The final "Hurrah" and the 'long dance' of work

Well friends, thankyou for your patience in putting up with my infrequent posting and updating. Here I am still catching up with all the various happenings of yesterdays, while in the meantime I have embarked on some most interesting travels. Well not to fear, I shall make my catchup brief and then embark on some tirades of youthful travel that have recently enveloped me.

Now in my last post I described the sheer feelings of depression and fear of the unknown that enveloped me as I embarked on to the dark dangerous shores of Angle Land - a land fearsome in reputation for its dark mysteries and warlike races. What? No hang on, that wasn't it at all... in fact it was rather the opposite - I had come to a land that has been a bastion of civilization for hundreds of years. Wrong time period again...dammit...
Hmmm, if only...
So anyway yes, in my second week in England (the week of the August 27th) I met up with some of my delighful cousins who are currently residing in London. And here they are:


Ok, ok, this is not them, but I had to see a lot of these type of people on the way to see my cousins. The reason being, my cousins live in Notting Hill and this day (28th of August) was part of the Notting Hill Carnival. This glorious monstrosity fills the suburb of Notting Hill to the brim with around 2 million dancing, singing, whistling, sometimes screaming individuals (mostly caribbean themed) - there are also floats, stalls, barbeques, hundreds of police and enough caribbean flags to storm the bastille with. Phew, talk about an eye opener, and I had thought that the Sydney Olympics were bad for crowds. Two long and inglorious hours was all it took to find out how wrong I was about that. But finally I found the right flat, the searching had made it all the sweeter, and somewhat surprisingly was I still cognizant enough to be delighted to see my cousins as well.

And of course it was wonderful to see my cousins as well.

The rest of the week was pretty laidback for me, but then how could it not be one might sanely ask? In any case I did some walks up the Thames river around Reading and up to Pangbourne. I also did the whole Wind in the Willows thing by relaxing on the riverbank and watching the barges, canoes and swans making their way up the river - I was so Ratty for a while there. In essence once might say that the Thames river is very much alive and vibrant in a way that the Brisbane river is not - people frequent it as a place to relax and even live on and it really does seem like the lifeblood of the valley.

On September the 3rd I made one final trip before my first week of school started. I have long wanted to visit the University town of Oxford and see some of the places where great minds have tread, studied, graduated, been kicked out or have generally just made unique contributions to the world. Two people in particular had grabbed my imagination when younger - C.S. Lewis and surprise, surprise J.R.R. Tolkien. Of course there is also Kenneth Grahme, Lewis Carrol, W.H. Auden, Phillip Pullman and even J.K. Rowling to take notice of, but it was the two aformentioned that I have long been particularly interested in. To cut a long story short I toured Oxford (on the guided tour buses) and saw the colleges where Tolkien and Lewis had taught or studied at (Exeter, Magdalen, and Merton) visited the massive Blackwells bookstore (4 HUGE levels, 2 of them underground - absolutely beautiful baby) and managed to fairly comprehensively explore Christchurch College.

Great Tom tower, designed by
Christopher Wren of St Paul's fame,
Christchurch College. Friends, Anna
and John are in foreground.

Christ Church is the only college in the world which is also a cathedral (one of the smallest in England), the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Oxford.

The original altar of the Cathedral, painstakingly put back together after being destroyed by some local Oxford Puritans in the late 16th century AD.


I actually managed to come back to Oxford a few weeks after my first trip (with some friends this time) . After wandering around the town for the day (visiting Blackwell's and Christchurch college again of course) and seeing the Ashmolean Museum we took in a visit to the Eagle and Child, the pub where Tolkien, Lewis and other authors and academics met to discuss their diverse intellectual ideas - ranging from their latest books to the broader concerns of literary theory and criticism, theology, history, and philosophy (and of course much more). The group was called the Inklings, it met for nigh on 20 years, and I was there - very, very cool. A definite childhood dream come true, but of course, sigh, the friends I was with just didn't get it.

And here I am, proud as punch to be there.

Of course, my time in England has not been all fun and play. The serious business of starting up a fulltime job has brought with it a host of changes and responsibilities. The school I am teaching at, Sherfield School, is located in the old Manor house for a small village in upper Hampshire - Sherfield on Loddon. There is a long story to tell about my job at the school, but suffice to say that there were some surprises and and lot of adapting to do for me. The hours have been quite long (by Queensland school standards) + the school is Independent (and also quite young) so I have been developing study programs, assessment, and lessons from scratch (which a quite a bit different from many of the state schools in England from what I understand) . I also unexpectedly found myself mainly being a Primary teacher (2/3 of my workload) and having to teach subjects as diverse as English, Science and Design and Technology. If I needed any confirmation, this has given it to me, I am not particularly in favour of being a Primary teacher. A big process of adaption for me therefore, but something that will be temporary. I will be switching to part-time (and supplementing with Supply Teaching) at the school from next term and concentrating on my preferred teaching areas of RE and History. I will also be able to focus on secondary teaching from that point on.
Sherfield School, the manor building has an interesting
history of its own, despite the school being quite
young (coming on 3 years old)


My classroom


My lift from Bramley train station - not bad hey?

Well I am tired folks, but I have caught you up to within the past few weeks. In my next post I will update you on my trips to Windsor Castle, Hampton Court Palace and my recent week-long trip through Brussells, Luxembourg City and Paris. Cheers till then...