Monday, August 24, 2009

Back to School - with a bang

This back-to-school malarkey doesn't get any easier each year. I'm just in the last throes of it today and tomorrow: hemming trousers for the boys in extra strong stitching, so they don't pull down their hems through repeated putting in of their legs; extra sewing on the box pleats of the skirts, so that they don't end up ripping up to the waistband. Ironing on about 30 labels with names on, not so much for the benefit of the schools, but to save kids here rowing in the mornings about whose tracksuit bottoms belong to whom.

I still have a list of things to get as long as my arm. It's not that I'm a last minute lassie, it's just that it really does take the whole summer to organise things. Things like a pack of twistables x 3, or rubbers x 20, or even copies (exercise books to forn readers) x 100. And that's not a joke.

I buy pencils by the box load, pens by the bucket. And don't talk to me about pencil parers (I actually invested in an industrial strength one of those a few years ago - best €15 I ever spent). But somehow when we get to Christmas they're all gone - poof - vanished into thin air. I reckon there must be a hole in each classroom where stationary fairies live with a huge hoard of the little buggers. Maybe they re-sell them on fairy-eBay...

Ah well. The upside of all this expense is that next week I get my house back to myself between the hours of 8.30am and 2.45pm, Monday to Friday. I think that's something to look forward to: the sweet smelling sound of silence. Oh yeah.

And in between all that I've been writing poems, and getting ready for my own new term of writing classes to begin. You know what they say: ask a busy woman ...

13 comments:

Totalfeckineejit said...

Join the club, B, I has been backing books when I should'a been backing horses. :)

Michael Farry said...

Ah that back to school feeling, I remember it well, both as a teacher (retired now) and as a parent (parents never retire!).

Dominic Rivron said...

Still got another week off here, but the spectre looms, none the less...

Unknown said...

I absolutely hate backing books TFE and avoid it as much as possible. These days that clear sticky back plastic causes more breakdowns here than is possibly worth it.

Michael, I bet you enjoy looking on at the rest of us rushing around frantically.

Dominic, they start back here in dribs and drabs, but by the time we get to next Tuesday the 1st they're gone, gone, gone!

Dick said...

Nine days before I'm back to being a Housewife and Mum, discussing whether you should iron sheets and pillowcases with my playground pals.

Unknown said...

Life's too short for ironing bedlinen, Dick..!

Group 8 said...

I empathise, lady. And I have only 2 to do for. No quiet house for me this term though. Sigh.

Bernardine Evaristo said...

Hello Barbara,

Continuing along the theme of back-to-school One of my most poignant memories is of my first two weeks at secondary school. My mother was knitting me a regulation blue school cardigan but it wasn't finished in time and so I had to wear a grey one. I felt so embarrassed being not only the only child wearing the wrong colour but also the only child of colour in the school. Even to this day I feel that twinge of humiliation. At that age all you want to do is blend in, and I didn't.

Kay Cooke said...

wow you are truly superwoman. I mean it! Kudos to you mama! (AND you write poetry!)

apprentice said...

You put me to shame
x

Unknown said...

Hi N, I know - you'll still have missy's needs to tend to - you'll be watching for her naps like a hawk! Still, I think girls are far easier to get to entertain themselves than boys!

Hi Bernardine - my mum knitted our jumpers too, until such stage as I had to knit my own. Nothing worse than that feeling of sticking out when all you want to do is be like the rest. Until you hit teenagehood..!

Hi Kay, I think I'll meet myself coming back one of these days - as they say in Drogheda!

Hi A - I think you do busy just as much as I do; you just have different pulls on your time :)

Michelle said...

Just wanted to wish you a fabulous term of writing classes, Barbara.

Unknown said...

Thanks Michelle - hopefully I'll make enough to pay the fella in the santy suit at Christmas time :)