How To Be An Idiot

1. Lend your Palm Tree to school for the Nativity Play.
2. Plan to collect it on Friday Morning – then get asked to do a Day’s Supply [yippee!] Arrive at school 8am, go into hall, dismantle tree, carry it out to Car Park. Fail to fit box into back of car [even with back seat down and front seat fully forward] Colleague comes over to help. Lee and I pushed and pulled and twisted and turned the box. “It must fit” I said. “Bob got it into the car 2 weeks ago”. In the end we got it in and pulled down the boot lid – which did not quite close. “Nobody is going to want to steal your tree. The car will be fine” said Lee, confidently. Tied the lid down – it is barely 2 miles home after all. Went and did a day’s teaching. And all day the boot was not quite shut and the interior boot lamp was on!
3. Leave school at 3.30 – only to discover the battery is absolutely flat as a pancake!
4. Accept colleagues offer to bump—start the car on the slope. She failed. Car now stuck diagonally across lane beside school. At this point twelve cars full of dogwalkers try to go up or down the lane, plus a huge lorry of timbers for the new school buildings [entry further up the lane] Much traffic chaos.
5. Ring beloved to beg his jump leads. Get his answerphone
6. Ring Green Flag Breakdown Services, who assure me they will be with me in the hour. It gets cold and dark and starts to pour with rain.
7. Lee leaves school, sees pathetic damsel, and offers sincere apologies – he hadn’t considered the boot light either! Helpfully suggests I put the bonnet up so that GF man will spot me more quickly.
8. Helpful GF Man arrives after 40 minutes and starts car and I go home.
9. Finally get home at 4.50 – frozen to the marrow. Feeling very stupid- but grateful to GF, and so glad I renewed my subscription!

The Best Bits

Colleagues who willingly put down their bags, and delayed their homeward journeys to help push the car to safety, without a word of complaint.

One colleague who said she had had a really difficult afternoon, and the whole experience of pushing the car with a group of giggling teachers had really cheered her up!

The GF man who was quite chatty and is now considering going to a Carol Service on Sunday “just to check out the new vicar in our Village” – I hope he [she?] is a good one.

Being home safe and sound with a hot cup of tea.

I won’t make this mistake again