Holidays are fantastic, but I have to somehow pay for them… Gladly we have begun to see the sun break through the grey and with few weeks of incredible weather, the all important cricket season is lifting off!
After a lovely Easter break I have returned to my basement room and house full of prepubescent boys for 5 weeks of absolute mayhem, chaos and quality good times. Once again I apologise for not being able to share photos of the kids and our activities but I will do my best to describe it!
Our inset training day was my first real contact with the gentle sport of cricket. And after an hour of listening to an ex professional player who counts broken fingers as accolades I was apparently qualified to coach!? While I’ve been put in charge of the ruthlessly skilled 5th’s team, the quality of my own cricket involvement has scarily reached the point where I find myself oddly drawn to checking live updates of test cricket scores… One of the perks of my job is that I’m helping with sport so often I get to mix with a variety of skill levels. From the u8’s to the year 8’s I’ve had the opportunity to observe and learn some very interesting tacts about how to tailor a session for different ages and skill levels to keep kids interested and learning.
In the house the mood has been slightly mixed. With the exams coming up for all years, revision has ramped up and pressure has increased. A few fellas are feeling the stretch slightly more than the others but overall the energy in the house is incredibly positive. I could put it down to the sun being back, or summer break nearly here, but if I’m honest, it has to be the restocked tuck shop. The new cupboard outside my room is overflowing with all kinds of junk and smells of sugary goodness.
DCPS is an awesome place, but I still quite enjoy a few outings, and between days off and school trips I had the chance to visit a few sweet British locations. Considering most of my peers have entered tertiary education, I felt a visit to the pleasant town of Oxford was on the cards. After borrowing a bike and purchasing a bus ticket, I visited the strange Uni/town amalgamation. Doing a walking tour around the campuses was immensely invigorating and filled with historical gold. I walked through the Church C.S Lewis worked in, visited the building where Tolkien wrote LOTR and dropped into the college of Albert Einstein. If you are ever there it is definitely worth spending as much time as possible in the Uni, before you top it off with an incredible crepe on a perfectly tended lawn for a blissful end to the day!
About a week later I was invited on a school trip across the border into Wales, where we visited the brilliant Chepstow Castle. It was a fort built in several stages over hundreds of years and with the vast knowledge of a history teacher Mr Gould I was absorbed in the awesome place. Just for some perspective I was in a room about than 8 times older than federated Australia!
Cheltenham has been buzzing with energy this last month. We had the Cheltenham Jazz Fest a few weeks back, where I had the fortune of seeing the show stopping Hackney Colliery Band, and a mixture of other musos who turned the town into a blur of brilliant tunes.
Coming up next on #jongmasjourney includes a visit from the grandparents, a climb up a mountain and some dodgy accommodation in London’s West Ham! As always thanks for taking the time to have a read and feel free to shoot me a message or comment, and until I see you next and as Grandma’s friend Laurie always says…
“Love all around”
Jongma's Journey 