Outdoor fun in indoor weather.

As I jumped in a huge muddy puddle accompanied by 11 kids last week on residential, I had a completely happy realisation that I was part of something kids rarely do these days. Be a kid.

There's lots of just being a kid I don't remember-probably because I took it for granted- but I do know I climbed trees, made dens, mudpies and my dad cross by digging holes in the lawn. I saw a woman on BBC recently talking about the importance of play, (she worked for Play England A company I now really wanna work with) and she was talking about how little modern children play the games or build mini adventures like we used to as children.

A part of what play England does is go into communities or cities and teach children how great it is to build dens. I loved den building! I used to spend long rainey afternoons armed with blankets and my mum's clothes horse and create a whole world for myself and my brother where we would be hiding out from an evil captain or getting ready to climb the world's highest mountain. The wonderful feeling of being hidden in a makeshift A-frame tent still makes me smile! Then there were the outdoor dens of the summer holidays.... Hideouts were created using old bits of plywood, plastic sacks and broken bits of brick as anchors for it all. My den was usually behind my parents shed. This was because there was the obvious way in via a gap next to the shed door, but also a secret passage behind the huge privet hedge that marked the bottom of the garden. That meant that when enemies attacked I could make a quick gettaway via the secret passage!

Of course the dens were just the start. As I got older I was allowed playing out time where me and kids from the neighbourhood would explore trees and the path to the canal. I became the hunter of treasure on these trips... Finding shards of broken pot and carefully cleaning and saving them, claiming they were evidence or hidden incase treasure! I became an alchemist in my dens mixing magical amounts of dirt, sand and water in pots and claiming I had created magic potions!

Do kids do this these days? A few years ago I discovered that the kids in my year 6 class had really poor knowledge of the world around them. We were doing a revision of the y3 unit of work on floating and sinking. I was heartbroken when they could only name plastic bags and pebbles as things that float. None of them had heard of poohsticks and the fact it was only litter that gave them a frame of reference for understanding I thought was really sad.

This is why I love non conventional teaching and learning environments.
The sheer joy the kids had purely wearing wellies and kicking muddy water at each other was one of the most powerful things I've seen in a while. I knew that experience alone would inform writing tasks, and would stay with them as something they'd share with their kids when they were older. Or would they?

My generation clearly hasn't bothered with their kids. Next year my role in school is changing slightly and I will be devoting part of my time to help set up and run parenting groups in school. They are being run by the surestart centre, but focus of the importance of play with your child and in sharing experiences with them. I am hugely excited by the chance to be part of something so important.

Everyone should get the chance to be Max and build dens and meet monsters and create a wild rumpus. I salute you max.

8 wheels and a lot of heart.

I have been completely fallen in love with a new sport.

Six months ago, I spent a saturday evening digging out my old Bauer Turbo Skates, dusting them off, cleaning the wheels and bearings (a job i now know i did VERY wrong, but hey ho!) in anticipation of what was to come on the sunday afternoon. I was going for my first skating session with Leeds Roller Dolls.

This all seems so long ago now. I vividly remember the little whoop of joy i got as i put my quads on for the first time since i was about 19 and skated around the sports hall. However what i also remember is being massively intimidated by the large pack of tights and stripy sock adorned legs, little short-ed booties and LRD t-shirts with crazy names plastered on the back of them. Bruise 'em Banshee, SJ Slay, Rushin Doll, Chernobelle.... how was i ever going to fit into this world? I took deep breaths and listened to everything i was being taught. I had pads on for the first time in my skating life, and was being taught how to fall on them correctly. This was apparently the most important thing to learn. I remember thinking it was hilarious as all I had tried to do as a skater in my teens was NEVER to fall over! what is this crazy sport?! Having learned falling and basic stopping, I took to the track and was helped out by every single member to try and keep up with the weaving line drill they were doing. I was taking my first little baby steps to playing the game I saw next.

Roller Derby. It's the look of confusion on peoples faces I love the most. "What's Roller Derby?" I still haven't come up with a succinct answer for this. The answers usually range from "oh a crazy sport" (usually accompanied by an inane grin) or " a sport where packs of skaters skate around a track and try and score points while others try and bash you off the track" to a very standard "Roller derby is an all woman full contact sport played on quad skates" But quite often, my reply is ended with "ITS AWESOME!" If I could explain roller derby in any other way though I would carry around this video to explain things...



Doughnuts always save the day! So thats Roller Derby, and since that first session i have been hooked. I love everything about it. I don't actually remember loving a sport as much as this. When I was a swimmer I loved it, I loved training, I loved competing, but essentially I was just good at it and enjoyed being in water, but my lack of competitiveness often prevented me getting better, I just took it for granted that if i went to those 10 training sessions I would get better and my times would get quicker, which they did.... ish! But with Derby, I have found an inner fighting spirit and inner competitiveness I never knew I had. I wake up every training day now and can't wait to get on track, I constantly watch other players and try and work out how to be better.

The day I got my derby skates sealed my love affair for ever. They're not the best, but they're proper Derby skates, Reidell R3's. I love them. I took them out of the box, spun the wheels and giggled. They were perfect. I couldn't wait to put them on, I took them to practice that night and did a lot of falling (after all the Bauer's had had ankle support which i was now seriously lacking) but by the end of that session I was skating back with the best of it.

Leeds Roller Dolls is an awesome team. They have been running for over 3 years now (sorry dolls if I have got that wrong!) and it is completely self running. Its a club run by skaters for skaters. We have a board, committees and our own policies and business plans. We train 3 times a week and all training sessions are run by the more experienced Dolls and training plans are devised and strategically worked out by our own training committee. We have some awesome skaters in our league and when I watch our proper bouting A team play, I am always in awe of their fitness and skating agility.

I have attended 3 bouts now, and the last one Rack and Roll against Glasgow Roller Girls' Irn Bruisers was amazing. By the end of the bout i was in tears though shear pride for how hard and how well my team had skated and fought for their single point victory. They were amazing. All the dolls are amazing. The team spirit we have is something I have never really experienced before. EVERY doll is supported encouraged and made to feel important. Whether it is her first steps on skates or whether they have been selected for the UK all star team, all of us are part of one big league and I love them all. We are all constantly encouraged to be better players, and a few weeks ago, it was announced that we were going to launch a bouting 'B' team.

My little skating heart skipped a beat. A team I might be able to aim for. Since then, nothing else has occupied my head. I never thought this new sport i had found would mean so much to me. I want to be on that B team and I want to be a valuable team member. I've never wanted anything so much in sport in my life. So now I have something to aim for. We have a bout coming up in October where a potential B team will be put together, and I WANT to be on it. Its a hard push, but i'm going to do everything i possibly can to put myself in line for selection.

You'd think that once you master the skating element, Playing roller derby should be easy, but as GRG wrote on thier blog about the Rack and Roll bout, "It’s days like this that prove how far UK derby has come in the past few years. We’re not alt-punk indie chicks putting on a sideshow; every single girl on track today was an athlete." And an athlete is what I need to become. So I'm stepping up my fitness. I'm going to try and increase my CV fitness to help me with those times I get to jam, so i can get round and score more points, and I'm going to work on strengthening my core and lower body muscle groups to help me stay more balanced and skate better. Starting today. 30-45 minutes a day of CV and pilates/floor work is not a huge ask, So this is what I shall do.

I've come a long way from the terrified 15yearoldskates wearing person who turned up to a sports hall in Leeds in mid January. I now love my sport and love my team. Leeds Roller Dolls... you are amazing. Thank you with all my heart.


Eat Derby
Sleep Derby
Brush your God Damn Teeth Derby.

INTI,
Cookie Cutlass #903

nuts and bolts

Over the course of the last 12 months I have watched with intrigue. Every evening he arrives. A man, usually dressed in jeans and coloured t-shirt, pulls up in a white van on the small patch of tarmac across the grass from me. He parks neatly in front of the pastel coloured garages and opens up the 4th from right door slowly, like a child on a cautious adventure. He disappears inside and then come the great sound of the engine starting.

The man, (who I only know as Powell due to it being written on his white van in perfect black letters) owns a kit car. Its identical to the one my dad had when i was a awkward teenager living in Reading. Long silver nose, small rectangular windscreen with tiny wipers constantly caught in the upright position, two perpendicular squares of spongy leather forming two seats aside a small gearstick topped with a silver shifter, black solid roll bar behind the seats and a beautiful racing green body all around saving you from falling the 3 inches that you were held above the ground. No doors: they just take the fun out of it. Its so familiar, I know how hot the brushed silver dashboard feels when its been out in the sun, I know that awkward position you have to get in to just to get inside, but most of all i remember the total rush of excitement at sitting on that small square of leather when the engine was running, knowing how much fun the next little ride was going to be.

I'm not sure what model Powell's car is, could be a Caterham, could be a Locust, but I just know its fun. It doesn't have a roof, actually to be more precise it does, but you look like an idiot driving with it on; its essentially a leather rain mac stretched across your head. He does sometimes have the doors on his and i think my dad did quite a lot of the time too. What i remember most about the Locust (yes i do mean locust not Lotus) is that i learned so much about how cars work just from watching and helping my dad with his. Its a shame cars have become so modern as the things i learned about the engine in that car are beginning to become obsolete, but i guess this is what Powell loves his car too.

As I say, he arrives every night in his van and takes the car for a drive, but being on holiday at the moment I have discovered that he also works on it almost every day too. Today the car is up on jacks and he is repairing the rear suspension. Next to him is a gloriously grubby white box filled with tools and bolts and nuts and wire and parts that only he understands, but it makes the scene. Green bodywork, yellow jacks, grey wheels and grubby white box. He works so meticulously. Never worrying about the time it is taking. Today he has had a small audience of local children watching him, but far from being distracted or disrupted by them, he has politely answered questions and nonchalantly kicked back their football as it hits him for the 10th time.

Is this what happens when you find something you completely enjoy? I suppose it it similar to the simple peace and happiness i get from changing the wheels and bearings on my skates. Each piece is familiar, the tools work perfectly and you can see the process from start to finish before you even start.

Powell and his car make me happy.

At last!

Finally!

I was just checking my emails at school and my reading blogs on my reader and discovered that yes! Finally! Kirklees broadband filtering for schools now allow blogspot!

Now there is no excuse... i shall blog till my little fingers fall off!

Currently I am having luch on day 2 of SATS. Its been fun so far... no major panics or flip outs so bonus. I shall write more about this twoards the end of the week for fear f breach of regulations. Oh and yes... I know most schools have boycotted them, but we're doing them which i think is the right decision.

This afternoon is PPA time, generally a time where i get very little done. I aim to be more productive today so i can get of quickly and get to TEMPER TRAP! woo hoo!

Ok, better head off. Short blog as i've had to fiddle with some settings to get this to log in right.

More soon!

INTI

The big 3

The three main parties have manifested themselves now. What have I learned so far? No one has impressed me enough so far. The red camp have my 'maybe better the devil you know' vote, the blues have the 'we're all in this together'vote, and the yellows have the 'i agree with your sentiment and ethics' vote. However all three parties have yet to convince me that they would do a better job than either of my cats!
How would a cat run the country? An interesting idea. Two mancat offensive on the rodents of britain! We would have a clean and happy society built on twice daily measured food for all, 101 uses for string and 12hour sleep sessions!
I have been very interested in the various election help websites that have popped up to aid the blogtweetfatbook generation(yes I am aware that word looks rude! B-)). My favourite site is a tool that tells you what fraction of one your vote is worth. Simply enter your postcode and BAM, an instant injection of apathy rubbing.... I can see mrfatbooktweet saying 'i mean why bother if my vote is only worth 0.001 of a whole vote?' This is the fraction I was presented with when I looked at my postcode. Its hard to feel my part in democracy in action, when i'd need 100 people to vote the same as me to make my vote equal 1! The current record amongst my friends is 0.2. Let me know if you're any higher.
Another interesting site brought to my attention by a sueperkins RT is mygayvote. It tracks how the three main parties have voted or commented, on all the gay related policies and votes in the last 5years. Interesting site, but feel it may have been designed with a stringent anti tory eye. If not the results are shocking.
So now here I sit on a packed crosscountry train wondering how my fellow passengers will vote. Maybe the question I should ask my self is HOW MANY of my fellow passengers will vote in the election. I'd like to see more effort paid to encouraging people to vote, to getting rid of the apathy, or worse the 'my mum just fills in my postal vote card, I can't be bothered' contingent. Hmm.
Ok time to leave this blog entry as I am sounding far to campaign-ey. And besides its time to venture to find a sneaky beer for the final hour of my journey!
Mmm!
INTIx

Long train journey

Ok so if I have set this up properly I should now be able to blog from my phone!
Watch out world!

cats are crazy creatures

Monday evenings are fun.

Its been a busy day at work. I used to love being a teacher, but today... not so much. I want to be a good teacher. This I know I'm good at. When did this include strategic management of subjects and piles of paperwork?! rubbish.

This calls for..... Pizza wine and TV!!!! ok so i did nearly 2hrs of work first. and now i reside in the sinfully happy world of duvets, Gok wan and sleeping cats. Soon I shall head to sleep and hope tmrw proves to me that being a good teacher is good enough.

Click my heels together 3 times, they sparked a little but nothing happened. There's no place like NQT, there's no place like NQT.....

INTI