Dismal Days.

Yesterday, sunshine and showers.

Monsoon like conditions at mid-day today.

Matches my mood after coming home from the start of year staff meeting. I went in quite a relaxed mood as this term as I'll only be teaching part-time. Then we were told that a colleague in a nearby school died unexpectedly a few days ago, the father (39) of one of our families, who had a stroke just before the holidays, died leaving 3 young children , one of my last year's children has just been diagnosed with leukemia and the prognosis is very poor and another child will be joining us whose father has been battling cancer for 3 years and is about to have more major surgery. Other families are having desperate personal difficulties. And these are just the things that we know about. Our very caring Head emphasised that we should be focusing on getting to know our children and nurturing them before worrying about ticking government boxes. We have a couple of years' breathing space before the inspectors are due, as we had an Ofsted last December.

Sorry to write such a depressing post but these things are filling my head at the moment. Now is the time to give myself a kick in the butt and count all the blessings that God has given me and my family, no life threatening illnesses, many friends to talk to and a vision of the road ahead.

"Even in darkness there is light."