Day off.

Day off today.  Besides weekends, I have two other days off a week.  I'm off work more than I'm on.  A good life.

As on every day off, weekends included, I wake up in the morning, full of big ideas of what to do with this brilliant pool of time ahead of me.  Start writing a novel - cos the last one was such a big success - not.  Write a blog.  Maybe.  Do a twenty k bike ride.  Too windy.  Such are my thoughts.

Could have rolled on my back all day in bed, reading.  Currently, I'm reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help.  If I was going to read anything all day, that would be it.  Great book set in Mississippi in 1962, so far, written from the perspectives of a couple of 'colored' maids working for rich white families.  Apparently there's a film too.  I'll get around to that eventually, I suppose.

But the truth is I can only read all day when I'm away from home on a holiday.  If I'm here, there are jobs to do, even though there are only me and my husband living here full time.  My son's in and out.  Tidying around the kitchen - ten minutes, max.  Make bed - three minutes.  Washing:  four minutes sorting and loading then Asko takes over.  Ten minutes hanging it out; five to bring it in; ten to fold and put away.  Gives the day a bit of structure.  Don't know why I felt I had to prune the agapanthus today, but there you go.

Could have spent a few units of time blogging about my feral year eights, but it's the same old.  The fourteen year old kid daubing ink all over the desk, chair and the kid next to him yesterday was a newie, but I'm hoping if I don't detail it, it will recede into my vacuous head.  In that group, it's all about four domineering boys and one domineering girl.  Me standing up the front trying to teach and these five kids keeping me too busy to do it effectively.  Still, it's a breeze compared to all that prep, marking and stress incurred teaching Year 12s for the past thirty years.  Middle school classes are busy at the time, but I've done no homework so far this year, apart from endlessly analysing it all and planning how to do things differently tomorrow to make a success of it.

Got a bit panicky trying to get onto the sodding Ultranet - the DEECT website - at about ten this morning.  Couldn't log on.  Tried the virtual help-desk and went around in circles.  Did a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on emails to colleagues for advice.  Nothing was useful.  Finally decided to start again by re-registering.  Got into the system to discover that not only am I already registered - derr - but I'm a 'designated administrator'.  Well, really, ROFL.  Couldn't do anything on that page so logged out and started from scratch.  Logged in successfully this time, using exactly the same user ID and password that had failed several times earlier.  But you know what?  I had no idea what to do once I got onto the Ultranet.  And clicking around left me no wiser.

It was about 11 am by this stage and the possibilities of my day off were drying up and my anxiety levels were rising.

Seemed like a good idea to ride that bike.  But only a few k.  And how did the wind manage to turn around while I was in the supermarket so that I was cycling into it on the way home as well?

So what's my point?  Too much time on my hands.  And loving it.