weirdly invigorating

I spent my day on Tuesday "on my hind legs" presenting for the first time in over a year. To be honest, this was challenging not only because it's the first time I've been on my feet for so long, but also because I was presenting to an audience that is completely new to me.

In three sessions between 9.30am and 2pm, I presented to three classes of children, ranging in age between 7 and 11. Boy, oh boy.

From the moment I stepped up to the front of the classroom in my bee suit, I found myself with a rapt audience who hung onto my every word. I spoke about the trials and tribulations of beekeeping. They questioned me intently, mostly about getting stung and how bees make babies, but also a few questions came in from the left field, such as "if you could find a football small enough for a beehive, would bees play football?" Blimey - how do you answer that one then?

Fear and nervousness gripped me from the moment I got back from my trip to London last week, while I prepared and worked out what I was going to say. I decided to wear my beesuit (any excuse for dressing up in a ridiculous outfit) and, along with a range of props, a powerpoint presentation and some photos, I took to the stage.

Before I'd even started what I'd agreed to do, I'd been commandeered by another teacher in the same school to repeat my presentation in front of his class, then at the morning break, I got collared by a third teacher. News of my presentation and the reaction of the kids spread around the school like wildfire and I think I can safely say that the day was one big hit.

What surprised me was that the questions from all three age groups were broadly the same, possibly expressed slightly differently, but it was clear that the same parts of the subject either appalled or enthralled them, whatever their age.

The oddest thing is that I was most worried about being able to be relevant to a bunch of children. Let's face it, I'm not exactly well-endowed in the experience with kids department! I need not have worried as they all seemed thrilled to bits with me, as evidenced by the number of little people dashing up to me and hugging me as well as the chorus of "Linda, Linda, hello Linda" as I walked past them in the queue to the dining room when they were on their way to lunch. Really and truly, hugs from small children when you're not used to it, are very joyful. I was very moved.

I finished my "job" at 2pm and thankfully had engineered a lift home, which is just as well because I was completely exhausted. What I realised later was that I'd done a good day's work and not only that but I felt both invigorated and excited by it. I think I can safely say that I've been in some new water today but learned that swimming is the same whatever type of pond!

Digging a big hole

I apologise for my lack of communication over the last three weeks or so. I have an excuse in as much as after a week of anguish over Archie's well-being, DM and I both went down with the lurgy and it took us a couple of weeks to get over it. Follow that with turmoil/difficulties/uncertainty in my work life and my thoughts have been elsewhere in recent times.

Archie is, for those who are interested, getting on better than he has for some time, albeit with a wobbly head and a distinct lack of balance, which means he now matches his "Mum" (me) and can't stand on his own four feet!

He has been taking cod liver oil and glucosamine for his arthritic joints for a good couple of years now and even so has been increasingly infirm. He's been unable to get over styles or to get into the back of our car for some time and we've had to use ingenuity and cunning to transport him around as he hates being picked up and lets us know that very quickly. Anyway, he's now got himself onto one of the super-dooper new NSAID drugs, especially for arthritis and he's a transformed baby.

He's trotting around the place with a smile on his face, jumping up and down steps with gay abandon and otherwise is perkier than we've seen him in ages. I was digging a big hole in the garden as part of an ongoing project to try to eliminate the need for me to go out murdering slugs by envouraging toads and frogs to our domain. This means putting in a big pond, with plenty of frog-friendly stuff to give them a good reason to come here.

I've got an old bath that was taken out from our bathroom soon after we moved in and have dug a hole deep enough that the bath can be submerged as part of a bigger pond (so you can't see the rectangular shape). This project has taken a whole load of time because our ground is not easy to dig, comprising of a thin-ish layer of top soil then deep shale, so I've taken my time, doing an hour here and another hour there.

While the top soil was on a tarpaulin next to my big hole and the bathtub was behind it yesterday, Arch's attention was on Mo, who was on top of the soil mound, digging around for worms and other bits and bobs. She disappeared down the other side of the mound and Archie took a flying leap to get closer to her. He landed, very bemused, inside the bathtub, then went straight into pogo mode and leapt out the other side. He landed in a sprawl on the lawn, with a look of utter confusion on his face.

So, by digging my big hole, I discovered that my beautiful baby has regained some of his elasticity and bounce. Boy did that make all of the hard work seem like a really GOOD thing!