Holidays

We are up at Denise's place in Mahurangi West. House sitting sort of. Free accommo for us and proximity to some of the places we were thinking of buying in if the house sold.

Hoping to miss two open homes while away. I'm becoming an obsessive house cleaning termagant for hours before each one.

Who would have thought two adults could have ade so much mess, I think as I clean up each week.

We left on the day of an open home and we will now have to go back the day before one which means we'll mess the place up beforehand. I'm trying to make the place look streamlined each time we leave it - no shower, bathroom or kitchen things out and gleaming benches. I have also hatched a new plot to remove the bookshelf from the lounge and decorate that big wall space with some sort of cheap art work. I read somewhere that people need to imagine a place as there's and having too much of your own stuff out ...

Had a great walk today in open sanctuary of the Tawharanui Peninsula. Snapped an unknown yellow bird.

Boxing Day

Had to fill in a form at doctor's today. For occupation, I nearly put, "domestic goddess". when teaching had me in its grip lost all interest in cooking but yesterday I did a lamb roast with garlic and rosemary and today I made a very passable banana cake with the overripe fruit.

I still haven't learnt how to use our new camera very well but caught a thrush on the neighbour's chimney this morning. I got up early because I have a rib sprain from a traffic accident we had on the 22nd. An Indian (no English) driver went though a stop sign and wrecked our car and his. At first we thought we had no injuries but the jolt to back which was a very minor pain turned to a major pain over the last few days - now okay because I've had it diagnosed and treated with a lovely difluonac painliller. Thoracic sprain. glad I didn't break a rib. We got off lightly.

We are a little stressed about not selling the house - someone came though on Xmas Eve - but Xmas has taken our mind off it.

Now we are going to brave the shopocalypse to see if I can buy some books in the 25% off!

Cleaning frenzy

Retirement good - cleaning house after so many years of not really doin' it properly is a shock. I've got the lime scale out of the toilet and bath after googling it and am now working on the scum in the shower. It was easy enough where it was thick enough to come off with a flexible knife but where it's finer it's hell. I've tried ammonia and vinegar - nothing commercial will work. In the end it's down to the knife and pumicy glass door cleaner bit by bit by bit. Now I've made my first knick in the acrylic and will have to patch it with clear nail varnish.

Went to Flaxy Lake the other day - it really did have flax and the flax was full of tuis!

We've had a walk most days and today we acquired a female foxy who followed us for 45 minutes and walked into the house as if she owned it. She's called Patrick (?) and has a phone number but her mum and dad are out at the mo so we'll look after her til 6 pm or so. Allen and I parted company in the Tihi Street reserve and she hesitated for a while then pattered along behind Allen. He IS a much nicer person than me.

Freeeedom

Well, it arrived at last - the final day. And it was good! Woke in the morning feeling good, got to work to find a couple of uplifting cards from staff and students in my pigeon hole, finished all my duties, handed in my laptop and keys, went to prizegiving, survived that, was dreading the farewells but in the end enjoyed them. My co-HOD had a few wines and delivered a fabulous speech and even I managed to say a few coherent words without crying although I was a bit too frank about my burn out and hope I didn't make people uncomfortable. The best thing was that the department sang me a waiata. Very precious.

Not long to go

About five more days of permanent employment. Day off tomorrow - taking leave because three days of "electives" is too much for me. Today we did short golf, archery and ten pin bowling. Much as I love the kids, I find standing around on one foot then the other quite excruciating. We couldn't even have a good gossip with all the noise at ten pin. Three schools there and karaoke. But some gossip was partaken of by the four teachers concerned:)

Workload is lessening - fear and dread of each day lessening with it!

Went to Tarawera in weekend. Bit disappointed in the pics we took but it was a good day with the water oil smooth and reflective.

No bidders but ...

Auction tomorrow lunchtime and it would be stretching to hope for a bidder. No-one has expressed interest and no-one has looked at the place twice. They say that there are sometimes unexpected bidders but ...

Anyway, there could be some action because they are going to "put the house on the market" straight after it has been passed in. They'll announce a price and will invite people to look at it. But who will be there? It's a small board room and there are going to be six auctions with us last.

Both the auctioneer and the agent seemed to express some genuine hope that the house would attract interest after the auction. I can't quite visualise how things will pan out.

10 days to go at school.

Shot a tiu in our flax t'other day.

Please say it's over

Counting down the days. Work hell; retirement goood.

No bites on house sale - ouch - auction on Thursday.

A bit better

Seniors gone - load lightened - only three and a half weeks to go. Can't wait. Freedom is getting closer! Still have seniors to worry about - essays being emailed to me and I want to help them still. But after Thursday the worst will be over.

So I don't feel freedom's breeze just yet - some major responsibilities to fulfill but at last I can have a weekend without that awful need to prepare and mark.

Oh Gawd

Got through the school week! Obama won! Yey!

But then again National will probably win the NZ election - not good.

And the agent forgot to call around tonight which means there will be nothing to report. It really is very very slow. Have to be brave.

And fortunately I had a brain wave about the last full three days of teaching - I have already made some revision sheets for one of the three senior classes and will work on it for about four hours tomorrow and then it will all be done and if there's no time to teach it all I'll put it on the website. It's funny that I have the incentive to do that now - before all I could think about was selling the house - now I feel that's probaly not going to happen so I'm prepared to do the school work.

This weekend will be the last weekend ever that I'll have to do school stuff cos the seniors leave Wednesday. I guess I'll be able to manage it.

We had an open home when the American election results came to a head. We heard Obama's victory speech on the radio coming home from town and I was very very moved. It was the long period of cheering and the exultation you could hear in the crowd and the sense of what he'd had to overcome.

Downturn

I expected there to be a depressive cycle and there has. Agent is worrying about the fact that no other agents has brought people through between open homes and in his own daily routine he's getting inquiries only about cheaper houses in the low 200,000s. Oh dear.

Only three weeks to auction.

I'm a bit anxious because I've been asked to present some of the prizes at next weeks do. what if I drop one or go into a daze? And what will I wear/

But on the good side it's the American election today and our election next week. Ours might be sad but the American one will be uplifting I'm thinking! someone at school said the Greens were crypto-fascists and quoted their immigration policy which he said restricted the population to 5.1 million and would lead to forced sterilisation. What?

Day off

So stressful was the first proper open home and so horrible is a full week at work at the mo that I took a day's leave without pay to catch up with myself.

This means that I have a four day week this week with full duties and three full teaching days next week with Thursday and Friday much easier. The seniors go on Wednesday next week with a prizegiving at 7 pm. This week we have parent interviews from 4 pm to 6pm on Thursday. It's going to be difficult. After years of quite enjoying my job, I now feel that every day is torture.

However, when I'm at work it is usually perfectly okay - just the normal teacher ups and downs and I'm fully committed but at home I feel this heavy sense of dread at the prospect of another day, another week.

Good news today though - a house we looked at in Whangarei when we were up there early last month sold recently for only $247,000. That could mean that prices there - higher than here - are coming down pretty steeply. that was a pleasant house!

Retirement had negative connotaions for me before but now it seems positive. Retirement - what a beautiful word.

Big Bird

Another week at work over but the time is moving very slowly. the bars of my cage seem just as rigid as ever.

However, the house sale business has been stimulating. We had 3 groups through last week in a neighbour's only open home and 4 groups through today in the first real open home. We have 25 days until our auction. apparently a lot of houses sell after the auction so I guess in 5 - 6 weeks we'll know if this expensive auction campaign has been successful!

It was also heart-warming last week to be visited by a kaka - it was chomping furiously through the flowers on our kowhai. Mkaes us feel very fond of the place we're wanting to sell which is a nice way to be.

Sunday Morning

Only three more mournful Mondays to go - tomorrow and the two after Labour weekend. My Mondays have been diabolical this year - house group, four classes (don't have my best class on Mondays) and then lunchtime duty and then a non-contact in which I am usually too tired to be very productive and then - very often a staff meeting. With my other responsibilities, it's quite a heavy day and hangs over me (or used to - I don't care much anymore) all Sunday. Then on Tuesday I have an identical day but with my best class first and without my most difficult class. It's not til Thursday and Friday that the pace lets up a bit.

Tomorrow I have offered to do some scholarship coaching while someone takes my house group so it'll be an even busier day. But I think I'll get through all right because my attitude is that it just doesn't matter so much as it used to. If I perform badly - well - too bad! (I really want at least one of our kids to get a schol though - it would be a nice legacy.)

We have been flat-out streamlining and tidying our house for the official launch of the auction campaign tomorrow. It's been fun but exhausting and really - it's all I want to do. I helped very little while Allen demolished our worn out bed settee that not one 2nd hand delaer woud touch and we couldn't get it out of the house, Too heavy. I rememver Levenes delivering it 8 years ago via the veranda - soemthing we could NOT do. We took it in bits like a dismembered body to the dump but I put the almost unused foam mattress under the sheets on our spare double bed. It now looks surreally high like the bed of the Princess and the Pea. Looks good though, I think.

Picture today is an oyster catcher from Whangarei's Ocean Beach

Are we there yet?

Three days out of four and a half weeks. Getting there. After that time the seniors will have left and things will be so much easier. I've picked up a bit - marked a film today - always very difficult to give someone's creative effort a grade. Hate it.

Asked three people to write me a reference today. They agreed avidly so that's good. I'll be all ready to put in my CV for relieving as soon as next year starts no matter where we are living. Here, or up north.

A pic of Fatso, aka Onyx. How is she going cope if we move. It's a helluva long way to Whanga!

Disappointed with Helen's performance in the debate last night. John Key looked more confident than usual and she came across as a bit mean.

Tidying Frenzy

No school work in last few days! Such a change from my normal obsessive preparation surprises even me.

But I've thrown all my energy into tidying up the house - painting even - for the market onslaught. The photographer is returning tomorrow; all the agents will do a walk-through soon after and the sign will go up too. No open homes for almost 2 weeks but there COULD be someone through and so firm is our decision to move up north that we desperately want to sell.

I was so disappointed with the last pics that I took a few myself today. On this blog is a photo of the main bedroom. We have cheap and nasty bedding but I borrowed my best cushions from the lounge and covered the bed with a fluffy throw I somehow acquired a few years ago. It's a great room - I'm not being deceptive - I've just been too mean to buy expensive quilts etc and we usually have a mountain of books and untidy belongings on each side of the bed anyway.

Je ne regrette rien

Well, actually that's not quite true - I regret lots - but I don't regret deciding to retire and can't wait for the end of the school year.

Last night I went through the weeks in my head, counting on my poor old numb fingers (nerve damage). Two weeks to Labour weekend, then a week to our first important open home, a week to til the election, a week after that to the last short week of seniors at school. After that, the work load goes down to a reasonable level. You can be an English teacher and still have a life. I saw that as a heading on the English Online Forum - too late for me to read it now.

Pic is of a wild beach up north.

Sleepless in Spring

Can't sleep. Keep thinking about what I want to do with the house to make it look better. Even went down to basement at midnight and moved all the camping gear into foyer to take to storage shed tomorrow and put ugly things that were piled on top of cupboards and on floor into the cupboards - cat's cage for example.

Also dread the thought of doing my marking and so on - just want the next two months to be over - successfully. Hard to believe how I have changed in one term.

Have a dream

Got back from Whangarei on Friday night after a great week away but a nightmare journey home where we were stymied by not one but three road-closing accidents. I should feel sorry for the victims of the accidents but they are kind of anonymous and we were just stunned at the huge detours we had to make. One of them was from the East Coast to the West Coast (narrow part of island but even so ...)

Anyway, the trip up north has just confirmed and intensified my desire to retire. I only wish we were richer and that I could give up work 100%. I have to consider proximity to schools for relieving teaching and rising petrol prices mean that I can't live too many miles away from places of work.

SO - Whangarei is shabbier than our town and has - I think - less salubrious suburbs than we do here BUT what a glorious hinterland. There is also much of interest in Whangarei and a fantastic new library. Not only that but a great "Classics" bookshop and two second hand bookshops selling quality lit.

If our house sells we will have to live in a humbler abode up there but we have found possibilities in central Whangarei and on the coast at Ruakaka.

We want to live where we can see Mt Manaia. I just love that mystical looking rocky ridge at the ehad of Whangarei Harbour.

Bloody hell

This ain't nothing to do with retiring - it's to do with selling our house. the hasty agent had the photographer in yesterday long before we have had time to spring clean, assuring us that his photographer could photo around the rubbish. This is not the case: she has shots of cobblestones full of weeds, improperly made beds and computer equiopment lying around with cables everywhere. If they had just waited. To me it looks as if the agent ihas a low opinion of the house and just wants it to be sold as a do-upper. Surely you can't tell me that poor presention will appeal to the hearts of the buyers.

The above photo isn't too bad - it was one of the tolerable ones I saved onto memory stick before taking agent's disc out in disgust. We have to have 20 - I found 10 I could accept. I can't sleep I feel so bad about it.

I think the agent has misread us - or me at least.

Moving fast

Well - had a talk to my co-HOD today - she's taking over next year and is nervous. Was able to reassure her. I felt hardly a pang - nary a pang really. Fortunately I have enjoyed marking my Level One exam papers. Some of the kids have done well - I've taught them something ... More have failed than have achieved but that's the nature of the beast at this stage of our NCEA journey. It is at school anyway and from my experience marking externals in the past it's probably a feature of many schools. So leaving might not be as hard as I thought.

When I got home today the agent was here with a photographer taking pictures for a website - I feel a bit uncomfortable because the bedroom looks like crap with an old cover on the bed. I did express this to the agent - my first grizzle - guess I have to be assertive from the start.

Picture is of our place this time last October - last spring. this is what we'll be leaving - even then I feel no pang.

Snap Decisions

We put our house on the market yesterday.

What started as a casual inquiry ended up being a dramatic, life changing decision. We quite liked the agent we struck. Nothing's ever going to be perfect, so we went along with his suggestion of an auction. I agree with him that an auction has a marketing impact that a listing does not have. Now we've made the decision, we are keen to go. I'm eager to make a clean break from my school and if we stay in Rotorua next year, I know I'll end up relieving there!

Allen is quite keen and a smaller house will mean less work. Means we will have to say goodbye to the fishies - above.

Biggest problem is all our junk. I've already ordered a storage shed so we can "shed" some of the clutter to make the house look better for the sale.

Hard to consider that we might actually move into a unit! Although I think it will end up being a small house?!

Work is much better - school exams mean that I have a substantial break in each day. I can worry about the marking in the hols. Pleased with he way I helped some students with their speech preparation today. I also assisted a couple of seventh formers with their unit standards yesterday - and that felt good. Maybe I WOULD be better off coaching students. Hmmm.

Endurance Monday

Got up early to do some catch up work and appease my conscience - didn't succeed apart from a bit more of a tidy up and an alignment of jobs to do later. This is VERY uncharacteristic of me and is of serious concern. All I can do is try, try, try and give myself a mark at the end of the day - out of ten according to how well I fulfill me dooties.

Pic is a close-up of the Jackson Park cherry blossom. I'm pleased with that one.

Soldiering On

Gawd - it's hard to keep going now my mental and emotional teaching engine has run out of fuel. My fuel was enthusiasm, drive and commitment - it's gone - all gone.

Photo is of Jackson Park 5 minutes from here. Each year the cherry bloosoms in a long double line of trees make a curious pink smudge against the sky. It's weird. This isn't the best pic but the mixture of hanging bark from the Australian gum the northern hemisphere cherries and NZ cabbage trees makes a picture I can relate to right now.

Couldn't settle this weekend. Worried futilely about the two junior classes to teach tomorrow while the seniors are at exams. Could not make my self do my research marking although I did print out some copies of a mark sheet.

Courage is what it will take- a stout heart and a stern telling off - to myself.

Saw Rain of the Children - hmmmm - good images and liked his narration (until last choked words) but the holus bolus acceptance of Maori spirituality was something that I found hard to swallow. Enjoyed most of it though.

"A flag and sign of love"

I decided to retire on Sunday. Today is Friday and it's been a rollercoaster of a week: the high of release, the low of failure.

The picture of Whale Island taken from a hill above Whakatane on Sunday marks the point of my epiphany - I have to have a life - I have to leave teaching!

I expected to retire on my own terms but in the end it all got too much and I just burnt out or deflated more like - all the puff and drive and energy went out of me like air out of a balloon.

I think the worst thing is that I have to finish the year - I can't just walk off the job, alas. So the busiest part of the school year has to be endured when my heart is no longer in it. And that's putting it mildly.

I look at Winston Peters - much the same age as I am - I don't want to be swept away on a wave of infamy. Although I'm finding it hard to get my self to work right now, I have to "put on a flag and show of love that is but sign" as Iago says and leave with some sort of dignity and a clear conscience.

My first downfall was yesterday afternoon when I let some bored year 11 boys wind me up and I feel into the trap, ranting and raving. I hate that - funny thing is that I've got tons of energy but it's ill directed energy and I just have to find a way to force my refound, post-decision drive into more positive channels.