We are now fully bambooed.

The sometime subfusc appearance that characterized the dull material that stretched between our ‘estates’ has now been invigorated by a profusion of split cane. In one of those efforts where very little is needed to make a considerable difference we have completely changed the outside area under the house.

Our initial hope was to increase our protection from the outside living of our summer neighbours but the bamboo screen doesn’t reach all the way up to the roof so there is a space for the sound from the dysfunctional family that arrives for the summer months to bounce into our bit.

And bounce it certainly does!

They bring the television outside and listen to it at full volume and then leave it, presumably on the ‘gone but not forgotten’ principle!

I am trying to muster the energy to go to the third floor and either do some marking or attempt my next effort to bring some sense of order to the room. Typing is getting neither of these two options nearer to reality so – enough!

In a complete reversal of normal expectations and in spite of not having completed at least one paper on the Friday evening which ensures that you do at least some marking during the rest of the weekend, I have completed the marking that I had to do!

It was a dispiriting experience as the results are dismal. My star pupils have done as well if not better than usual, but the middle range pupils have apparently been revising for a different examination.

I wouldn’t mind so much but I buy my own disposable red fountain pens and I seem to be getting through them as if they were provided by the school. Which they aren’t so that is a bad thing.

I have now completed the marking of 40% of my examinations and I waiting with baited breath for the next 60%. Which is not quite true. At all.

The next thing is to put all the results into the computer and compared with the marking that task is an absolute delight. Though the information which will result from such an effort will be depressing.

There are two weeks left to the term and I suspect that our ‘holiday’ is only a week long – and that will be it until the end of the summer term at the end of June. One really does miss the half term!

I intend to find out exactly what we are expected to do and more importantly when we are expected to have done it. These things tend to leap out at one with little warning, but with a deadline impossibly near to deal with.

My aim is to stay a jump ahead of what might happen. To be, in effect, pro-active. For once in my life!

Today The Family descended. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them and the youngest child has grown even more and can now say my name with some confidence.

Unfortunately my own confidence has been somewhat dented by my having to take part in a goal scorning competition with small children and my being only partially successful in comparison with their own efforts! I am sure that it is good for the soul to be put in one’s place by someone a third of your size!

The weather today has been much more like the weather that one would expect for March in this country: bright and warm, though as soon as the sun went down it was cold and we put the heating on!

Penultimate week. Thank God.