A flu-addled paradigm shift
Firstly, sorry for not posting more frequently… the standard I set of one post per week has fallen by the wayside amidst manic work & other jollities.
Things are still going well – getting to see more of the island & the way things work here every week. Last weekend I went for lunch with a long-time reader of this blog (well, as long as it’s been going, anyway), the marvellous Lancastrian-in-chief who arrived a few weeks back to head the Lands department. As this is St Helena, we bumped into the Attorney General, who joined us for lunch & invited us for a tour of where he lives at Signals House – the place with the mast in the top right of this photo mercilessly plagiarised from Janet Butler.
To say the place has spectacular views is to say that Jeremy Clarkson’s recent unions faux pas was only a bit of a cock-up.
As Cockroach Corner seems to be one of the most popular segments of these blog posts, I’ll share the most recent cockroach-fuelled girlyman-scream incident. I was sitting at my desk, half-heartedly doing a bit of research for a lesson for next week, with Stargate playing on the other monitor. You may snort derisively at my geekiness. It happened to be the episode that had Mummy-esque scarab bugs that burrow under your skin and eat your brains at lightning speed, and all the lights were off, so I was typing by the light of the monitors. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big bastard of a cockroach wander seemingly aimlessly (but I know better) towards me. Enter manly scream & rapid deployment of a cookbook that was sitting next to me. Apologised to the neighbours the next morning for any undue noise.
I’m not sure whether I’ve mentioned, incidentally, that cockroaches are called ‘cock-a-roaches’ here, which I like… it makes me think of cock-a-hoop.
So now for flu news, which I’d treated with that mixture of derision and amusement that people who aren’t sniffling along with the crowd enjoy – right up to the point where they catch it. St Helena flu had been described to me as being like man flu, in that it was a pretty unpleasant cold, but nowhere near actual flu. This seemed patently ridiculous, as attendance figures at school plummeted into the 80s, but I can now say with some confidence that it’s worse than most colds I’ve had – and being as I am not only a teacher coming in to contact with hundreds of snotty young things in the course of a day but that I use the same keyboards and mouses as they do – I’ve had a few.
I’ve been off school for two days now, nursing the void where my voice used to be. This hasn’t exactly been a laugh a minute, as I have felt genuinely rough, and don’t enjoy taking time off work at the best of times, but I do at least feel it was put to good use. After a significant amount of planning was done, I decided yesterday to devise a series of flashcards I could hold up if I made it in to work today. Included in the collection were:
- Yes
- No
- That’s a good question
- That’s a matter for debate
I’m not one for exaggeration, but to my addled mind yesterday this held the potential to be one of the most profound educational shifts of the 21st century. On Monday I intend to take the collection, now widened to include different subject areas, ready to announce that we never have to speak to students again. Further examples:
History
Geography
Biology
Maths
Hell, we could even have guest appearances. The manifestly magnificent Michael Gove could weave some of his words of wisdom into the hearts and minds of our stars of tomorrow.
The cultural revolution referred to here resulted in thousands of teachers being killed and the Chinese state education system being closed for a decade, but it’s the sentiment that counts.
Coming up next time: gearing up for a 25° Christmas. Stop it. I can hear your envy.
So this week has been terribly exciting, but I’ve pretty much resolved not to talk shop on here, save for issues of great hilarity. On that note, this week has been another whirlwind of medium-strength to full-on fits of giggles and arse-clenching rage at the impenetrable fortress that is our school network.
This morning, for example, I wanted to print three copies of a Word document I had prepared the night before for my intrepid A levellers. Don’t exactly need Deep Blue for that, but Christ alive… I’ll spare you the details, but a full 25 minutes was spent on trying to print the bastard things before admitting defeat and returning to the office to write the technician A Note.
Writing A Note can be a pivotal moment in a relationship. It’s very difficult to contain a message on that little, yellow Post-It when you’re filled with bile and hatred about whatever technological marvel that has fallen so badly on its arse that it has left you completely unable to function. At least, it’s very difficult to write it without conveying at least most of that bile and hatred. “Whoever took MY yoghurt, could you PLEASE replace it, because it was on MY shelf and it was TAKEN from there. Thanks.”
Upon receiving a note like that, who hasn’t wanted to kick the writer to death? I mean really… I’m not a violent man, but there is little worse when sharing a house with anyone other than close family than waking up to find a Post-It stuck to the fridge. You know how Snow White woke up with bluebirds singing their saccharine little hearts out at her when she woke up? The opposite of that is waking up to A Note.
So I drew a picture instead. I wish I’d brought it home with me, because aside from being a little generous in my representation of myself (or perhaps because of that,) I was really very pleased with it. It was entitled “Things that will prevent Mr Greenwood from having a rage-fuelled heart attack,” and ended with a picture of me crying “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”
It was quite similar to a picture I drew on the bottom of a student’s essay who when describing the impact of violent video games described how it could “turn teens violet.”
Anyhow, I gave it to the technician, who in all fairness is hardly the atypical cardigan-wearing troglodyte, and I got a grin and a nod. Mission accomplished.
Beyond this, Facebook friends will know I convinced a young lad that we don’t have a moon in the UK, which gave me almost as much pleasure as the magnificent Mr Asghar and I convincing an eager young thing that Charles Darwin learnt all he knew from his older brother Dave, “which is why we’re celebrating Dave Darwin day – for unsung heroes.”
If any of you feel this method of teaching to be cruel and/or counterproductive, allow me to point you to the collective staff of Batley Grammar School, who through such mental acrobatics turned me into the man I am today. “Be critical, boys! Think!” – the superb Mr Archer. If you remain unconvinced, feel free to write in, but not to me.
Finally, in the continuing thread of “I wouldn’t have done that at home,” have two developments. Firstly, Thursday’s ‘Revision Badminton’ was cancelled due to athletics in the sports hall. Boo, I hear you cry, and I’d agree – however my enterprising young VI formers and I ended up in the squash court, where wee Bargo (pictured middle-left) and I managed almost a whole volley in the hour we spent down there. Good times.
The second is that I shall be cheerleading for the school (something) team shortly – pom poms and all. I kind of had to after surreptitiously filming two teachers and the A level lot doing a Rosemary Conley-style aerobics video with more than customary enthusiasm. I later apologised in the staff room for introducing cyberbullying to St Helena.
I’d promise photos of the cheerleading, but I’m not sure I’m man enough to make that kind of commitment right now.
Another week! I leave you with photos of this afternoon’s digital photography field trip to the Sandy Bay chapel.
So, what’s cracking, I hear you ask in your customary feisty ghetto fashion. ‘Many exciting things’ is the answer, homes, but allow me to break it down into matters of little consequence… they’re far more fun.
Firstly, I took a proper look at a £20 note for the first time since I arrived this week, and they are wonderful. It’s like someone described the queen to an artist who then drew a picture of her. It patently couldn’t be anyone else, but it’s just not the queen. I wonder if there’s a royalty edition for that photo fit software the police use to track down crims… that would be a fine explanation.
In other matters monetary, I experienced a profound sense of joy when given change yesterday when I found I’d been handed an old-style fifty pence piece. As in The Queen’s Nose. Those buggers are weighty – you know your country is a force to be reckoned with when its coinage can be used as a weapon. The new slimmed-down models brought in to replace them in 1997 were just another sad reminder that Britain’s glory days are over.
Beyond this, I’ve had all manner of Skype-based hilarity with family & friends since getting wired up by those technological marvels at Cable & Wireless. From Nick Jackson looking like a wizard in a call centre with his headset, to having a conversation with mum’s forehead because the laptop’s not positioned particularly well, to phoning dad purely to gloat over the glorious sunset, but the biscuit was well & truly taken by my nan, who just left me a wonderful 10 minute voicemail message.
About 20 seconds of it were actual meaningful message, but the remaining 9 minutes 40 were ambient noise because unlike my answering machine at home where at worst I’d get an “ooh, I hate these bloody things…” before putting down the phone, there was no phone to put down when using Skype.
So now, whenever I feel pangs of homesickness I can listen to 10 minutes of Batley-based ambient noise and feel right at home. Thanks, nan!
Finally, I was in both of the newspapers here last week. There aren’t many teaching jobs you can get where your arrival is heralded with a newspaper article about your life & times, but that’s just one of the many contributing factors of St Helena’s awesomeness.
The only thing I’m suffering from at the moment is a lack of meat (teenage readers: you may high-five yourself if you said “that’s what she said” in your head just then). You can get any number of cuts of pork, but as with most issues of taste I’m siding with the Jews on all things pig it doesn’t leave much else left… even minced beef seems to be either scarce or terribly well-hidden. You evidently won’t find a Hillary Briss-style butcher here with “special stuff” under the counter. Time to crack out the spicy, misspelt Russian sausage, methinks.
What finer note to end a post on than invoking spicy Russian sausage, I thought, until while writing this I got a second 10 minute voicemail from my nan. Talking to her just now it seems my name keeps popping up as online, so she’s been clicking on it to make sure I don’t think she’s avoiding me.
Before you go mocking, I bet your nan can’t Skype.
Ta ta for now!
So from having some truly bizarre allergic reaction during a very nice meal at some fellow RMS passengers’ house on Friday night and freaking out after watching True Blood last night, it truly has been a funny old weekend.
On Saturday, my neighbour and I went to a social night at the rock club, where a rather optimistic (or pissed) keyboard player entertained the thronging masses and I did my best to stifle my winces at the occasional (and I say that quite wrongly) bum note. Still, good fun, though we did get mocked for acting like old men when we left before eleven. The Saints don’t know the meaning of an early night… when they want to party, they’re gonna party.
Other than the usual routine of cleaning house to keep the now-undead cockroaches at bay (more on which later), Sunday was spent as the Good Lord intended – inadvertently watching soft-core vampire pornography.
After a recommendation from the ever-discerning Cath Todd (who recommended Up, which is a brilliant film), I tried out True Blood, and while being slightly surprised by all the boobs & bums (though not so much the blood… tough to get taken off-guard when it’s in the title) I enjoyed it. Watched two or three of them, then had a night of dreams where the good people of St Helena suddenly had Louisiana accents and I could no longer trust the people I thought I knew. Imagine a Resident Evil-style gore-fest – just replace zombies with vampires, Raccoon City with St Helena and Milla Jovovich with me, and that was my night. Isn’t the imagination a beautiful thing?
Prior to the night of staking and throwing silver chains, rings and cutlery I never knew I had at fictional vampires, I had not one but two phone calls from an intoxicated Saint asking if I had any pancakes. Pretty good result for a sleepy Sunday night, I know, but what made it better was that when I said I didn’t know what he was talking about, he started giving me the recipe for pancake batter. I’m now considering starting a Dial-a-pancake franchise business for one of my Enterprise groups.
Finally, after going to the kitchen for a drink after dark, I found a cockroach on its back by my bookcases. Fairly convinced it was dead, and no longer freaking out merely at the sight of them, I left it there while I went to get the dustpan and brush, and when I got back it had done a 90 degree turn. Clearly not dead, I reached for the can of DOOM, which rather than having the debilitating (and desired) effect, it gave the little bugger a final lease of life, and not only crawled with incredible speed out of the dustpan but half way up my arm before I threw both it – and the dustpan – across the kitchen with the force of a female Hungarian shot putter from the 1980s.
Suffice it to say I now need a new dustpan.
Much longer than the two weeks you had to wait for the last one (for which I’m sorry, but Cable & Wireless have to shoulder some of the blame for that… it was a team effort.)
I intended to write about this during the season of leaving dos I had before leaving, but in the whirlwind of putting off packing my belongings & not reading the paperwork I had to read it somehow fell by the wayside.
So here it is, a couple of months late, but now with 100% more benefit of hindsight:
Going somewhere remote is bloody brilliant. Not only for the experience itself, but because it gives you a reason to see people you haven’t seen for a long time, and forces you to tell the people you see every day how much you appreciate that fact.
It’s always the way that the things that really matter don’t get said or done until the last minute. We human types are born procrastinators, and I like many others have honed my procrastination skills to such a degree that so far in writing these four paragraphs I’ve been to the kitchen to get a drink, to the bathroom for a pack of tissues and back to the kitchen to dry the dishes. Little wonder my dissertation supervisor said sections felt a bit disjointed.
This summer, however, has been the summer every summer prior to it should have been. One of the many highlights was making the trip up to Teesside to see the Joneses – which I’d been meaning to do for over a year, but always put off because I “didn’t have the time”.
So, Buggering-Off-to-the-Arse-End-of-the-World lesson #1: “I don’t have the time” is bullshit. Bullshit of the most damaging kind, because it can rob you of some truly spectacular experiences. We procrastinators (and you know who you are, unless you’ve put off reading this in favour of something less important, in which case you’ll have some idea when you finally get round to it) are experts in the field, and I know I’ve disappointed some people in the past with “I’m sorry, I’m really busy this weekend,” or “I wish I could, I just have so much to do!” Mid-October resolution, people – pull your collective fingers out. If I can do it, you bloody well can.
The next deep joy of buggering off was in getting the chance to see my favourite people together in one fell swoop. Oddly, rather than making it more difficult to leave, it left me happy in the knowledge that I wasn’t leaving behind any short-term friends. Everyone who mattered to me when I left will matter no less when I get back, and I know the same is true of them. My little bungalow is festooned with the leaving cards that were among the first things I packed away to bring with me. It’s pretty difficult to be scared of the unknown when you know if it all goes tits up you have a spectacular bunch of family & friends to go back to if need be.
Thus, Buggering-Off-to-the-Arse-End-of-the-World lesson #2: be thankful for what you’ve got. Working in high schools makes it absolutely obvious that not everyone has a loving family and friends. If you’re fortunate enough to, make sure they know about it… preferably without having to travel over 4,000 miles in order to feel the need.
I always turned a bit green in the opening scene of Love Actually, that saccharine-but-still-quite-nice film from a few Christmases back that only we Brits can pull off with only minor squirming as opposed to full-on vomiting in the aisles. It was a montage of people meeting in the arrivals lounge, doing that very un-British thing of public displays of emotion. When I’ve got that to look forward to in a couple of years, any niggles (also known as cockroaches) disappear into insignificance.
Oh, and because I was always taught that good things come in threes, Buggering-Off-to-the-Arse-End-of-the-World lesson #3: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but £4.40 for a box of Rice Krispies is taking the piss a bit.
Much love!
I’ve even stopped screaming like a little girl when the inevitable cockroach crawls under the front door. That’s not to say I haven’t spent a significant amount of time barricading myself in, blocking every little hole with anything I can lay my hands on (cellotape, toilet roll, Blu-tak… I’ve used them all so far), and I’ve gone through half a can of “DOOM” which is what Ronseal would call it if they made a bug spray.
I keep telling myself that the cockroaches live for the weekend, seeing as when I was up until 1am last night I saw (and deftly killed) four of the freaking things. Better that mild delusion than face the reality that they’re out every night while I’m asleep. Ew.
I seem to have settled into the kind of routine I never had in the UK, too, which is odd because there’s nothing particularly different here that’s caused it. I’ve started having cereal in the mornings (I promised I’d keep up to this blog, I never promised it’d be exciting) and doing the washing up when I get in from school before putting my feet up. Everything feels easier to keep on top of, though I don’t know why.
I just spent about four hours working on the course plans for my budding AS & A2 sets, which I’m still having an absolute ball with. Writing course plans is one of the most tedious jobs a teacher has to do (right up there with writing reports), but the novelty hasn’t worn off yet. Long live the rose tinted glasses.
Oh, another development, and something I never thought I’d say – I went line dancing last week. I didn’t mean to. Honest. I was invited out by the neighbours and thought I’d be all sociable, so I got ready & then found out it was a line dancing night… anyone who knows the deepest & darkest recesses of my childhood remembers not only the Harry Potter haircut but the cowboy boots & checked shirts. I knew you’d be overjoyed, Nan, just don’t expect me to be joining you when I get back to the UK…
Anyhow, turns out it’s like riding a bike. The other neighbour (who more than makes up for his rhythmic shortcomings with indefatigable enthusiasm) kept on mixing it up with some freestyling whenever he forgot what he was doing, much to the delight of the Saints dancing behind us. The only bit I truly cocked up on was when I looked up to see one of my A level students grinning at me from the sidelines. After a moment of “aaaaarrrrrrgh!” I resorted to “bugger it, carry on,” and a fine night was had by all.
I’m also falling in love with the way the school works, by the way. There’s a one hour weekly CPD session where the entire staff break off into groups & focus on teaching & learning. In Thursday’s session the deputy head asked what everyone else thought we could do to keep expectations high. And she wanted answers. Seriously… a senior leader asking the rest of the staff for input. It was all I could do not to burst into tears.
Oh, and on alternate Fridays the staff does some kind of sport (volleyball last week… I very nearly forged a note from my mum when I was told in the morning that I should have brought my kit) or has cake in the staff room. This is after the afternoon’s enrichment sessions, incidentally, where the kids have a timetabled slot to go “do something” – that’s the sum total of the idea behind it, and it’s brilliant. They get bussed off to the old folks’ home to help out, there are digital photography groups, music groups, and I’ll be adding my Classics club next half-term.
This place isn’t just a solid community because it has to be, being so isolated… they work at it too – far more than we do in the UK. In all my effusing, by the way, don’t think that I’m not missing everyone terribly, because I am. I keep on thinking while I write this that it sounds like I hated the UK, which isn’t true, but there are some really nice bits here that we ought to embrace a bit more back in Blighty.
Anyhow, just a short update for now – getting all blinky from my A level slog. So, by way of an apology for the lack of posts over the last few weeks, have some sunsets taken from my front door:
At long last…
My silence is broken! One of the perils of exile at sea is the lack of proper communication channels… never have I been more acutely aware of that than now. More on Cable & Wireless’s inadequacies later, but for now, the last week.
From Ascension I boarded the RMS along with about 25 other intrepid souls bound for St Helena. Boarding the little shuttle boats to get to the ship was interesting, though I did eventually receive my “big boy” life jacket as opposed to the child’s medium I was initially (and optimistically) given.
Other than feeling like a bona fide wimp suffering as I did from motion sickness within hours (made manifest in only the most attractive cold sweats & slight green tinge) the ship was great. Had the best night’s sleep I’ve had after a long while of waking up mid-dream worried about some piffling inadequacy of mine, ludicrously cheap booze (£1.20 per pint or tot), and a fine selection of entirely over-facing meals.
Expecting as I was to be on the ship for three days, we were told by the captain at dinner (that’s right… captain’s table, baby) that we’d be arriving on Thursday rather than the Friday it said on the tickets, which I was a bit miffed about after getting past the notion that I was simply moving from A to St B and starting to kick back and enjoy the cruise ship experience, but arriving on the island was terribly exciting. Another short puddlejumper trip to the port where I was greeted by the headteacher from Prince Andrew School (a grand man called Abraham,) the landlady (a lovely lady called Debbie,) and a dozen or so welcoming locals. A short tour of Jamestown later (which is a terribly cute little town, as you’d expect with a name like that) and the luggage was ready.
Escorted up to my new home by Debbie, I was shown the place. Every bit the cute little bungalow the photos I’d been sent showed, they completely neglected the most fundamental bit – that view. Miles upon miles of rolling South Atlantic stretch out before my front door, with the sunsets perfectly placed to shine through the windows in the door right on me in my glorious armchair (henceforth to be referred to as ‘the throne’). None of the photos I’ve managed to take on my piddling iPhone camera do it any justice, and I’ve been reminded we’re just emerging from the arse end of winter (I do know how to turn a phrase, don’t I?) but the view is, in a word, breathtaking. It may shock you all to learn that I’m not exactly outdoorsy, favouring air con over a stiff north-easterly breeze, but bugger me. If ever there was cause to change…
One small yet incredible thing, though was the bottle of Brecon Carreg water sitting in my fridge as part of the welcome pack. Seriously? We’re shipping water over 4,000 miles? Worse still was the tin of Tesco tuna in the cupboard, 99p price sticker still on it. On the ship we watched a documentary about the island where fishermen with short lines & unbarbed hooks were casting out, pulling in a tuna & repeating in one fluid back & forth, pendulum-style. Talk about selling ice to the Eskimos…
So on Friday it was time for a visit to the school where I was introduced as one of the most impressive ICT teachers the head had ever seen, which I thought was quite generous considering he’d only been able to see the top left quarter of my face over the webcam during my interview.
The weekend was fun, if a little quiet, spending it as I did unpacking my freight, which had arrived from the port minus the TV & Playstation, having been half-inched in the UK prior to the pallet being stacked & shrink-wrapped. I was left instead with empty boxes, but in case you’re reading this, intrepid thieves, I’ve still got the remote, power cables & controller for the PS3, and am willing to arrange a trade for potatoes.
On that note, the lack of food has been grossly exaggerated. I stopped in the local supermarket here in Half Tree Hollow & found all the home comforts & then some. They’re vaguely pricey, but they’ve travelled half way around the world. Fruit & veg aren’t available constantly, but with a little foresight it’s not an issue. Best start developing that foresight, then.
Monday’s lessons arrived as quickly as everything else had, and went extraordinarily well. My AS group were a keen if slightly reticent band of four – four – plus the department’s AST who will be sitting the AS level at the end of the year. The year 10s in the afternoon performed as expected for a class that has been without a teacher for three weeks, but only the gentlest of squishings had them back on track.
The student-teacher relationship here is very different to in the UK. In the UK, my experience was that I had to earn the respect of many of my students. Arriving as an unknown quantity at Royds, I had to fight pretty hard to impose myself on some of my classes, whereas here it seems to come with the job – you’re an adult, therefore you get courtesy & respect. That’s not to say they’re all little angels, but there’s less of a fight on your hands to get them back on track. I scared the shit out of one year 10 lad who walked away from a teaching assistant who was trying to shepherd him into the classroom merely by invoking my teacher voice. Admittedly, I can project when I need to, but the look on his face & all others around him was the kind of shock you’d expect from a gunshot. Bless.
I’m also looking forward to tackling the lil’ gangstas, the bedazzled earlobes and 1990s haircuts of whom will provide me with more than enough material to see me giggling through to the end of my contract.
The real joy of coming here so far has been meeting the Saints (Saint Helenians), who are an incredibly warm, welcoming & funny people. My concerns about whether or not they’d get me, my peculiar brand of humour and all, were completely unfounded. They’re all funny buggers too. It’s also in having met people from hugely diverse backgrounds, both on the RMS getting here, and since arriving – a former-Royal Marine police sergeant & his wife from Kent, an incredibly widely-travelled environmental consultant, and an all-round top bloke of an English teacher from Kenya whose first real conversation with me was “You live near me. Let’s go home.”
All of the worry about whether or not I was going to manage, let alone enjoy it, has fizzled away into nothing (as you all knew it would, you insufferable buggers) and here I am, five days in, well into the swing of enjoying each day.
Even the lack of internet access hasn’t dampened my spirits – a piddling 2kb/sec download rate at the school (which receives special provision from Cable & Wireless) isn’t exactly supplemented with the 3mb broadband they offer to domestic customers, with a 6gb monthly bandwidth cap (which I could eat through in about 15 minutes courtesy of Virgin Media) for the oh-so-reasonable price of £240 per month.
Allowing for a sharp intake of breath there seems as good a point as any to stop, so stop I shall. More to come as & when, but unfortunately no Facebook access at the school (so be a love and stick this post up on my wall, please!) & I need to hold off on subscribing for internet access until the new calendar month otherwise I pay the full whack for the remaining four days of September. Don’t get me started. If any of you have a burning desire for some quality me time, my phone number from the UK is shorter than my old one: +00 (290) 3137. How cute is that? And for anyone who feels the urge to send me a letter, here goes: 2 Williams Estate, Cow Path, St Helena.
Peace off!
Ascension Island is an odd place. As it’s pretty humid at the moment, I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many knees in uniform. I absolutely understand the logic of wearing shorts in a hot climate, but I can’t help expecting them to burst out into a scene from Gilbert & Sullivan. I think we can all agree a pretty, pink parasol is a step too far, but still – the shorts look weird. Maybe it’s British knees? You’d never hear of a knobbly knees contest in the US…
However, beyond the uniforms of the Brits, there is a second air base on the island, operated by the US Air Force, so in the ten minute drive from the RAF station to the hotel (more on which later), the Vauxhalls, Renaults and Hyundais give way to Chevys, Dodges & Ford pickups. Truly strange. The island itself is a little peculiar, too, as despite being warm and plenty sunny, the roads are surrounded by red & black volcanic dunes. Not unpleasant, but a bit otherworldly…
The hotel is exactly what it needs to be. Alright, so the curtains don’t open, and there’s a rhyme on the wall in the bathroom about not flushing when you’ve had a pee, but it’s air conditioned and the bed is fine. Oh, and £10 for a day’s wi-fi. Eat that, Holiday Inn.
The meal last night was great. Ended up eating with an environment bod on his way down to consult on the airport, a clinical psychologist on her way back to St Helena after a visit to Ascension, and a science teacher who stayed on the island for 6yrs, married a Saint and was waiting for him and their two kids to get back on the RMS. I had plenty of questions answered – the resentment for expats hinted at during the contract signing is very real, though when a classroom teacher is paid £4,000, it’s not difficult to see why. The advice was not to stick to the expat community – make an effort to integrate, and the Saints are a people who are constantly being told what to do (often with conflicting advice) by the revolving door of consultants brought in. Don’t rush in with a view to revolutionising everything, just get the lay of the land first. Seems like smart advice to me, though I had no intention of playing the role of the bombastic new arrival. I’m really excited about getting on the island, now more than ever… Still suffering from itchy feet, feeling like I’ve been out of the classroom for far too long & that I need to get back in to the swing.
Genuinely annoyed that I can’t post photos at the minute… I’m going to have to add them when I get to the island. I’m unlikely to have internet access again between now & arriving in St Helena, so I’m gonna sign off for now. I’ll hopefully be able to check in on Friday, but might have to wait until I actually get to the school.
Nationalise the airports!
After a grand night’s sleep in a wildly-overpriced-but-really-very-comfortable Holiday Inn (anyone else experienced the majesty of their toilets? I swear the air pressure in the bathroom dropped when I flushed), I spent the day in Oxford with mum & Geoff. Before being disappointed by the conspicuous lack of eccentricity in the Museum of the History of Science’s eccentricity exhibit, we spent not nearly enough time in the Ashmolean Museum, had a wander around the beautiful Balliol College gardens, and got well & truly ignored by student staff at the ambitiously-named Buttery cafe.
We then headed for RAF Brize Norton to make sure everything was in order, then went to a local pub for the most impressively awful meal I think I’ve ever had. It reminded me of a pub I saw through the window on a train journey through Crewe (or somewhere equally exotic) where some enterprising young mind had taken a screwdriver to the last two letters on the sign for The Grey Goose. If ever there was a pub deserving of the name The Grey Goo, it was that shambles last night – even the rice hadn’t been microwaved for long enough.
However, it was exactly the right kind of meal to leave the UK on – God knows it didn’t give me anything to miss. Quality British crap, at low, low prices.
Apologies for the lack of photos... the hotel wi-fi here won't let me connect my iPhone to it to upload them, so you'll have to make do with one stolen from The Sun.
Brize Norton, by contrast, was exactly what an airport should be. First off, hearing the tannoy bing bong followed by “Major Cruise, please report to check-in,” and “Commander Woods, please head to the departure gate,” makes it far more exciting, as does having your luggage ferreted off down the conveyor belt to Middle Earth by a uniformed airman. Oh, and free wi-fi. Not a bit of the usual £5 for 1hr’s access, or the £2 to avoid having to bail out of the car at speed in the short-stay car park, or £4 cups of coffee that taste more like Bisto than Kenco. East Midlands be damned!
Then there’s the plane. A shining 767 from swanky charter company Titan Airways, the never-well-hidden geek within was hugely impressed by the remote control/phone/credit card scanner in the armrest, and the former Ryanair regular in me was bowled over by the fact that not one of the hostesses had a moustache. Nor, indeed, was there a single pleated skirt between them. They were instead what air hostesses have been in films since the 1960s. Statuesque, well-spoken, and mildly anorexic. I watched a third of The Social Network, giving up just before having to avail myself of the complimentary sick bag, then fell asleep.
Anyone who has ever been in the same postcode as me during the hours of darkness will know that I snore, so I’ve never been particularly comfortable sleeping in public – I was woken up during my GCSE Physics exam because I was disturbing the other students – and I also have a tendency to toss & turn (not easy in an airplane seat), but aside from launching my teeny tiny pillow into the air after waking myself up with a particularly vociferous snore, then while trying to find said pillow accidentally groping the man who had silently occupied the empty seat behind me, all was well.
Up next: Ascension Island.
Actually on my way…
After much black bagging, merciless discarding of belongings and offloading my ubersofa & other sundry goodies on the delightful Tony P, I’m finally off. Leg one – Hudds to Oxford. Don’t knock it… gotta walk before you can run. Or fly. Or sail.
This disappointingly short post was (micro)blogged from the bed of my hotel room, for the oh-so-reasonable price of £5.99 for an hour’s internet access. I should be charging for this shit.
A day in Oxford tomorrow, followed by my flight from RAF Brize Norton to Ascension Island at midnight. More to come as and when.
2012 · Some Rights Reserved · James Greenwood
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