Work this week took me to my first private school – really in 30 years I’ve never even set foot in one before! I was a little nervous to say the least but I loved it and am pleased to say the feeling was mutual – they asked me back until the end of the week and even went as far as to ask if I was looking for permanent work. I wish. What makes it so great I hear you ask. Well to start with I was in the preschool so the fact that the privileged little darlings were, well, little helped. It also helped that for the first time since I have been with the agency (about a month now) I was sent into the ‘Nest’ a.k.a the babies room! (I have been longing to work in a babies room since I started but was beginning to suspect a conspiracy, eg Si phoning the agency and warning against it due to broodiness overload!) Yes all of this helped but what really did it for me was the staff. I was treated with respect! Quite rare in this temping work (some people don’t even bother to ask my name just boss me around and give me the yucky jobs). But at this place they were unbelievably nice. Almost to the point of being too good to be true. I don’t think I realised there are quite so many terms of endearment in which to address children. Almost without fail every sentence to come out of these Mary Poppins-esque teachers began with some variation of ‘my darling’ or ‘my beautiful’ ‘my lovely’ and so on! At one point, after struggling with a particularly obstinate little ‘darling’ who refused to tidy up the mess he had made, I asked one of the teachers for some help. I was hoping that she would tell him to just do it but to my surprise she cupped his chin with one hand and said in a soft voice ‘Wilbur my gorgeous boy, could you please….’ and even more surprisingly- it worked!
Another plus point about working there was the long hours which meant that by Thurs I’d clocked up enough hours to take Friday off and hit the beach. Unfortunately I learned that it is not so easy to apply suncream to your back on your own and I got a tad burned. Oops, No more beach for me this weekend!
In an effort to avoid the beach at the weekend we headed to Centennial Park After picking up one pair of rollerblades and a bike we were ready to hit the road. Luckily there was a path in the park especially for rollerbades and bikes so we didn’t have to worry about such obstacles as cars and other people. Even more lucky, for me, Si took the rollerblades first. After a wobbly start he was off like a pro making it look easy. I, on the other hand, did not find it so easy! I made Si swear, on pain of death, that he would not let go off my hand- fortunately he is an expert on a bike and can ride one handedly! Of course, after a while I did pluck up enough courage to let go of his hand for brief spells and amazingly I only fell off once. Honest!
In the evening we headed to the Opera bar for a much needed drink or two. The bar is located beneath the Opera house with perfect views of the harbour bridge, especially for the fantastic New Years Eve style fireworks.
Sunday found us hitting the park again but for a much more chilled out affair this time. Armed with a picnic and our books we prepared ourselves for a day of relaxing in the sun.