{"id":4713,"date":"2013-05-05T07:05:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T06:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=4713"},"modified":"2013-05-05T08:40:18","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T07:40:18","slug":"5-may-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2013\/05\/05\/5-may-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"5 May 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Daffodils\"<\/a>Good morning on what looks like it could be a moderately pleasant day to continue the streak of pleasantly pleasant days we\u2019ve enjoyed over the past week. A bit \u201cparky<\/a>\u201d at the beginning of the week but the temperatures have become much more tolerable as the week has progressed climbing, so far, to the dizzying heights of 16o <\/sup>Celsius (61o<\/sup> F) in our neighbourhood yesterday. It\u2019s supposed to reach 20o<\/sup> tomorrow<\/a>, for the May Day Bank Holiday, so here\u2019s hoping.<\/p>\n

We had some vistors on Monday which required that I should be on my best behaviour. You may recollect some time ago I mentioned that Ms Playchute had become a Facebook junkie<\/a> ever since discovering that the school she attended in Kenya in the mid-60s had a Facebook page. Pen soon became a fanatic and thoroughly enjoyed the contact that she was able to make with long-lost schoolmates.<\/p>\n

\"Liz<\/a>One of the \u201cgirls\u201d who settled in Australia was planning a three-month long holiday in the UK and Europe visiting friends and family and Pen arranged for her and her husband to call on Monday afternoon, which they did and very pleasant it was too. As they live in Australia, I was instructed to retrieve the barbeque from deep storage and incinerate an offering of Sandy\u2019s Barbequed Side of Salmon with Pesto. Amy potatoes and asparagus rounded out the main course which was followed by the first rhubarb from the garden in the form of Penelope\u2019s famous Strawberry and Rhubarb Crisp with vanilla ice cream. Delicious.<\/p>\n

The other \u201cexcitement\u201d this week has come in the form of our Molly developing a case of the wobbles! She has developed what the vet thinks is\u00a0Canine Peripheral Vestibular Syndrome<\/a>,\u00a0an inner ear condition which has the effect of knocking out her balance and rendering her essentially immobile. Her back legs give way and, when she is able to stagger to her feet, she walks with her head tilted and a constant list to starboard, her eyes continuously whirling as she tries to make sense of a dizzying world. She spent two nights at the vet\u2019s being dosed on antibiotics and fluids and, although she\u2019s now back home and improving, it\u2019s a sorry sight. As if Penny didn\u2019t have enough on her plate looking after me and her mother \u2013 she now has to provide care and affection to the dog as well!<\/p>\n

Some of you will know our friend Val Norman, long-time partner and eventual wife of our good friend Dave Stansfield. Val sadly passed away on Thursday. I first met Val in the relatively early days of my teaching career through Dave who was into the use of computers in teaching in the same way that I was. She and Dave both taught at Banbury School and eventually went to work at the International School in Paris where we visited them on a couple of occasions \u2013 Dave would invite us out to provide some ICT in-service training for the staff and we would take the opportunity of combining a bit of work with a much greater proportion of pleasure. I remember in those early days being hugely impressed with Val\u2019s willingness to speak her mind, especially when those \u201cin authority\u201d were about to implement something stupid. While I might have muttered under my breath about such stupidity, I was often reluctant to challenge publicly those \u201cin authority\u201d about their idiotic policies.\u00a0 Now, of course, I an quite happy to rant about most things. We will miss her.<\/p>\n

For those of you who will be involved with the XCstravangaza celebrations in the summer, you might want to check out the latest Arrivals and Departure board<\/a> at the XCstravaganza web site. It has \u201cup to the moment\u201d information about everyone\u2019s arrival and departure dates which may or may not be accurate! I think the only details we are waiting for is from our Adam but he assures me that he will be in attendance for most of the gathering. If I’ve missed you off or if any of the information I have for you is inaccurate, let me know.<\/p>\n

A few snippets caught my eye this week. Firstly, an article by a teacher outlining the education secretary\u2019s lack of consistency in his educational policies<\/a>. How very restrained to categorise them as \u201cinconsistent\u201d \u2013 I would have just referred to them as idiotic.<\/p>\n

Secondly, and still on a vaguely educational theme, an article from the New York Times outlining how a Georgia school held its first integrated prom<\/a>. In 2013? Are you kidding me?<\/p>\n

And finally, I had no idea that yesterday was Star Wars Day<\/a> \u2013 did you? In hindsight, it\u2019s obvious \u2013 May the Fourth be with you!<\/p>\n

\"Star<\/a><\/p>\n

But perhaps even more significantly, yesterday was also World Naked Gardening Day<\/a>. I did some gardening, how about you?<\/p>\n

Happy Cinco de Mayo and much love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning on what looks like it could be a moderately pleasant day to continue the streak of pleasantly pleasant days we\u2019ve enjoyed over the past week. A bit \u201cparky\u201d at the beginning of the week but the temperatures have become much more tolerable as the week has progressed climbing, so far, to the dizzying … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “5 May 2013”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Happy Cinco de Mayo to all our readers - this week's Befouled Weakly News is here. http:\/\/wp.me\/p1AKak-1e1","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-1e1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}