Schools Out For Summer!

And if you are not out by now, you will be by about 1pm, so like I said yesterday, this is a day round our way to avoid the pubs as the secondary school teachers are out and the sturdy  young ones and the drinkers ( as an ex -secondary music  teacher, who taught 500 inner London teenagers a week, I have to say alcohol helps) will start drinking at 2 and continue until they fall over…raaaaaa!

Yesterday, my song of the day was School’s Out by Alice Cooper and today I am just musing over that feeling that you get or can reminisce about.  The first day of the summer holidays! A head teacher in the first school I was a full time music teacher, told me to bottle the feeling of the key going into your front door on the first day of the summer holidays…..I am now aiming to have that feeling every single day of the year…The feeling of being free everyday.

One thing about teaching, people think you are so lucky to have big holidays, but the holidays are set in stone,  timetables are relentless, and by the time you get to the beginning of the summer holidays it is usually about 4 weeks too late. You are so tired, you spend 2 weeks  licking your inner wounds ( mmm interesting turn of phrase …I don’t think I will use that again). You might spend 2 weeks feeling like a real person and then you spend 2 weeks counting down back to the madness that is teaching life. Anyone who thinks teacher have an easy life should spend a week in a class room. It is really really hard and teachers need more respect…big respect.

It has all got a bit quiet round here. I hear that at this time of the year over a  million Londoners leave for healthier climates – I am convinced they are replaced with about the same amount of tourists and visiting school trippers in  crazy t-shirts, sensible plastic macs, bum bags  and backpacks.

The tourists stay in the hot spots, so round our way there is a kind of erie hush in the air which might be like this until the end of the August Bank Holiday…deep joy!

So I have a slight lifting of my spirits about the fact soon much of my life will be my own again, but still have another 8 days of work before I can dissolve into a mush for a few weeks and see if I can get rid of the underlying chesticoff  (not in Russia).

SONG OF THE DAY – Queen  – I want to break free

Sort of never really liked the more popular Queen era and I believe they all got rather hedonistic in their big glory days, but this song, a bit like some of the Abba songs is a grower and the sentiment is great for today. I find the video a bit distracting from the song…ha ha dresses and moustaches….only funny for so long. And Bless Mr Freddie…Surely he had enough money to wear a shirt…unless the lack of shirt was part of his freedom thang. I personally find it better to listen to the song with my eyes closed.