What I have been doing and guess what? I'm picking up my quilt today!

I'm excited - had a call from the Quilting lady that my quilt is ready to collect, so I'm off to get it this morning! Will post a picture once I get the binding on. Hope to have it on my bed by Christmas, yippeeeeeeeeeee

We have had a really busy week - not only is it the last day of term today, but it has marked a lot of changes in our life. Here are some of the details of my week:  Monday was our last teaching day for 2009. Tuesday we had a change of scenery with all the female staff and students going off site for the day - I went to Sheffield to Tasmazia. Weather was wonderful and we all had a great time. Many of us had never been there before, so it was all new.

This is the view over the top of one of the mazes to the little village of Lower Crackpot, with the beautiful, majestic Mt Roland in the background.

We returned to school and students all left, the boys having had a Day in with all the male teachers.
Wednesday was to be Boys' Day out and Girls' Day in - but it was not to be.

Sadly, one of the blocks at school, which housed the Drama Dept as well as staff studies, general teaching rooms and a Computer Lab were destroyed after a suspicious fire broke out. School was abruptly over for the rest of the year and only the teaching, admin and school attendants, as well as representatives of the Department, were there on Wednesday. The crowd quickly grew to include Insurance assessors, workmen, police, etc. The mood was certainly NOT one of celebration as the term wound down.
As I was not on site at the time of the fire, I spent that evening contacting others to find out what had happened and what was expected the following day, rather than being able to sit back and thoroughly enjoy our Material Girls' end of year breakup.

Each year we have made a gift for someone else in the group. For the past two years we have made a small Christmas decoration which had to fit into a 4" box. Look at what I made ............... needless to say, it didn't fit no matter how much I scrunched it up, so I put a small empty box into the basket with a note that said: "Merry Christmas! If you are surprised that this is all you got, come and see Vicki!"

The recipient was very pleased with the Mistletoe - hope she put it to good use!

I was lucky to choose one of Christine's lovely bonbons, filled with chocolates! Lucky I am happy to share, otherwise I would be the side of a house.

And school?? Well, the block was old and had asbestos in it, so the assessor told us that it would be demolished over the holidays. The drama suite was totally destroyed. 90+ PCs, 43 brand new netbooks, which had just been imaged ready for the start of 2010, the Library, server and IT room as well as another computer lab which adjoin block 3 were heat and smoke damaged. Computers were totally ruined. To add insult to injury, staff were very saddened to hear that the fire was suspicious and enquiries are continuing. Students will return a week later in February to enable 3 demountables to be set in place and remodelling to be done in other parts of the school to give us enough rooms to continue our teaching and learning programme.

We can look forward to a brand new block in the future, but the wheels turn slowly and I doubt that we will be enjoying it before mid 2011 - although, you know, a little birdy told me that 2010 is a state election year!