Day 818

Day 818...

Well today started a little different to normal as I headed into pre-school for the second day running!

Last night I'd nipped out and bought the team some treats to say well done at getting through the Ofsted inspection yesterday. It is always a nerve racking experience but they all did so well and should be very proud of what they did, so I popped by first thing to drop off the goodies. I think they deserved at least one day with a more relaxed vibe!

The rest of the day was spent at home getting various jobs completed. The last few days have all felt a little disrupted and I needed to get myself back on track today. A chance to get up straight with the laundry and to clean around; a little 'gardening'...well pulling weeds up; more cataloguing of items from my dads house; finally getting around to moving things from downstairs into our new 'study/craft' room and even a little pre-school work in my new role as chairperson. So although I haven't been very far today it has been a productive day.

And the day was rounded out with Simon on the exercise bike and me doing some body-weight exercises. 

Although now it is time to put our feet up and watch this weeks Obi-Wan Kenobi.

See you tomorrow.

xx

 

Day 816 & Day 817

Another couple of days together...

Day 816...Monday

The day started with an early morning walk of 2.3 miles in 48 minutes and whilst it was a tad grey it didn't stop us enjoying our new normal.

The morning was spent catching up on a few jobs around the house until lunchtime. It was around this time that I received a text message from preschool letting me know that they'd had the dreaded Ofsted call! This meant that tomorrow would be inspection day and they wanted to know if I could be available.

Being part of the early years education sector means that all settings are inspected by Ofsted every few years. We'd been waiting for our next inspection ever since we moved into our new premises over 2 years ago, so whilst it didn't come as a surprise it still left everyone feeling nervous and anxious.

We have a fantastic team at preschool who all do an amazing job with passion and care but as soon as inspection gets mentioned everyone tends to self doubt themselves. This is only natural as the thought of someone who you don't know watching every thing you do and firing random questions at you can be enough to cause even the most confident of people to falter.

I then received another text asking if I could pop down in the afternoon to just go over a few things. So I jumped in the car and spent just under a couple of hours with them to reassure and answer questions to help get them ready for tomorrow.

Back home and Simon and I could resume our plans which was to run a couple of errands, one of which involved a trip to Lidl - whoop! By the time we arrived home it was quite late in the afternoon and so we decided to get a little exercise in. Simon jumped on the exercise bike while I concentrated on my body-weight exercises.

And with that Monday was done.

Day 817...Tuesday

So rather than getting out for a walk today I was up and out early to go into work to assist, where I could, with their Ofsted inspection.

I spent the morning with the team and my time was mainly spent interacting with the children which is something that I haven't done for quite a long time now. The inspector was lovely and spent lots of time talking to the staff and observing various activities. But around 12.30pm I had to make my excuses to leave. I spoke briefly with the inspector in case there was anything she needed me for, or any questions she had for me in my new role of committee chairperson, but all was good.

I needed to get home to play taxi service for Simon as he had an appointment at the fracture clinic at Derby hospital. So after a quick bite to eat for lunch we headed off to the wonders of Derby hospital. I had to kick Simon out of the car as the queues for the car parks were so long. It took me almost 25 minutes to get into a car park and get parked up. I then had the fun pastime of waiting for Simon in a rather warm car while writing this blog.

It was when I received messages from Simon telling me that a lady he was sat next to had been there an hour and forty minutes that I began to be a tad concerned as to how long we would be there for. Think we'd been spoilt by the efficiency of our local walk-in centre last week who'd been able to assess, x-ray and cast Simon's wrist in about 40 minutes straight!

Well after I'd been sat in the car waiting for about and an hour and a half I decided to go for a wander, stretch my legs and get out of the rather warm car. I managed to find a bench that was in partial shade and with a little breeze that was way more comfortable than sitting cooped up in the car. I messaged Simon to see how things were progressing and ten minutes later my phone was lighting up with a ton of messages from him, and just as I was about to reply Simon appeared at my side. It would appear that being in the depths of the hospital meant that the messages he'd sent hadn't physically been sent until he'd moved away from the fracture clinic and consequently they'd all arrived in my inbox at once!

Simon is now sporting a very smart looking, slimmer and less awkward cast in black! The consultant was happy with how the break was looking and it is now a case of keeping it in cast for about 4 weeks and hope that when he goes back all will be healed.

By the time we arrived home I'd received an update on the proceedings at pre-school. We will know the result in a few weeks time but until then it's a waiting game.

As Simon had missed a few hours of work this afternoon he spent a little time catching up this evening before we finally settled down with a cuppa to watch some TV.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 785

Day 785...

So today has been Molly's birthday and it is the first birthday she has not been at home for but not to worry she is coming home for the weekend tomorrow and as Simon's birthday is on Monday we will be having a bit of a celebratory weekend.

My day started with getting to grips with my new sports/smart watch thingy! Simon had bought himself one to track fitness, pulse, steps etc and I was feeling left out so when I arrived home yesterday he had surprised me with a lovely pink version.

So as I was not in work today I was able to arrange my day into an order that fitted best with what I wanted and needed to do. Once my new watch was working I headed off to Lidl for my weekly top-up shop as well as buying a few extra treats ready for the weekend.

Back home and it was time to get on with a little work. I am in the process of going through all the documentation that has been created over my time with pre-school and having a good clear out of now redundant items.

Lunchtime saw Simon and I take a walk over the fields completing 1.9 miles in 39 minutes. The afternoon saw me carrying on with more pre-school work as well as sorting through some more paperwork relating to my dads estate. 

Late afternoon I was at my dads house as we are having to have it valued so that the estate can be settled, and ultimately the house will be sold. I think that is going to be a very strange experience as it was the only house I ever knew growing up as we had lived there since it was built in the very early 1970's, and we moved in when I was about three years old.

The day was then rounded out with an AGM meeting of the pre-school committee. We needed to swear in a new committee which means that as I am stepping down from my paid role of manager I will be taking on the volunteer role of Chairperson!!

And that was Thursday and I will see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 755

Day 755...

I think this will be a relatively short post as although I have been busy today there isn't too much to tell.

The morning and early afternoon was spent in work with a couple of my colleagues as we went through some paperwork. Despite being on our Easter two week break we wanted to use the time to have a bit of a sort out. The last time we had been able to have an extensive sort through was two years ago when we had moved premises. Now with my leaving date fast approaching it was time to go through everything and with two fresh pairs of eyes decide what needed to be kept and what didn't.

By early afternoon I was back home and waiting for my brother as we had an appointment with a solicitor to go through my dad's estate. Although everything is quite straight forward we made the decision to let the solicitor take the lead and get everything completed for us. Neither of us have the time, nor the inclination, to do what is needed ourselves and are more than happy to let someone else get involved. At least this way we can, hopefully, ensure that everything gets handled correctly and promptly.

So after an hour chatting with the solicitor we think we know where we are going next. I have a few bits and pieces of paperwork to get together and drop by their offices but at least we have now started the process of winding up my dads estate. This will also give us the motivation to go through the contents of his house and figure out what we want to keep and what we don't!

We then spent another hour or so chatting over the whole process and reminiscing about years gone by. And before I knew it the evening had arrived and it was time for dinner (thank goodness for making double keto pizza yesterday!).

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 593

Day 593...

After a week off it was back to work today although ordinarily I wouldn't work a Monday I was in today covering for another member of staff.

The day at work was a pretty standard sort of work day and all this week we are having a Halloween theme with lots of spooky activities for the children. We have a dark den set up with lots of sensory lights, we scooped out slimy pumpkins, made spider web pictures with marble painting and cut out spooky shaped sandwiches. All good fun and at the same time a little fundraiser for us as well.

On my way home I paid a visit to our local Asda as their Community Champion, Jon, had some items for me to collect. Asda are really good to us and help us out with lots of our activities, this week we are making pumpkin faces using wraps, ketchup and cheese as well as messy play involving spaghetti and Asda have given us all that we need to complete those activities. It was lovely to see Jon and have a catch-up and he will be visiting us in a couple of weeks when he will be making musical instruments with the children.

Arriving home there was a much needed coffee waiting for me. Molly has been going through more of her stuff and has filled at least three bin bags full of things she no longer needs. I was able to go through and grab a few bits that I can make use of at pre-school along with snagging a Mickey Mouse bum bag for me!

Simon has had a busy day making more progress on the game controller box he is building as well as getting mucky cleaning out the guttering, just before it decided to rain again!

And then Molly drove herself to her penultimate kickboxing class!!

Monday is done and I will see you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 545

Day 545...

And we have a Tuesday and my first working day of the week and it was a day, once again, of two halves.

The morning was in at work and consisted of the usual admin, banking and emails. And my afternoon was spent at home to the sounds of more tiles being cut as work progressed on our bathroom re-fit.

I did my good turn for the day when I arrived home and moved all of the now empty refuse bins back to where they lived for all my neighbours...in the pouring rain! Well, I figured I was already wet so at least I could save my neighbours from having to get wet unnecessarily.

Molly has been busy in the garage with more of her resin creations that she will be selling via her Etsy store. She is making unique coasters by pouring different coloured resins and creating some lovely effects. 

I decided to spend the afternoon scanning in yet more photos. I had a few from the other day that still needed their information updating but after that I tackled the next album from our 1993 Florida vacation. I managed to scan in the whole album and now have about 150 photos to edit in the Photomyne app before I can upload them to my laptop!

And in between scanning photos it was a case of keeping our bathroom fitter supplied with tea, making coffee for the rest of the house and checking a few emails for work.

Then with the fitter done for the day and our garage, aka our gym, being out of action for exercise purposes due to bathroom stuff everywhere it was time to clean through. I know there will be more dust created tomorrow but I am trying to keep on top of all the cleaning rather than having one big mess when it's all finished!

So Tuesday is done and I'll see you tomorrow.
xx

Day 537

Day 537...

And it was back to work today and the start of our new school year. So it's back to the early starts and busy days.

I don't ordinarily work Mondays but as this was the first day of the new year I wanted to be there plus I also had a ton of paperwork that needed printing and organising that I hadn't been able to do over the summer break.

So it was a mixture of emails, printing, laminating, printing, banking and a little more printing just for good measure. We also took the opportunity to start some prep work ahead of a local carnival that we are participating in in a couple of weeks. We have been given some great donations from our parents as well as a stack of items from our good friend Jon at our local Asda so we needed to get it all out, figure out exactly what we have, what we are going to do with it and how we are going to get it to the carnival ground. Plus we need to figure out what other resources we need with us as we will be having a small children's play area as well as who can help out on the day...so lots to plan.

I was able to finish around lunchtime which meant I could spend the afternoon at home with Simon and as the weather was absolutely gorgeous we took a rather sweaty walk over the fields managing just under two miles in a steady 42 minutes. And while walking about I received a phone call from a local garage who I'd approached about the possibility of changing our cars.

For the last year or so we have debated the efficacy of having two cars. In previous years having a car each was a necessity; Simon was making regular trips 'down south' for work and had his mum to look after and get from one place to another. But we have none of that now. Simon has been fortunate to work from home for a number of years and would 'go into the office', 130 miles away, once every few weeks or so. But since the initial lockdown last Spring his work office no longer exists and those he works with are now also working from home and have no intention of spending money on the rent of a 'space' when productivity has been just as good (if not better) with home working.

So the time has come to go down to a one car family (although I have a feeling it won't last long as Molly is desperate to get her own car). We can save money on the monthly payments, car tax, insurance, servicing and more but we didn't know if now was the right time to do this so had made a couple of tentative enquiries with local car dealerships.

Well after much debate and number crunching we have this afternoon decided on a deal. And not only will we be saving ourselves money but we will be moving with the times and getting our first ever electric car! It is a little bit daunting and rather exciting at the same time. We need to get a charging point installed in the garage and will need to get used to driving essentially an automatic car, having always driven a manual geared car before. Lots to learn and get my head around but I am up for the challenge!

And talking of driving, as Molly is back home it was her turn to drive us over to her first kickboxing lesson of the week. And to say she hasn't driven for about 12 days you wouldn't have known; she is turning into a very capable driver and we are extremely proud of how she is doing and we are just keeping all things crossed that she can pass her test in a few weeks time as the world will then be her oyster.

As the evening was so nice, and while Molly was kickboxing, we headed back home and laid some more weed membrane in our courtyard garden. We now just need to organise the delivery of gravel to finish off the area but as we have our bathroom re-fit starting tomorrow we will need to arrange for when we have less things happening! Where we live we have a shared garage space and having extra vehicles and gravel delivered can be an inconvenience to our neighbours so we need to get the timing right!

And there we have a Monday; all rather eventful!

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 520

Day 520...

Friday rolled around once more and it turned out to be a busy day.

I had an appointment in Derby this morning so I used the opportunity to give Molly a little more driving experience by getting her to drive us in and out of the city centre; and yet again she managed it all really well.

We took the opportunity of being in Derby to do a little shopping which included nipping into the Disney store. All UK Disney stores are either closed or in the process of closing and this store is due to close on Monday so it seemed only right that we had a look round. Sadly this store had not long relocated into the main shopping centre and although the shelves were low on stock it was still one of the most varied selection of offerings I'd seen in a Disney store for a while. I couldn't resist picking this pin up...

...it reminded me of a t-shirt I had bought on one of our first trips to Disneyland Paris many years ago that had the same three symbols, and that I wore to death! The sad thing is with all the UK stores closing, except London, this could very well be my last in-store Disney purchase ever!

Back home and it was time for a coffee and to settle down with the laptop to see just how much pre-school paperwork I could get completed by the end of the day. I had hopes that I could get everything done today so that the next couple of weeks could be pre-school free before we start back at the beginning of September. I did pretty well and although I have a few things left to do I am happy with what I achieved today and am confident that a few hours next week should see it all done.

We also had our front door completed today...finally! There had been some confusion over one of the panels and so we had been waiting for the correct panel to get fitted for a fair few weeks and had even waited in all last Friday for the job to get done but no-one had turned up. Thankfully someone did arrive today and not only did he fit the panel but he also sorted the teething problems that we'd been having with the french doors they'd installed. But all done now, all working great and looking good!

I also had a butchers delivery today and it was a rather large one; 5kg chicken, 5kg steak mince, 4.5kg bacon, 100 sausages, 10 burgers and some steaks. It must have taken about an hour to unpack it all, split it into meal sized portions and then put it all away in the freezer!

And there we have Friday, all done and a vodka and tonic is now in hand!

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 519...Keyboard Day

Day 519...

Well today has turned out to be a day primarily stuck at the keyboard. I was determined to get all the remaining policies for pre-school updated and so once up and about it was just me and the laptop.

I had a break mid-morning as we had another company visit to quote us for some artificial grass. We have two areas that we would like laid with maintenance free artificial turf but it's turning out to not be as cheap as we were expecting. Although both companies that have quoted so far are quoting pretty similar prices so at least we know that we are being quoted fairly. But I think we may wait until next year as we have other more important projects around the house that we would like done first.

And then it was time for lunch and another walk out for Simon and I and today we were armed with umbrella's as the minute we stepped out the door it started to rain. Thankfully the rain stayed away until we were just a few minutes from home, after completing another 2.5 miles in 46 minutes.

And while my afternoon was spent attached to the laptop Molly was spending her time in the garage with resin and a sander. She is beginning to make some beautiful creations and really sussing out the approach she needs to take to get her ideas taking shape...and of course she has incorporated a little Disney in there too!

But by the end of the day I have managed to get all the new policies and procedures completed - woohoo! Although I still have a handful more that I need to go through; the ones I completed today were policies provided to us through our membership of the Early Years Alliance but we have a few more that we have created ourselves over the years. So I now need to go through these and make sure they are still relevant and that they reflect our current practice. I was also able to chat with a couple of new parents over email and confirm start dates for their little ones. In an ideal world I'd like to think that the few bits of admin that I need to get done before we return in September could be completed tomorrow but I think that may be wishful thinking!

And with that Simon finished work and we headed down our 'gym' for some weights and battle ropes workout! And all that we have left to do today is settle down to watch this weeks RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 6....the game within a game...finally, we hope! (If you watch you will know what I am talking about!)

See you tomorrow.
xx

Day 477

Day 477...

And we have another Thursday as we get closer to what we hope will be the end of lockdown...although I fear that there will still remain some caveats in place and we may live under the 'threat' of 'needing' a lockdown later in the year. I truly hope that I am being pessimistic and that in a couple of weeks life will begin to look and feel more normal.

But this morning it was into work and the first job of the day was to chat with staff about our plans for September, the amended curriculum that we will be working with and our upcoming open days.

After that my morning was taken up with emails, banking, updating some posters for our room displays and completing an application to take part in a local carnival in September. With that all completed it was time to head home with a stop by a local supermarket to pick up a few bits and pieces that we were either running low on or that I knew were significantly cheaper there than where I have my weekly grocery shop from!

Back home and after a chat with a couple of my neighbours it was a quick turnaround to get the shopping packed away, get changed out of my work clothes, drink a coffee and then head out the door to take Molly for another drive. We were out for about fifty minutes and managed a round trip of 22 miles and yet again she is doing so well. We were on some new roads today, in fact roads that I have not driven in a very long while and so they were as new to me as they were to Molly but she handled everything with ease and confidence.

Home again and I came into a pot of coffee brewing (thanks Simon!) so I quickly reheated a slice of keto pizza that I had made yesterday and decided to sit outside to enjoy my coffee. Unfortunately this came to an end rather quickly as today seemed to be the day for ants to be out in force; ants with little wings attached to their backs - yuck! So I did want any sane person would do...boiled the kettle and drowned the horrid things, although I think in the end it took five kettle fulls to make any impact on them.

My next job was to then set up a Just Giving page for my pre-school. This past 18 months have been a tough time for us, we had only just moved into new premises in February of 2020 when we were forced to close because of the restrictions placed on us by the government as a result of the covid pandemic. Then because we operate out of a 'community hall' we were unable to open our doors until our deemed it safe; this meant we were closed from March until mid June last year. And when we did open we were only allowed to open to a vastly reduced number of children which was really sad as we were unable to say our proper 'goodbyes' to those children that were moving onto big school. 

Despite then being open fully from September and all the way through the subsequent lockdowns we have been unable to fundraise as we would normally do and have therefore lost a big chunk of our usual income. Small pre-school's like ours rely heavily on the extra income that we can generate through fundraising, the money sometimes goes to extra resources, sometimes to replace well used resources and sometimes simply to keep us operational. Normally around now we would have our biggest fundraiser of the year our Summer Fair but as we were unable, for the second year, to host this we decided to give a bit of crowd funding a go!

To finish the day it was time for a spot of home workout before a steak dinner and an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Allstars - not a bad day at all.

See you tomorrow.
xx

Snow...Ice Day

Day 314...

Well the first job of the day was to decide whether to re-open pre-school after our 'snow day' yesterday. 

It's always difficult to assess what is best to do especially as where I live is away from main roads. So myself and my deputy exchanged a few messages in order to weigh up the situation.

Although we have had no more snowfall since Sunday evening everywhere was still thick with snow and now it was very icy. We decided that the footpaths were too treacherous to be out and about and a lot of the roads had still not cleared so we made the decision to remain shut for today.

I was still able to get on with most of my work at home. There were some emails to respond to, a little banking to update, some online learning journal entries to add and then my main job of the day was to continue updating our safeguarding policy. We had a new policy given to us by our local safeguarding board so I have had to use that as the basis for our own version. A 56 page policy...badly presented...into a 44 page document that is now much easier to read and modified to reflect our pre-school.

I ended up finishing my work about an hour later than I had intended but still had a little daylight left to spend some time on my latest jigsaw, although it was just sorting pieces today.

We had a little home workout this evening; Simon doing the heavy lifting down the 'gym' aka our garage and I stayed in the warmth inside and kept to my bodyweight exercises.

And that has been today.

Take care out there.
xx

Closed for the Day

Day 204...

Well...where to start with today?

So last night I received word that one of the pupils who attends our pre-school had tested positive for the dreaded virus. I had to make the decision late last night to close pre-school today as it was too late to contact the necessary powers that be.

So once up this morning it was on the phone to our Department of Education helpline and while I did have a little wait to get through once I was through the whole process was handled so well and clearly and with care.

Thankfully the outcome was that because the child hasn't attended pre-school in the couple of days before the COVID symptoms appeared we were given the green light to re-open, which we will be doing tomorrow. And hopefully I should be contacted by the UK's 'track and trace' system, which will be interesting to see what their advice is!

We find ourselves on the edge of an area that has seen a drastic increase in cases over the last week and there is talk of much stricter restrictions coming into play over the next few days. As a result we seem to have become aware of more cases locally that are causing various school year groups to be sent into self isolation. Unfortunately this affects the daughter of one of my staff, for the second time, and means she will be in self isolation for her 18th birthday as well which is so sad.

So as I spent my day at home today I still managed to get work done...maybe not the work I would ordinarily have done as most of the day was spent issuing and responding to emails and keeping parents, staff and committee informed of the days developments. I also managed to complete the online part of my first aid course that we are all completing at the moment; a requisite of childcare is that we have to take a first aid qualification every 3 years.

In between the emails and the first aid course I was able to get a few odd jobs done around the house, find time to have a coffee outside with Simon in between rain showers, we had a lovely chat with one of our neighbours and then later on when my dairy delivery arrived I was able to catch up with one of my older neighbours and have a good old moan about the current state of things!

So we enter another period of uncertainty. We have possible new restrictions and a new alert system coming in...possibly...maybe...sometime next week. Why do we have to wait for a seemingly random date for these restrictions to come into place. If we need to do something surely we need to do it now, and not wait for a future date?

I think this is where the problem is at the moment, and as it has been throughout this virus, the messaging and guidelines that we are issued with not only keep changing but are never straight forward or simple to understand. We seem to be in a perpetual state of questioning what we should be doing, where can we go, who can we see, how many people can we see at once and does this apply to everywhere or just where I live? The more questions we have over what we 'should' be doing the more problems we are going to have. How can the public expect to do the right thing if we are struggling to understand what that right thing may be?!

All I can say is please take care, think carefully about what you are doing; keep your distance, wash your hands and wear a mask.
xx

Work and Fundraising

Day 196...

Another work day today, ordinarily I wouldn't work a Wednesday but I was covering for another member of staff and so I will be off tomorrow instead.

A pretty standard sort of day, numerous bits of admin, emails, banking and getting a few things in order for our first fundraiser of this academic year which will be a Halloween Fun Week in a few weeks time.

I then had a quick turnaround as it was home to get changed and then back out the door to go to my local ASDA to collect a special trolley of goodies for my pre-school. We have a brilliant relationship with Jon their Community Champion and pre-covid Jon would visit the pre-school and run special activities with the children. We have had food tastings, seed planting, recycling games and much more and the children absolutely loved his visits. Jon would also help out with our fundraisers by supplying prizes or anything else we might need.

But with the onset of covid all this came to an end; we couldn't hold our usual fundraisers and Jon has not been allowed to visit good causes out in the community. But he has still been able to continue his community work and has been able to help out lots of local community groups throughout the pandemic with organising donations of food and other staple supplies. 

So as we are now back and open as normal as we can be our thoughts turned to our much needed fundraising and what we could do in the face of all the current restrictions. We have decided to hold a Halloween Fun Week and we will be asking parents to make donations and in return we are having games, face painting, foodie treats, spooky crafts and everyone is invited to come to pre-school in fancy dress. We are selling special 'treat bags' and we needed the 'treats' to go in the bags and we are also having a creative competition and needed prizes so Jon has stepped in and supplied us with a bumper loads of goodies!

Trolley full of goodies for pre-school

This trolley turned out to be the gift that kept on giving as underneath what can be seen in the photo was so much more. I was absolutely blown away by the generosity we as a pre-school have been shown by Jon and ASDA and cannot thank them enough for their continued support.

Once home I had some of my own online shopping to do as I have a small order to collect tomorrow morning and had a few final bits to add to it. Now this order is all to do with the fact that this weekend is Molly's boyfriends birthday weekend and we are hoping to have a special meal with him. 

Yesterday after his car had failed its MOT (big time) it was looking like they would not be able to see each other as planned but today things are looking a little more hopeful as he may be able to sort a replacement car in the next day or so. So we are all keeping our fingers crossed that that is the case and we can go ahead with our 'celebrations' as planned.

The rest of the evening has been spent answering a few emails, dealing with some Ebay questions and playing taxi for Molly to and from her karate lesson. Now it's blog writing time and a glass of wine!

Take care, stay safe, keep your distance and wear a mask
xx

Back to School

Day 168...

And it was back to school...well pre-school...today.

So up and out the door quite early so I could be at work for an 8.30am delivery of some uniform stock...mmm...delivery arrived at about 8.55am!!

First job of the day when I arrived was to fight my way through cobwebs, there were so many spiders everywhere! It was then down to business with a team meeting sat outside enjoying the sunshine to chat about the new school year starting, how things are going to work and the children that we have registered with us.

Next the team set to cleaning the room and getting all of our equipment set out ready for opening tomorrow to the children. We are what is often referred to as a 'pack away pre-school'; this basically means that as a charity we don't own our own premises we simply rent space and have to fit in with any other organisations that use the building which means that at the end of our day we have to pack ALL of our equipment away so that whoever uses the building after us has the space they need. At the moment we share the building with our local scout group and they have not yet re-opened which is a little bonus for us as that means we can set-up and leave everything out overnight ready for tomorrow.

We finished a little earlier than expected so it was home to grab a coffee with Simon sat outside before he carried on with his afternoon at work. I then had a little pre-school admin work with just a few emails to deal with and registers to print and bind.

And then it was time to jump online with my fellow Disney Dream Girl Michelle as we recorded our podcast ready for release this weekend as well as a special edition for our Patreon supporters.

Final job for the day was to jump in the car and take another couple of parcels to the post office. The weather had been lovely this morning but now it was cold and rainy so much so that I had to put the heater on in the car. Let's hope this isn't the end of the Summer, I like the warmth and the sunshine!

So day one done and now ready to open up for children tomorrow!

To all in education take care, stay safe and wash your hands!!
xx

Day 125

Day 125...

Well today has been a quiet sort of day and although I am technically now on holiday for the summer there are still a few odds and ends to tidy up to round out this academic year.

So a chunk of the day was spent updating accounts and paperwork following a couple of changes that happened at the end of last week as well as getting ready for the end of the month as that also marks the end of our financial year.

One of my staff discovered that another pre-school local to us is having to close after operating for almost 50 years and unfortunately this is becoming quite a common occurrence in our industry. Lots of settings, like ourselves, are registered charities and have been part of their local communities for decades but the last few years have been tough enough with the lack of government funding for our sector but then along comes this virus and for some it has been the last straw. My pre-school has been around since the 1960's and was somewhere I attended as 3 or 4 year old, it survived a premises move 17 years ago not long after my son attended and just as Molly started, and then this past year we were faced with moving once again...we had only been in our new building for just shy of five weeks before we were forced to close because of the virus. 

But the pre-school that is closing has equipment that they no longer need and are putting up for sale. So, some of my team will be popping along on Friday to see if there is anything that we can make use of and won't cost us too much, but at the same time will help them to wind up their business. These are very sad times for our industry and in particular these small community based pre-schools that offer parents a much needed cheaper alternative childcare to the big day nurseries.

We had a walk out at lunch time today which was the first time in quite a few days as last week had been so busy that we'd really not had much opportunity but we got out there today and managed two miles in 42 minutes.

I made some more progress on my jigsaw later this afternoon...

slow progress but getting there

and then this evening it was 'gym' time before finally stopping for the day.

I am now starting to draft a list of jobs to do over the next few weeks to make best use of the time that I have off. Simon is still working but has two weeks holiday in a couple of weeks time and while we will not get the holiday that we would have perhaps liked this year at least we will have time off together and be able to get out and about a little.

Stay safe out there, wear a mask and take care.

xx

Day 112

Day 112...

Well today has been a combination of working from home and working from work!

The morning was spent at home and involved a little banking, a few emails and some tweaks to our website and Facebook page. As we are moving forward towards the new school year in September we need to get the word out that we have available places to fill. My staff have done an amazing job of setting up our playroom and taking lots of photos and video. I was then able to take the photos and video and upload them to our Facebook page, create some new web pages and then later add to our Twitter feed as well.

The afternoon saw me head into work to have a catch up with my deputy manager; we are now attempting to plan for September but each day we seem to get new information down from the government or our local council which then has a direct impact on what we would like to be doing. I have a virtual leaders and mangers meeting to attend next week and that will change the timings that I will be in work but might (or might not) provide us with more guidance for moving forward. But looking at what we would like to do we can already see there will be a knock-on effect on routines, timings and staff hours which we may not be able to resolve until much closer to the time.

As next week is our last week of term we are really missing our usual end of year activities; we would ordinarily host a leavers concert, hand out leavers gifts and have a 'party week' for the last week but this year is not an ordinary one! So because of all the restrictions we are faced with at the moment we had kind of resigned ourselves to not doing any of that this year but then we came up with a plan. This now means that we can invite all our leavers to say 'goodbye' but we will do it in very small groups, at set times and it will all happen outside in the fresh air and with full social distancing in place. It will not be like normal but at least we will get the chance to see all of our leavers before they head off to 'big school'; some of these children have been with us for almost 3 years and I can guarantee it will be an emotional week next week and tears will be shed!!

Once home it was shower, change and grab a coffee before sitting down at my laptop to carry on with more pre-school work including sending out invites to all our leavers to 'pop in' and see us next week. I think at some point this evening I stopped working...I think I did...I must have!!

No time for making progress on my jigsaw today but I have listened to the Hamilton album on repeat whenever I could!

And that was my day, just a short post today because it really has been a day fully taken up with work 'stuff'.

Take care out there,

xx