BB...

If you think I'm talking about Blackberries then think again...It's Winter...I'm talking about Boiler Breakdowns...dum dum dum (*horror music*)

That sentence - shouted from the shower at the top of your lungs - "Mum, the waters gone cold!" will most likely be uttered in the presence of close to freezing temperatures, never on a balmy summer afternoon or a fresh, mild spring day, nuh-uh has to be Winter.

The boiler ticks away just fine until you actually need it to do it's job annnnnnnnnndddddddddd 'poof' its out-like a light, for the full 10 seconds, KO. Story of my life I was going to say then I thought it'd be more apt to say story of everyone's life!

As you can imagine the inspiration for this piece of revolutionary writing, *ahem ahem* (me coughing at my ranting (raving) self, incredulously) was our own faithful (yeah right!) - the boiler.

Fortunately for us it was repaired pretty quick - accounting for the fact that it was xmas (2 days-ish) and we are now all warm and toasty.

It actually makes us very grateful for the things that we take for granted or even complain about, makes us realise that there are far too many who go without-not because they want to but because there's no other choice for them.

So despite our temperamental boilers lets all raise our hands and give a word of shukr...Alhamdulillah...

A nice hot cuppa...

I'm quite surprised...at myself...that I haven't written a blog about Tea yet (yes Tea with a capital T)

I love Tea although I try not to drink too much of it. It's a good thing too that I love Tea because I am (say it in a whisper) 'addicted' to it. If I don't have two cups a day I start getting really bad headaches. When I get these headaches I know that only caffeine can stop them and that's when it gets weird... because I feel like I'm a proper addict then.

When I have been deprived of my tea at its appointed time, I'm fine...at the beginning....and then it starts getting unbearable...eventually I just want to sit down and chuck the tea down my throat because I know as soon as the caffeine starts coursing through me, I'll be as right as rain. But at times I cant even wait for the tea to start doing it's thing, I feel like there must be a faster way to get this caffeine in to my body so my head can stop banging....and that is when even I start worrying, because my thoughts become a little scary...I will not share them with you here lest I scare you all off from reading my future blogs (if I haven't already) but all I can say is I kinda know how drug addicts feel.

All in all it's not just about needing the tea but I find that there is nothing more comforting and homely than a nice hot cuppa...especially in this 'wonderful' weather.

Comment if you haven't stopped reading yet....

Winter Ailments...

We all know when winter (probably should be autumn/winter) has arrived and it's not because of the biting cold or the rise in sales of scarves and gloves but probably because of the inability to get an appointment at the surgery until three weeks and the rise in sales of tissue boxes, tissue packets and other cough and flu related paraphernalia...

As winter arrives we all start coughing and sneezing and end up getting the flu or just a cold at least once in the season, more if you work with children.

I've mentioned (in place of the word mentioned feel free to insert the word rambled) the advantages of being a teacher-holidays, there are also many pitfalls, one of which will be always catching some ailment off the children.

So far this winter I have already had a two week cough, then a two week reprieve-and just when I thought I was home and dry, safe-a two week cold.

The worst thing about colds, coughs and snotty noses (I know - nasty) is that you can't sleep. These viruses just know when you're in bed and tired and want sleep to take over for a few hours, and this is when they will attack-full on, they will keep you lying awake most of the night smelling mentholated because you thought using half a tub of vaporub (more commonly known as Vicks) would do the trick.

But then it will subside and you will be left wondering what all the fuss was about until next year when it will come and attack once again.

I always give this advice to anyone who has a cold so I suppose I must mention it here too - Honey! I can not live without honey during my Winter days. I survive on the stuff. It is wonderful in soothing throats and getting the immune system back on track.

So all those who have been ailed by the Winter Ailments, I hope you get through them and remember Do Not Fear, Honey Is Here!!!

Ummm....Arrrrr....Emmmmm....Hmmmm...?!

You might be wondering what that title is all about, well do not fear dear readers, all shall be revealed...

There are a few things that I have a very low tolerance for, which you might call pet hates and I, probably, would never have noticed this streak of my personality if I didn't live with the people that I do...

I can not stand indecisiveness....I have no idea why it gets on every last nerve of mine but, there it is...I try to be patient but I don't really think patience is the problem. I am more than happy to explain something to someone a hundred times if they genuinely don't understand but are trying but, if I ask someone a straightforward non-confusing question, I usually want an answer sharpish otherwise I start behaving like someone who's desperate to use the loo...If you see what I mean...

A classic example is if I say to someone 'What do you want with your chips, mayo or ketchup?' And they look at me as if I've asked them where the keys of the universe are. I mean how hard can it be? Decide and tell me. At the rate a human brain is suppose to work this should take about half a second but no I must wait a whole 20 before I get an answer, adding to this I'm not really a gap filler, you know like some people feel the need to fill any gap of silence with some sort of noise even utter - to pinch a phrase- trosh. So you can imagine what that 20 seconds is like....silence with a few ums and ars from the person trying to make this momentous decision of MAYO or KETCHUP!

Related to this same pet hate is when someone stops you to say something to you, you look at them expecting  them to speak, do a dance, wave their arms about, anything! But instead you get another um or ar with a little bit of looking at the ceiling, thrown in for good measure, before they finally spout out whatever it is they want to say. My advice is if you don't know what you're going to say, don't stop me so that I can watch you not say  it, work it out in your head then come and let me know.

Reading this back, makes me sound cuckoo but life is too short for indecisiveness....

Thanks for reading, post a comment below if you have a pet hate you'd like to share...lets all let our CRAZY out....believe me, everyone has a CRAZY!

Behold the Masters of Doom...

...Ahem....I mean inspectors...If you teach at a school and especially if you are an independent faith school, inspection time is the most stressful. Personally, I am not too stressed by the whole inspection matter but what definitely stresses me out is other peoples' stress. When other people are stressed they start acting a little c-r-a-z-y to say the least, they start worrying about things which don't really matter, ranting and raving, making unreasonable demands and that's all before the inspection has even started.

It's understood that inspectors have a lot of 'power' so to speak. They are always associated with closing schools down, which rarely happens, more often than not they will just give you advice and requirements which you need to meet before a certain date. Which isn't too bad because once you know what to do, you can just do it. There is that little thing of inspectors reports, that if you get an 'unsatisfactory' then the school will get a bad reputation, but I think that if your generally concerned about education and your students and you actively teach in the best way possible, this shouldn't really be an issue.

We recently had an inspection...report will be out soon...I'm looking forward to reading it...I think teachers- and other members of the school- go through a lot during inspection, so for a second stop worrying about what the inspectors are going to say and give yourself a pat on the back for doing a pretty decent job...there's not many people who stick to it...

Holidays...

I'm a teacher...and I'm not sure if it's a teacher thing or just a me crazy but I'm forever looking forward to the holidays...even when the holiday just gone is closer than the holiday to come....

As soon as I'm back in school - first day of term - I'm like, "Sooooooo people when's our next holiday..."

I know some people feel like teachers get far too many holidays...like my dad...*cough cough*...every time I'm no longer getting up at 7 or whatever, he's like "Holidays? Again? Man, you teachers have it good..." But I think what some people don't get is that .... THE KIDS ARE CRAZY!!! If teachers didn't get their holidays we wouldn't be teaching, planning, marking or any other 'ing' except maybe one - bashing ....our heads against a wall, extreme measures so that we can feel sane and human again, to try and convince ourselves that we're not doing this for nothing...

But like I said...the holidays make it all worthwhile...well at least that's what I tell myself....*sigh*

A video for all the teachers...who need to know that what they do is brilliant and all the students who need to realise this...

Remember...

I'm sure that there are many things which have happened on this date....but when this date is mentioned it's always a certain event which comes to mind...9/11 or how we Brits would say it 11/9 ...not only did this event have a catastrophic impact on the USA but it had the same if not a bigger catastrophic impact on Iraq, Afghanistan and millions of others who have been wrongly persecuted because of this event, be they Muslim or not.

I don't know who was to blame and with all the conspiracy theories flying about it's hard to separate fact from fiction (although I should probably mention that if you look at the organisation, planning and skill that it must have taken for the incident to have been 'successful' I very much doubt, we (present day Muslims) could have pulled it off-without trying to sound mean, just stating a fact). What I do know though is that everyone understands that two wrongs don't make a right, so why anyone thought that to avenge the death of thousands of innocent people you must kill more innocents, destroy homes, families, lives and even generations, is still a complete mystery to me.

On this day we should remember all those civilians who lost their lives on 9/11 but we should remember that with this, hand in hand, comes remembering the innocents of Iraq and Afghanistan - And, finally, remember that one of the definitions of terror is ' Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.'

... and anywhere this definition can be applied is an act of terror....

Accents

So I have this thing about accents...(not in a weird way... maybe a tiny bit :-s) and I may be biased, being Mancunian myself, but I love the Mancunian accent....when I hear someone talking with a Mancunian accent I feel like I can understand them a lot better, like we're on the same wavelength....and that were.......homies (lol, don't think I can pull that word off)

The other day I was watching something and someone from Manchester came on and started talking as soon as I heard them I was like 'yup I so understand this person' like I cant understand anyone else...I think everyone else just sounds ... different...
But the Mancunian way of talking isn't the only one I like, although it's the one I feel most comfortable with, there are a few others I like listening to.....one of them being the Boston accent...also the Irish accent ...one of them anyway, the other not so good...

On the topic of accents there are a few that i'm not too fond of...the Yorkshire accent (sorry people) also the Welsh one sounds strange to me, not too fond of the London one either although I know many love it....
So let me know what you think of my weird world of accents and let me in to yours in the comments below....oh and before I forget..Siema R I think your accent is 'ayt' (did I pull that off.....no?.....no......oh ok.....)

The Possessed Washing Machine

When things break down in the house it has to be at the most in-opportunistic time...so eid is arriving and our washing machine broke down....*cue horror music*

My parents decided to go out on Sunday and get a brand new one....only hotpoint will do, they bought a washer and dryer, we installed it and it was looking all wonderful and innocent, sitting in its spot, brand spanking new, waiting to do the laundry and keep our clothes wonderfully clean....little did we know that our washing machine was possessed.....

We put on a wash and it was all going fine until it went on to the spin cycle....the machine started rocking and banging in to the pipes..not only that IT WALKED.....it literally moved around a foot forward and nothing you do could stop it...believe me I tried.....with all my might I pushed against the washing machine to keep it in place....my insides were vibrating, my arms were shaking, my tongue was hanging out and eyes were holding on to their sockets for dear life but it would not comply and then it started moving back in to its own position, this was through no effort of mine.....the machine itself started moving backwards in to its original spot until it hit the pipes at the back where it continued to 'head bang' ......this went on for around an hour and finally we thought it was going to do some damage to something so we paused it and took away it's life giving nectar...the electricity.....and again it sat their gleaming in its shiny 'newness', all innocent looking....pleading with us mentally 'please don't return me' .... but we will have no mercy that thing is going straight back to where it came from...hell......ehem...I mean Currys......

The case of the mysterious plant

I love plants, I especially love to grow things which you can then eat. Unfortunately  I live in a terraced house with no garden and a very small yard so the most we grow is small things in pots. So a while ago in one of our pots we saw something growing. We weren't sure about what it was but thought it might be a strawberry plant (my mum remembered throwing some strawberry seeds in there...) We waited for it to grow bigger so that maybe we could tell a little more. Eventually my mum decided to move it to another pot to give it a little more room to grow.

Anyway finally we decided that it wasn't a strawberry plant, we saw no strawberries and the leaves were just getting bigger. We knew it was something we just didn't know what......

And the case of the mysterious plant continued until the other day when my brother (who takes minimal interest in plants) said that its a type of spinach.....

Hmmmmmm...and so I went online to have a look at different types of spinach.....now it may well be spinach (savoy type)  but do we chance it and eat it or do we just leave it in case its something more sinister......

So what do you think it is? Let me know in the comments section below....

Negativity.....

So recently I have heard people being very negative about things which don't concern them. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions but when you start shoving them down peoples' throats i think the line must be drawn.

We need to be very careful about what we say concerning others and sometimes if it's non of your business you just got to have the common decency to 'butt out!'

When you are well aware that there are down sides and up sides to certain issues, you discuss them and take peoples' advice on board and ask for them to pray for you...then I would see the matter as closed. But no...the stirring and meddling must go on....its thrust in your face so often that you are now put off something you were dying to do.

I know it's a little clichéd but we need to learn to be more happy for others and we to learn to trust others' judgement especially if they've never given you reason to doubt it. More importantly we need to keep the faith and believe in the power of dua.....

Shopping....

I've been meaning to start a blog for a few days now (since Faatima of Faatimas' cup of tea started hers) but until now haven't had anything to blog about and then we ran out of icing sugar........

As many may know, i'm not a great shopper. i am easily frustrated by too many people and sometimes just rifling through things trying to find the perfect whatever but never actually doing so gets on my last nerve. Needless to say, shopping is definitely not my 'cup of tea'  ( ;-)  @Faatima)

Anyway, was making a cake the other day and to complete it I needed icing sugar. Checked in the cupboards but alas no icing sugar.....*eye roll*
So, today, decided to go to Asda and get some. Asked my mum if she wanted to come because I know how she loves shopping especially the supermarket kind....big mistake....

We were half way through the shopping and I was getting frustrated....too many people at 6:30 pm on a Monday. In fact there were so many people that I had to jog a marathon just to find one of those hand held green baskets. Due to some great fortune I didn't lose my mum during this time (and losing mum deserves a rant on its own)
Finally after searching for things, finding them, picking them up and then realising we probably wont like it and putting it back we stood  at the till with the shortest line of people we could find. But oh no we were there for ages. There were 2 women in front of us who had decided that they wanted to buy the entire Asda of all its food stuffs....so we waited...and waited...and waited and watched as the endlessly long line on the till next to us shortened rapidly...oh the irony of it........

During this time and in fact since we entered Asda my mother had an endless stream of something another to say. Now I don't mind if people want to talk about the same thing over and over but what I do mind is when they expect me to reply and participate in what I consider to be a monologue......
Mum-do you think the yoghurt will taste okay?
Me- I don't know it might taste a little flat
Mum-Aare you sure? Shall I get it?
Me- Up to you.... (this is when I think i've said my bit, don't need to say any more and want to zone out...)
Mum- go on tell me.....if I get it will you eat it then.....
Me- (no reply)
Mum- we already have enough yoghurt at home..should I get it?
Me-(no reply)
Mum- do you think it'll taste okay?
And round and round this conversation will go until I finally just have to say 'I don't care whether you get the yoghurt or not, if you want it get it i'm sure it'll be fine'
To which my mum promptly says 'Probably will be to flat, forget it, we wont get it.'

Any way enough ranting for today.....comment if you have similar experiences or thoughts OR if you just think i'm a nutter....