfolk for Norjam and I don't think his heart was in it.  He lost the match.

On the 31st Ben travelled to Norjam with everyone else.  It was a good week for him, although he said he didn't get much sleep.  He had a good go at the trapeze and was apparently quite good at it.