Too early!

First teaching day in Stupid Week and almost the first thing that happens is that I am caught to do a substitution.  I was so flabbergasted at the audacity of anyone daring to be away during a two-day week that I accepted my less than satisfactory fate with surly submission.  In a very real sense I fail to see how this is fair, especially when I hear of two other members of the English department caught by the powers that be to make this odd day work.

That fact that it was also my duty day did not add appreciably to my attitude in which the level of sanguinity was noticeable by its absence.  The sun has, however, shone!

The supine kids that we teach have turned up on this most inconvenient and idiotic of days in numbers which do no credit to the sort of natural schoolphobia which every child (pretend he ne’er so swottish) should have in oodlesworths.  There they are, in front of us, expectant waiting to be taught.  Shameful!  I bet they will be there, with just the same expressions on their bovine faces on Friday after the third day of holiday on Thursday!  One truly feels like weeping!

Meanwhile I am beginning to dread going home because of the certainty of catching the tail end of some house improvement programme!