It's that time of year again! Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, it's still a festive time and it's hard not to get swept along with it. If you do celebrate Christmas, I hope you've had a wonderful day! Merry Christmas one and all.
So, after five phone calls I was promised that the supply company would switch over the legs by the end of the week. By Friday lunchtime I had assumed Monday would result in a phone call to continue the saga. Imagine my surprise when I got a text from my friend which simply said "Legs! Legs! Legs!". I shrieked with joy and went round to collect my prize. The result is what you see in the photo. A beautiful daisy table. All I need now are the chairs...
Well, I knew there'd be teething problems. Already come across quite a few, but I thought we were heading to the end of them. As it turns out, nope! It's been quite a frustrating day actually. I suppose I should start nearer the beginning...
For weeks now I have been waiting for the school furniture to arrive. There've been slight hiccups, for example, wrong height table - fixed by a phone call. Well, the furniture, which was being delivered to a friend's house as she is in all day, was due to arrive yesterday. Marvellous! Except, she called to say that the table's arrived...no chairs! Not marvellous. I chased it up. "Oh no," they (the company - naming no names) say. "The table and chairs come from different suppliers." Cue deep sighs. Well, when can I expect the chairs then? Hmm...perhaps before 2014, but it's unlikely. I was not impressed. I managed to convince my dad to use one of his minibuses from his company www.littlebus.co.uk to transport the table as it wouldn't fit in a car. He, having been bribed with the offer of lunch, also helped to put it together. The table is absolutely beautiful! A daisy table in a gorgeous blue with green edging, just as I ordered, but even prettier in the flesh. There was just one, minor problem. The legs are height 460mm instead of 640mm. Cue more deep sighs. I phone the company back. Oh dear, we'll contact the suppliers who will arrange to swap them over. They'll call you. Still waiting for that phone call. I wouldn't mind, but we had that height mix up originally and sorted it out weeks ago! So dad kindly took it apart again and I packed the legs away. I now have a beautiful table propped up against the cupboards forlornly waiting for its legs. When it does finally come, I'll be sure to take a picture to show you. Unfortunately it means that I still have the temporary plastic table. At least it does the job. So what else decided that today was a good day to decide to go wrong? Clothing. This has been a project since August, getting the clothing made for the company. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that all clothes had been ordered. Today I got an email from the company to say that the fleece had been discontinued. Argh! After all those months! I have spent more fruitless hours searching, but apparently they were the only company to make sky blue fleeces. The nearest anyone can do is royal blue. I guess it'll have to do. Except...the text for the company is royal blue, which means that it will be invisible. ARGH! The day just went on and on like this. Things that didn't want to be found, traffic, things that wouldn't work etc. The highlight of the day was the delightful tutoring session. If only it was all teaching and nothing else! Oh well, tomorrow is a new day and hopefully things will begin to get back on track. The holidays are coming up and the festive spirit is unwittingly forcing me in to a better mood. I'll put down the keyboard, sing a Christmas song and see you all soon! What's a typical day? Well, there isn't one. Take today for instance. It started with technological work. Checking and answering emails and keeping up to date with current articles and social media. I prepared some materials for future lessons and then started on a backlog of sorting out, educational reading and supplies. I had been working for less than an hour when I was contacted by a mother who asked if I could assess her 10 year old daughter for the possibility of tutoring her in English. It was, by now, three o clock. She asked if I could assess her daughter at 4:10. Tight deadline, but manageable and I don't like to say no, so I agreed. Then it turns out that she has swimming at 5:10 and can we move it to five to four? Eep! Cue manic activity as I had to attempt to clear away everything I had got out and produce the resources for the assessment all within an hour!
It was lovely to put a face to the name and to meet her daughter. A little awkward, as she was only told she was coming to see me when she was picked up from school. She normally gets to play in the play area before swimming, so was naturally disappointed to be going through a Literacy assessment instead! She soon settled though and after a discussion with Mum after the assessment, went off to swimming. Mum wants the brother to be assessed but will get back to me about her daughter. The secondary school exam is in just six weeks time, so any input will have to be extremely intense to see results that quickly. Once they were gone I took the time to write up the notes from the session and identify targets if they choose to continue. I returned a couple of phone calls and debated getting everything back out to go through, but since it was now six o' clock, I decided against it. Writing a comprehension for secondary school exam practice is the name of the game tomorrow, so I look forward to a new day. |