slinking home with my tail between my legs

Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 17:35:01 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: slinking home with my tail between my legs.


Dear every one,

Thanks for all your good wishes and support but I am coming home. I bought my plane ticket yesterday afternoon and I will arrive in Melbourne on the 28th.

love you lots

ceels

with a whimper

There then followed an intense period of angst, depression, silver service, self doubt and house hunting. Many heart torn emails were sent homeward (I still can't read them), many hours were spent in tears on the pay phone in the stairwell of the hostel.

I worried about finding a job, a place to live and other things embarrassing to mention (okay, I'll mention - I became anxiously fixated on the idea that the Y2K was going to happen and it was too far to get home to mum). On the day I bought a ticket I got employment and I was offered a room to rent, and we all know that 1999 bowed out not with a bang, but a whimper...

I am a twit.

'k' for kicking king (just because I have left school, doesn’t mean I have to stop letterland)

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 11:24:25 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'k' for kicking king (just because I have left school, doesn’t mean I have to stop letterland).

Well, I have arrived in Edinburgh. I spent a lovely couple of days in the peak district staying in the village where Charlotte Bronte stayed when she started writing Jane Eyre and where Little John is buried. And it snowed and snowed and snowed. And everything was beautiful and the people I was staying with kept feeding me and feeding me. I tried to explain to them that I had been really quite sick in the previous two weeks, but they were a bit deaf and just kept offering me food.

I have found some sort of cheapish email place, which is still pretty xpensive so I will type fast. I am staying in the High street Hostel at 8 Blackfriars Rd. I am in a room with seven other girls.

I am on the top bunk by the door and there is a narrow aisle slightly wider than the door between the two sets of bunks. There is nowhere to keep my stuff, so I am sleeping with most of it. I am warm enough; it is actually warmer in the hostel than it was in my room at school. I had a shower last night and suddenly felt shy, so I went to the shower fully dressed. I, I who have been skinny dipping at Wannon Falls, Point Lonsdale and oh, that place near Rosebud; I who have been on nudie runs through paddocks and cemeteries and football ovals was too shy to go to the showers in a towel.

I don't know what to do now as far as finding work. I don't don't don't want to waitress. I don't know whether I should go to Aberdeen. Most places here did their recruiting for Christmas last week (it figures); there is the opportunity to do more work with little kids (woo hoo); or at a new place called the Wok Bar. I don't know.

I want to find somewhere to live with a stronger Scottish accent. At the moment all the girls in my dorm are Australian. never mind. Something will work out. I will soon stop feeling paralysed with the terror of making a decision and get something sorted.

Well I have another three minutes on the internet. So I am off

I love you all very much

ceels ____________________________________________________________

another day another nosebleed (‘j’ for jumping Jim)

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 16:43:57 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: another day another nosebleed (‘j’ for jumping Jim).

Once more I am knackered and once more I am sick. I was planning an early night last night. I was horrible last night and put all the girls to bed five minutes early because I was so tired. I planned to go down stairs and watch ‘Wives and Daughters’ (new costume drama from the makers of P&P) with Jenny in the B’s common room then go to bed.

At two minutes to nine, as I argued with the last of the A1s about whether it was fair that I was turning out the lights, someone started wailing. I went to investigate and found the new matron in Charlotte Rottenberg’s dorm panicking. Just as she had panicked the night before during the fire alarm. Admittedly there was blood pouring down Rotter’s face and she was in some considerable pain. The long and the short of it is that the Head of Boarding and I got to go to the Dorset county hospital in Dorchester. I sat in the back and cradled Rotter’s head in my lap and Eleanor (the head of boarding) and I kept her talking. The story is that she bent down to pick up the curtain sash and whacked her head on the sharp edge of the radiator. And there was certainly blood all over the radiator. Anyway, Rotter is now covered in stitches and is the centre of attention and I am knackered.

Yesterday there was a roller disco and I was coaxed into strapping on a pair of roller skates. Mmmmm. I didn’t fall over. I also got to watch some of the BBC Pride and Prejudice (oh Lizzie, how unfortunate we all seem to be). It would have been very relaxing and all except that the girls insisted on watching it with us. And, no matter how well intentioned they are, you just can’t make twenty pre-adolescent girls sit quietly.

Oh, and today at lunch (I know I keep going on about the stuff, but it is such a part of my life) Molly has a cold and one stage she coughed and coughed and coughed. She went bright pink and tears poured down her face. I asked her if she was okay and she said yes. A minute later she said, ‘My nose feels all a bit gluey.’ I replied ‘Oh yes, do you want to blow it?’ and she said, ‘Yes, phhhhttghhh’ and blew a bucket load of snot straight down her chin. What could I do but cry ‘Molly’ and go and get a tissue? You will be pleased to hear that Jack M ate all his shepherd’s pie.

I was in the nursery today because Yasmin is sick. The nursery is not a good place to be when you are so tired you can’t see straight. You definitely need to be on the ball if you want to stay a step ahead of these kiddies. they were all doing poos today. And telling me. They take extraordinary pride in doing poos, and what can I say to them but ‘well done’.

Jen has joined me in the computer room. Us Aussies need our email to keep us sane. We are both being terribly wicked using the internet during the day, but I think I speak for both of us when I say ‘asparagus’.

It may surprise everybody to hear that it is raining. Dull November dark and nippy, making roads and pavements slippy.

The weather has been unseasonably mild this past week, but all that has changed. Hey, the nineties are nearly over. Sorry, only just realised. With all the rant about the end of the millennium I’d forgotten that the nineties are ending too. Goodbye nineties. Most of the kids at this school were born in the nineties. Scary thought. Scary Spice, a lasting icon of the nineties. One of the girls last night started singing ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and I threatened to send her to bed early for a week if she didn’t stop. She stopped singing, but she didn’t think I was serious.

You can turn out the younger kids lights early because they can’t tell the time. All you need in a dorm is one irritating little kid with a watch and the ability to read it. ‘But we’ve got seven minutes’. The easiest way with little kids is to not answer, if you allow yourself to be drawn into a response you’ll be there for hours. I am going to miss them. Last night Aggie was telling me how she had sneezed seven times in a row. I raised an eyebrow and said ‘Serious?’ she said ‘Yeah... isn’t it funny how you go tingly all over when you sneeze lots of times’ and people, that was nearly the end of me.

I have a nasty suspicion that I have tonsillitis.

I have a nasty suspicion that I haven’t got the job at the national theatre, but I am too tired to care.

But I am off now to do break duty.
love you lots,
ceels ____________________________________________________________

'i' for impy ink

Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 11:22:48 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'i' for impy ink.

This is the email I meant to send last time, but the email god (in its wisdom) chose not to send it. So here goes:

Well folks. I conquered London. I stepped of the train at Waterloo with the deep conviction that London was going to conquer me. My brain was already overloaded with what I had seen from the train windows of the suburbs.

The bus I caught from Blandford to Salisbury goes to the Blandford army camp. A soldier gets on the bus at the gate and won’t let you on or off the bus unless you have the right passes. He has a gun to enforce this. And the way people lived there looked depressing as hell. London was worse. Line after line of ugly little houses. All exactly the same. All squashed in. Flat and dark and grubby.

Before I left, the Alpha girls piled me with advice about how not to get pick pocketed and who not to talk to and who to ask for directions. They are thirteen. They seem to know what they are taking about.

I had the good fortune of a lovely sunny day (no doubt thanks to Ed). Having just got over the whole big grotty London thing between Waterloo Station and the National Theatre (where I had my job interview) I went for a walk along the Thames. And was floored again by Big Ben and the whole caboodle. And by the woman sitting under the bridge with her baby, begging for money. I looked at her and she told me she was starving and I didn’t give her any money. I bought a book of Latin poems (Virgil Ovid Catullus Horace). I don’t know what my reasons were for not giving her money and I don’t know what they would have been if I had.

I went back to the theatre feeling nervous exhaustion and the desperate need for a good coffee. Instead I went and had a fifteen-minute tour of the theatre complex. Then an interview with Lisa and Tony. They said they wanted it to be a relaxed interview then grilled me for half an hour. I tottered out of the ugly grey building (it matched the rest of the grot) and gazed about dazedly, wondering what to do with my self for the two hours before my train went back to Salisbury.

I eventually found my way back to Waterloo (you would not believe how many times during the day I went up to somebody, smiled sweetly and asked in my politest voice for directions) and caught the tube to Tottenham court rd. one of the ladies in choir on Wednesday night said to go there and for lack of any idea at all (my brain had just packed it in) I went.

If I had had any sense at all I would have remembered that I have always wanted to go to Piccadilly Circus and gone there. At Waterloo I asked one of the information guides were to go to catch the tube and he pointed over my shoulder at the enormous glowing sign saying ‘UNDERGROUND’.

At this point I feel I should interrupt my narrative to thank Gubbi for teaching me not to fear escalators. (And she is right. You can’t get sucked into the bit where the escalator disappears). And also large shopping complexes. If not for you Gubbi. I would have collapsed on the spot.
I am afraid to say I got sucked straight in to a Virgin Megastore and after much deliberation bought two CDs. The only defence I have for buying the Dawson’s Creek soundtrack is that I also bought Tom Waits’ Small Change. I am listening to them as I write as the computer room is the only place I have access to a CD player.

Having made my purchase I walked straight out the door into the arms of a con artist. She made some comment like ‘You wouldn’t be from London would you?’ and I (foolish foolish naive foolish ceels) thought ‘Oh lovely, someone wants to talk to me.’

(I pause here, sigh, and shake my head).

And said ‘oh, no, actually I am from Australia’ and she said something trite. She was collecting for something that was never really made clear and had a little book with people’s first names and how much they had given. I started to back away but I was trapped by the flow of people behind me. She said, pencil poised, ‘If you’ll just tell me your name’ and I thought ‘The bollocks I will’ and said (yes I did) ‘If I give you my name, I’ll have to give you money.’ She sensed she was loosing me and attacked again. At which stage I was completely befuddled. I tried the ‘I’m on a tight budget routine’ and she countered it with something else. Finally I showed her the coin pocket in my wallet. 41p.
Now I'm still not sure if she brushed those 41p into her bag or if I tipped my hand. But I was stinking cross. It sort of spoiled my day a bit. Sort of. I was cross about it until I went to bed last night. The tube back was hell and involved more questions ‘Am I going the right way? Am I going the right way?’

When I got on the train I checked my bus timetables for Salisbury-Blandford and discovered that I would have an hour and twenty minute wait in Salisbury. I was so tired and shattered that I thought about crying. And it turned out to be fine. There was a jazz trio on one of the streets playing some truly good music, so I sat with them for a while. Then there was a Christmas parade with a brass band. Then I found a bookshop open late and browsed. I got back to school, phoned home, and collapsed into bed.

I was supposed to get a reply about the job this afternoon, but have heard nothing. So I wait. I am sure there are other things I meant to tell you about London but I can’t remember what they are. The tube really was like the tunnels they run rats through.

London was like all the buildings in Australia squashed into a really small place. I got attacks of claustrophobia walking down the streets. and it was all grubby, even in the sunshine. I think if I live there it will knock some of the corners off my innocence, if that is the right word. And I had a really nice cheese and pickle roll from ‘the upper crust’ on the way home on the train.

Tonight I felt my first stir of patriotism. We were having dinner and laughing about the confusion caused by Jenny’s and my use of the word ‘pants’. Which we understand to mean trousers and the English understand to mean ‘undies’. Then the French mistress (who is English) and the new matron (who is dumb as two short planks) started spouting off about how Australian English had been corrupted by Americanisms then started getting all up themselves (and there is no other way to put it) about how superior they were because they spoke the queen’s English. And I got so cross for so many reasons. And all the hackles of national pride I never knew I had stood on end. And I got het up and started arguing with them. Indicating that I was offended because I have been speaking English all my life and Australia has its own identity and use of language that has developed quite independently of America and England. And I how suspect my version of English is closer to the queen’s than theirs (actually I didn’t say that, but I sure as hell thought it.) then I realised my natural superiority and calmed down and tried to make a joke.

I suggested that the only reason I could never stay in England long-term was because they don’t have Tim-tams. ha ha ha. And the French mistress got all sniffy and said she was sure if she ever went to Australia she would not judge it by what products it did or did not have.

I left it at that.

love you all, it is time for bed.

ceels ____________________________________________________________

I just realised that I am running out of time to finish the alphabet. Today we have 'f' for fireman Fred, 'g' for golden girl and 'h' for hairy hat ma

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 00:05:42 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: I just realised that I am running out of time to finish the alphabet. Today we have 'f' for fireman Fred, 'g' for golden girl and 'h' for hairy hat man.

____________________________________________________________

'e' for eddy elephant (or 18 more days to go)

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 20:08:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'e' for eddy elephant (or 18 more days to go).

Well, all the girls are back after exeat. I have to keep reminding myself how much I love them. they take it in turns, about three at a time, to be naughty.

Sometimes it is the same girl over and over and over, but mostly they seem to have a roster.

Today most of them have been quite vile, I have been lied to so many times that I splutter, just thinking about it. And the tantrums, let me tell you about the tantrums. I would like to make an open apology to my mum for any tantrum I have ever thrown. All of them. Even if I wasn’t over-reacting or was really really tired. I am sorry mum. I can’t remember how many there were, but one is enough. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a liar though.

Today I have heard every thing from ‘I can’t wear that jumper it doesn’t fit me’ to ‘no I haven’t had any biscuits’. Yes folks, earth stopping stuff. But if one more little girl tells me one more bare faced lie, I’ll I’ll I’ll do nothing because really, what can I do. I can’t thump them. I can’t swear at them and I can’t really send them up to bed early for stealing biscuits. The other day one of the year six girls was doing her best to convince one of the year three girls that Gemma Wilson had just been run over by a car. The year three girl was nearly hysterical that one of her best friends had just been squashed when I walked in.

I am reasonably confident that Sarah Brady will never again try and make the little girls cry.

I have my new fleece on. I love my new fleece. I can almost imagine I am somewhere warm when I am wearing it. Of course it makes me look like an enormous fluffy blue peach. And I think the answer to the question ‘does this jumper make me look like a pogga’ is 'Yes, yes it does'.

But at least I am a warm pogga. The line between vanity and warmth was left behind long ago. This damn frostbitten country.

Oh, can I tell you. They have here mandarins, tangerines, clementines and satsumas (they all bloody look like mandarins to me) but no Timtams. I have become quite addicted to the McVities chocolate coated digestives though. Not quite the same thing but strangely appealing. But I will never like the peas. And I do not understand why they take perfectly good fresh vegetables, boil them in heavily salted water until they could be strained then drown them in oil or butter (or both). What a waste. And no bloody wonder they eat so much gravy on meat. Every thing tastes like it has been cooked too long. Savages. I just hold up my hand and say ‘vegetarian’.

That is all my exciting news folks, except that it is Saint Cecilia’s day today. Pretty exciting. Oh and I have a job interview in London on Thursday (it was going to be tomorrow, but gear happened).

I am getting out of the school for a day. I am getting out of the school for a day.

love you lots
ceels ____________________________________________________________

'd' for dippy duck

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 19:02:19 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'd' for dippy duck.


Finally. I have found the keys. Or rather, someone has put them back where they belong so I can once again steal them and sneak to the computer room when nobody is about. The school has had an inspection this past week. This is something that happens in England. I don’t think it happens in Australia. So all the teachers have been stressed out and really shitty. which of course has made our lives so much easier.

This last week has easily been the longest of my life, I have been working practically full time since Saturday last. And in the nursery this is no laughing matter. I collapsed into bed last night and slept for twelve hours straight. woke up. Then slept for another three hours.

This afternoon I went to Salisbury. Eleanor (the Maths and Latin teacher) was going with her fiancé to buy an engagement ring so Jenny and I got a ride. We went to see the Cathedral and I was suitably impressed. I got to see the Magna Carta (one of four existing copies).

We had to leave in a hurry because Jenny was meeting a friend at the bus station at eight past three. I have to admit that we went into Maccas and I had the chicken burger (and feel correspondingly shithouse now) and (the highlight of my day) I bought an enormous fleece. I am wearing it now and it just might keep me from freezing to death while I’m over here.

Did I complain about the cold earlier? Over this past week the temperature has plummeted and there is a bone biting wind. I didn’t know what I was complaining about before. I now fully understand what it is to have chapped hands and lips. And apparently it is going to get colder. I also can’t believe the dark. I see the dark at four o’clock in the afternoon, but I don’t believe it.

The weather over the last couple of days is working on convincing me not to go to Edinburgh for the winter. Ideally I’d like to go to Penzance, which is about as south as you can go. but have been advised against it because everybody leaves. Hmmmmmmmm. Salisbury is a pretty place. But it was raining and I don’t really want to go somewhere where it’s raining.... Bath has been suggested to me and Stratford on Avon and Cambridge. I don’t know. I am still too tired to make decisions like that. besides I still have twenty days (all the time in the world!).

I am all for writing down a few names, popping them in a hat and drawing one. I will wait and go to Edinburgh in March. Or maybe it would be a good thing to be able to say I’ve lived through a northern winter (assuming I lived through it). I don’t know (I wail).

I made another achievement on Friday. I took Jordan up to get his nappy changed, but Grace, one of the little pre-prep girls, vomited all over herself and up the corridor (you wouldn’t believe how much one of these little people can hold). As a result matron was a bit busy. So I gritted my teeth, and changed it myself.

Yay ceels I say.

Any way, I love you all but I have to leave before my fingers drop off with the cold.
ceels ____________________________________________________________

'c' for clever cat

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 21:24:28 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'c' for clever cat.

Everyone at this school is paranoid. Yes they are. And they are all determined to send me on an enormous guilt trip. They are all convinced that I am constantly trying to shirk my work. They all think I am stupid. And they all think that I behave like the children (so my voice was a bit loud and the inspectors were in the next room). The inspectors are here this week so everybody has gone panic stations and have started flinging about the buckets of stress that they have been lugging for the last two months.

They got shirty with me today. They didn't say anything directly, like 'get off the phone' but made snide comments and said things like 'What! Are you still on the same phone call?' 'I hope the school isn't paying for that call', and generally belittled me. I didn't know that I was tying up the main line and nobody else could get through. They should have more than one line any way. They could have just said 'get off the phone.' but no, they are so blinking polite they could only give me withering stares and rude comments.

I am apparently not supposed to use the computers, but I figure they can't make me feel guilty about it if they don't catch me. So I sneak down here way late at night and let my self in.

On a brighter note, there are 25 days till I leave and the new nursery teacher is one of the acest people I have met since I came to England. So the rest of my days here are going to be pleasant.

I am getting along well with the girls and I will really miss them, I have promised to come back and visit before I return to Australia. The girls whom I do toe-by-toe (literacy program) with are improving in leaps and bounds. Last night I was sitting in one of the dorms chatting to Maddy and Aggie (Madeline and Agatha) just before lights out and Maddy made the connection between Ireland being and island and being called Ireland, and the two words sounding the same. It sounds pretty boring but it was quite something to see her face. It all lit up and looked like Christmas.

I did reading with the pre-prep today and Alice finished a whole book and was very proud of her self, she got a star. I read with Hector next and the last time we read together he finished a whole book and he was determined to do it again (and some times on the weekends he finishes two whole books). He did and also received a star.

I had another nasty snot experience. I am sorry to keep going on about the stuff, but it is a major part of my life. You wouldn't believe how blasé I have become about holding the tissue for the kids to blow their noses. Any way. You would imagine that kids who sneeze would be as cute as kittens who sneeze, or puppies. On Friday we were all sitting around for story time in the nursery and Lauren went 'hhuuh, huh huh.... (and her eyes were all scrunched up and cute)...hhhuhh, choooo.' and two long opaque candles of snot went shooting out of her face and landed in two bulgy lumps on the floor. Was I disturbed? I just stood, got a tissue and picked the little boogers up.

Bravo ceels I say.

But, I gotta sneak off again,
love you all
ceels ____________________________________________________________

'b' for bouncing Ben

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 21:03:58 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'b' for bouncing Ben.

I really really really want to say a naughty swear word. Not for any good reason, just because I am not allowed. I am not even allowed to say 'bloody'. It was difficult at the beginning because 'bollocks' and 'bugger' were prominent parts of my general vocabulary.

And the pressure is building. I not only want to say mildly offensive words like 'shit' but I want to let fly with the occasional 'fire truck' and that word that Virge used to use all the time (she said something about reclaiming it, that sounds fair enough to me, but I don't know that it would go down so well with the head mistress) I want to say wicked bad things. I want to run up and down the corridor shouting them. I don't want to get kicked out of the school just yet.

I am making good use of expressions like 'fruit cake' and 'sugar' and 'oh gosh'. I tried to explain that it was okay to say 'bugger' now because there is this ad on the telly back home, no one was convinced. The teachers think I am crass. That might have something to do with the stories I tell at dinner. Everybody laughs, but I think they think I’m crass.

The children are behaving splendidly. I went out on the geography field trip this afternoon (mapping Durweston) and nobody got run over. I have discovered why everybody had hang ups about food. It is because the only way to make children eat the things that are good for them is to bribe them with the things that aren't. 'Kaleb, if you don't eat any more chicken then you can't have any pudding. Good boy Timmy, here have some a big helping of pudding. See Kaleb, Timmy has been a good boy and eaten all his cauliflower.'

Dreadful.

But enough of that, it is about time I was in bed.

lots of love
ceels

'a' for Annie apple

Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 22:39:19 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: 'a' for Annie apple.

Tonight the girls celebrated bonfire night. Real bonfire night was the 5th (Friday) but it was held for the girls tonight. They started with fire works on the front lawn and then moved to the bonfire paddock for an enormous bonfire with all the old hay bales and old school furniture.

The fire works were incredible; I have never seen fire works like them. They whizzed and banged and swirled and some of them went squealing into the air and some exploded into huge flowers and then the ends exploded as well and it was all very Mary Poppins and Enid Blyton. I say yay for Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot. And a better use for gun power I have yet to see.

When I think of it the only other live fireworks I think I’ve seen have been at Port Fairy. But still it is pretty amazing that a school as small as this would get someone so professional to put on a show. Most of the daygirls were there as well as the boarders and most people’s parents and they stood around talking and being very British. It was quite an amazing experience and I felt as if I was being given a chance to see how somebody else’s life worked.

Today has been a full day all in all. I baby sat for the Ruddy children the last two nights so this morning I slept in till nine. Then I had a lovely time reading and lazing about. This afternoon the girls’ outing was to the cinema. As they were watching Tarzan I decided to go along too. I don’t know if it is just because it has been so long since I saw a movie or because my brains are getting soft working with all these kids, but I loved it. It was a fantastic film. I think it was largely the fact it was a cartoon and who can help but love cartoons. The girls told me off after we left for laughing too much. My enjoyment was possibly aided by the consumption of a mars bar and vast quantities of coke.

I nearly killed my first child on Thursday. I mean, I really did. I was supervising the climbing frame in nursery (not a job for the faint of heart) and Menna and Oscar were lying underneath one of the platforms. They are heavy boards and chocked on the inside to keep them from slipping. Menna and Oscar pushed it up and one of the ends slipped. I grabbed the other end saying ‘Don’t do that it’ll fall,’ and it did. It landed an inch and a half from Oscar’s sweet little head and my heart almost burst.

On the same day I made one of the pre-prep kids on my table at lunch cry. It was Jack Morant, he doesn’t like eating most things and I told him if he didn’t eat two more mouthfuls of quiche and at least one slice of carrot then he wasn’t having any pudding. As it was chocolate pudding this was a fairly major threat, his responding tactic was to have a tantrum, which I duly ignored as I served the others their pudding. He threatened to vomit and I said he would still have to eat the quiche. He said he was never coming to school again and I told him that was fine. Finally the pudding got too much for him and he worried down the required allotment of food, retching and gagging all the way.

There are a lot of Jacks here, the one I mentioned, plus Jack Langmead, Jack Smail, Jack Ruddy, Jack Jones and Jack Crisfield. In the main school there is Charlotte Rottenburg, Charlotte Gregory, Charlotte Cawthorn, Charlotte Jackman and Charlotte Hannam. They are all borders. I was very confused when I first got here. There are also lots of names like Hermione, Marina, Tatiana, Beatriz, Madeline, Agatha, Eloise, Henrietta, Harriet and the like.

Well I really must go, I am going to watch Buffy, it is on at ten past eleven but I am allowing myself a treat and staying up long past my bedtime.

love you lots
ceels ____________________________________________________________

Questionnaire thingy

Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 19:38:12 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: Questionnaire thingy.

The Game:
OK, here's what you have to do. Copy this entire e-mail and change all the answers so they apply to you.
Then send it to everyone you know, including the person who sent you this.

So you should get back a lot of "get to know you" e-mails too. You might learn a few things about your friends that you didn't know before!

Please take 15 minutes out of your day to do this. It's really interesting what you find out.

1. Name given at birth?
C J M C.

2. Nickname/s
Ceels, Squeals, Squealia, Celie, Celie-bug, KingandI, Ceiling, Kooky.

3. Favourite words
All of them. I used to keep lists of ones I especially liked. Creole, suppurating, lithe, bollocks, purple, kitten, wander...

4. Home town
Warrnambool.

5. Current residence
School, Dorset, UK.

6. Croutons or bacon bits
Croutons.

7. Favourite salad dressing
Vingette (is that how you spell it? the stuff that Virge makes with balsamic vinegar and mustard and garlic and olive oil) any way, love the stuff

8. Shampoo or conditioner
Depends on how I feel or how little time I have or what mood my hair is in.

9.Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?
Often.

10. Do you make fun of people?
ummm, maybe, I try not to.

11. Favourite colour
Green (except snot green).

12. Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
Nope.

13. One pillow or two, cotton or feather?
At the moment two, but I don’t know what’s in them. They belong to the school, so I figure it is safer not to ask. I’ve got two pillowcases on each one, just in case.

14. Pets?
I’d like to have a cat, but I miss our old cat Cumquat too much and am obviously not in a position to keep pets. I met a fantastic Irish wolfhound the other day. You’d want a big house though.

15. Favourite music
Everything but bad techno and boot-scooting music. I am especially fond of ‘Miss Polly had a dolly’ ‘Five little speckled frogs, (sat on a speckled log)’ ‘I have ten fingers’ and ‘The grand old duke of York’. A bit of ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ never goes astray, but we are all sick of ‘Baa baa black sheep’.

16. Hobbies
Nothing that would be classed as a hobby, not at the moment. I read when I get the chance and watch Buffy now that it’s back on. Picking playdough out of the tracks of my shoes. Hiding from the children on my weekend off. Yup.

17. Toothpaste
Colgate Total, at the moment I have the stripy one, but it’s not as good.

18. Favourite food
Chocolate, apples, cheese and bread.

19. What happened to question 19?
Don’t know, don’t care.

20. Favourite town to chill in
Port Fairy, or is that boring? Womboyn.

21. Favourite ice-cream flavour
Cookies and cream. If I am in a cookies and cream mood, or ferrero rocher (from that gelati shop in Lygon street)

22. Favourite drink (non alcoholic)
Raspberry lemonade. I’d kill for a decent coffee. Peppermint tea.

23. Adidas, Nike or Reebok
Huh? Non-sporting person here.

24. Favourite perfume/cologne
That one that Pip showed me in Myer once.

25. Favourite Website
The one where the man is all sliced up into little sections and you can see all his insides.

26. Favourite subject at school
Maths, Mr Grigg used to call us turkeys; and English, Mrs Cooke was a star; and English lit. Can’t pick between them.

27. Least favourite subject at school
Legal, anyone who knew my legal teacher would understand.

28. Favourite alcoholic drink
A quiet ale, I was getting quite fond of Guinness, anything sickly sweet.

29. Favourite sport to watch
Anything with horses, not much else.

30. Humiliating moment-
I have a particularly vivid memory that I have never told anybody about. It doesn’t seem very embarrassing but it was bad enough at the time that I still remember it now, some 14 years later. We were playing soccer on the oval for sport and the ball was coming towards me. I kicked as hard as I could (not very hard, let me tell you) and it went up into the air. It was caught by the wind and flew straight back over my head to Jonathan Morrow who then kicked a goal for the opposition. Brendan Greene jeered at me. I could have died. Mum told me ‘don’t worry, no one will remember’. But I did.

31. Craziest or silliest idea-
Um, hello? How am I meant to pick? (cf. email address)

32. What do you look for in the opposite sex?
A really great bum.

33. Say one nice thing about the person who sent this email
Vaughan sends me nice emails, which make me smile.

34. Person you sent this to, that is least likely to respond
Ummm, my brother because RMIT is blocking hotmail.

____________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 19:41:16 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject:

I am drowning. I am drowning in the rising tide of my own snot. My lungs are filled. My nose is raw and it feels like all the fog and mists of this damned river valley have settled in my chest. Silly country. Silly weather. Silly English k-niggits.

Yesterday was Halloween. The silly English people got all excited about it.

Actually, one of the B1 girls brought back this amazing pumpkin she had carved. It looked like a series of geometric shapes until it was lit. It was an incredibly realistic vampire face; I wish you could see it.

We lit it fifteen minutes before lights out. The vampire looked a little like it was moving and there were bats projected onto the ceiling. I sat in the dark with them as they told ghost stories. They weren’t very scary. They convinced me to tell one and I terrified them, I had to back pedal like mad and in the end just before Toby, Olivia, Simon, and Emma, met a dark and dastardly fate, it turned out that it was Emma’s little brother James who had been scaring them all along. Then I was cross-examined, ‘But how was he blowing out the candles?’ ‘But how did the face on the pumpkin move?’ ‘But why didn’t they just....’ (bless em).

As it turned out I was the one who had nightmares. You know the ones where you leap out of bed and out the door because there is something climbing through the wall and you don’t realise you are dreaming till you wake up in the corridor shivering with cold. Well. I have those dreams.

I have to go and return the keys now.

all my love
ceels ____________________________________________________________

Step 5 in Celia's hints for healthy living: don't have the flu jab

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 11:28:55 +0000 (GMT)
From: Ceels
Subject: Step 5 in Celia's hints for healthy living: don't have the flu jab.

Today is a lovely day so naturally I am in the computer room writing emails and job applications. Today is the last day of half-term holidays. All the boarders will be coming back to night and school starts as usual on Monday. As of tomorrow there is only six weeks to go (42 days, count with me kiddies).

As yet I have no idea what I am going to be doing next. I have a fanciful plan whereby I rock up in London on the 12th, find a place to stay and land a job (can it be that hard?). Apparently there is a magazine called TNT that advertises jobs for aussies (and other riff-raff who have found their way to the mother country and are in grave need of civilisation) I just have to work out how to get hold of it.

All in all it has been a good half term. I have done exactly nothing, but that was the joy of it. I was sick for the first half, but I have practically forgotten about that already. After the first couple of days where literally all I did was sleep, I had a lovely time planning what I would do with the rest of the year. At times scaring myself silly because it is all a bit frightening setting off into the real world (because I might be doing that this time, you never know).

Speaking of being scared silly, I was walking through the Bryanston woods the day before yesterday. It was two o’clock in the afternoon and foggy. My breath was coming out in great white clouds. It was incredibly beautiful with all the leaves falling.

Except in The Hangings.

I don’t know why that part of the woods is called the Hangings but it was dead still, no falling leaves, little tendrils of mist lurking around. I laughed ‘ha ha ha’ and walked a little quicker.

Then, yesterday, it was blowing a gale and there were flurries of leaves falling and thousands of them being blown in huge clouds across the Bryanston lawns. It was amazing and easy to see why people believe that the wind is a spirit of something. Just before I got to the Hangings an enormous gust of wind and leaves swirled up around me.

In the Hangings it was dead still.

You could still hear the wind, but in the Hangings not a single leaf fell. I would like to say that I strode through with womanly disregard for the spooky atmosphere. In reality I crept through with wet muddy boots and leaves plastered in my hair.

Out the other side I met a guy painting the speed humps. He was getting pretty shirty with the leaves because they kept sticking to his white lines. ____________________________________________________________

Waking up every morning in the dark

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 20:24:24 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: Waking up every morning in the dark.

I have just now escaped from the A’s common room. They trapped me in there to listen. They recon they can hear some thing in there whispering ‘I can see you, I can see you’ I told them that was bollocks. I didn’t tell them about the school ghost though (and I didn’t actually say bollocks).

The first night I walked along the main corridor in the dark, I had the distinct impression that there was someone following me. I looked and there was nobody there. I licked my lips, swallowed and very firmly told myself it was just a trick of the echoes. The next day at tea I made an off-hand comment about it. Mr Burnett, the deputy head, was standing just in front of me. He went very white and took me aside where the children couldn’t hear and asked me about it. Apparently he had had a similar sensation walking the same way in the same corridor and then went on to tell me all about Ellen, the Grey Lady who stands in the foyer, holding the hand of her son Timmy and laughing softly at anyone who talks to her. Have I mentioned this before???

I had the flu jab this morning. I was very brave and Matron gave me a smartie. I have a temperature now and I am being a wuss and Matron said, ‘Yes, you’ve got a temperature, go away and don’t bother me.’

I guess I should explain why I am leaving the school some eight months sooner than I was. It is not because I am sick of it or because I have killed any of the little girls, it is because the new headmistress doesn’t want any aussies next year. So I am looking for something new to do. If any one has any (sensible) suggestions I would be pleased to hear them. At the moment I am looking at cruise ships.

The pre-prep autumn fair is on on Friday and Jenny and I are busy making things to sell on the gifts stall. Or rather, we are racking our brains trying to think of something to make for the gifts stall given our limited resources. It is fun sitting around doing crafty stuff though.

Half term break begins on Friday. This will be good. I am going to go to sleep for the first bit (maybe three days) then I am going to explore the countryside. I was speaking to the Vicar yesterday and he suggested a walk over a nearby hill whose name I can’t remember and take a packed lunch as it will take all day to get there and back again.

Right now I am going to go up to my room and sleep.

love you

I stepped on my first child

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 15:00:45 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: I stepped on my first child.

I have a day off today and it is quite lovely. I have been up in my room chilling and in front of the telly chilling and now I am in the computer room chilling. I have not decided what to do with the rest of the afternoon, maybe a bath and some more telly. I have been reading Sherlock Holmes as that seems a properly British thing to do. I have to admit that I have completely fallen in love with Holmes, this is the second time I have fallen in love with a fictional character (if you don’t count cartoon characters and Jean-Luc Picard). And my heart is quite broken that he does not love me back. I have the entire collection (borrowed form the library) so I have many more hours to spend in his company (all is not lost). I also borrowed a book called ‘High Fidelity’ by Nick Hornby from Jenny; it is about a guy and his angst filled relationships with women.

I stepped on my first child Friday night. It is my weekend on duty and I was up in Flo Night (the youngest girls’ dorm) and they were all being silly beans and jumping all over me. Of course I lost balance and trod on Florence. She yowled and I thought I saw blood on her toe. I thought that was it. I thought I would be on the next bus home. Fortunately, it was just an old bit of nail varnish and she was being melodramatic.

The small ones have all gone off to Splashdown today. They tried to convince me to come too, but by way of argument I hid in my room until the bus left. Splashdown is in Poole and is a collection of slides and fun water stuff. I did not fancy the idea of looking after 17 little girls in the midst of all that fun stuff.

We already had one accident this week when Phoebe was jumping from one concrete seat to another and slipped. She hit her shin and fell to the ground. In a bright voice I got half way through saying ‘Oh Phoebe, are you all right poppet?’ when I noticed that you could see her shinbone. She noticed too and let out a wail. It just went on and on and on, there were fifty-odd other girls standing around because they’d just finished a netball match against another school. I was standing amongst them trying to calm Phoebe and get a teacher’s attention at the same time. Meanwhile, she was wailing and the blood was dripping.

Once she got over the shock (and the trip to the Dorchester hospital and the stitches and the loss of blood) she was quite happy. She was an instant celebrity (it doesn’t take much).

I am feeling lacking in vitamins so I am going to go and eat a banana.

love you lots ____________________________________________________________

Smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast

Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 19:35:09 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: Smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast.

Could somebody please explain to me why farts are so funny? I gave my talk on farming in Australia; the kids sat on the floor and put up their hands when they wanted to ask questions. There was a lot of stretching the hand high in the air going:

‘eeengh eeeengh eeengh.’
‘Yes Robert.’
‘Are there any lions in Australia?’
‘No Robert.’
‘eeengh eeeengh eeengh.’
‘Are there any tigers?’
‘No Robert’,
‘eeengh eeeengh eeengh’
‘Yes Ruth’
‘Are there ko-ahh-lahs in Australia?’
‘Yes Ruth, but we are talking about salination and soil degradation as a result of excessive irrigation and inappropriate farming techniques.’

I was just telling them how good the dairy farming was in Victoria’s southwest when Jack Langmead let rip an enormous fart. Of course because he was sitting on the floor it resonated beautifully. I get the giggles now just thinking about it. Naturally it happened shortly after the teacher had left the room and there was bedlam. Uncontrollable hysteria. Jack was bright red and all the other children were making fart noises on their arms. It took me about five minutes to calm them down as I was having trouble keeping a straight face.

Those guys are six and it is not just them. I walked into the B2 and B3 dorm the other night, they are seven and eight years old respectively, and Florence was lying on her bed waggling her feet in the air shouting ‘I’m farting, I’m farting,’ and letting go some incredible woofters. Fiona was jumping up and down on her bed shouting ‘Flo’s farting, Flo’s farting,’ (as though it wasn’t immediately apparent to all in the room). Every time they calmed down Flo would fart again and they’d be off. I tried to explain (in a sensible calming voice) about the rule where if you were going to do smelly farts then you have to go outside to do them.

That just made it worse.

And speaking of toilet humour, I had to take Hermione to the loo today because she tends to have little accidents. I helped her with her knickers and tights, lifted her onto the loo then waited with her. She looked at me very seriously and said ‘I’m doing poopies,’ and sure enough she was.

I was holding my breath trying to keep back the hysterical laughter. She got down from the toilet and with an air of great satisfaction pointed and said, ‘Look, there are my poopies,’ at which point I fled to the kitchen. Two to three year olds don’t think farts are funny, they don’t think of them at all, they are just farts. (Or useful warning signs to the teacher that someone might need the loo.) And the older girls find them embarrassing. I think I missed a stage in my development as I still find them funny. Whenever the teachers talk about something fart/toilet related I have to suppress a snigger.

It was freezing cold today; this morning at 9:30 it was an balmy four and half degrees. And it was a lot less than that when I went over to the main house to wake the girls. Fortunately, John has fixed my heater so I am not cold at night any more.

Soon I am not going to be able to write emails at night because it is getting too cold in the computer room. My hands are quite purple. We went for a walk through the fields with the nursery children because it was a lovely sunny day even if it was so cold. I felt sorry for Menna and Jordan who had to hold my hands because they were icy.

Well I have to be off now; I am going to go sing with the choral society at seven thirty. It is the highlight of my week (other people to talk to). Also, Jenny and I might be going up to Bryanston (the near by prep school were jenny has friends) and who knows, maybe the spunky German boy will be there.
love you lots
ceels ____________________________________________________________

Playdough and nursery rhymes

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 19:34:27 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: Playdough and nursery rhymes.

I have just come from dinner, or supper, or what ever they call it. I have eaten a full meal of astonishingly tasteless vegetarian spaghetti carbonara, loads of bread and plenty of water and I am still completely hungry. They do something magic with the food here so that you can eat and eat and eat it and never feel full, then they leave all these biscuits and cakes lying around. So good-bye healthy eating for another couple of months.

Yes, it is official, I spoke to Mrs Willson (headmistress) this weekend and I am leaving at the end of term (11.12.99) for greener pastures. I don’t know where yet but there are bound to be hundreds of people longing to employ me. I am very useful, for example my job this morning was to sharpen pencils. I sharpened all of Mrs Skirtan’s coloured pencils for her. This followed the washing ladies getting to my washing before me and shrinking it all (yes all, socks and knickers included) my clothing several sizes, which followed a fight amongst three girls in A2 (grade six). It was twenty past seven in the morning and they were ten minutes out of bed and they were fighting.

The day got better though because after lunch Jenny (the other aussie here) and I watched some quality television, ‘The First Knight’ to be exact. I also got a Mr Squiggle postcard, which made me laugh. The secretary had put it with the kids’ mail.

I went to Stape Hill Abbey with the girls yesterday. It was very interesting to see the cloisters and things and all the old stuff. I felt a bit out of place because the nuns who used to inhabit the abbey (until 1989 actually) took vows of silence when they joined at 15 or whatever. The best bit about the whole place was the fudge; I have never tasted fudge quite like it.

Tomorrow I am giving a class to the grade twos about farming in Australia.... this is only slightly less ridiculous than Jenny taking the class. She comes from Canberra. If anyone has some handy farming hints they can get to me before 9:30 tomorrow morning I would appreciate it. I have to go now because I am on duty.

Then I am going to watch more crappy telly with Jen (While You Were Sleeping) the last episode of ‘Sex, Chips and Rock’n’roll’ was on last night. If it gets to Australia, watch it. It was pretty good. But then, consider that my main source of entertainment is hanging out with ten year olds.... (some of whom know more about things they shouldn’t than I do)
love ceels ____________________________________________________________

Nippley weather, a declaration of love and a new name

Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 18:22:46 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: Nippley weather, a declaration of love and a new name.

Today has been a gloriously sunny day and freezing cold. A freezing cold north wind is a bit of a new thing for me, and I keep getting dizzy trying to work out which way is which.

There is not much to report, I have an enormous blister from fixing the muckheap. There was straw and manure spread far and wide and I got in there and moved it all to the back of the long concrete bunker thingy. Open-air bunker thingy. Whatever.

It was very therapeutic anyway, just the blue sky, the song of the weird English birds and the repetitive shovelling of shit. The other thing is that under the top layer of stuff, muck heaps are really really warm. So once you get over the fact that you are standing up to your ankles in squelchy decomposing stuff, it is actually quite pleasant on a day like today. Except for the sound you make as you walk about over the muck, on a par with blowing Haydn’s nose, only not quite so disgusting.

I am hanging out for tomorrow because I am free until bed time, today I did stable duties in the morning then supervision all afternoon. I am not supposed to do supervision all afternoon, but the teachers kinda gang up on you until you feel obliged to do it. Nor was I supposed to be folding and putting away all the girls’ laundry nor should I be supervising the video this evening.

Never mind. There is a tape machine in the laundry and I got to listen to the one tape I brought over with me. The radio is always playing in the stable on some very awful station where they don’t play anything from after 1992 except Britny Speirs and Shania twain. For example, I have heard ‘Good Thing’ by Milli Vanilli twice this week, Milli Vanilli? Tonight, I am going to have a long hot bath. This will be a good thing. And tomorrow, I have planned a trip into Blandford Forum and a good bash on the computer writing to people.

The girls have to go down to the Durweston church for a teddy bears' service. It sounds kinda cute, because they all take their teddies down with them (one girl has 37 beanie babies here and another 64 at home, I think she plans on taking them all with her to the church).

I am definitely not going. Last time I went as one of the supervisors and spent the entire service taking kids in and out to go to the toilet. Then got into loads of trouble when on the way home they all all at once saw the blackberries on the other side of the road and went swarming across, almost under the front wheels of a van. No one got hit.

But that is all as time is a flying,

love you all lots
ceels

p.s. I had lunch with the nursery children yesterday and as I was cutting up Lauren's potato she said to me 'I love you, Ceiling.' and kissed my knuckle.

Life without Triple J (I’m a Barbie girl)

Date: Thu, 30 Sept 1999 22:24:11 +0100 (BST)
From: Ceels
Subject: Life without Triple J (I’m a Barbie girl).

Well, it’s Thursday and I seem to have five minutes to my self. Today has been a SHOCKER. To start with I have a fever and all the achy muscles and things that go along with it. Plus I have mucked out seven or eight stables today. And I also have an enormous bruise on my shin and thigh, a wrenched shoulder and a bung knee.

You see I went climbing trees. Yes, great galumphing super-klutz of the century ceels went climbing trees with the little girls. But they dared me, so I did. But any way.

Today. I worked from 7:10am this morning till 5:30pm, with no break, not even a little one. As usual at seven I went down to the main house to wake the girls and chivvy them down to breakfast, followed by breakfast duty and taking Matilda up to pre-prep. Matilda is a very bright little girl in the equivalent of grade one whose mother drops her off every morning at quarter to eight. We played snap with her new animal snap cards until eight thirty then I went off to ‘toe by toe’ the remedial reading.

Today is one of the days that the nursery is understaffed so I went straight there from toe by toe. I didn’t have to supervise morning break because they needed someone for swimming so I did that instead and missed my own break as well, getting back just in time to be late up to nursery.

After another hour in nursery (some of which time was actually spent watching Paddington bear) it was time for pre-prep lunch. Lunch was pretty good (for a boarding house) but none of my pre-preps wanted to eat it, so we had a little battle about that. This was followed by lunch duty for the main school, then straight down to the horses and mucking out.

I THOUGHT I had an hour break at four thirty and I collapsed into the staff room with some cake and biscuits, but I should have found somewhere better to hide. The brownies teacher is not coming in any more and they needed some one to supervise brownies for an hour.... mmmmm. We played ‘pip squeak Wilfred’, ‘heads down thumbs up’, ‘duck duck goose’ and other fun games.

Finally I made my way to sick bay and watched neighbours with Jen (the other aussie) and matron. Supper was lovely and I ate loads of bread, pasta and apple crumble. I had been quite reluctant to haul myself in to supervise supper, but supper turned out to be quite funny. To quote matron: "they’re little buggers, but you’ve got to laugh". Even supervising break wasn’t so bad, it is getting dark at around 7 now and next week they will only be allowed out until quarter past, but I did a couple of laps of the school then played 40-40 with Gregs Charlie Jess and Millie.

THEN!!! I went to the pub with Yasmin and drank badger ale and played pool. I am now feeling quite relaxed (if a little tipsy).

If you think a morning in nursery is not such hard work let me tell you otherwise. I haven’t stepped on anyone yet, but imagine eleven very small children all going in different directions at once. They never do what you say, and they are grotty and unhygienic. I constantly have nursery rhymes stuck in my head, and not even the good ones. Things like ‘head and shoulders and knees and toes’ or ‘1234567, 8, 9, 10’.

‘Take your hands out of your pants please Harry’.... ‘Harry I told you to take your hands out of your pants’.... ‘Serena leave your knickers alone’.... ‘Haydn, if you need a tissue ask for one, don’t just let it dribble’.... ‘Harry if you do that one more time, you’ll have to go and wash your hands’.... AAAITCHOO.... ‘Quick Celia get a tissue, no Haydn, not in your mouth’... 'Serena if you don’t get your hands out of your knickers I’ll be very cross’.... ‘Jordan, Jordan, take your fingers out of your mouth Jordan’.... ‘What’s the matter Molly, do you need to do a wee?’ and that is how it goes on, the entire time.

So, yes, it might sound pretty cushy, sitting around watching Paddington with a bunch of two year olds, but do not be fooled for a second. And with that long angsty whinge about my day, I’ll be off; if I don’t go to bed soon then I will be shirty ceels with the girls tomorrow. So I am sorry if I have not promptly replied to your email, but I am sure to have more time on the weekend to write to every body.
love you lots
ceels ____________________________________________________________