It has been such a long half term! Returning formally to work on the 14^th August and running up to 20^th October has been a long slog.

I know my friends with real jobs will roll their eyes and sigh something like, “teachers” but teaching isn’t like the real world or a real job it is so much more demanding than many jobs and ask so much more of you emotionally, physical and personally than other professions. It has many of the demands of social work; as a head teacher you are also running a medium to large business with 50 to 100 staff and a multi million pound budget; it has very long hours (despite the popular myths its not a nine to four job at all); you are dealing with young children and absolutely everyone thinks they could do a better job and knows more about education than you do just because they once went to school…

Anyway it has been a very long and hard half term three solid weeks of rain and wet play have not helped as it has meant everyone is on duty without a break everyday for days on end and the kids never get a chance to run around and burn of all their excess energy!

But it is HALF TERM! Oh and its pouring with rain… But it is HALF TERM!

So what has this term brought so far?

Well as you know from my earlier posts it has been a really active hurricane season here in the Caribbean. We have watched the weather really closely and breathed a sigh of relief each time we have been missed.

That’s not to say we have been unaffected, as I have already said we have experience 3 to 4 weeks of near solid rain. The rain here has been torrential among the heaviest rain I have ever seen and I lived in monsoon countries…

It has meant rough seas but we have had some beautiful skies and rainbows as well.

The wet weather has allowed me time to learn to bake cakes. I have never been very good at cakes but friends have asked me to make a couple of cakes for them and an upcoming event so I have had to learn. The brief is to bake a traditional Caymanian Rum Cake. After several weeks of practice I feel that I have got it pretty well cracked so I am working on chocolate rum cake (think Bounty Bar) and my own invention an apple rum cake topped with toffee apples…

Of course all of the cake making has meant lots of tasting sessions and so tea parties at our house have become a feature of social life here.