Photos of the year - week 3

Monday 22nd February

It started snowing after I woke up and was somewhat settling though not really on the roads.  Having made it to school, having invited John for a lift in case it got worse, this was the view through my weather window (can't particularly see the snow falling here but it is there!),  Earliest photo to date?

Tuesday 23rd February

Spent the evening and can't really remember why now, watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Good to compare to the theatre but think I still prefer that.

Wednesday 24th February

Oops, almost forgot to take a photo so this is the view of my unmade bed as I am about to make it before getting in it.

Thursday 25th February

Been to the Sheldonian Theatre to see the Oxford Millennium Orchestra that a fellow Scottish Dancer was playing in with school colleague and didn't dislike as much as I was expecting apart from the coughing fit that came on during the first piece.

Friday 26th February

Remaining half of my homemade vegetable lasagne - one of three meals I can make from scratch.

Saturday 27th February

Highland Ball in Cambridge.  So excited to see old friends there which made into a jolly evening all round.

Sunday 28th February

A day reserved for marking assessments so I decided to wear a happy summer skirt as I wasn't going to be venturing outside and I had shaved my legs yesterday!

A little note.  I did feel a little defeated at the thought that this was only the third week and I was 21 photos down (though for some reason I kept thinking I was 30 photos down) with a lot of the year still to go...  I wonder how long I will be able to keep it up.  I am excited though that I do have a fairly automatic diary of all my events without having to go into a whole post on them.  But I wonder how many of the photos will be of my bedroom...  (although last night's photo is a classic, poss best so far! it's now tuesday morning).

My Musicals Love

So, there are a few things to know about me.  I love Formula 1, Harry Potter and Musicals.  Probably throw in there Scottish Dancing, Reading, Family and Children and you've got me covered.  Oh, and ER!  So, once i have done a post on each of these I guess that's all that's needed.  And you've already got Formula 1, Family and ER so the blogging life might be limited!

I'm going to publish this post I think as if it is to cover all my musical life it could well take a while to complete and I'll update as things go...

Just listening to Elaine Page on Sunday and she played 'Love Never Dies' for the first.  It reminded me of something instantly and as the song went on I realised it was from 'The Beautiful Game'.  I texted in saying so and she said when the song finished that 'before you all start texting in, yes it does sound very like this song from the Beautiful Game' and she played 'Our Kind of Love'.  Go me I feel!!!

 

  A long lasting introduction (5th March 2010) 

The first Musical I believe I went to see was Cats, when I was 5 with Mummy and Grandma.  I remember sitting between then and Grandma and I used to listen to the tape when we would visit them and Mr Mistoffelees was my favourite.  Later, Mum and I would dance to Jellicle Ball, dancing in the lounge jumping off the little stools.  I saw it once or twice again when I was still at school at the New London Theatre, and then I saw it in Oxford while I was at uni. I bought Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats while at uni and totally loved it.   I still have mega fun memories of the New London theatre and how part of the seating auditorium rotated round, I was always desperate to sit there.  

Me and My Girl Double Bill 

27/6/10 The next earliest memory is going to see My and My Girl.  I saw it twice.  I think the first time was with Dad, Grandma C and AS which I think at the time seemed a little odd combination!  I have the same vague memory as at Cats of sitting and being small in the dark theatre.  For some reason, my memory gives me a kinda birds eye view of us sitting...  My hunch would be that for Cats we were in the stalls (is there even a circle at New London?) and for Me and My Girl we were in circle.  Think when we went again it was the four of us.  I loved it!  Robert Lindsey and Emma Thompson were in the original production that I think opened in 1984.  It was ______ (name blank at the moment - Graham somewhere in it?! - 19/1/13 Gary Wilmot!) at least one of the times I saw it.  And my main memory is of him walking on to the set at one point having just been horse riding and his legs were all bent!  I didn't really understand it, but mum explained!

And again we had the tape that would listen and dance to when visit Grandparents.  Grandma and I did an awesome tap dance to Me and My Girl, I remember she was in her beige-y sandals.  We would be in the kitchen pretending we were on the tables like Sally and Bill were in the show!  My favourite songs at the time were Me and My Girl, Sun has got his hat on, and Leaning on a Lamp Post.  A weird connection, for some reason I decided to take the very old casette tape we still had of it with me to Africa on my Gap Year in 2003.  And it became very appropriate when we ended up going to Timbuktu.  My only previous association with Timbuktu was in the Sun has got his hat on:

 'The sun has got his hat on, out in Timbuktu

Now he's coming back to do the same to you'

So I remember sitting on the deck of the boat travelling up the Niger on my way there listening to it.  There had also been this bit on both sides of the tape where it went all mumbled for 30 seconds or so and had kinda been like that for as long as I remembered.  While on the boat, I realised that maybe the tape had turned over and at those points we were listening to the other side of the tape in reverse.  After a fair bit of investigating I discovered that to be the case, and with an awful lot of care and worry that I would make it worse, I managed to swap it back over!!  Hoorah!

I was very excited to discover in 2006 that Me and My Girl was touring and coming to Malvern.  Despite it being just after going back to Uni I definitely made a date to go and see it with Ma and Grandma.  It was fab and I was reintroduced to a load more of the songs I hadn't particularly taken notice of before, mainly Love Makes the World Go Round.  I was eagerly devouring the programme and learning all about the previous productions.  This production was produced by Alexander Armitage who was the son of Alistair Armitage who produced the production in the 80s.  Alistair Armitage was the son of Noel Gay who wrote it originally in the 1930s - so it was quite a family thing.  The most amazing bit of the whole thing was that after we'd been to it, we were talking to Lizzie who had just started her first term at uni.  And it turned out in the room next to her was a girl who had worked on the touring production in the summer because she was Alex Armitage's daughter!!!!  Wow - what lineage!!!   I have been in awe of her ever since!!!

In October 2008 I was reading Baldy's Blog when they mentioned about a musical being held in London with half proceeds going to Anthony Nolan Trust and the musical turned out to be Me and My Girl!!!!  I just couldn't believe it!!  It all seemed to be made for me and I immediately went into research mode of how I might be able to get there.  Absolutely perfectly for me, 3 of my best friends agreed to go with me as my birthday gift!!  So so special for me.

1/12/10

Starlight Express:  I have very vivid memories of standing in the stairwell at John Lewis on Oxford Street while Dad used the pay phone to call theatre – isn’t that a historical situation now!  They must have booked spur of the moment tickets for us to see Starlight Express there and then and off we went, so I feel there wasn’t a big build up to it.  Mum must have seen it before as I remember her saying that she didn’t realise till a long way through that the characters were supposed to be trains – so Lizzie and I had that knowledge from the outset.  I feel we were probably around 9 at the time, through guess could be anywhere from 7-12.  I remember a few bits from that show, but not a lot. None of the songs particularly stuck with me.  I know I have looked into before trying to work out if we then saw the original version or the updated version, which if memory serves was done in 1994.  Can’t remember what I decided but thinking about it, I feel I remember the old sleeping car – in white with curly white long hair, which would have been in the original production.  I remember the different girl carriages from that show, but not a lot else!

Then in lower sixth we had our boy cousins staying at the October half-term and were going to be going to a West End show and I remember talking with mum that this would be a better one for the boys because of the roller-skates – none of them being musical fans!  I was happy to go along, but don’t remember feeling over excited that it was Starlight, more so just that we were going to a musical.  But oh my, what an evening it was.  I’m not sure I actually cried but I made Auntie Sarah cry by looking at my face and seeing my enjoyment in it.  I felt like I was living the whole thing leaning forward so involved in it.  I loved songs, the slow ones, the powerful ones, the roller-skating, the action, the joy and celebration.  All round filled me with happiness from the inside.  What a show.  And it totally affected me for a long time.  I started star gazing and would lean against my bedroom window at night listening to the songs and loving it.  This is going to sound corny, but it some ways it feels like a coming of age thing for me and I feel I grew up with it those months.  I got the CD soundtrack for Christmas from the cousins and had a little cry myself on the evening the following January when it was closing in the West End after 18 years.  That was hard to take.  I never thought I would see it again, as how could you convert a theatre to perform it again? I loved the fact that in our book of London theatre seating plans there was a page for Apollo Victoria and one for Apollo Victoria - Starlight Express.

 But would you believe it, while at uni there is appeared - a touring production.  I had found out it was one of my friends favourites too, so I got tickets for us for her birthday.  We were very anxious how it would turn out, how could they possibly do it?  And admittedly it wasn't the same.  The races were done as 3D videos.  But oh well, at least we got all the good music!  And they put Only He back in instead of Make up my Heart - result! 

23/1/11  Good old Elaine Paige has just played Starlight Express followed by Shall We Dance.  What a combo for me :-)  I had written up about my King and I love here.  I can't work out which version of Shall We Dance it is.  It's not the film I believe.  Will have to wait to end of song.  'Was like this'.

27/7/11 Thought it would be useful to have a link to the definitive list from here.

Musical - Les Miserables

Tuesday 16th February 

I invited myself along to this with Grant and Jon when they said they were planning to try get tickets for it in their final week in the country.

We headed into London and met Dianne from NZ at the Paddington Station (which incidently was having a fire incident so we couldn't use the tube to get to).  Having got her belongings back to Canrary Wharf we went Leicester Square and successfully got 4 halfprice tickets in the dress circle.  Yay!

After a very wet day we made it over to Shaftebury Avenue and ate the Lyric Pub where Katy joined us for a drink,  Lizzie joined us up from Epsom then we headed to the Theatre.

I had seen Les Miserables once on stage before at it's old theatre (Palace?) with Mum in June 2002.  It was the day of the England Denmark World Cup match and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to see it as it was due to finish just before the show started.  We headed into London earlier and met Dianne (what a coincidence!) for lunch and were looking for a pub to watch the match in but they were all full.  Hanging around Leicester Square we spotted people heading into the Odeon and Dianne persuaded us to go over and find out and it turned out that they were giving out free tickets to watch the match on the big screen!!!  Can you believe our luck?!  Anyway it was a brilliant win; I remember after each goal Dianne kept saying just one more would be good.

Mum and I hot-footed it over to the theatre and it was an amazing experience watching it.  I was fairly well acquainted with the musical having watched the 10th Anniversary Concert Video quite a few times.  But it was like seeing it all anew with emotion.  I liked to cry at the ends of musicals, but this one I was crying in the first half which told me it was a powerful one!  Think I cried four times in total ;-) Songs that I didn't really know before totally hit me, 'On My Own' being the primary one.  I now know that it is considered a rather cliché song from the show that everyone sings but I like to think I discovered it then 'on my own'.  I wrote to the lady playing Eponine and got a reply.

So, this hasn't really been about my most recent experience so far!!!  the most noticeable thing for me this time was that i didn't cry!  maybe i had given myself too big a build up.  valjean and eponine were both understudies.  Lizzie liked the voice of one of them and i did the other.  still thought that 'One Day More' is such an amazing number and surely far to grand to end the first half - should be the whole ending.  Lizzie said that she thought it could as well just be the first half and I gotta say I agree with her, well, if On My Own was added to the first half!  I was mega impressed with the guy who waved the huge flag!  I was also struck by just how huge Mme Thenardier was.  Couldn't see any spare seats from where we were - pretty impressive for 25 years!  I don't think I had been to the Queen's Theatre before.  (hehe, just thought it would be funny if that was where We Will Rock You was on).

Good times overall - I think everyone enjoyed.  Though I don't think I will be rushing back purposefully to see it again myself.  Ooh, maybe I should make a list on here of the musicals I do want to see next.  In fact, I want to do a whole musicals post! 

Thanks for letting me come along boys!

Musical - Rocky Horror Show!

Saturday 13th February
(pictures from the UK tour website)

Having spent the day in Oxford with the boys and Lizzie, Grant drove Jon and I up to Malvern.  We arrived about 6pm in time for a chat with ma before eating dinner.  She mentioned that Rocky Horror Show was on at the theatre in Malvern.  I was excited and disappointed at the same time - it was a musical I had heard a lot about, but sad that it was the last night it was in Malvern.  But... Mum said there was a 9pm performance - something I had never heard of at Malvern before.  Fortunately we persuaded the boys that they wanted to go and we went after dinner.

I knew that it was the kinda show where audience shout out, and Mum reminded us as we were getting close that people often dress up, but I wasn't sure what the differenes were between the stage show and film.  But boy was it exciting in the theatre!!  and boy did we feel underdressed - or should that be overdressed.   The audience were definitely as much of an attraction as the show.  Such a wide ranging spectrum of the audience going to town in their outfits.  My personal favourite was the man walking towards me in the foyer in the interval.  He looked to be in his 60s and I thought he had dressed up for the trip to the theatre as I saw him in shirt and DJ but then as some people moved and I looked down I saw all he had on his bottom half were fishnets!!


We got tickets in the last row of the circle and all the few remaining ones seemed to sell out by the time it started.  It was fun although I wasn't always sure quite what was going on, particularly what the audience were calling out!   People's costumes began to make more sense as the show went on, and it was fun again at the interval working out who people were dressed as.  I was delighted by the very accurate portrayal of Rocky - we thought James would happily try to pull that off!  There was also a guy in a good representation of Janet.









I was pleased that everyone was up off their seat as soon as the Time Warp number started and I did my best to join in though my company slightly prohibited me ;-)  It also ended with a good on your feet encore!!  The start of the second half was definitely more shockingly risque, but the atmosphere and the rock music made up for it for me!

At the end I was keen to think about going again and dressing up.  It's coming to Oxford in June and although I often and am happy to go to the theatre by myself, I didn't feel this would be one of the possibilities.  Delighted to find that a good friend from school is willing to go with me and even dress up - can't wait!!

So, maybe I'm a sheep for loving the all enjoying and participating nature of the experience more than the show itself - but never mind... Let's Do The Timewarp Agaaaain!

Photos of the year - week 2

Here's the next instalment - ontime this week - the joyous week of half term :-)

Monday 15th February 2010

Showing the Chapmans my classroom.  They were great at making all the right noises and looking at everything.  They were also great as I put them to good working taking down displays and putting up new ones!

Tuesday 16th February

 

Katy and I enjoying our pints at a pub off Shaftesbury Avenue.  She was shamed by me into ordering a pint but I was the one that struggled to finish it!  She met up with us before Grant, Jon, Lizzie and I went on to see Les Miserables.

Wednesday 17th February
 

Although sad to have just said my last goodbyes to the kiwi boys, I was still struck by the wet umbrella cover machine at the entrance to the Canary Wharf shopping centre!  That day was actually most beautiful weatherwise but the day before I had got the most disgustingly wet feet as it never stopped raining!

Thursday 18th February
 

A slight return of the snow - nothing compared to what I expect now!  Started snowing while I was having dinner at Gourmet Burger Kitchen with Ros after raining all day, and it was settling as slush.  We went to the cinema (to see Valentine's Day) and I was slightly hoping to see a carpet when we came out, but not quite!

Friday 19th February
 

A lovely evening with uni friends.  We ate fajitas at Ros' with a good catch up on all the news.  Sarah and I compared notes on our daily photos.  Then it was on to the CathSoc Ceilidh which I thought was tremendous good fun.  Though have been suffering this weekend with aching muscles I never knew I had!!

Saturday 20th February

A lovely weekend spent at the Barretts' house.  Much of it spent around their dining table eating delicious food or playing bananagrams or cards.  This was afternoon tea, celebrating Lizzie's birthday.

Sunday 21st February

 

Despite lots going on today, this is the photo I snapped this evening.  It was the first time I had done any marking all halfterm.  I only did the pile of maths books on the far right!

Lizzie's Birthday

Monday was Lizzie's 23rd Birthday.  We had a meal out in Epsom to celebrate.  There was Lizzie, Mum, me, Grandma and Grandpa Chapman, Grant and Jon.  It was really nice.

I have just practised putting the photos on flickr so that the family can see them.  Still haven't got into using flickr really since learning about it on the pgce.  This was my fourth go and took me a while to sign in remembering usernames.  I put the photos on a private setting (friends and family) so not sure who will be able to follow the link but thought I would try putting it on here anyway.

Many Happy Returns, Lizzie!!

Photos of the year - week 1

First week's photos arriving a little late - been having lots of half-term fun!

Monday 8th February

Arriving home from school just before 5.30 and the sun was still visible in the sky :-) 
Tulips and bird from Sarah.

Tuesday 9th February

Lying in bed to go to sleep remembering have not yet taken a photo so snapped one of my room.

Wednesday 10th February

Happy patterns.  Skirt I was wearing that had made me happy during day; funny stripy socks; delightful bedspread; Macgregor tartan with my dancing shoes which I had enjoyed that evening.

Thursday 11th February

Wow!  Our recreation of the Great Fire of London in the playground at school.  Fire extinguisher and buckets of water on standby.

Friday 12th February

Jon and Grant from NZ with an old Oxford wall at the Turf.

Saturday 13th February

Lunch at the Perch across Port Meadow - it was rather heavily decorated for Valentine's day.

Sunday 14th February

 

Jon, Grant and I up on the hills - beautiful day.  In between Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill, up above St. Ann's Well looking out to Herefordshire.

Interim

I have been having a good few days.  There is lots to be kept up on.  I have been thinking every so often about the blog and what I must remember to write about.  I have been on half-term this week and loving the fact. 
Posts to get around to:

• Week one of the photos of the year
• Musicals x2
• Kiwi friends

Just back from a night out with ex-pgce folks - quite an experience and makes me feel good about where i am.  Currently missing someone but think am ready to sleep now.

Random Act Of Kindness

It was a delight today when I got back to the Infants after badminton club, I went into the staffroom and there was a package in my pigeon hole.  I thought it might be to do with the Scottish Dancing club I am starting (vague momentary thought that it had been so popular that I was inundated with responses that they had to be put in an envelope - bless!).  The message on the front:

Catherine
Happy half-term
If you have these then you can be really naughty - according to the TV advert (although it sounds rather odd now!)
V x
Have a great week!!

How super special and unexpected.  The package was from one of the 1:1 teaching assistants that works with one of the children in my class.  And inside...

 

I had obviously spoken enough in the lessons about how much I like chocolate!!  And I do really love malteasers and will certainly enjoy them over half-term.  I do like random acts of kindness and this was quite out of the blue.  Leads me on to think about GivesMeHope but I will try save that for another blog.  

Still related to this post, I realised with this photo I took with photobooth (love it love it - deserves its own post too!), that it takes the mirror image.  So how I look in photobooth is how I see myself in the mirror, but not how others see me or how I look in photos.  I took this one too, to try to show the point:

Photo a day

As well as entertaining all at my school, Sarah spoke to me about a project she was inspired to start this year:  to take a photo each day of the year to represent that day.  I thought this was a pretty cool idea and vaguely thought about starting it next year.  She showed me some of the photos she has taken recently and there were some real fancy and exciting ones, but others were like a bowl of cereal at 10 o'clock at night when she realised she hadn't taken one that day.  I thought about it and realised they were all valid in their way.  This morning I went for a walk along the river up to Godstow (am really proud of that btw!) and was taking some photos of a swan, when I made the decision to give it a go starting my year now.  And then I thought that the blog would be an excellent spot to record my photos of the year on.

Am currently debating whether to officially start it today when I made the decision, or last Friday when I heard about it as I have photos taken then, but they weren't taken with that express purpose.  I reckon I will put them up, but will count today as the official start date.

Am also currently concerned about the photos I take at school.  I don't want to put photos of children up, even from behind, but that's where I spend most of my week life.  I wonder if I can somehow haze out the parts of the photos with children on?

I think I might aim to do a weekly post of the photos to keep it manageable.  We'll see how it goes.

Sunday 7th February 2010

Swan on the river on the way up to Port Meadow, Oxford.

Saturday 6th February 2010

New haircut

 

Friday 5th February 2010

Class 2G, visit by Sarah Outen

Hairdressers

So, I got my haircut today.

I have thought before, and thought again today though not to quite the same extent, that it is truly a depression inducing experience.   To have to sit for an hour or so staring at your face in the mirror at a close proximity is hard to take.  However you may have felt going in to the hairdressers, it is far too easy to slump into a pit of woe.  Or at least for me.    The first time when i realised it just wasn't kind to have to stay in this situation surrounded by people and images that say your looks are what's important, was in Southampton last year at the uni hairdressers.  Don't get me wrong, I have subsequently managed not to spiral, but I would say it's a close call.  I can go through so many emotions as I try to fight it off.  There's generally a stage where I hate the fact that I have a really small head, hopefully followed by a stage where I try to convince myself that I don't have a small head, and then it's the saggy cheeks or the sallow complexion or the ... or ....

But sometimes I come away liking the look.  Here are a few picks from recent haircuts.

February 2010

To the left is the first photo I took.  And to the right is my expression on seeing the first photo.

May 2009

September 2008

Another thing I thought about during the session in relation to the blog (I admit, I was mentally planning a blog entry while I was there - I don't really like to admit that to myself, it reminds me of Mr Collins saying he prepared his 'sucking up' speeches in advance in Pride and Prejudice - am sure Miss Harvey used a better word than 'sucking up' when she was teaching us at GSCE!) was the virtual versus the hand held diary.  As snippets of my hair were falling onto the cloak thing you wear (proper name??) I was remembering how mum had the clippings from my haircuts in my baby book.  I was looking how dark my hair was compared to when I was younger and thinking about keeping some from then to look at in years to come.  I thought that it would be the sort of thing I could tape into a hand held diary, but the blogging world lets me down...   I left the hair to be swept up.

Seasons watch

Had the first taste of sunnier times yesterday and I really liked it!  First inkling was children coming in at lunchtime to take off their coats.  And then I had PPA in the afternoon and was going back and forth to the Juniors and was having to shade my eyes and realised I wasn't needing my coat and the brightness actually had some heat with it.  I was sat in the Juniors staffroom and really feeling like I was beginning to roast in the greenhouse effect of the room.

I'd been thinking recently about warmer times, but when you're in the midst of the cold I find it really hard to imagine and really feel it.  But with yesterday I felt I was really whisked there and am looking forward to it.  There were lots of great warm times last spring that I think I shall record now to as happy days.

March 2009 - Southampton Common.  Spring Times.  This was in the middle of SBT2.  My placement partner and I even spent some after school planning meetings on the common.

April on the common.  This was an amazing week of sun - it was one of those moments when you can fool yourself that it will be like this until about September!  Although it wasn't quite, we sure made the most of it  while it was there.



By the end of the school day yesterday it was raining again and I have just heard on the radio that there will be another cold snap next week with potential snow.  But I have had the glimpse :-)

Also last night, when I got back home it was still light enough for me to look up at the tree where the bird was screeching again.  And I identified it as far a black bird, possibly a blackbird!

Sarah Outen

I have had a very proud day as my friend, Sarah, came to school.

I have mentioned her before - she is the amazing one that rowed across the Indian Ocean solo last year - (she has a great website).  I told my kids on Monday that she was coming and they have been getting more and more excited all week at the thought of her coming.  Am not quite sure how the excitement started building - it was genuinely more them than me!!  One girl emailed Sarah on the first evening and I shared that in school and put her in the special book for it which was a snowball effect!

Anyway, needless to say she was amazing.  I was there for the talk she did to the infants which was such fun, and then she went over to do a talk to the Juniors which sounds to have been fantastic then she came back to chat to my class which they loved and loads were crowding round her at the end of the lesson when they should have been going to lunch!

Here is the email of appreciation that I sent Sarah this evening.  I hope it conveys the amazement and the thanks:


I can't really begin to thank you enough for coming to school today and how amazed everybody was and the impact that you had on staff and pupils.  I don't think i had done a good enough job bigging you up before, as to me you are still my friend Sarah who has happened to have done this amazing thing.   But now they really know just how incredible you are! I know you must get a lot of praise all the time, but i just wanted you to know what our School thought, so here you go:


Mr, the head, spoke to me several times this afternoon saying what a great job you had done and how amazed the kids were and how we have to get your visit on the school website and how we have to follow your next adventure.  the head of the juniors said in passing what a great job you had done.  all three year three teachers spoke to me (on separate occasions) about how fab you had been for the year three children all the way up to the year 6 children.  one of the teaching assistants who had been in the assembly stopped me and was talking for ages about how fascinated she was and was asking me loads of questions and i came across her later on discussing you again with someone else!  On the infant side, it was the head of the infants, one of the most senior teachers (and my mentor) who gave you the work just before you left from her class so that's a really high opinion to have!  Also the lady who said you were the best guest assembly speaker and possibly the best assembly ever, was the head of the reception year and really pretty senior!  Another reception teacher said how enthralled both the children and the adults were.  Lots of these people talked about what a good speaker you were, it wasn't just that you had a great story but it was how you told it!   And loads of my kids were saying how excited they were because it had been such a good day because you had visited them.   I think more members of staff have talked to me today than ever before - if nothing else you have definitely put me on the map at  school!!!


Also i got this text from one of the year 3 teachers at the end of the day:
Hi! Just wanted to thank u and Sarah.  It was just fantastic!  Wondered if Sarah was around as i wanted to say thanks and let her read some of the letters the class wrote.  Thanks and happy friday!


I have brought the letters home with me so if you wanted to stop by tomorrow morning you are most welcome to look at them, but i know you will be busy. 

Wow and thank you, Sarah!

DC!!!

Wow - I have just had a mega exciting experience for me!  I went to the Oxford Union to see David Coulthard as speaker!

My poor proof of it is this photo on the right taken on my phone as he was leaving!
More recognisable photos of him on the left taken from a google images search!

I couldn't quite bring myself to get too excited but when he walked in through the door I couldn't stop grinning :-)  I thought he looked mighty suave in his dark suit. I really felt he had a petite waist.  And when he started speaking I was just totally in love with his lilting scottish accent.  For more so I feel than I have ever been hearing him on television.

He spoke briefly on from a prepared speech.  I wonder now how much of it he had written himself as to be honest the tone of it was pretty different to when he was answering questions (which was the vast majority of the time - over an hour versus 10 minutes).  The speech was making comparisons with the Union (which I'm not a big fan of) and motor racing with a lot of tabloid type references to supermodels and the such.  He did start off by saying that he had been up ill all the previous night and was rather running on empty during the evening but he had wanted to fulfil his commitment (certainly something I admire).

The questions were the good bit.  I thought of two questions that I would have asked.  I never even put my hand up (being far too chicken) but I was getting closer to having my muscles respond to the messgae form my brain but then someone asked a similar question.   And then someone asked my other question later. Mine were:

• Which were your favourite circuits to go to as a driver and have they changed now you're a pundit? (he mentioned the word pundit now as being what he is on the BBC, but said he didn't really like the word as he didn't understand it)  His answer (paraphrased) was Monaco as it was a short walk home and major challenge to win - only the best can win there.  And Spa, because it's such a long circuit and because of Eau-Rouge - the change in altitude is greater than the height of the debating chamber and you come out of the corner blind.
• Do you regret letting Hakkinen past in Australia.  Yes, see his book for further details on why he did it.

The other thing I had been wondering about was team orders.  He answered a question about Nelson Piquet Junior and answered pretty much as my thinking was: there are too many variables to be able to stage a crash that would help your team mate to win.  Especially as (I didn't know this) there was no radio transmission telling Piquet to crash at that moment.  The only conversation had been before the race.

Some other interesting points that I happen to remember:

• The team mate he least got on with is Damon Hill.  He's not sure why but there was never much connection.  He has swapped helmets with all his other team mates and has helmets of all the world champions from his driving era except Damon.  He talked about the effect that Graham Hill's death had on the family and his belief that that had some effect on the way Damon was as a team mate.
• He said he got on with his other team mates and mentioned in particular Mika Hakkinen and having a drink with him now - he said Mika liked his vodka.
• He spoke highly of the Williams Team and Frank Williams.  When asked about his days at Williams he mentioned a time as a young driver when he wasn't sure whether to laugh or keep a dead pan expression.  Frank had been wheeling around the room where they had been meeting then came up to David and said 'Look at my shoes'; David did; then Frank said 'I've worn these same shoes for 20 years'.  When David looked rather scared, Frank explained that it was meant as a joke, because being a quadriplegic his shoes didnt get anywhere and he thought as a Scotsman David would like the thrift!

Am rather tired now, trying to fight off my second cold in a week and am going to head to bed.  Well, I am actually on bed but I will get in it!  Hopefully I will add more as it comes to me.

• update 11/2/10 He spoke about risk and safety.  He mentioned how the closest he came to death was in the plane crash.  He was knocked unconscious in testing in the early days of his career when a nut or bolt was loose and he lost steering and headed straight into the barriers.  He was pleased when he came round that his final thoughts before the crash weren't 'oh no i'm scared that i'm going to die', but he was trying to rectify the problem and work it out.  He told his mum this so that if he was ever to die in a race she was to know that his final moments hadn't been regrets or anything.  He also spoke about how he drove because he took steps to minimise the risk.  He then went on to talk about the children's cycle helmet company he set up and how he tried to get parliament to pass law for under 16s to wear cycle helmets as they do not necessarily have the ability to choose to minimise the risk.

 The evening also got me thinking about the season I kept a formula 1 diary.  Think it may have been 2002 - wow crazy to think it could have been 8 years ago.  I really enjoyed doing it and it got me properly involved in the race and was a snapshot of my life.  I wondered about starting it up again for this season.  Subsequently I wondered about doing it on the blog...  get's me thinking about the handwritten word versus the virtual.