popadom pyjamas and snorting sarsons

A bed, a bed, my kingdom for a bed!!

I am so exhausted that I have absolutely no idea how my eyelids are actually remaining open. I feel like I need to nail them to my skull in order to stop myself from collapsing in a stress and work induced lump on the floor.

Now I apologise if you become slightly deafened by the sound of me blowing my own trumpet a bit here but I’m so proud that I managed to achieve the following whilst all my personal life has been falling to pieces around me.

I have had what can only be described as the most stressful 48 hours known to man.
Before I joined my school, it was in “Special Measures” which means it was at risk of failing. The new head and I have worked really hard to turn the school around and last year it was inspected again and was judged to be “Good and Improving”. We’ve done loads of really cutting edge work over the last 18 months but because we weren’t toeing the party line and doing some rather left field stuff, we paid for an OfSTED inspector to come and inspect us again this year to check that we would still be judged favourably by OfSTED.

We were really nervous about it all, especially as some of the teachers were judged to be “inadequate” or “satisfactory” last time.
Anyway, the upshot of it is that out of the 6 teachers he saw teach, 5 were judged as “good” and my lesson was judged as “outstanding”. Wahey!!!!
The inspector said that he’d inspected over 120 schools in the last 3 years and that my lesson was the best he’d ever seen and that it was “truly exceptional”. I was so chuffed as I’d managed to pull it off whilst being shadowed all day by another deputy and observed by a student teacher. At one point, I had so many people watching me that I felt as if I was a goldfish!

I was also thrilled to bits that all the coaching and mentoring I’d done with other members of staff had worked and that their teaching had improved so much. I feel like doing massive cartwheels across the playground but unfortunately I can’t as I’m on a break from a 3 hour external accreditation assessment for our school to get an award. I’m currently hiding in my office and pretending to work whilst the assessor looks through 18 box files of evidence I’ve had to collate for him.

There’s also been some rather mad developments in my dealings with supertwat and a revelation from trainer boy that made me cry hysterically.

I met up with a solicitor on Monday evening in a local pub, and despite getting the hem of my dress ravelled up in a bicycle that someone had left leant up against the pub wall, I managed to stay relatively calm.

We sat down and discussed the whole saga and the solicitor (who was wearing a Saville Row suit with flip flops – urgh hairy toes!) said that in the last 10 years of him practising, he had not heard of anything quite as ridiculous or immature as supertwat’s behaviour.

He advised me that I needed to make a will immediately and give supertwat 24 hours to agree the terms of the divorce otherwise I would cease all communications with him and get my solicitor to handle it all.
I followed his advice and supertwat has gone mental. He was shouting down the phone at me that he didn’t know why I was refusing to communicate with him anymore and I replied that I had e-mailed and texted him request after request for communication about the divorce and he had failed to respond to them so I was going to put it all in the hands of the solicitors. ST has now said that he’ll call me within the next 24 hours to inform me of the terms and to let me know how much money he’s going to repay. It remains to be seen whether or not he actually manages to get his poisonous little backside into gear or whether I need to get my solicitor to act on my behalf now but at least the wheels are in motion.
I wish I could have recorded ST’s reaction to what I said aswell as it was utterly priceless.

Trainer boy was lovely throughout the meeting with the solicitor and afterwards I took him for dinner at a local pub to say thanks for organising it all. It was here that he revealed something that made me sob into my strawberry and feta salad.

I’d just downed a couple of pinot grigios and trainer boy seemed rather disinterested in his fish and chips. I was trying to avoid the temptation to lean over and wolf down his plate of chips and was pushing my salad rather listlessly around my plate when trainer boy began to speak.
He said that he was so happy to have met me and that I was the first thing he thought about in the morning; the last thing he thought about at night; and pretty much the only thing he thought about during the day.
He said that I was beautiful and talented and funny and bright. He went on to say that every time he met up with me he felt totally alive like he’d been lit up by thousands of fairy lights. He then said that he knew that I’d been told what he was about to say before and that he wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t believe him or was very scared but that he needed to tell me.

He basically then said that he was falling in love with me and that he’d never told anyone that before because he’d known he’d never loved anyone before.
He then apologised and said that he’d probably scared me off by saying this and that he was sorry if he’d overstepped the mark.

What did I do?

I accidentally knocked the vinegar over and soaked his lap.
Poor lad now had a vulnerable admission hanging over us like an awkward little cloud; a rapidly disappearing dinner as I’d panicked and started eating the chips to avoid speaking; and a lap full of acrid smelling pub sarsons.
With a mouth full of chips and a heart full of complete panic, I then just started crying. I was completely overwhelmed and just didn’t know what to think. I shoved chip after chip into my mouth as tears were just streaming down my face and trainer boy dashed off to mop up his crotch.
Whilst he was gone I tried to dab my eyes and blow my nose with a serviette but I mistakenly picked up the one Trainer boy had used to mop up the vinegar and so accidentally soaked my eyeballs in acid.
I leapt up and tried to run off to the toilets to dab my eyes but when I got in there, the bulb had gone in there and I was having to wash my eyes out in the dark!
I emerged from the toilets smelling like a chip shop with mascara running down my face and a swollen nostril. I can truly advise, hand on heart, that shoving half a gallon of malt vinegar up your nose is not a pleasant activity for a Monday evening.

He dropped me back off at home where I sat on my own on the settee and just stared into space. I couldn’t believe the evening I’d just had. I know people say that when one door closes, another one opens but I thought that talking about a divorce and then having someone declare their love for you within the space of half an hour was more akin to having a load of doors topple over like dominoes and crush you half to death.

I looked around my lounge at the spaces where our wedding pictures used to be; the gouges on the wall where the TV had crashed into the plaster; my new TV installed by trainer boy; the flowers TB had bought me and my notes on the coffee table from my meeting with the solicitor.

I suddenly felt completely overwhelmed and sat on the floor and just pulled my knees up to my chin and sobbed. I didn’t even know what I was crying about. I was just so tired and felt like a stranger in my own life. I would never have believed that just six months previously I had been stood at the altar as a bride and was looking forward to a life with my wonderful husband. Now I was crying in the shattered remains of my life, in a room filled with things from another man who was desperately trying to help me rebuild things from the wreckage.

I ended up just going to bed and doing what I always seem to do in a crisis. I got my teddy bear and a big bag of crisps and sat there in the dark eating lime and coriander mini popadoms and snivelling. I therefore woke up on Tuesday morning in rather a revolting state.
It’s not often that you wake up and think it’s been snowing in July. It’s especially strange to wake up and think it’s been snowing and the snow smells of curry. It’s also very strange and slightly disturbing to realise that the “snow” in your bed is not in fact snow at all but is a light dusting of crushed popadoms that you’ve fallen asleep in and rolled around in during the night.
After sweeping most of the popadom flakes off my bed, I got up to go for a shower and mistakenly thought I’d developed leprosy as, when I looked in the mirror, I realised I had loads of what looked like shards of skin hanging off me. They were, on closer inspection, slightly damp and rather squashed pieces of popadom that had glued themselves to my torso. I don’t know if you’ve ever showered with the smell of lime and coriander wafting through the steamy air but I can assure you it’s not a shower gel aroma that I feel may be quick to catch on.

I managed to get myself to school with a combination of lots of toast and a quick listen to ABBA on the radio – there’s nothing better than belting out “The winner takes it all” to liven yourself up in the morning. (That is until you realise that there is a man in the roadworks hole next to you at the traffic lights that’s almost vomiting from laughing at your singing).

After a completely stressful day of the observations, I ended up back round at my mum’s, where my best mate joined me for some more rose to celebrate my success and to plan our holiday. My mum force fed me a rather unique combination of a load of hard boiled eggs and a cake (my weight’s dropped again, even though I’ve been eating more healthily) and I enjoyed just being around my lovely family again.

I ended up in bed last night, thankfully without any partysnacks being worn as avant garde body art, and slept like I’d been hit over the head with a mallet.
I woke up this morning to another load of messages from trainer boy saying he was sorry if I’d been scared by what he said but that not telling me had been eating him up. He said that meeting me was the best thing to ever happen to him and he would do anything at all just to see me smile.
I’ve still not replied though as I just don’t know what to say. There’s no way I want to feel anything for anyone for a bit. My heart needs looking after and wrapping in cotton wool after supertwat has stamped on it. I feel as if supertwat has used my heart and my feelings for rugby training and then left it on the sidelines of my life, all covered in mud and bits of grass whilst he’s swanned off into the future with all his mates.
I’m just wondering if I should let someone else pick up the ball and run with it or just stay there on the side for a bit? Who knows? I know I don’t.

Anyway, I’m off now. Going to try and sneak off home and celebrate as just found out we passed our accreditation at school – wahey!
Need to go to sleep too as just don’t know what I’m running on at the moment.
Will update soon with news of publisher etc.

Thanks again for reading.
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