A Birthday Message

Hello Hannah (and anyone else who may be reading, but specifically you, Hannah). Today, as you are probably aware, is your 24th birthday. Unfortunately I am on holiday at the moment and therefore unable to wish you a happy birthday in person.

But do not fear.

Your ever loyal and wonderfully organised Grover has prepared for this by scheduling this bloglet and by making a video message for you. If everything goes according to plan you will be able to watch this video by clicking here. (The video has annotations which won't be visible on a phone, so please watch on a computer!)

If things are not going to plan, you won't ... but I hope you have a fantastic day, get lots of presents and eat lots of cake.

Happy birthday, lovely!

I'm Still Here

Just a quick one to let you know that I'm still alive and just being lazy with bloglets at the moment (plus the Olympics have been a HUGE distraction and I haven't strayed far from a TV).

Normal service will hopefully be resumed towards the end of summer (family holiday to Vancouver first), but until then, what's been going on that I might have missed?

New Year's Resolutions - A Second Revisit

Believe it or not it's now July.

A few months ago I wrote about how my new year's resolutions were going and I said I'd be back around May/June to see if I was still sticking to them.

So, as a quick recap, my three resolutions this year were to:

1. Keep a weekly blog.

2. Learn 12 new songs on the ukulele.

3. Learn how to knit.

Number 1 is going very well, largely due to the A to Z challenge which added an extra 26 bloglets to my count (I'm mostly sticking to at least one new bloglet a week, but as long as I've written 52 more at the end of the year than at the start, I'll be happy).

Number 2 is going pretty badly. I do play my ukulele quite a lot, but I'm not learning lots of new songs. Must try harder, I know.

Number 3 is just not 'going' at all. I probably haven't picked up a pair of knitting needles since I wrote my first resolution revisit back in March.

How are your resolutions going?

Do you even remember them or have you already completed them by the half-way point in the year?

Am I Crazy?

I talk to myself.

Well, I say 'talk' but to be honest it's more of an under-the-breath mutter. Usually something like, "where's my hairbrush?" or, "did I finish that cup of tea?"

I think this is a fairly normal thing to do (I might be wrong - leave a comment and let me know). I've always thought that, by saying something out loud, it's like I'm directly asking my brain to wake up, get into gear and supply me with an answer. (It usually replies with something helpful like, "wherever you left it" or, "yes of course you did, now go and make another one")

My brain talks in purple italics.

But recently I've become aware of the slightly more worrying fact that I can quite happily have entire conversations with myself. This, I think, is a fairly un-normal thing to do.

Maybe it's not. Maybe it's completely normal to chat to yourself while you plan lessons. Maybe this is something an entirely sane person does:
"So, last week we looked at noun/adjective agreement and most of them were pretty happy with it."
"But there were four of them away, so we need to make sure they're not left behind."
"Ok, so if we do a recap maybe some of the children who were in the last lesson can help to explain it to those who weren't."
"And then they'll be consolidating what they learnt last week too ..."
etc.

So, I ask you - am I alone in doing this? Am I crazy?

I've Been Thinking

I didn't choose a Saturday song for a bloglet yesterday.

To be honest, I've kind of gone off the whole idea (of Saturday songs, not bloglets).

You see, it seemed like a good way of making sure I blogged at least once a week after all the excitement of the A to Z, but I've noticed that that's all I'm using it for - something easy to write about each week - and it's becoming more of a chore than a pleasure to choose a song.

I don't particularly like the idea of this blog being a chore to write (or read), so I am nipping things in the bud and putting a stop to Saturday songs. It might mean that I don't blog quite as often, but I think I need to concentrate on quality, not quantity for a while. I hope you'll still come by now and then.