Today, after a rather grim week, I had a little “eureka moment”. I’d left work early-ish along with almost everyone on the staff given the herculean effort we’d all put in during the week for the O word. I was pretty drained and just wanted to be home as quickly as possible but I needed a jar of coffee so popped into the Sainsbury (supermarket) in the town where I’m working.

I’d finished my few little bits of shopping, including, Colin will be pleased to know, a couple of bottles of the red stuff so his won’t get pilfered this weekend at least! On my way out of the door, I looked up to see a sight that’ll be burned into my memory for the rest of time. In the supermarket café, there was a table occupied by a family. Two of the family were small people. A pair of tiny faces, swaddled in outdoor gear, hoods up and their faces just visible inside halos of fur were beaming from ear to ear, waving furiously and yelling “Mrs Mingay, Mrs Mingay”.

Obviously I was burdened with shopping and didn’t have my camera in my hand. Equally obviously I’d probably get struck off before qualifying if I posted a real photo from the moment on the internet so what you get is the “artist’s impression” version, as drawn by me, in the space of around 5 minutes so I’m not going to apologise for its general crapness. To be fair, I’ve posted worse when it’s been a photo if you know what I mean!

Gulp. Double gulp. That’s the first time that’s happened to me because on my last placement I never went into the supermarket in the town where I worked. They were yelling at me. They wanted me to see them and to respond to their waves. I beamed back at them and waved my shopping bags in salute. I felt two things that will live on in my memory – the first being that on yet another occasion, Cornwall has provided me with a sense of community that I’ve never experienced before. The other thing, and probably on balance the better thing, was that even me, hopeless, hapless, helpless rookie teacher had made an impact on two tiny lives.

In a time where I spend all of my waking life feeling sick because of the pressure, most of my time feeling bewildered, lost and confused and some of my time feeling simply and plainly bloody useless, it brought a ray of sunshine into my world.