Category Archives: Uncategorized

Updating an ancient post about Paris

I’ve just added a new footnote to a very old post here describing a few things that are worth doing in Paris.

The new footnote is just this link in French to places with incredible views over Paris which came from one of the mfltwitterati.

My next trip to the City of Light will be with a coach load of Y8s. In December. Which may well give me a whole new perspective on teaching and indeed on Paris.

Winner of book competition

Drum roll please.

For fairness, the four entrants’ names are on a piece of paper

Drawing lots

(literally the back of an envelope, it appears)

Folded and placed not in the hat but the rather lovely Carcassonne meeple bowl that I currently deploy to hold the contents of my pockets overnight.

Drawing lots

Across the corridor to ask my glamorous assistant to pick a winner…

Drawing lots

I shall try and get it into the post to Penny tomorrow 🙂

Link love: Delia’s Silk Road

I am really enjoying reading Delia Monk’s travelogue.

I met Delia when she was a reporter on the Nottingham Evening Post, but right now she is months into an epic journey across the world.

She’s travelling the Silk Road, taking pictures, and having the most awfully big adventure.

Her recent post about Georgia is a good recent one, but there is huge variety in her topics, and she’s travelling through Europe at quite a speed, so who knows where she will be next week?

She’s definitely contributing to my growing sense of wanderlust.

Annesley Hall obsession

My commute to work initially took me up the M1 from J26, but the A610 is so congested and slow every morning adjusted my route to go through Hucknall and Annesley and join the motorway at J27.

There is a superb stretch of the A611 when the road splits into separate carriageways and it takes you through fields and woodlands, and I look forward to it every morning. It was utterly beautiful in the snow, and at the moment, I am just getting used to seeing the leafless, skeletal trees breaking through the dawn. It’s a much needed little lift to the spirits every time I drive through.

But at the far side of one of the fields was a large, double bay house which looked rather special. As the snow fell and I looked out for it every morning, I came to realise it was deserted. There was never a light in the windows, the snow didn’t move, no sign or heating. I started little fantasies about moving in and doing it up, having my own Grand Design.

Annesley Hall

As you turn the corner, the road travels quite close to the building, and there are clearly public info boards next to it, as well as some completely derelict buildings with the roof falling in. Further along, still from the road, you can see what I assumed to be a walled garden.

A few weeks of thoughts like this and I took to Google Maps to find out what exactly the place was, and it turns out that it is Annesley Hall. The modest two bays you can see from the A611 are in fact the building end-on and it is huge – six bays in the other direction – along with a mass of ancillary buildings like stables, lodges and a ruined 11th century church.

Annesley Hall

Given that there are info boards, and small places to park, I decided to visit last weekend, when the weather warmed up a little and the sun came out.

It’s all rather lovely. Huge stables, massive house, large parts of it derelict with the roof caved in.

It needs millions of pounds worth of restoration, and as a listed building that wouldn’t be straightforward.

It was initially down on my “if I won the lottery” list, but I think now my putative lottery win would be better spent elsewhere. My next thoughts were Landmark Trust, of Holiday Property Bond but its location is now hugely overlooked from various busy main roads, and it is right next door to a huge business park. It doesn’t have the seclusion needed for a luxury holiday location.

It’s also one of the most haunted buildings in England. Tough sell as a health spa.

Annesley Hall – Wikipedia / Ashfield District Council planning pages / Most Haunted Youtube

Annesley Hall

Annesley Hall

I can’t log into the TES! Grr! “redirect loop”

This has been going on for weeks now.

The Times Educational Supplement has fantastic resources for teachers – including the best job search system out there that got me all of my interviews and my NQT post.

It has loads of articles and blogs that are useful, and once you log in you can download other resources that teachers have uploaded, that can really help make your lesson planning quicker.

I get sent multiple links to the TES every day – I subscribe to their 50% helpful “New Teacher” mailing list (the other half is mostly about primary and mostly not applicable). I follow TESmfl on twitter, and they tweet about the crème de la crème of MFL resources – both individual activities and wider professional development suggestions.

And then I want to log in and search. Does anyone else’s scheme of work teach German prepositions in a town context? Apparently not, they’re all doing it in a bedroom context (the teddybear is ON the bed, the table is NEXT TO the door etc).

But at the moment I can’t get in! It’s extremely frustrating! Neither my Mac or my PC on my desk can log in. I can use my school laptop at school to do it, but not at home. Every time I get the Chrome error “This web page has a redirect loop” and the helpful suggestion to clear my cookies for this page.

I have googled until I am blue in the face, but cannot work out how to make Chrome clear the cookies for a single page. I’ve found a nice helpful setting to clear ALL the cookies, but that seems a little bit drastic.

I have tried firing up Indernet Exploder to do the work I need to, but that is now completely ghastly. It takes over half an hour to load, is festooned with weird toolbars that must have come in with games, and fires up so many different error and warning messages you start to wonder if you’re really wise to continue.

Aarrgh. Grrr. Any thoughts?

What I sound like right now

Promised over Christmas holidays to make short recording of short story for online SF magazine StarShipSofa.

Reckoned without illness and throat pain.

Thought, sod it, let’s tape it anyway and see if they accept, can always redo it next week if necessary.

Here’s an outtake to share just how awesomely gravelly it all is, even if it does now actually hurt quite a lot to speak.

Reading for pleasure

(It’s odd and disproportionate that two blog posts in a row should be about stuff I’ve been offered for free as a result of blogging but hey ho!)

During our PGCE it was often said that we knew which children would prosper most at school: it was those that read for pleasure. And certainly reading for pleasure was a strong feature of my own childhood and definitely something I do whenever my leisure time outweighs my commitments. Definitely, a holiday wouldn’t be a holiday without a small mountain of trashy detective fiction.

But again during our PGCE there was a point when we were discussing reading and a class of us were asked to raise our hands if we a) liked reading for pleasure and b) were managing to do any during the course. We all liked reading; next to no-one was still doing any when the chips were down.

It’s true for me still. I had planned to ensure I read a book during half term if I did nothing else, but just didn’t get around to it. Any leisure reading I do do is attempting to make a teeny dent in feedreader: blog posts. Lolcats. And that’s about it.

Perhaps as the work/life balance is slowly restored towards life as and when I end up being a more experienced teacher, I’ll manage to get into a more sensible routine. Maybe one that means I’m in bed by 9pm and I read for an hour. At the minute that barely seems possible.

This week, the Folio Society sent me a book, a super wonderful edition of Fahrenheit 451. It has a real feeling of luxury – the book has its own box; the paper feels sturdy and good quality. There are a series of illustrations as well. When I finally find time for reading for pleasure the quality will enhance the pleasure no end.