Colouring

One of my earliest memories of colouring was when I’d just started school. I was busy colouring in a picture with one of those fat wax crayons we used to use, when one of the boys came up to me and with the wisdom of his 6 years, told me that I had no sense of direction.

I used to be quite good at art later on in my school career and in my 40s went to lessons every Thursday morning which I enjoyed – and my teacher never, ever mentioned sense of direction.

When the children were small I loved colouring pictures in their colouring books for them. When Olivier was three and had his operation for glue ear, I bought him a colouring book and some crayons. He sat in bed and watched while I coloured in the pictures before his op. It had a calming effect on both of us.

Going back 12 or 13 years when I was teaching problem children; I had a stock of photocopies of intricate patterns to be coloured in by those who finished their work quicker than the others. A good way to keep them quiet and occupied while the others finished their work.

 Yesterday Rob and I went to the ‘media’ centre to buy my diary for next year – which they had not got – but I was drawn to a display of intricate colouring books, Inspired by the patterns on the walls of a Hammam. Who needs meditation when you can spend hours lost in colouring in? Well not exactly. I also treated myself to 24 crayola ‘super’tips. Apparently now it’s cool to colour.

I wouldn't have used that purple if I'd have know it would spread that far...

Spiderman reviews all of Crayola’s 96 colours.

About that phone

This week is exam week every morning for me. It’s gone very well considering I’ve been getting up at 5.15 in the freezing cold and had lessons and a clinic visit to fit in. Last day tomorrow.

One little incident which almost made me laugh out loud: I was with one of our few male colleagues. He’s a very nice man, a gentleman, he keeps well away from any flirting and teasing which goes on, that kind of gentleman. When he noticed that one of the students had her phone on the chair between her knees; Students aren’t allowed to have their phones on them during an exam, he confiscated it and wrote a report out. He wrote that the student had the “telephone between her legs” – sorry I have a dirty mind, I couldn’t help wondering if it was on vibrate…..

Breakfast anybody ?

As there was nothing much on TV last night Rob and I watched a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers (the one with the body and the Anniversary episode). I still find them hysterically funny. Anyway, I was reminded that John Cleese blogs too, so I went and looked at his blog to see what he’s up to. He’s recently been interviewed by a bunch of young men the Idiots of Ants. I’ve never heard of them, so if you have I'm sorry, but I’m out of touch with the English comedy scene unless it’s radio. This made me laugh so I thought I’d share it

Dom bought John Cleese’s book on psychology a year or so back, I must ask her to lend it to me.

Yoyos

When I was young I loved playing around with yoyos. I was never very good at it, but that was probably because I could only afford a cheap plastic one. In more recent years all three of my children have enjoyed yoyos and they were certainly more sophisticated than the ones I played with. I seem to remember one which lit up; needless to say mum had goes too.

I’m very tempted to start yo-yoing again now that I’ve discovered the existence of Yoyo Shop UK. You can buy yoyos online to your hearts content from beginners to pros, all colours and designs…. You can even by Tom Kuhn yoyos. You may well ask what or who is Tom Kuhn? Tom Kuhn is a dentist from San Francisco who makes amazing wooden yoyos. These are items of beauty as well as fun to use. You can’t get them from anywhere else in the U.K.

A yoyo might just be the stocking filler you were looking for and the postage is free…. I might just put one on my wish list.