May Musings

I feel slightly bereft without a letter picture to put at the beginning of my post - now the A-Z Challenge is over.  However, the challenge has kick started me back to wanting to post more regularly which this year I just hadn't got back to.  I will be doing a reflections post but not today.

Today is a day for musings!  A look back at what got done through April and a look to the future and what must be done during May!

So besides the A-Z Challenge, I was busy getting on with more Nordic walking, loads of committee meetings and working in the garden.  Watching shows such as "Car Share with Peter Kay" and "Line of Duty" on BBC 1 and "13 Reasons Why" on Netflix.

(Car Share with Peter Kay)

So far this month, the big news is I've booked my ticket to the USA - this has been a long time coming and I am so looking forward to getting together with my university room-mate who I have not seen in a very, VERY long time.  

I also spent May Day removing the remains of a pigeon and a mouse from the cellar and fixing the window which the cats had come through dragging said carcasses.  The joy of having a cluster of cats!!

So now it's your turn - what did you do to celebrate this new month?  Where are you off to during 2017?  What did you watch on the TV during April?

Leave a comment below because you know I'd love to know :)

Z is for Zola Zenith

Zestful Zindel, Zeitgeist Zusak

Zany Zephaniah, Zola Zenith

These are a few of my favourite Zings!

Well this is it - my last post for the A-Z Challenge.  All too soon it seems to come around but once again I've thoroughly enjoyed taking part and making new friends as well as visiting the old ones :)

It seems appropriate to end with some of my favourite authors whose names begin with Z.  

Paul Zindel whose book My Darling, My Hamburger was the first and only book to be read by my mother first before being allowed to read - with quite a lot of provisos before I did!

Zusak's The Book Thief read by me to my children, on holiday in France, beginning that painful passage from childhood to knowledge of people do really bad things sometimes.

Benjamin Zephaniah, whose zany poetry made my classrooms move to the rhythm of poetry and connected immediately to those that struggled and helped them want to write.

And finally to Emile Zola - whose books will be in my heart forever - reminding me of my later teenage years of summer holidays - nose in a book.

My many thanks to all those who travelled here during the Challenge and left a note. If I haven't travelled back yet I will and I will endeavour to reply to all comments left too.  I hope to see/read many of you throughout the coming year :)  Take care ... and live out loud!

Y is for Youthful Yelps

Yawning Yowls & Youthful Yelps

Yodelling Yippees & Yearning Yells

Teenagers’ vocal chords expanding!

I know sometimes we think all teenagers do is grunt but actually if you have to wake one up in the morning you get a real range of sounds! Listening to a group of them around a park bench you could be forgiven in thinking it was a group of howler monkeys at times!!  But we were all there at some stage of our lives - wanting to be the centre of attention, showing off, being part of the gang and certainly sounding loud and high spirited - because that is all part of being Youthful :)

Have you got any memories of those times?  What words do you associate with being a teenager? Where did you go to be with your friends?  Leave a comment below and let me know :)

X is for Xerxes & Xenophobe

X is always the most difficult letter for me in the A-Z Challenge so instead of my normal alliterative poem here is this offering instead!

When I started school at five X was for X-ray and Xylophone (which didn’t make sense!)

When I was a little older X was for Xanadu and Xanthe 

faraway & fantasy

When I started Secondary school X was for Xenon and Xylems  scientific & special

When I left secondary school X was for Xeroxes and Xanthan gum process & production

When I did “A” Levels X was for Xerxes and Xenophobe 

history & hatred

Now I am this old X is for Xhosa and Xerus 

reading & relaxation

Looking forward to reading everyone else's X.  When do you remember learning certain words beginning with X?  Did you ever get the pronunciation wrong? Are you a crossword or Scrabble enthusiast who loves X?  Leave a comment below to let us all know :)

W is for Winter Wonderland

Warm woolies, wet wellies,

whooshing whiteness, welcome whistle,

Walking (and running and sliding) in a Winter Wonderland

We used to be allowed out in the snow to build snowmen, throw snowballs, slip and slide and delight in the white blanketed school field and playground.  Because I could walk to my schools, school never seemed to close although I do remember some of the school buses from the tiny villages (at senior school) not turning up very occasionally.  

Now days when it snows, schools are much more likelier to close due to lack of teachers and pupils making it in - probably because so many more live further away.  Certainly on snowy days, my children and I would listen to the morning radio to hear the list of school closures and most of the time they'd be wishing their ones would be closed!!

Do you remember your winter school days?  Did you clip your welly boots together with a peg?  Did your teachers join in the fun? Or if you live in a hot country that doesn't have snow, do schools close if it gets too hot and at what temperature does that happen?  Leave a message below because I sure would like to know :)

V is for Voiceless Victim

Vacant, Void, Vexed, Visibly Vanished,

Viscous Verdicts, Values Vanquished

Is this what it's like to be the

Voiceless Victim?

I'm watching 13 Reasons Why.  I know I'm not the demographic it was aimed at but I am "enjoying" it - if that's the right way to describe something about teen suicide?  I think it gives the appropriate attention to the fall-out on the adults and the teens it depicts but I don't know because luckily for me I've never had anyone close to me who took their own life.  But I do know what it feels like to be a child who feels suicidal because I once was that child.  Age 11.  There...that is something I have never told anyone. 

Luckily, I kept thinking what would happen to the people I left behind and I decided that I couldn't do that to them.  I had changed primary schools at Easter for the last term before secondary school and I hated my new school mainly I think because I had loved my previous school.  I didn't fit in, I had no friends. I was becoming pre-pubescent. I felt I couldn't tell my parents because I knew how much the move had meant to them.  I was alone and therefore I just didn't want to go on anymore.  If I say, I opened high-up windows and found razor-blades and leave it at that. 

It was an awful period but I got through it and when I went to secondary school I left behind those children and that school ethos and made good friends and had a wonderful time.  And no-one ever knew because I didn't want anyone to.  And that's why, when I watch 13 Reasons Why, I think they have it right about the victim being voiceless and unable to tell anyone what she is going through - to make the true connection person to person and get help - because it is so hard.  

I don't have any answers and these are only my own thoughts - I am quite happy to have comments but I also know this is a very sensitive subject so please write considerately.  Thank you.

U is for Uniformity

Unyielding Uniformity - Unbending, Unquestioning, Unambitious

Unnerving Uniformity - Unforgiving, Uncaring, Unbelievable

Unleash Uniqueness - Understanding, Unafraid, Unbowed

I am not a fan of uniformity - maybe because I've always been a bit of an Undercover rebel? Recently, for my Nordic walking, I went on a course and one of my fears was that the instruction would be about how each lesson would be uniform across the board with no ability to teach to the individual - which is sometimes what it takes.  Luckily, this was not the case and I could breathe a sigh of relief and return to my Nordic walkers knowing what I'd been doing had been given the thumbs up as a way of teaching :)
It seems to be that Unfortunately more and more teachers have to fit into a pattern of uniformity across the school. Of course I can see some strengths in this - a uniform reading scheme - a uniform maths scheme etc but the growing encroachment on how teachers teach is more of a worry to me.  To be shoe-horned into a way of doing things does not seem right.  We all have our own ways of getting through to children and we tweak these ways to respond to individuals if we are a good teacher. Each class is different and respond to different things - knowing how to do this is surely one of the signs of being a good teacher? Having our hands tied on the ways we do things stops this from happening - so for that I am NOT a fan of Uniformity in teaching.

Now it's your turn: What is a pet hate of yours?  How can we make the world a better place?  Are you a fan of uniformity?  Leave a comment below because you know I'd love to know :)