52 Mondays #26
Been hot and stormy all week. On Sunday, it was 32° here but by Sunday evening, there were huge storms. I’m not sure what time the storm hit, but I was woken up by a massive bolt of lightning that must have been directly overhead, and then the heavens opened. Even in the storms last year that brought trees down, none were quite so loud right over me. Usually, I sleep soundly as well – it takes a big storm to wake me up. Sometimes, I get up the morning after, look at the devastation and wonder how I slept through it.
I confess too that I am enjoying looking back through the photos of the year. My first was this one:
6 months is a long time in the growing year. From seedling to harvest. The fields that were planted on the right have now been harvested.
I never get bored of this walk. It takes me right over a huge, open space and it’s the equivalent of doing a half hour of meditation for me. It’s a real mind-clearer. It’s my rehearsal stage, for conversations unsaid, for lesson planning, for considering, for reflection, for philosophy, for analysis. Open spaces do that to me. I can walk and not have to think about walking; it is a path that goes to only one place. There’s no map to read, no worrying if I miss a turn. It’s also one of the only places Heston can really have a run. He has no trees and no forest to distract him or conceal him, and I see any game long before he does.
As for last week, it was lost in work and meetings and work. I had Friday off and went for a day of cake and lunch and coffee at a friend’s house, and it was well-needed respite. Those days always recharge my battery, even if I leave with a stomach that hurts from eating too much.
Three weeks left of exam papers – if I get a move on. Two weeks left of school. I feel exhausted from the exams already. We mark in blocks of questions and when you have read 268 responses to the same question, it’s a little tiring to say the least. Final Brevet and Bacc exams happen this week and next, so I am not the only one in need of a rest. It feels like it has been a very long term and I am very tired – as always. I’m running on empty by this point in the school year, alongside everyone else of my profession, every student and every parent who are just about slogging through the last miles of the yearly marathon.
This photo has got my snog-bucket Heston in it. He’s been with me two years now. He is still a pup at heart, but he is a great dog. Giddy at times, he tries very hard to be good. He is currently tucked up under my bed, just as he was those first few weeks when he arrived.
Football is still his favourite game.
