breakfast at andrea's

Today I went to the pools, like I usually do. The lane availability on the website said the outdoor pool would have six lanes available, and I’m usually okay with sharing with someone else if necessary. I know there is usually squad swimming in the evenings, as well as an aquaerobics class on occasion. But this evening I got to the outdoor pool and there was a cavalcade of people. Squad had their…

Peppermint and Lime Tea: Venting

I am not someone who can drink coffee or tea straight after it is poured – I prefer to wait until it is of a drinkable heat, and a very dark colour. This evening I thought I would try a new tea – Peppermint and Lime from Twinings, my go to tea brand. So while my tea is cooling and I eat my dinner (a laughable attempt at being healthy after a day of not – fish and vegetables) I thought I would…

Review: Pendragon’s Heir

Pendragon’s Heir by Suzannah Rowntree (2015, Bocfodder Press)  I have always had a fascination with all things Camelot – Guinevere, Avalon, The Lady of Shallot, The Grail Quest. So when this book came up in my BookBub email I was intrigued. Combining Camelot with a Narnia type-story pretty much hits all my buttons, so I eagerly started it a few weeks ago. This gripping adventure captures the…

It’s getting to be the case that Thursdays are my most draining day of the week. Not at all welcome, considering from next week I will be adding an after school class to my regular work load, but we shall carry on regardless! So in other words: This Thursday has been equally as gruesome, or at least the afternoon has been. Today I am grateful for my renewed organisation. I had maybe my best…

Thursday?! It can’t be! It’s too gruesome! I have been having an awfully hectic kind of day, and then remembered this from my dear Holly. I think I like the idea of Thursdays being gruesome, but mostly because it is giving me only one day a week on which to have a whinge. I tend to over-whinge, so it’d be good for me to limit myself. Although I suppose I should really go the other way, give…

What I’m Currently Reading (according to Goodreads)

End of a long work week with reports to write, but I am a little sick of trying to rephrase “if you don’t hand work in you can only get a zero” a million times… It’s the middle of semester one reports so naturally that means it is also time for me to procrastinate wildly and start reading two or three hundred books at the same time! My Goodreads “Currently Reading” list is a little ridiculous at…

To yearn for something is to live in hope that one day, someday, something will come to you. Someone will come to a realisation that you are all they ever needed. Something will finally happen to you, that you’ve been waiting for your whole life. Something will just fall into your lap with little to no prompting. Yearning therefore is inherently passive. And being passive is something that I am eliminating from my life.

Passively, of course. I have all these grand plans to finally make something of myself, to finally have this be the year of me. And yet it is now three weeks into the new year and I don’t really have a lot to show for it. Sure, I’ve been on summer holidays so it’s been a lot of friend catch ups, familial guilting and staying at home catching up on TV shows because I’ve spent too much money on friend catch ups and familial guilting. But I always feel that there’s something more. I could be more productive, more physically active as well as mentally and figuratively. I could make firm plans for the rest of my year and work out the procedure for enacting those plans. I could go through my house room by room and clear out anything I’ve getting rid of on ebay to make some money to put towards my grand plans.

But instead I yearn. I dream, I hope, I wonder, I lie, I wait. I make promises to myself and others that if I’m being honest we’ve all heard before. I talk a good game but when it comes down to it, it’s (so far) been all talk. Talking has always been my best part of any relationship. I know the right things to say, I know what he wants to hear, I know what kind of messages he will want to save for later and I know what will lead him down paths I want him to go. I’m all talk, and I’m good at it. He knows it though, they all do eventually. And then I’m back to the yearning and promises and pretty words that I know so well.

Yearning is passive. And yet I’m yearning to not be so. Passively trying to will myself into the motivation and determination that I know is there. That’s the funny thing. I’ve been told before that my confidence, my persistence and perseverance are some of my most admirable qualities. And yet they are qualities that lie dormant most of the time, emerging only when someone is telling me that I don’t have them, and even then they come out in spurts. They used to just be there. I used to just do things and make things happen for myself and for the people in my life. Actively seeking out the thrills and challenges and telling myself “what the hell, let’s barrel through” in the face of any and every obstacle. I love that part of me.

That part of me is still there though, coming out mostly to tell someone to fuck off and not tell me what I can’t do.  But again, there’s the talk. A lot of big words and harsh truths without the action to back it up. Consistently. I have all the confidence in the world in what I say but sometimes it’s only a whisper in most of the things I do.

 So instead I consistently yearn for that confidence and certainty to stay. All that talk has to lead somewhere, right? If I say it to myself often enough eventually (there’s that passivity again) it’ll come true.

Gone With The Wind Part 1

Today I was looking through my Goodreads “currently reading” list and realised that I have around 10 books on that list! I am chronic in starting a book only to take a break from it for a while, a LONg while it seems, and then have to pretty much start from the beginning because I’ve forgotten what it was about! I am also chronic in reading/re-reading books in a series in an effort to pad my…

Taking Stock: Spring edition #1

After a tumultuous few weeks (really months) I am starting to feel like I can rejoin the land of the living. Work has settled down (though my pile of marking is ever-growing),I’m feeling sliiiightly better about personal life stuff and I’m deciding to focus on the stuff I have in my life that is pretty great. I’m lucky to have a job that I love, a nephew who adores me, friends who will help me if…

Broken, empty and lonely.

I came to a realisation yesterday morning. The events of the past week, and the past month and a half, have pretty much left me empty. Not empty in the sense that I am an emotionless husk of a woman, but empty in that I have nothing left to give at the moment. In general I am someone who is always giving to the people around her, generous with my time and efforts, and rarely expecting things in…

Friday Five: Favourite texts to teach

Long time no post (as always)… My year 8 class is currently studying a book that I studied when I was their age, and we are all loving it so much that I started thinking about the other texts that I enjoy teaching, and that I have (in my short career) used with a range of year groups and schools. Tomorrow, When The War Began My year 8 class is in the middle of a comparative essay assessment for…

Celebrating another ten weeks of survival

Happy end of term teacher friends!