It seems an awfully long time ago that I woke up in Wolverhampton, had breakfast, travelled to Stourbridge, ate a meat pie, got married, enjoyed a sit down curry with 70 friends and family, danced lots at a barn dance, travelled back to Wolverhampton, caught a flightlink coach to Gatwick, and flew to Samos all in the space of 24 hours. But then 17 years is a long time and loads has happened since then. Several jobs, several children, several houses, countries and campervans later Kuala Lumpur feels a world away from Stourbridge Methodist Church and The Whittington Inn.
Today's celebrations so far have included getting up at 7.00am, going for a run / stagger, eating breakfast, rehearsing for a y13 play, eating a curry, and returning home. I am hoping that The Various Lawrences may be able to cap this exciting day off with a meal out. Ok, it is not quite an amazing party day followed by a week in Greece but it will do for today.
The year thirteen play is coming on well and, as all Drama teachers know it is the last few days that really polish up the rough edges and make the collection of scenes in to a proper play.
Edwin, Rupert and Trixie are all in the process of rehearsing too, this time for a dance show hosted by their dance school. Edwin and his partner are doing a quick step and all three Lawrences are doing a group cha-cha-cha too. The rehearsals have been quite gruel on as they have had to rehearse on two evenings this week as well as for most of the day today. Is it payback for being a Drama teacher and insisting on lots of rehearsals, I wonder? Whatever the reason it is show day tomorrow, so we are hoping for the best.
Time has also flown by at my school and it hardly seems a year since it was Sports Day. Yesterday was the annual big day where hundreds of steaming athletes charged around the University of Malaysia stadium seeking points for their houses as well as glory for themselves. Following my duties on the high jump last year I was considered to be something of an expert at checking to see if the bar had fallen off or not and so that was exactly what I was assigned to. Various leapers, straddlers, rollers and floppers threw themselves at differently raised poles with varying degrees of success all the way from the expert, to the novice ("How do I this?" She asked before sailing over 1.25m like she did it everyday.), all the way down to the hopeless and helpless (a category that I would certainly have fitted in to had I ever run out of Athletics Lessons Excuses at school.
Regular readers will recall last year's star competitor who managed to devise her own unique rectangular and right angular jumping technique that successfully involved running at great speed at the bar and then seemingly stopping dead, jumping up vertically, doing a 90 degree turn in mid-air, shooting forwards and then collapsing in a heap on the crash mat. When she approached the competition this year I hoped for something similar and wasn't disappointed. She had clearly been practising. None of this time-honoured, accepted technique for this athlete. No. Fixing on a grimace of determination she charged head on at the bar at alarming speed before hurling herself high into the air arms and legs flailing wildly. This was only the beginning. While in mid air she somehow managed to fling her head forwards and the rest of her followed. Her arms caught up first and her hands landed on the mat and seemed to stop there temporarily while the rest of her caught up. In catching up her body went into a handstand before momentum took her forward and into a whirling forward roll. After falling off the mat she got up, turned round to check that the bar was still there, which it was, and with a nod of satisfaction walked away calmly, a job well done, 1.10m successfully jumped. Ok she messed up her remaining four jumps but with such a flamboyant demonstration of athleticism I am looking forward to being told that I am for the high-jump again next year.