Grease performances and Packing Problems

I seriously need a holiday...

Even though this week has been a pretty normal one, there has just been a lot of those days where everything doesn't really go the way you'd hoped it would..

Firstly, the traffic has been shocking nearly every day because of the Glastonbury festival that was on just down the road (I could hear the music from my room which was incredibly unfair..)

And also as it's nearly the end of term none of the kids want to listen or do what they have to do because they have the whole “whats the point, what are you going to do about it?” which i'm sure you can image in a joy to deal with every day.

So where I left you last week was with me being angry at the wifi (which is still annoyingly slow and therefore has forced me to be a lot more patient – something i'm not used to as it isn't really a strong point of mine..)

I can't really tell you that this week has been very interesting, and I havent takes many photos at all, so I fear by the time you get to the end of this post you'll be bored, but I guess it is your decision to read it, so you only have yourselves to blame really..

Right so tuesday was spent, as you know, trying to get my blog post up, and then nothing else really happened, except in the afternoon when I was in the pool and I came out just as wet as the kids because the member of staff thought it would be hilarious to keep splashing me (I was told if a child is annoying you, you should just ignore it, but I didn't think i'd have to apply that strategy to the 25yearold I work with..)

Wednesday was a hectic day because there was a crash along the main road, so nearly half the school was late which meant that it took me nearly 40 minutes to do the registers when it normally takes me less than 10.

This time for your weekly forest school update, it's all about making elderflower cordial! Basically spending the time making sure the kids don't grate anything they might cry about, and making sure no keaves or dirt went into the buckets (trust me, it's harder then you'd think)

Its quite pretty, but don't worry, you strain it before you drink it! 

After that mission I had senior games, where just for a change I joined in and played rounders, which I am not horrific at thanks to all those hours my year 8 class spent playing softball and danish rounders (might I just say that on one ball I got like 3 and ½ rounders – a home run, 2 rounders for bad bowling and half for obstruction. Yes the game has a stupid points system)

That night for whole house night we piled into the mini busses and drove toKings Bruton to see the year 7 production of Grease. Now as you know i'm a sucker for musicals so it was my perfect night! The kids were all so talented and I was so proud of them because I knew how hard they'd worked on the show (the amount of times I helped them with their lines in the dorms showed just how badly they wanted it to be good)

That night was a long one because we didn't get back to school till 9.30 or so, so all the kids were late to bed and none of them wanted to sleep because they were all hyper.

The late night meant that I had to wake up early (shocking, I know!) on Thursday morning so they could all have showers, but thankfully thursdays are really quiet so I could catch up on sleep during the day (yes I did need to have a nap in the middle of the day. Don't judge me)

Thursday after dinner was spent on the tennis courts trying (and failing) to improve my non-existant tennis skills. By the end of half an hour I could hit the ball and it'd land in the court most of the time which was a serious improvement from before! That night instead of the usual games of football or cricket, we played what I think is our new favourite game (the one where you hit a tennis ball as high as you can and then try and catch it) I know it sounds simple but it's serious fun and a lot harder than you'd imagine (especially when you're not wearing you glasses so you can't actually see the ball until it gets close to the ground which then makes it very hard to catch)

Friday morning meant another half an hour in the Junior Common room with the kids that get dropped off to school early. This week they brought their new recorders along, and so I had three girls playing the same song over and over again for the entire time. Any time of the day that would be annoying, but at 8am it is unbearable and I had to stop myself from yelling at them to shut up. Why they insist on teaching kids the recorder I don't know. Personally I think the triangle would be a better instrument to learn..

Thankfully later that day my mood was made 100times better because my new camera arrived in the post! I decided to buy myself a polaroid camera because i've wanted one for ages, and I just thought why not? And as I couldn't think of a reason as to why I shouldn't buy one, I got one! I can't wait till the holidays to take some photos with it!

That night we did a McDonalds run and one of the staff's friend came with us. I found out that he was the personal trainer of Quicksilver (the avengers one, not the X-Men one) and so yeah i've basically met the avengers -its the closest i'll ever get to them so i'm going to take it!

Saturday meant packing, as school finishes this coming week, so they needed to make a start on their packing. This took hours and resulted in me nearly tearing my hair out because they weren’t actually doing anything even though they insisted they were. I don't think i've ever been more frustrated in my life, and it got to the point where I just left them and went and sat in the staffroom otherwise I would've ended up yelling at them. Because the weather had turned to rubbish, that night we had a solid hour and a half of dodgeball in the gym, and I realised how much I missed playing it!

Sunday was a really chilled day (thank god) and so when the duty staff came in and I was free for 6 hours I retreated into my room and watched netflix and tried to pack my suitcase for the summer, which was really hard because I have bought sooooo many things since i've been here, and I didn't really realise just how much until I couldn't fit it all into my suitcase... oops..

and so we're back to monday! This morning I skyped eight of my friends back home (all at the same time) and we had a good old catch up, because I hadn't talked to most of them since I left in December! And then I spent the rest of the day staring helplessly at my suitcase just hoping it would magically pack itself (sadly it didnt..) and so I fear that will be my job tonight.

Cute little group photo feat yours truly on the laptop. 

Again I am sorry for the boringness of this post, but with only one more week at work till september I'm sure they'll be a lot more interesting over the next two months!

So until next week then..

Chocolate heaven and technological hell...

Firstly can I start by saying that i'm sorry this post is up late, and it isn't my fault. The wifi decided to stop working when I got back (you'll find out where from later on... get excited) and I literally spent an hour and a half trying to connect to the wifi. It got to the point where I nearly threw my laptop across the room so I decided to give up on my laptop and I went downstairs to the staffroom where there are some computers (from before I was born I swear) and it took me 20minutes to log on to my school email. So it's safe to say technology wasn't on my side last night, and most of this morning.....

And secondly can I apologise for the substantial lack of photos! I just didn't take any this week so I'm very sorry about how wordy this post is.. soz..

So anyway, back to what happened this week!!

On tuesday I did a terrifying thing. Forget the massive roller-coasters and trips across London during rush hour, this was worse. I tried to decide what I should study next year (can you hear the distant screams? That's me thinking about the future)

I thought it'd be a good idea because the amount of times I get asked what i'll be doing when I leave England, and all I have to say is “uuuuuhhhh, I'm not too sure yet... but that's ages away hahahaha”. And I have come to the realisation that it isn't actually that far away and i'll need to start enrolling for courses soon which is a terrifying thought! After a good couple of hours I did make some progress in my decisions, but I still haven't made any concrete decisions (basically because I can't figure out what I'm meant to do..) so this isn't over yet!

After the stress that looking at my future induced it was a good thing that my workmates made me feel like a kid/an idiot that night. As usual we played football on the front field, but they (being two guys in their mid 20's) thought it would be funny to wear full on football kit. Not because I didn't own any, and they didn't want me to be left out – how considerate of them...- they lent me some knee high socks and a football top. That along with my shorts and trainers made me look pretty professional! Unfortunately it didn't do anything to my football skills and I was still as rubbish as always, to the point where I fell over trying to get the ball, but it made me feel better when the other member of staff tripped over the ball (amateur).

Wednesday was quite normal. I had forest school and spent the whole time making fairy chairs and chatting to the other members of staff there about New Zealand and our language differences (accidentally called cling film 'glad wrap' and they were like whhaaaaaat? Tell us everything else that you call funny names, so I recited the now too memorable list of gumboots, jandals, lollies, togs etc....)

That night I sat on the girls landing platting the girls' hair and just chatting to them (they told me that I'm like their older sister in a way and I thought that was just too cute!)

Thursday was, just for a change, quite normal.. however I came to the realisation that 5 yearolds have an attention span of about two mintues.. I have the reception class once a week for cricket, and that half an hour is so exhausting that I'm almost glad that's it for the week! This thursday I spent the whole time taking one kid at a time to the loo, because as soon as I came back with one kid, another one decided they needed to go, and so it went on and on and on for half an hour..

That night, the girls decided they didn'tactually want to go to sleep, so they kept talking. And because the girls landing was completley full (only one bed was empty) there were a lot of girls to tell to shut up...

By Friday I was really tired because of thursday night's efforts, but thankfully the day was quite a quiet one..

Nothing really happened during the day, and in the eveining all I did was sit in the pool (not literally in the pool, but in the pool building. Oh and i'm now really good at putting on swimming caps, just thought i'd let you know) but I might as well have got in the pool because the member of staff I was supervising with (you need two staff members in the pool) thought it'd be really fun to keep splashing me...

That night I found everything hilarious because I was really tired. I spent most of the night chatting to the girls, all about different things depending on what year group they were. Year 5&6's wanted to know all about earthquakes, the year 7's were talking about different countires and where we all wanted to go (even though in the conversation we had quite a few nationalities covered - english, spanish, french, russian, japanese and of course the one kiwi)

And it will probably come as no surprise to some of you that the year 8's conversation was all about boys and celebrity crushes. It really did make me feel like I was 13 again...

Even though the weekend was meant to be my weekend off, I spent the whole time a school with the kids.. let me explain myself before you think i've gone insane

Saturday was sports day, so I spent the whole day making sure the kids were in the right places, and running the score sheets into the staffroom. It was surprisingly exhausting even though I wasn't doing anything compared to the kids! At the end of the day I had to play tug-of-war with one hand.. (staff vs. year 8's so we thought we'd go easy on them... and we lost..) and then the winning house was announced (Cranmore! The yellow house) and the day was over!

But that night was the summer party for parents and staff, so I got all dolled up (I wore a skirt, anda pair of heels for the first time since christmas!) and got into a taxt, with a drivier who had no idea where he was going (apparently that's unacceptable here, but in Wellington it's normal to have to give your driver directions!!).

I had such an amazing night! The food we were served was incredible – such a nice change to have fancy food after months of boarding school food!. I spent the whole night chatting to parents of the kids, and the people I work with (who all are hilarious when they're a little bit tipsy) but don't tut at me, because even tho I kept being given drinks, I didn't get drunk, and I hardly felt tipsy! I spent a good couple of hours on the dance floor singing along to the band (one of the people I work with's band. They were really good too!) and by 12.30am we were the last ones there, singing into a mike that was turned off (thank god).. by the time I got into bed I was exhausted so I went straight to sleep!

Sunday was a really good day. Partly because when I went down for lunch (I slept past breakfast) I was the only one of those who'd gone out the night before that wasn't feeling like death and I had a really nice roast lunch while all the others could manage was a yorkshire pudding and some gravy..

That day the sunday activity was shopping in Bath, so I got a lift in and spent the afternoon shopping in a city that I love more and more with every visit. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm not sure what one yet (i'll decide when I check my bank balance) it was a very sucessful day of shopping and so I returned home happily carrying my purchases..

And so we're back to Monday!

Now just like last week I worked on my day off, but it was so worth it!

The year 4's went on a trip to CADBURY WORLD and so of course I was stoaked when they asked me to come. Even tho it was a nearly 6 hour round trip, it was a really good day (because I now know to ALWAYS bring headphones on trips, so in went the music and I slept most of the way!)

As you can imagine, a tour of a chocolate factory was heavenly. I spent a bit too much money in the gift shop, and learnt that they don't have chocolate fish, or pinkys or pebbles or cherry ripes or anything like that here!! One of the workers was most excited when he found out I was from New Zealand, and asked me if I'd tried the vegemite chocolate (thankfully I could say I hadn't).

As I spent most of the time there drooling over all the chocolate, and restraining myself from buying everything in the store, there isn't much else to say about Cadbury World!

Sadly I couldn't wear my heeleys in the factory, partly because of the sign and partly because it isn't 2006 anymore!!

I thought this was just too cute!

Just for Moira!

The guy who gave a talk had this hat that one of his workmates had given him. 

There is a heaven after all.....

And so we're back to, what is now Tuesday! I am sorry about the lateness of this post but it was out of my control, and it has also conserned me just how much I need wifi in my life! 4 hours without it and I don't know what to do with myself!

So on that stereotypically teenager sounding sentence, that's all from me!

So until next week then...

Riches, Royalty and Rollercoasters

I do apologise for this post being a little bit later than usual, but as you will find out later on, I didn't have a normal Monday

So tuesday wasn't my usual day either. I spent a good part of the morning on skype to what seemed to be my entire family back home (The parents and sister, Grandparents, two aunts, an uncle and three cousins.. all at the same time..) which was really nice as I hadn't seen/ talked to my aunts and uncle and cousins since I left in december..

In the afternoon I went on a Classics trip to another school, and seriously saw how the other half live (the unimaginably rich other half).

The event was at a high school with about 5 other prep schools there (one of which was the school that Prince William and Prince Harry went to...).The kids spent the day doing various activities, and also learning a short drama piece on different Greek legends, that we later watched in the schools Greek theatre (yes, there was an outdoor greek-style theatre..)

After the performances we were served dinner, which was lamb and salad sandwiches, but on this fancy ciabatta bread, and then for dessert it was frozen yoghurt that is made at the school with honeycomb on top. Now as I was wearing jeans and the school jumper, it's needless to say that I was a tad underdressed, as most of the other teachers were in suits (and had these stupidly posh accents, that were so fancy I couldn't really understand what they were saying half the time, and the other half I spent trying not to laugh at their fancy accents.) Thankfully there was another GAP there, and since she was from Australia I had no problem understanding her, and we spent ages talking about the stupid language barriers here(even though we speak the same language as english people, they just can't understand us..) She also told me all about the richness of the college, as her school was just down the road. It costs just over £11,000 a term to board there, and instead of having someone sit outside the dining room and registering the students as they go in for lunch (like I have to), they have a fingerprint scanner. I'll just let that sink in...

Yes, those are tennis courts on real grass.. 

Wednesday was back to normal, so there's not a lot to tell you about, because you've all heard about forest school too many times (I am sorry about that..)

But for whole house night everyone went up to the woods and had pizzas for dinner, cooked in the pizza ovens and ohmygod they were soo good! Although it always surprises me just how greedy some of the kids are and how worried they are that there wont be enough food for them (when there obviously always is) and that really bugs me!

Thursday was another normal day. I spent the morning on skype with my friend back home, and then nothing else out of the ordinary happened really, well except for the fact that the weather was amazing (it has been all week) and at one point it was almost too hot (!!!). I spent the afternoon with the reception class playing cricket, or rather, trying to teach them how to play (tho I spent most of the time taking kids back to the class because they needed the loo.. apparently hitting a ball once out of ten bowles it a bit too much excitement for some kids..)

By the time Friday came around I was really tired for some reason, so I spent most of my spare time napping (I know..) and receiving parcels of things that I'd bought online earlier in the week (again, I needed most of the stuff I got)

Saturday was also quite an uneventful day. Even though there was a lot of kids boarding over the weekend, they spent most of the day watching films because the weather had turned so all their fixtures had been cancelled. In the evening I handed out tuck (what they call their treats/sweets here) and then watched some of the movie they were watching before having a half an hour lesson on Spanish by three spanish girls in year 5&6. It was then that I realised two things, the first being that I am quite good at copying what people are saying and can pretend that I actually know what I'm doing/saying, and the second being that I have a shocking memory, and would forget things that the girls had told me literally 5 seconds before.. I think I'll leave the Spanish up to Clo from now on. Although in saying that I do remember how to say a couple of phrases, that I'm sure everyone knows how to say, so it really isn't that impressive..

On sunday I spent most of the day outside again, in the morning I was sitting in the sun chatting to the other members of staff, and still trying to get a tan (and of course failing miserably), and then in the afternoon once all the boarders had gone on their activity, I went to a local high school and watched some of the kids play tennis. It actually turned out to be quite an educational trip because before Sunday I had no idea how tennis was scored, or what any of the rules were, and now I almost know enough so that if someone is talking about it I might be able to pretend I know what they're on about!

The College that the tennis was at was another expensive looking place with incredible grounds and expensive fees (I know because me and the other GAP were intregued so we googled it. Turns out that one term at that school probably costs more than all of the fees from all of my years at school combined...)

And so we're back to Monday. Now I bet you've been wondering what i've been up to today that resulted in the late post, and I assure you it has been worth it (well, for me at least.)

I spent the entire day at Thorpe Park, minus the two hours of travel to get there, and then the two hours back.. but the rest of the day I was there!

I went on as many rides as I could (achieving a total of 8 rides) which may not seem like a lot, but for the first two hours there I was on duty so I couldn't go on any rides. But once I was off duty, I was straight onto the tallest ride there. I think it was 62.something metres high, and went from 0 to 80mphh in less than two seconds (and I didn't hold on once). Needless to say it was incredible!

I think the kids (the boys in particular) were surprised that I was going on all the big rollercoasters, as most of the kids wouldn't go on them..

You know you've got a pretty fantastic job when you spent the day at a theme park going on all the rides, in the sunshine, and don't have to worry about getting home because that's what the coach driver is for!

Our base was next to the tea cups ride, and after half an hour of listening to the same tune on repeat I had to put my earphones in and listen to some real music..

This was the insanely good ride, and it was right behind where we were sitting so for two hours I heard other people having fun while I couldn't and it was infuriating 

Somewhere under all that water, there are some poor people who thought they would make it out dry. I have never seen a water ride that leaves you so soaking, or that makes a bigger splash. I didn't go on it because I didn't bring a change of clothes (and I didn't want a re-do of Florida..)

And here we are, another week gone!

So until next week then...

Camping, games and bouncy castles

On tuesday I spent the day with the new overseas boarders. We now have around 60 full-time boarders, and the new ones all seem to be really nice kids. They spent the morning in the ICT room making brochures about the local towns of Wells and Glastonbury, and learning that we do know when they've just copied and pasted the info straight from Google. In the afternoon they made key-rings in the creative design centre which was really cool!

That night I think everyone (both kids and staff) were so excited when we walked into the dining room to find a slushy machine! It was quite amusing watching all the kids drink it too fast and then pull faces from the brain freeze (having worked at Wendy's and having unlimited free slushies, I learnt very quickly how to avoid brain freeze, so I finished mine without pulling faces)

Wednesday morning I packed my bag for the year 7 camp. We left the school after lunch and drove for only 20 minutes before we arrived at the camp. I soon decided it's a lot more fun to be staff on camp than a student – you are the ones laughing at the kids falling off their rafts, and not the one falling off the raft.. We spent the afternoon wandering around the site looking at the activities the kids were doing (which all looked like so much fun!). Being staff also means there's no limit on the amount of marshmallows that you can toast on the fire (although i'm not too sure thats such a good thing because I probably ate around 50 that night...). Once the kids had all gone to bed we sat around the campfire for couple of hours, because of course the kids wouldn't go to sleep, so I didn't get to bed until 12.30am.. And then I was woken up at 6am by the kids singing happy birthday (as you can imagine I was not amused at all..)

I decided that camping around Australia when I was a kid was quite helpful, because I can put up, and take down tents really fast, although i'm not too sure that was such a good thing to reveal to the kids because I ended up putting up and taking down a lot of the tents, because apparently the majority of the kids had never been camping before..

Not a bad set-up for the night! Air mattress and everything - closest to glamping I've ever come!

On thursday after we got back from camp I had to put my rounders skills to the test (on minimal sleep). Because there always seems to be an odd number of girls I always seem to be the one to make the number even. So I had to do 20 minutes of throwing and catching rounders balls (and because i'm staff the kids don't make it easy for me..) I was diving all over the place, but thankfully I caught a lot more than I dropped!

That night I sat on the front field in the sunshine supervising the kids, and it is days like that that make me love my job so much!

Friday marked my 5 month anniversary at the school, and other then that, nothing really happened!

Saturday was an interesting day. I woke up at 4.45am, and by 5.45 I was on a minibus heading into London with some of the Spanish and french kids that were going to take their english exams. The reason that I needed to go with them was because one of the girls had tickets to a One Direction concert in Cardiff that night, but by the time the minibus was due to return it would have been too late. So I had to go in, and then once she had finished her exams, get a taxi from wimbledon to Paddington, and then the train to bath where she was picked up by one of the parents and driven to Cardiff. Thankfully I was able to scarper off while the kids sat their exams, so of course I went shopping (there's not a lot else to do in wimbledon when you cant play tennis apparently)

As you can imagine it was a really long day, but that didn't stop me from spending the evening out on the front field playing with the other members of staff. It's amazing how much entertainment three “adults” can get out of a tennis racquet and ball. We ended up hitting the ball as high as we could and then try to catch it (it's a lot harder then you would think, especially when the new Russian girl joins in and runs at the ball yelling..). even after that, when all the kids were in bed, we went on a Macca's run (of course) but by the time I was back and had finished my McFlurry, I was absolutely shattered!

The only problem with summer sunshine hours is that you have to be awake at  stupid hours of the morning to see the sunrise..

Proof that I was awake at that time of the morning on a Saturday!

Sunday was an amazing day. Firstly because the sun was shining, it was warm and I spent the entire day outside. Also it marked my being out of New Zealand for six months. I seriously can't get over how fast those months have flown by! Half of me feels like i've been here forever, I feel so at home here and I can't believe that it's only been 5 months at the school. But the other half of me feels like i've been out of New Zealand for a couple of weeks because it finally feels like summer here, and while I can understand winter being over the new year here, I can't seem to understand summer being in the middle of the year, so it quite often feels like January to me!.

Usually on Sundays I'm free from 11am till 5pm when the duty staff take charge of the kids. This weekend it was no different, but I didn't want to do anything other than sit on the front field with the duty staff, chatting and sharing stories. We had a bbq for lunch and it was so hot that I was wearing shorts and a loose top with my jandals (or flip-flops, whatever you want to call them..) and I was still hot! The activity for the kids was a summer party, and they had a bouncy castle obstacle course for the kids, but of course the “adults” had to give it a test run to make sure it was up to standard (and ohmygod it was! I can't remember the last time I went on one of those!) I tried to get a tan, and unsurprisingly failed, although I have lost the ghostly paleness that I have had for the last couple of years! And plus, it is only just summer so I have a while to work on it yet!

The kids had a water fight in the afternoon, but they were given strict instructions to stay away from us! I think it was the first water-fight that I have not been soaked in!

The rest of sunday was just like any other sunday, so there's not a lot to tell!

This was the only photo I took of the bouncy castle because my excitement got the better of me and i completely forgot about photos once it was completely inflated

And so we come back to Monday. For some strange reason I woke up really early this morning (7.20!) and so I spent three hours on Skype with my darling sister. I can't even remember the last time we skyped so there was a lot to catch up on! Other than that I haven't done a lot!

So I think that is all for this week! I mean it's not a week in Portugal, and you might not believe me on this, but I have enjoyed this week just as much as I enjoyed last week! It's amazing how much I love a job that I didn't know anything about when I first got here!

So until next week then...

London to Lagos

You are all in for a treat this week!

So I've had the last week off work for half term (because apparently you cant have 10 straight weeks of school..)

So, as you do, I buggered off to Portugal for 4 days.

After a nightmare of a train journey on Saturday which meant I was stuck at Westbury station for nearly TWO HOURS, I spent the weekend in London cat-sitting the ever-so-lovely Betty with Adele, which consisted of a lot of junk food, a lot of tv (I can now say that i've seen Eurovision – with a performance from Australia and Guy Sebastian..)

We did do something mildly productive, because on Sunday morning we went for a walk aroung the cemetry, because we felt bad about the amount of junk food we had eaten the night before...

After that we hopped on a bus to Tower bridge and then spent the afternoon walking along the river. We stopped off for lunch at Pizza Hutt – which is a proper eat-in resturant here! And we were sat next to a Kiwi couple. I swear there are more Kiwis in London then there are in New Zealand! I can't get away from them!

After lunch we went back to Betty because it had started to rain (gotta love the english weather!)

Let's play another game of spot the tourist!

Sneaky advertising...

Monday was spent packing up our stuff, and we didn't really do a lot until the evening when we went to the airport, because we flew out of London at 6am Tuesday morning, which meant a 4am check-in time, and we all know I'm not a morning person. So we camped out at the airport overnight, which meant a very uncomfortable sleep..

Crap quality, but that is a fox. Gotta love the London wildlife!

As you can imagine, the plane journey was pretty boring (I spent most of it sleeping). And then we spent the rest of Tuesday making our way from Faro to Lagos, where we would be staying. This consisted of a taxi ride, a train and a bus. Now thankfully everyone in Portugal seemed to be English, or be able to speak English, so there wasn't any stressing over getting the wrong bus, or finding our accommodation (which was amazing, and everyone there was pretty much either an Aussie or a Kiwi...).

We spent most of our time in Lagos by the pool, or at the beach. We walked into the city every day and did some shopping (just for a change) and I couln't get over how cheap everything was! I didn't really know what I expected Portugal to be like, but whatever those expectations were, they were no where near as good as what it was really like. There was so uch character everywhere. The entire place was beautiful, and the people were all so lovely and colourful.

Rather than blab on about the things we did, I'm just going to dump a bunch of photos on here.

Enjoy!

Day One

The view from our room. Not too shabby I think!

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF IT! btw I'm not burnt, it was just really hot, and i have no muscle so lifting it was a struggle...

Greek style dinner on the first night. It was amazing and I ate it all (even the olives!)

Day Two

Just incase getting the bus is too mainstream for you..

 

I just couldn't help myself okay? 

Day Three

We did a kayak tour of the coast and it amazing! Even tho the water was super rough (but don't worry, we didn't drown! Sign us up for the olympic team I say!)

These stalls had the coolest stuff and it took all of my willpower not to buy it all..

The sunset on my last night there was breathtaking..

 Day Four/Last day

Soz for the bad photo but i had an aisle seat :( but the sunset was stunning! even if the two men sitting next to me didn't see it because they spent the whole time looking at their phones (and they say teenagers are addicted to technology!)

I left Portugal on Friday, and ohmygod what an effort it was to get back! My journey took nealy 13 hours, and consisted of a 30 minute walk to the train station in 28degrees, a train rise, a bus, two planes, another two trains and then a taxi. As you can imagine by the time I got back to Sarah & Martins I pretty much went straight to sleep!

This was the kind of motivation I needed on my 12am tube ride through London.. (it says: You are a glittery flamingo in a park full of pigeons)

Saturday was spent shopping with Nanny and Grandad (so I can safely state that the whole shopaholic thing is definitely genetic) and I was amazed at just how much a person can get out of an M&S store! I don't think there is a M&S that hasn't been visited by my grandparents!

On saturday night we had a lovely family dinner, and then I skyped the parents (for the first time in ages it seemed!) So there was a lot to catch up on – apparently whittakers have released a new range of chocolate... I'm not too sure how I feel about it, because I can't get any here to taste it!!

Unfortunatley on Sunday I had to head back to work, so I had to say goodbye to Nanny and Grandad, who fly back to NZ later this week :(

I think my journey back on Sunday was the easiest one yet! All my trains arrived on time, and there were no missed connections, or delays!

Once back at school I unpacked, did some washing, and within half an hour of being back it felt like I had never left... That was a depressing thought!

The houseparents on the girls landing got a new puppy. It is a literal ball of fluff and i want one..

And we're back at monday! As usual I have done nothing, and I don't intent to do anything once I've posted this, so there's not a lot to say!

So until next week then...