A tale of two headaches

James had a bad headache all of yesterday and didn't feel at all well in the evening. He even had doubts about being able to go on his Bothy weekend tomorrow. Luckily he felt better today and set off for work as usual. But here's the strange thing - I woke up with a sore head this morning and it has lasted, with varying degrees of severity, all day. Coincidence? A cold with only one symptom? Who knows.

When I got in from work I felt pretty dreadful so I dosed myself up with paracetamol and had a wee nap while Ally kindly made the tea, then I got up to watch the final, bloodthirsty and confusing episode of Westworld. And now I'm back in bed, feeling a bit better and hoping for a good sleep and a headache free morning.

Reading at school and at home

I have been spending a lot of time recently thinking about the future; something I will blog about more fully in due course. However I am also enjoying the present - certainly a lot more than I did during January and February this year, when I was feeling rather bleak due to sad times at home (the loss of our beautiful Ruby) and some disturbing events at work that led me to do a lot of soul-searching. Anyway I am beginning to perk up as Spring approaches. I have got through a lot of my work targets, and am feeling quite organised at home. 

Today at school we started a new novel in an English class that I support rather than teach; "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness, based on an idea by author Siobhan Dowd who sadly died of breast cancer before she could write it. The class is taught by a fantastic English teacher and I feel inspired by her skill and enthusiasm. I am excited to be reading a new book and so are the class - and it made me reflect that I am very privileged to be able to work with so many excellent teachers around the school, as well as teaching my own classes. The novel that I have just finished reading with my 3rd years is "City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau. I chose it carefully to suit their tastes and it has gone down very well; we are going to watch the film as an end of term treat. On the subject of reading, at home I am currently reading "The Girl in the Spider's Web" by David Lagercrantz, the follow up novel to the "Millennium Trilogy" whose author Stieg Larsson died suddenly in 2004 before they were published. I don't usually read sequels written by a different writer because I think that they are a pointless imitation, but this was lent to me by a colleague so I started reading it out of politeness. And how glad I am that I have! It's a real page turner, and what is more, it really feels as if it has been written by Stieg Larsson - I can hardly believe that it was written by anyone else. 

Mean

Someone was mean to Grandma yesterday. She was walking home from church and the person she was walking with got fed up with Grandma's slow pace, made a weak excuse about being in a hurry, and left her behind. When Grandma told me about it later she was crying; she said that it feels terrible to be so slow that you are holding people up. The incident made my blood absolutely boil. This self-styled "Christian" is a local busybody who likes nothing better than to boss people about - she once shouted at me in the street because she felt that I was crossing the road in the wrong place. She also once reduced a very good friend of mine to tears at the tennis club. And in a precursor to Grandma's experience, I was once walking along beside her with Davie when he was very small, when she saw someone more important that she wanted to speak to and ran off, abandoning me mid-conversation. I hated to see Grandma so upset.

On a lighter note, someone farted loudly during my yoga class tonight, which I found very funny.      

Beethoven's Eroica

Yesterday was a good day. I took Grandma shopping for food to Marks and Spencers while James pruned the cherry tree and made a bonfire. Then I added Ally to the insurance for my car, and with some trepidation (on all our parts!) Ally drove me and Cat on a short trip to Morrisons and the sports centre. I was genuinely impressed with the smoothness of his driving, and he was suitably cautious and careful. While I was in the sports centre, Ally and Cat practised parking in the bays in the quiet part of the car park. I'm so proud of him for having the confidence to get behind the wheel of a bigger car than he learned in, and to drive around safely.

Later on the four of us had a tasty dinner at La Bonne Auberge before going to the Royal Concert Hall. The concert was Beethoven's Eroica, performed by the RSNO and conducted by Lahav Shani. It was excellent; powerful stuff. Apparently Beethoven was going both to name and dedicate the work to Napoleon because he admired his republicanism - but he became disillusioned when Napoleon named himself "Emperor of the French" and pointedly changed name to Eroica and the dedication to "In Memory of a Great Man"! 

The first half was good too, with Dvorák's Carnival Overture followed by Vaughan William's Concerto for Oboe and Strings, Adrian Wilson was the oboist and he was brilliant. 

Quiz Night

Last night I went along to my school's much anticipated annual quiz night. It was very well attended by the school staff (some of whom had even been testing each other with general knowledge questions at lunch times!) and I could tell that it is a long standing tradition, organised enthusiastically by a group of retired teachers. There was a jolly atmosphere, which became noticeably jollier as the evening went on. The organisers had clearly put in a lot of work to make it go like clockwork, with detailed score sheets so that the teams could check their progress and many rounds of questions involving music clips and visual clues. It's actually the first social event that I have attended at my new school apart from the Christmas night out, and I was glad that I went; I do enjoy the occasional quiz night and my new colleagues are a friendly bunch. My team acquitted themselves respectably, in the top half of the total scores. At least we were not awarded the prize appropriate for last place; a set of wooden spoons carefully crafted by the Technical department! 

New Hairdresser

I tried out a new hairdresser this evening. I am a creature of habit and have been going to the same place for years, the Rainbow Room in Royal Exchange Square. It is the first hairdresser that I have even mildly enjoyed going to, and I like its light and airy atmosphere and friendly (and very on trend) staff. However its location right in the middle of town can be a bit inconvenient, especially getting parked nearby when I'm running late, which I usually am. So after having a look around, I decided to try out one of the many establishments in my local area. The clincher was that I found out that on a Thursday they are open until 8 pm which means that I don't have to spend a Saturday morning getting my hair cut. I felt quite shy when I arrived but they made me feel very welcome and I have to say that I'm pleased with the results. The hairdresser soon sussed out where I live and rhymed off a list of my neighbours and friends who also go there. And it was great to be home at 7.30 pm with my hair sorted for another six weeks and most of the evening still ahead of me. James and Ally had prepared a tasty chilli con carne and we watched an episode of the interesting but strange and rather unsavoury Westworld. 

Oscars gaffe

I had an early dinner with Carolyn this evening and it was absolutely great to see her. She had booked us into The Sisters restaurant in Jordanhill which is one of her favourites, and I loved it too. It is small and friendly with delicious food and we talked of weddings and other plans. Special mention must be made of the dessert that Carolyn recommended to me; puff candy meringue with honeycomb ice cream & warm butterscotch sauce. Yummy. Very yummy.

When I got home James, Ally and I watched a James Corden sketch on YouTube about the recent Oscars fiasco, to which Cat had sent us a link. At the final presentation on Sunday night's Oscars ceremony, for "Best Picture", veteran actor Warren Beatty was handed the wrong envelope by the accountants (why accountants?) who were in charge of the envelopes containing the names of all the winners. Instead he was given a duplicate of the envelope for "Best Actress" so when he opened it he saw "Emma Stone, La La Land" After some hesitation he handed it to Faye Dunaway who read out "La La Land" which was quite understandable since she and Beatty were expecting to see the name of one of the films. The producers of La La Land got up onto the stage and started making their acceptance speeches, but then confusion reigned as the mistake was realised and the producers handed the Oscar over to the rightful winners; the producers of the film "Moonlight." Now in the grand scheme of things this was just a gaffe which can happen to anybody, and not even very important one - after all no one was harmed and it was quickly rectified. However it was a very public and embarrassing gaffe, and it has caused much hilarity and has been much discussed in the media. 

So anyway, James Corden (in drag) did a spoof of Emma Stone's song "Audition" from La La Land altering the words to make it refer to the mix-up on Sunday evening. It was very well written and very funny.