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A lovely day in London today, brightened by seeing old friends and by meeting new people who enjoyed my presentation, and also by this chap on the Tube who kept smiling and bantering in spite of everyone trying to avoid eye contact. 

And these pics in Metro made me smile too.

If you want a smile, here's a link to a video of me in full flow being me ;)

https://twitter.com/joedale/status/449517351915229184

Glad to get home it has to be said - so tired!

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A hedgehog is not a normal sight at an educational (un)conference but Teachmeet is never predictable. And I managed to win a Hue webcam for my tweet about it:

A good time in Stafford earlier as I spoke at a conference; loved the enthusiasm of the teachers. 

The sun shone as I drove to and from conferences today, and I wasn't locked on the car park at the NEC as I'd feared. Plus I didn't have to pay to park. Hurrah!

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WCPS staff - I salute you for humouring me and joining in with HipHopPhonics (thanks @senoraelliott) at my staff meeting. You are an exceptional bunch.

Wish I'd taken pictures... ;)

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Two parcels today - new MOO cards and a new pair of boots!

Sewing Bee always makes me smile as I wouldn't have the first clue of what to do, although I'd love to be one of their models; I'd like to challenge them to make me a pair of trousers and accommodate my oddly sized calves! Which reminds me - I wonder who did end up with my purple boots?

A new book and a nearly early night!

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An INSET day at school - very interesting and helpful. And I managed to tidy my cupboard so I'm happy! Just got to finish my stock take list so I have a written record of what's in there.

Nice to go to school and return in daylight - and the traffic wasn't too bad either. Shopping went without a glitch and I even had time to get some petrol before picking up Jude.

Normal day - no dramas - still smiling!

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Curling tights. Come on GB! (Silver isn't too shoddy!)

A good day speaking to and talking with PGCE students at Leicester University about technology. 

Delicious lunch too!

And Prosecco for tea. 

Thanks to John Sutton for the chocolate; no need as I can't even recall what you said last week ;) 

And sun is always very welcome and smile-making! 

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Too tired to post last night so catch up time!

An early start was made better by this bag by the kettle at 6am! Thank you John x

More smiles as I tweeted with @MissJ0nes as we 'sped' (ha ha!) on the train from opposite ends of the British Isles to meet in York with others for a day of research (brain imploded with information overload!)

Great to see Thérèse and many other familiar faces in York - shame I missed Suzi though.

Good to be home after another rail nightmare - I am NOT travelling by train on a Friday evening again - and thanks to John for picking me up from Birmingham with Medjool dates to calm me!

However I did get a chocolate lolly from the guard who called me 'young lady'

Big thank yous from the boys for the chocolates I left outside their rooms this morning.  

And the new PPA timetable sees me teaching Year 2 - WA-HOOOO!

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A round of applause for my magical paper folding skills. In fact, two rounds of applause; one from each class.

My regular Wednesday morning chat with the lad in 6CF who puts out the chairs, telling me all about his trip to London yesterday to see The Globe theatre. He told me last week about how much he loves Shakespeare and wants to go to Stratford to see a play. One of my favourite times of the week!

Cheerful greetings from Year 6 as they came into school, and the bemused enquiries about why I was sitting in the dark.

Being told that my teaching was outstanding and that my telling of a story was 'powerful and moving' - never heard Oso Marrón described as that before but as Frank Carson said "It's the way I tell 'em" ;)

And I finished my display so that the whole school can admire our new obsession with mini books and Spanish!

Another early night as I still have a splitting headache, 28 hours after it started. Boooo!

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A big blue stripy puppet and I had great fun this afternoon with Y3, making them giggle and squeal as we 'helped' them write mini books. No mini book casualties today (But I did fold them all and use a template with a dotted line on it so it was a bit hard to go wrong when they cut the all important slit!)

Great mini books with many 'bichos' deciding to compete at the Olympics, go to the disco or fire themselves from a cannon after their bingeing!

Great enthusiasm from Y5 in their intensive Spanish lesson - I loved the way that they enjoyed every new challenge I gave them that veered away from the basic sentences, treating it as a great privilege.

And my boys are looking after me in my fragile state as I try to deal with extreme tiredness, an incessant headache and no John at home. Lots of hugs - much appreciated.

Early night I think so blogging will have to wait. Again :(

This time two years ago...

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I am so tired today that the little things have made me smile.

Loveheart sweets in the staff room to encourage us to spread the love to the children in Valentines week. 

Mini book creation with y4 - 7/30 managed to cut the wrong bit. In the afternoon, one Y5 class managed to all make it correctly whilst the other had two 'casualties' but was complicated by the flow in and out if pupils for reading interventions. 

John had made all the beds up again after we'd stripped them this morning. 

It was suggested on Twitter that I'd be good on CBeebies. 

I'm going to bed early.

And then there was this note. Made me day, wonky spelling and all!

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Utterly pooped today but smiles at school today at an assembly without chatting, lessons without aggravation and an ICT lesson that apparently had the kids buzzing!

And tomorrow I'm going to Southampton!
(Is this last year or the year before??)

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I finished my book last night - and just about everything turned out ok.
It wasn't raining at break so I got to escape the classroom for 15 minutes albeit on duty!
A surprisingly cooperative and mostly engaged Y6 this morning; we may be getting somewhere with them. And I amused them with my punching to demonstrate stress patterns!
A lovely class assembly by Y1 who were adorable - as were Nursery who sat beautifully!
Flatulent cows are hugely amusing of course.
The Jump is proving very entertaining.

Making flags with food also amused me - not as good as these though!

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Busy busy day!

A child in Y3 told me that a consonant was 'a group of countries like Africa or America'; another suggested that 'un elefante' when I asked them to recall as many pets as they could. 

One class started singing in Spanish whilst they were working - that made me smile broadly!

Educating Yorkshire won at the National TV Awards - hurrah!

Cupcake production took up most of the evening - they are delicious but it'll have be a miracle akin to the feeding of the five thousand if 40 odd cupcakes feed 650+ people!!

I listened to the Spanish stories that Y3 at WCPS wrote using BookCreator App. Really pleased with them! (Hopefully the video above will work!)

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Very busy at the moment with BETT approaching, a display to put up, lessons to teach, presentations pending and lots of messages that need answering not to mention managing an eTwinning project in which our bear seems to have had a rocky start and technology is not working as it might. Oh yes, and then there are the cupcakes I promised for TeachMeet.

Still, a very fast blast around the block, up and down some hills has cleared my head and I'm on the case.

Smiles? Yes, plenty of those but none that I can particularly put my finger on. Just been a good day in all the busy-ness.

So, here's a packet of chocolate fingers courtesy of Angela the birthday girl - and thanks to the other birthday girl, Fiona, for the rocky roads!

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A busy day and not much time for blogging. However busy though, there's always time for a smile!

A day that improved as it went on!

A good meeting. 

Coping with the projector breaking and a powercut that made everything crash. 

An exciting email from the British Council :)

A report completed. 

A presentation prepared. 

Glasses adjusted. 

My first run registered for #jantastic

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This is the most beautiful photograph (I didn't take it so thanks Viv!) After the (torrential) rain came the glorious sight of a double rainbow, brightening the grey sky and shining happily.

I'm also smiling (albeit somewhat wearily!) after the last 24 hours with colleagues from work - an unforgettable time, and only the beginning! 

And from the sublime to the ridiculous - I have a new vacuum cleaner which also makes me smile as it's one of those that "follow you around" - although it's not called Henry, and it's not a robot one either!

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Working on a Saturday? Well, not really working but spending Saturday in a school, taking part in a "show and tell" for language teachers from across the country. Lots of fun was had, and it was great to see friends again - and make new ones. My mini talks (on year3 writing stories in Spanish using 2D shapes and the quickest demo of BookCreator app ever) went down really well and although I didn't win the raffle, I did come home with rather a lot of Danish pastries (not all for me!)

Great day and lots of smiles - once I arrived at the correct school!

Loving the 'MFL-Twitter-teacher selfie' taken by Fiona. Loving the MFLTwitterati - not all in the picture!

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I looooove laminating!!!  I am a laminatrix (someone else referred to me as this at a conference at which I confessed my passion and admitted to having laminated my hair by accident.)

Other smiles today -
A sunny start to the day.
A little boy, probably about 18 months old, walking into church wearing his big sister's pink plastic play stilettos! So cute!
The boys playing with their cousin - always fun to watch.
My nephew greeted me by name. Several times!

Chocolate cake for tea. 

A whole day without my boot!

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See girls - I told you I had a milk jug!

I have just found it hidden amongst all the ornaments we put in storage! It's now reunited with the rest of my tea set. 

And this may look unexciting to you, but the return of this filing cabinet has filled me with great joy as it holds all my flash cards, worksheets and other resources I've made, and I haven't seen it since September 2011.

I also managed to get Mum's sewing machine working and shortened two pairs of Jude's trousers. That was stressful but it made me smile to think that, for all lack of domesticity, I'm the only one who can thread the sewing machine! Thank you Mrs Cunliffe!

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Living in Switzerland, I've missed many things including being an eTwinning Ambassador so I was really happy to meet with the Swiss eTwinning team and ambassadors today and share some of experiences. And I was really happy to come home with some new eTwinning 'swag' - Isaac Jude and John were particularly pleased with the chocolate!

 A beautiful day always puts a smile on my face. And so does my boy dressed as Sheldon!