This is cheesily symbolic for me today. I LOVE spring and getting home in daylight is a joy – especially when the daylight is full of sunshine! It gladdens the heart.

We are celebrating Lola managing to eat two scrambled eggs in the last 24 hours. Her digestive system is clearly shot to bits and she smells vile but I don’t care one jot. She’s been excited by the puppy bowl going onto the floor for the first time in ten days and has actually eaten something – that’s enough for me! I think the next step is to add some yogurt to her meals to restart her gut flora and hopefully she’ll keep on improving.

On a completely different but equally wonderful note, I was in class today, having completed 1/7th of this teaching practice and starting to dare to think that I may just make it. Each time I am placed in a school, I find myself meeting life enhancing experiences every day. Each time you teach and children learn, it’s a joyous thing.

Believe me, you may look at your children’s teachers and think “that’s an easy job” because the teacher makes it look so effortless but it’s certainly NOT easy and the fact that teachers make it look so is a testament to their skill and craftsmanship. Today, a boy I’ve only known for a fortnight said to me “are you leaving tomorrow, Mrs Mingay?” I was filled with joy to tell him that I’m with him for the whole of the summer term. It’s not quite true because I leave a week or so before the children break up but it’s as near to true as to be inconsequential. He said “oh that’s brilliant”. I felt my heart explode into a million bits.

Later, I was in the playground and a serious pair of Year 6s approached me to discuss science. I’d told them yesterday that I’m a scientist and they are full of exotic and demanding questions. I know, I know, I’m only a reluctant scientist who went into it kicking and screaming but I’ve earned my right to call myself a scientist with my first class degree. They wanted to know if aliens exist; why hair is called hair; are we really descended from apes and a host of other things. I told them that they too could become scientists if they keep on asking those “why, how, what if” questions and that they should feel free to keep asking me things every day. I LOVE the possibility that I may inspire a young mind to be an Einstein or even better a Rosalind Franklin. Now wouldn’t that be something positive that I could contribute to the world.