Thirteen weeks + 3

Xander has a brilliant teacher, and she has gone quite some way to allay his fears about getting changed in front of the other children, she's also told him that the teachers think he's doing really well, and is a smashing student, so that's a really good boost to his ego. I'm hoping we're going to have heard the end of this particular problem, but with Xander you never know. He and his classmates are off to The Black Country Museum for a school trip today, and he has to go dressed as an authentic Victorian child, he even asked for coal smudges on his face, well you do have to draw the line somewhere, and that was it. Still I hope they all have a good time, it's a great place for a school trip and at least it's close to home.

Tonight is the first of our visits to local colleges and 6th forms, but Neil keeps getting confused and asking me where King Eds is in Stourbridge, which won't help him as he's supposed to be taking Will to the Windsor School in Halesowen. I do hope they end up in the right place. I also hope Will likes it there as I think he'd do better in a 6th form than at college, it's a more structured environment, and I think they're more likely to notice if you're slacking off than at a college, not that I'm suggesting that he would, but this is Will we are talking about. What I really wish is that Summerhill still had a 6th form, I think there's a market for it, especially when they do so well there and so many of their students that go on to further education, but what do I know? I will, before tomorrow night, find out where to go and park for King Eds in Stourbridge, it's the college of choice for most of the pupils at Summerhill and I know many of his friends will be hoping to go there, I don't want Will to be coloured too much by that but I'm not stupid, he's not going to want to go somewhere that none of his friends are going to. Maybe we should look at Ounsdale 6th form as well, it's a bit nearer than Windsor but doesn't sound quite so cool, still what's in a name?

I'm officially employed, sad but true, by Larkshill Engineering, yes that's who Neil works for. As I did some work for them last week, and apparently did it really well (odd but true), Frank has decided I might be useful occasionally in the future, so he's put me on his books. Sounds a little painful but in actual fact it only involved Neil taking in my last P45 today, and I'm getting paid £10 an hour for the work I did last week, how amazing is that I'm a wage earner again, even if it's only a little bit and it's only now and again, it's something. Actually it was really good for my self esteem to actually be paid for using my brain, it was a boost I needed a lot more than I realised. There was a certain amount of banter around the dinner table last night though, involving the question of Neil being the boss of me, which he thought he could take advantage of in a humorous way, but Will advised him not too, as it wouldn't be worth it in the long run. Well you can imagine how that went, but it was all very funny. In actual fact while I was at Larkshill last week, it was funny,  I asked Mike (in the drawing office) to fetch Neil upstairs for me (because I wasn't prepared to use the tannoy system, would you?), and this other man (turned out to be Dick) in the office with him called me a "little minx" which was really funny, mainly because he didn't realise I was Neils wife, and he was apparently quite embarrassed when he did find out. So it's all going to be fun, isn't it?

I'm hoping for a peaceful start to the day today and that the boys don't fall out with each other, or me. I'm really sad to be missing this open evening this evening but I cannot miss another weeks lecture so soon , even if it is important, I will just have to trust my men to do what they need to, by themselves, of course that is all dependant on them turning up to the right establishment.