It’s been a busy week. Befor I went on vacation, I ordered 10 copies of “Green Eggs and Ham” to give the kids for a summer vacation present. Yes, my bookstore could order them but they needed cash upfront. OK. Then I get a notification they they won’t arrive until the end of May. Still OK. Monday I get a message telling me that the most they can order is two copies. The supplier doesn’t have more than that. They will give me my money back. So yesterday I took the bus over and got my money back. I’ll just pick them up in the States this summer and bring them back as new school year presents.
Then Tuesday I put a wash on the machine and sat down to do some paperwork. Bear in mind that my wash cycles lasts 30 minutes and counts down the minutes. All the while I’m working, I hear the machine working and occasional beeps. I didn’t pay much attention until I realized the machine had been running for much longer than 30 minutes and it kept rewashing. It wasn’t draining and spinning. I finally got it to stop but couldn’t get the door unlocked, which was actually a good thing, because the drum was still full of water. After pushing several buttons that I didn’t recognize and didn’t bother to look up, the machine partially drained and the door unlocked. I had to set my clothes rack in the bathtub because the clothes were still so saturated. The guy from school is going to check it out tomorrow with an electrician.
I also found out on Tuesday that the school will be getting visitors again and I should do another demonstration lesson. No, I shouldn’t bake cookies this time, I should make something out of cardboard. So I decided on a rowboat. The kids will help me put the last part of it together. We will take a vote to see what color we should paint it. Then we will sit in the boat with our oars and learn to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. We won’t start to paint it until next week. Geez, they even wanted my housekeeper to put curtains in our cloakroom window where we have our bees and butterflies hanging, just to impress the guests. Don’t you think they’d rather see the kids’ artwork, I argued? I won.
Wednesday was another meeting of the bike club committee. Things are really shaping up nicely. There will be a contest among the older kids this week to see who can design the best bike rack. I’ve got the track around the school all mapped out, with possible danger points to pay attention to. We’re going to run it by the lady from the government, who, I hope will make suggestions for improvements in the proposal. Once we’re set with the design, we’re going to hire a company to paint the track. Parent response has been positive so far. Saturday Sonia is going to shoot a video of me riding my bike, which I will send off to Bikeability Scotland as part of my training. Things are moving right along.
The worst thing that happened however, was that I really stepped in it, BIG TIME. The principal appreciates (and requests) that I correct his English. When he used the expression, “Things happen”, at the start of the meeting, I asked him if he would like to know a more common expression and told him, “Shit happens.” Turns out the principal doesn’t curse. Whoa, Nelly. I apologized profusely for that one.
So, tomorrow I’m going to go through the Bikeability materials again before I ride on Saturday and I’m also going to work with Lorene on English. She wants a better score on the English exam that opens so many doors to foreign students who want to study or work abroad. She speaks excellent
English, so we’ll probably just have to work on a little grammar. Maybe I’ll teach her the expression, “Shit happens!”
And, I’ve got the sniffles. I’ve been doing throat spray and sucking on hard candy for two days now. Let’s hope this goes by quickly.
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