Positives – Middle Age Fanclub

Always Look on The Bright Side; Five Things That Made Me Smile in September.

It’s that time again! Time to remind that despite the gruff exterior, there are occasions that make me crack a smile! I write this piece every month in order to remind myself and anyone else who needs it, that there’s always a reason to smile. September was a decent month too, so there are more than just the usual five too. You might call it a bumper edition!

Period 6 Frees! As a teacher, I sometimes find myself living for my free periods. The job is never not demanding and having my room to myself just to sit and work is always a blessing. This year, I’ve been rather fortunate, depending on your point of view. We have 6 lesson days at my school and on three of those days I’ve been lucky enough to be given the last lesson of the day free! I love it! Firstly, it gives me a goal to get to. I’m in my 50s and this job tires me out, so if I’m finished teaching before the end of the day that is just wonderful. I can relax and just get stuff done and this also means that I spend a little less time after work planning and marking. I also get to avoid some of the worst behaviour of the day too! And the best part? I have last lesson on a Friday free…all to myself…just me, the radio, an empty classroom and as much work as I can get through to start with planning for the next week.

Fantastic Forests. I’m a sucker for a lovely view. And I love a walk in the forest, having sampled a fair few across the world over the years. So an article on the BBC website about the most fantastic forests across the globe was right up my street last month. There were some that I’ll never actually see; the Jiuzhaigou National Park in China and the Amazon are either too far away, too dangerous or both for someone who might only explore them in retirement. However, the Hallerbos Forest in Belgium with its bluebell woods is close and very appealing.

The end of the Transfer Window! As a massive Newcastle United fan it felt like the whole focus of this year’s summer transfer window was on us and the sale of Alexander Isak, who memorably sulked and went on strike in order to force a move to Liverpool. A great role model for today’s youth, right there! Every day of summer was dominated by the story and it became quite exhausting really. In the end, he was sold for a British record transfer fee and, to be honest, it was just a relief in the end. Good riddance!

Couch to Team GB! This was the story of mum of two, Emma Broadhurst who recently captained the Team GB Triathlon team at the European Triathlon Championships in Turkey. Now that might not seem like that big a deal until you find out that Emma only started exercising again a few years ago after putting on weight having had two children. However, after not being able to stick to her exercise schedule she then entered a triathlon and joined a local triathlon club. With the camaraderie and support that she received Emma found that she was doing really well and then, two years later, found herself being called up to Team GB having finished second at an event in Cardiff last year. Emma is only 35, yet still a bit of a veteran in athletics terms and so this was a story that was bound to make an oldie like me smile!

Wor Flags. For the uninitiated, Wor Flags is a fan funded group that organises flag displays (tifos) at Newcastle United home matches. They’ve been going for a few years now and have held some incredible displays that help with the atmosphere in the ground on matchdays. Basically flags of all shapes and sizes are dotted around the stadium with frequent appearances by themed surfer flags that can sometimes cover entire stands or levels of stands. In my humble opinion, Wor Flags create the best displays in the UK. The one that made me smile last month – and once again feel incredibly proud to support my club – was displayed before the home game against Barcelona in the Champions League. Rather than banging on about it, I’ll just post the photos below. A thing of beauty.

Colourful towns and cities. I read an article about towns and cities that don’t shy away from a bit of colour and it made me smile. To get to our favourite beach when we’re on holiday we have to walk through the harbour of said town and most of the houses are painted different, vibrant colours. It’s just a lovely, lovely place. Then, about a week after reading the article I read that they were bringing back the children’s TV classic, Balamory. If you don’t know of it, Balamory was a fictional Scottish town full of happy-go-lucky characters who lived in a place where the houses were painted different colours. There was a lot of singing of catchy songs too. Again, just the mention of Balamory and the thought of all of that colour and remembering singing the songs with my kids when they were much younger made me smile!

And there we have it; a bumper (2 smiles more than usual!) edition of ‘Always look on the bright side…) and hopefully at least one thing to make you smile. Until next time; keep smiling!

Always Look on the Bright Side; Things that made me smile in August.

August is a month where I fall out of routine. As a teacher, I’m enjoying the summer break; six weeks of work free bliss. And because of that, I rarely remember to keep up with the routines that I establish during term times, including looking for the little smile worthy positive moments in the news. So, this month, my bright sides are a bit more generalised.

Summer and a bit of a heat wave. Now, I feel it’s best to quantify the term ‘heatwave’. I live in England which is never particularly warm in comparison to a lot of other countries. However, this year, for a week or so we had a bona fide heatwave and temperatures that at times became unbearable. Why smile then, you might ask. Simple. Being without work for 6 weeks meant that I was free to sit out in the garden on such hot days and chat to family or read a book or even, if I was feeling a little more ambitious, do a bit of gardening. And it’s wonderful just to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. In the north of England it’s easy to get used to the wind and the rain and so it’s always a reason to smile when the sun gets out in summer.

We’ve got a clean patio! Having had a lovely family holiday in Wales we returned to normal life that included the added bonus of a patio now full of weeds. We’d done some work getting them off before we’d left but when we got back home after a week it was like a mini jungle. Now, after much trowel work, boiling water pouring and sweeping our patio looks lovely and it’s been fantastic being able to sit there in the sun without wishing it wasn’t a mess. Sometimes, it’s the strangest of things that can raise a smile!

My son’s GCSE results. Despite the fact that it feels like mere minutes ago that I was regularly picking my kids up from their primary school’s after school club, they’re in fact both finished in regular education. The youngest, my son, finished Year 11 in July of this year and so picked up his GCSE results near the end of August. He passed everything, which was great, achieving excellent results in Maths, English Language and i Media. It’s obviously really stressful for everyone, especially him while waiting for the results, so knowing that he got through it all so well was more than enough reason for a bit of a smile. It’s nice to know that he’s got that particular hurdle out of the way. Now he’s just got to do it all again with 2 year’s worth of A-Levels!

Newcastle. My home city, the place I was born and raised and unfortunately, somewhere I left when I was in my early twenties. Every August gives me plenty of time to visit home and catch up with family and friends. And this August I was lucky enough to be able to visit twice. Firstly, I took my son up to watch a Newcastle United match. Just a friendly game, but it was the first time I’d been in a while and it felt wonderful to be back in the stadium, being part of a fabulous atmosphere and just being able to watch my team. A week later we visited again for a couple of days in order to see family and friends, catching up with everyone that we wanted to see and having a great time. My dad hasn’t been in the best of health for the last year and so it’s good to check in with him and see that he’s gradually getting stronger again. He’s not quite the same, but it’s comforting and more than enough to bring a smile to my face to see that he’s getting better.

Running. I’ve had a strange year with fitness and have never quite got myself to the levels that I want. It’s been very ‘stop, start’ with illness and injury dominating, meaning I’ll get out for maybe two or three runs in a row and then suffer some kind of setback. However, towards the end of August I felt like I’d made a breakthrough. Having injured my back and worrying that I wouldn’t be able to run for at least a couple of weeks, I recovered within less than a week and was running again. Fingers crossed, everything’s been fine since and although I’m not running with a smile on my face – more a grimace – I’m finding a little bit of consistency. There’s always a positive to be found!

So there we have it; another month, another five things to smile about. Hopefully I’ll have lots to smile about in September, despite having to go back to work!

Always Look on The Bright Side – Things that made me smile in July.

So, here we are again. Back searching for the various positives in life and sharing them with the intent of possibly brightening someone else’s day. A piece I write every month, usually with the aid of a few notes written on a scrap of paper kept on my desk and added to every time I find something that makes me smile. Here’s July’s good bits!

The world’s strangest houses. I read the BBC website most break times at work, just to take me away from thinking about work, marking, the next class and stuff like that. Their Uplifting Stories section always has something to raise a grin. Last month featured the world’s strangest houses and as someone who always wanted to live somewhere cool, but ended up in a dull brown box – not literally, don’t worry – this caught my attention. The houses include a tiny wooden structure built by teenagers on a rock in the middle of the river Drina in Serbia, the mushroom house in Cincinnati which does exactly what it says on the tin and the Llama house in Argentina, which is quite an unusual building anyway, while also having a massive llama sculpture right outside which is as tall as the house itself. My favourite though had to be the Bug House in Albuquerque, which looks kind of buggish, has a library and a gallery as well as being ‘guarded’ by metal stegasaurus sculptures.

The end of the academic year! Quite simple, really. If you can’t get on board with smiling at being finished work for 6 weeks, then we probably can’t be friends. Anyway, it was a really tough, but thoroughly enjoyable year which I’ll write more about soon, but being free to not have to get up for work for ages and ages more than helped and definitely made me smile!

I painted our bathroom ceiling. Sadly, the summer holiday doesn’t seem to be allowing a great deal of holidaying as we work like trojans trying to go through the whole house sorting things out, completing long overdue jobs and throwing out stuff that causes clutter. But it’s ultimately ok, because I can get up when I like and I don’t have to go to work. One of the jobs I’ve done is painting our bathroom ceiling which, preparation included, took a whole afternoon. But every time I go in there now, I smile!

Lemur babies in Telford. Another story from the BBC. Ring tailed lemurs are a critically endangered species so although these two babies were born in captivity, it’s still great news. The babies were born to different mums, Rakoto and Abi, but have the same dad, Alfie…which to be totally honest raised another smile entirely! Here’s one of the babies below. Tell me that didn’t make you smile!

Our holiday in Wales. It’s not particularly glamorous and we go there every year, but I absolutely love it. To be sat on one of my favourite beaches makes me feel completely relaxed. I can read a book, chat to one of the family, play games, go for a walk or go for a bit of a paddle in the sea and I don’t think of any kind of worries or stressful stuff at all. We go to a village on the Llyn peninsula in North Wales and for me it’s one of the most beautiful, unspoilt and unfussy places going. And this year I managed to go for an early morning run down one of the longer beaches, ending by clambering over some rocks at low tide and over onto one of our regular almost hidden coves completely on my own. What a way to start the day!

And there you have it. Five more reasons to smile and five more reminders to me that it’s great to be alive! I hope you enjoyed my little bit of positivity.

Always Look on The Bright Side: Five Things that Made me Smile in June.

It’s that time again! Time to see if I can help anybody out with a bit of something more upbeat. Every month I make a note of the kind of things that raise a smile in my day and then at the start of the next one, I relay them to you, dear reader. So here are June’s little moments. Oh, and there are seven for the price of five this month!

The sun. Granted, there have been a few days and nights where it has been far too hot, but it’s just lovely to get to this time of year and feel the full warmth of the sun. Especially when you live in northern Britain, where we can go for weeks fully convinced that it’s not actually up there any more. So, despite the fact that it’s led to some pretty sweaty classrooms and a good few uncomfortable sleeps, it’s been lovely to feel the sun again. Here’s hoping that it can stick around for at least a couple of months.

Night time walks. I’ve been struggling to sleep now that the temperature has risen. It’s also affected my running habits; I find running with a pacemaker in this heat can feel absolutely dreadful. And so, I’ve taken to going for walks at night. Usually we’ve been going out after 9pm, either myself and my wife, myself and my son or just all three of us. It isn’t working in terms of helping me sleep, but it’s good as I can’t go out and run so much, so it keeps up a level of fitness. The best of it though, is that it makes for some lovely chats, especially with my son who I don’t always get to chat to, such is his status as bedroom bound typical teenage boy! I really love spending time with my family, so these walks have enabled a bit of that too and that’s definitely something to smile about.

My son finished his GCSEs! This made me smile because it doesn’t seem more than a few minutes since I was helping my wife edge across Leeds to the maternity ward while she was in labour with said son! Fifteen years on – he’s 16 this month – and he’s just finished his formal education. Reason enough to sigh and exhale forcefully at the perceived speed of it all, but also reason enough to smile.

The Leeds 10k. It’s not been a great year running-wise, so far. Just illness after illness and barely enough energy to get through the day, let alone go out running. Thankfully, I focused myself on a month of training, determined to get into a fit enough state to get round the Leeds 10k. And I did it! It was quite a tough one on a relatively warm day, but I got round in a respectable enough time, so I’ll take that. So although I was shattered as I crossed the finish line, it wasn’t long before I was smiling. I’ve written a blog about the day that’s on the link below if you fancy reading about it.

Power Up signs, smiling more and a bloody cricketer! The Leeds 10k.

Discovering Folk Bitch Trio. I listen to a lot of music. Perhaps not as much as before having a family, but still a lot of music. At work, one of my daily rituals involves listening to BBC 6 Music whenever I get a chance. It’s on as soon as my laptop is up and running in the morning and then back on as soon as I have any non contact time. 6 Music plays a huge range of stuff and this means that I’ll inevitably discover stuff that I’ve never heard before. Usually I make a note of the artist and or song on a Post It and then take that home for Alexa to work her magic. The brilliantly named – and brilliant – Folk Bitch Trio are my latest find. They remind me a bit of First Aid Kit and Haim, both of whom I really like.With Folk Bitch Trio, I enjoyed their music and loved their name. All in all, they made me smile partly because of their name and their music, but also because discovering new music or even old stuff that I’ve never heard is always a reason to smile for me.

New runners. Short and sweet, this one. I’d been after some new running trainers for a while now, but didn’t fancy paying ridiculous money. So, I’d been looking for offers and discounts to help me out while reading a lot of reviews to find what might be the best pair for me. I’ve had a pair of Saucony Ride 17s for a while now and love them. However, I’d got a deal on them and they only cost about £70. Anything comparable now was looking like costing me well over £100. And then, out of nowhere, Sportshoes.com sent me an email with 30% off certain brands and after a bit of deliberation I got some new Saucony Ride 18s for £90! They’re bright orange and beautiful and I’m looking forward to wearing them in and covering lots of miles in them!

June’s gone! Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against June. But the reason I’m able to smile about it waving goodbye for another year is that we have two family birthdays in June. Again, it’s not that I don’t like the people or their birthdays. What I don’t like is the pressure I put on myself for buying presents for my wife and the pressure that also comes from my daughter’s birthday, which is always a big deal and comes just two days after my wife’s. Life towards the end of June is just chaotic and so, frankly, I’m smiling again now that it’s July!

So there we have it. Proof that even in the smallest things we can find something to smile about…even when your legs feel like they’re going to fall off and you feel sick while dragging yourself up one last hill!

Always Look on the Bright Side: Five Things that Made me Smile in May.

So, here we are again. Delving into the everyday positives that can be found…even if you tend to wander round with your head in the clouds like me! It doesn’t take much to find something that will be sure to make you smile.

So what did the trick in May?

Toddlers named World Puddle Jumping champions! I mean even without the detail there’s enough to raise a smile even with the headline alone. However, last month I read about Eli and his twin sisters Maia and Neeve from Northampton whose mum had submitted a video of them jumping in puddles to the organisers of the World Puddle Jumping Championships. The championships are run by Wicksteed Park, a tourist attraction in Northamptonshire, who decided that these muddy puddle loving siblings were the winners. There’s no trophy; winners receive a cuddly toy and tickets for a family day out at the park. Let’s hope it’s raining that day!

Star Wars Teabag art! This was such a great story! Artist Caroline West has been busy making miniature paintings of Star Wars scenes on tea bags. As someone who loves a bit of art and is also a Star Wars fan this one was always going to make me smile. Caroline first dries the teabags out, empties them and then irons them flat before painting her masterpieces. And they really are fantastic. Apparently she has created 30 tiny paintings and given them all Star Wars themed names like Brewbacca and R2Tea2.

Another artist! Drawing London using a fine liner. I’ll say it again – I’ve always loved art. I was reasonably good at it as a kid (and can still turn my hand to it a little bit nowadays) but I really admire people who can paint, draw or even take great photographs. This time it’s an artist called Jack Nolan who has drawn the whole of central London using only fine liners. And he’s spent nearly 1000 hours doing it! This raised a smile mainly because of how good it looks, but also for the amount of skill and dedication involved in getting it just right. Have a look for yourselves!

My daughter arriving home. Not as simple as it sounds, this one. She hasn’t just got the bus back from work or something. I’ve mentioned in a previous ‘Five Things’ how proud I was that she’d sought out adventure in her gap year by travelling to South East Asia and exploring Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Well, in the middle of May she returned! There were lots of tears (not mine!) and laughter when we picked her up from the airport, but mainly this was just an enormous reason to smile. Not only is she safe and well, but she’s been through a whole raft of enormous experiences that, as she enters a bit more of the adult world, I hope will stand her in good stead for what she’s got to come in life.

I became a superhero…finally! I started a new job at the beginning of this academic year. It’s an all boys school in an entirely new academies trust after I left my old place having become frustrated with the trust that I was working for. I didn’t feel valued, which struck me as a strange way to treat someone with nearly a quarter of a century of English teaching experience. I was assured by friends who worked at my new place that our trust was vastly different and it didn’t take long for me to realise how true this was. Within a couple of months I was more happy than a middle aged man should have been to be named Star of The Week at our school, with the Head teacher waxing lyrical about me in our meeting. He’d sat in on one of my lessons with a particularly difficult group, so it was great to hear so many positives. And it’s continued with plenty of people having good things to say about my teaching over the last few months. A couple of weeks ago though, things got even better when I was named as a ‘Staff Superhero’ on a document that was sent across the whole trust! Again, lots of nice things were said about me and even at my age it’s lovely to get a bit of credit for hard work. Such pats on the back are not why I do the job, but still, it’s nice to feel valued at any time, really. I’m still waiting on my cape and lycra costume though…

So, there you go; proof once again that even though you might have to upturn a few stones and look a little harder than you might like at times, there are always positives to enjoy and things to turn that frown upside down!

Always look on the Bight Side; Five Things that Made me Smile in April.

This month’s ‘Five Things…’ is a little bit different in that I haven’t really had time to make my usual list. Add to this that for two weeks I was on Easter holidays and out of my routine and it means that this wasn’t something that I gave much thought to. So this month is a little bit off the cuff. But I hope it still serves to show you that we can usually find something to smile about, however simple.

The first thing – and the most obvious – that had me smiling was the Easter break. As a teacher I get a two week end of term break at Easter and this year, because of the timing of the holiday, I also got an extra day for Easter Monday. Now, I know lots of people complain that teachers get too much time off, but I have a number of responses to that. Firstly, I’m presuming that as a child, you went to school. Therefore, you know the drill. When a term or a half term ends, there’s a break. It’s not new. Secondly on this, if it troubles you that much, do the training, invest the time and become a teacher. Thinks of the holidays! But, I digress. Two weeks off gives a person time to rest, relax, reset and reflect. And while sometimes my life feels far too busy and chaotic, rest, relaxation, the chance to reset and reflect are more than enough to make me smile.

My fence. The first week of the Easter break was almost entirely spent in sunshine. And so, being in my middle age that was the cue to do lots of things in the garden! One of these things was to start painting my fence, which hadn’t been painted since we had even better weather during lockdown. Suffice to say that by the end of the break the view into my garden was way better than it’s been for years! Boring, I know, but sometimes – especially at my age – it’s the simple things that raise a smile!

The Bluetones. The Bluetones are one of my favourite bands and have been for around 30 years. If you don’t know, they’re an indie pop band who were big in the Britpop scene of the 1990s and they make wonderful, thoughtful indie pop music. Anyway, I went to one of their gigs last month, in York. They were brilliant, as always, which was reason enough for a bit of a smile. If you’ve never heard them, then I implore you to check them out. However, it was a consequence of writing a review that made me smile even more. Having posted my review on a Bluetones fans group on social media it started to do really well in terms of views. Always a reason to smile. People were leaving positive comments. More smiling. And then, one comment really caught my eye. It was from the father of the singer in the support band, Balter, who said that he was thrilled to see that I’d mentioned them and that his son, the singer was chuffed too. So pleased were they that they actually asked if they could use my comments in their promotional material going forward. I can’t lie; I was delighted! They’re @balterband on Instagram by the way, and well worth checking out.

It’s Spring. The weather’s getting better, the days longer and lighter, the birds are singing and everywhere you look, something is in bloom. Just last night I was able to come home from work and within about half an hour was sat in my garden reading my book and enjoying the sun. So despite the stress of life, Spring and all that it stands for can really make a difference.

Ballpoint pen artist. This relates to an article I read about Cy Baker, a wildlife artist who has partnered with the Wildlife Trust to produce 16 drawings on canvas of various British wildlife, using only black ink. It caught my attention – and made me smile – for a number of reasons. Firstly, I studied Art at school and had a little bit of a talent for it. I still enjoy dabbling every once in a while, although I’m really not that good. I’m keen though! Art kind of runs in the family too, with several cousins and at least a couple of uncles displaying genuine talent for drawing, painting and photography. Closer to home, my daughter is a really talented artist, although like me, is a bit lapsed. I hold out some hope that it’ll be something that she goes back to though. I really admire people who can draw and paint though as I realise what a skill it is having struggled manfully with it for years! So to see Cy’s talent is really quite the thrill. The idea that a person can produce something as amazing as the image below using just a biro is quite incredible to me and a real inspiration.

And with that, and the face of an incredible biro drawn badger, I’ll say, hope you had a great April and have a great May too. Keep smiling!

Top 5 Benefits of having a pacemaker.

(I’ve added a couple of bonus positives to my Top 5 too. I always manage to think of more than I need!).

Since having my pacemaker fitted in early November, there have been quite a lot of dark times. Some if them have lasted for days, others hours and lots of them mere minutes when I’ve felt really sorry for myself before snapping out of the fog of it all. Ultimately, I can always fall back on the fact that I feel quite lucky to still be here, however dramatic that might sound.

Today though, I’ve decided that this pacemaker lark can’t all be doom and gloom. Obviously there’s a good side – it’s making my heart work properly – but there must be a lighter side too; a side that makes me laugh a bit. Because the lighter side of life is the one I’ve always liked to be on.

So, I sat down and gave some thought to what might be the positives of the fact that I’ve had a little machine surgically embedded into my chest! Because everything has to have a positive, otherwise what’s the point of bothering, right?

So, as a result of having my pacemaker…

I can now tell people I’m part robot. That way, I sound cool, futuristic and I am easily the closest thing I know to Steve Majors, the $6m Dollar Man. When I get back to work I can tell amazing stories about what I’m/it’s capable of. I can make up ridiculous tales to tell classes because experience tells me that they’ll believe practically anything you tell them as long as you can keep a straight face. Come to think of it, I can easily get away with this type of thing with some of my younger colleagues too, as they tend to be quite gullible. I don’t mean that as an insult, they just are and I know this because of the sheer amount of bullshit I’ve told them over the years!

2. I got to grow a beard. I’d never had any interest in growing one before, but during my hospital stay, I couldn’t really shave on account of being attached to a heart monitor. I could have taken it off, but then I ran the risk of having nurses knocking on the bathroom door. I found this out to my horror one time when they were frantically hammering on the door because my alarm was going off and the panic was so evident that even I thought I might be dying, even though I was stood on the other side of the door just having a wash! So, I didn’t bother shaving. Then, once my pacemaker was fitted my left hand side was rendered useless, again ruling shaving out. Before I knew it, I had a beard and to my surprise I really liked it. Thanks, pacemaker!

3. I may be able to get work as Santa later on this year. My cool beard is a great deal more white than I’d like. But, if I can work on my “Ho, ho hos” and other such stereotypically Santaesque dialogue, I might have a rather rewarding sideline come December.

4. I’ve watched a lot of daytime TV, especially in the first four weeks or so of my recovery when my days consisted of getting tired out by washing and eating breakfast and napping. I mean, there had to be something in between. And so, I’ve become a connoisseur of shows on Discovery and Sky History, as well as every show that revolves around buying a house somewhere sunnier than England. I still can’t bring myself to watch ‘Come Dine with Me’ though.

5. I can move to the wilderness with my new found skills. For the first few weeks of my recovery I made a regular 10am appointment with the Raney family and their show, ‘Alaska Homestead Rescue’. From doing so, I’ve realised that all you need to survive in the wilderness appears to be a good roof, a gun to shoot bears with, a greenhouse (who knew?) and probably some sturdy fencing. With a good 7 years on my pacemaker battery, I’m toying with the idea of buying some land in Alaska and moving off grid!

6. I’ve discovered a love of pyjamas. For years, I had refused to wear them. But, having lived almost exclusively in them for weeks, I can tell you those PJs can be a hard habit to break. Even when proper clothes became an option again, I’d regularly head upstairs in the middle of the afternoon to pop my pyjamas on again. And while I feel like, months later, I’ve broken my addiction, I’m still strangely fond of wearing those comfy beauties!

7. I’ve been given a bit of time to re-evaluate – work, fitness, lifestyle, food and drink. Serious stuff now. Although there’s no damage to my heart and I’ve been told that there isn’t a risk of heart attack, I’ve decided to change a few things. Although I wasn’t a big drinker, I’m cutting right back. I’ve been forced to anyway, so I may as well just carry on. I’m trying valiantly to watch what I eat as well and last week I created a new milestone in my life when I cooked a stir fry (the first I’ve ever cooked) that had three (count ’em) different types of vegetable in it. Three! I felt like a proper adult as well! Also, with my fitness now completely gone, I get to stage some kind of Rocky style comeback. I won’t be punching anyone, but I will faced with some kind of training regime, which I actually like. If I can just get over my fear of going running again… Having time off work has also enabled me to sample retirement. And it’s fantastic, if you take away the pain, anxiety, nausea, confusion and exhaustion! But, I’m hoping that actual retirement won’t feature any of this! So now, I have an age in my head that I’d like to semi-retire by and for the first time in many years I’ve done some research into my pension. I love my job, but it clearly hasn’t helped my health, so there has to be some kind of plan, however tentative. It’s no good vowing to change and then doing all of the same things all over again, however much you loved them.

So there we have it. Apologies for ending such a silly, lighthearted piece with such a serious few sentences, but it’s all true. And even the serious stuff has come about because of my pacemaker, so it had to be mentioned as a benefit, however unfunny it was!

I hope you enjoyed reading.

Always look on the bright side: Things that made me smile.

Almost two weeks ago, it was time for me to head back to work. A new academic year has now started and having spent the whole summer free of this particular stress, I never take the return very well at all. Despite 22 years as a teacher, I never get used to going back and I never look forward to it.

That first week would also later turn into the week when Queen Elizabeth II passed away and whatever your feelings about the monarchy, it seems to have hit large swathes of people really hard, especially here in the UK.

While none of this made me hugely emotional, it all combined to make me feel low, quite sad and just a little bit like I could do with a boost. So, rather than wallow in the doom, I thought I’d think – and write – about some more positive aspects of the last few weeks, something that I started to blog about early on in August. Here they are in no particular order.

A few weeks ago I chanced upon an article on the BBC website, something that I make sure to have a look at every day. The article was about a restoration project with a difference – the re-planting of seagrass off the Welsh coast. Seagrass is, as the name would suggest, a type of grass that grows in the sea. Bigger than the type of grass you’d find in your garden, but grass all the same. Brilliantly though, a single hectare of seagrass can be home to 80,000 fish and 100,000 invertebrates. It also absorbs and stores carbon dioxide, making it a really important plant to have in our seas.

The project is taking place off the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales, which is somewhere we holiday every year. Its aim is to plant seeds that will grow into a 10 hectare seagrass meadow by 2026. In the sea off our favorite beach, there is already an area of seagrass, which is revealed every time the tide goes out. So the story really resonated with me and I must admit, the idea of its benefits just really made me smile.

The next smile giver is a little simpler than the serious, but exciting eco-project I’ve just written about. We’re big telly watchers in our house, viewing a whole range of things from terrestrial channels, Sky, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon. We even have ‘Family Telly’ time every day in our house, where we all sit down to watch something appropriate together. But it’s not a family friendly piece of TV that has made me smile recently.

‘All Of Us Are Dead’ is a South Korean high school zombie horror show and to be frank, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds! We started watching it around a month ago and, despite its obvious flaws – blood stains on the kids’ uniforms that have clearly been scribbled on with a marker pen, for instance – it is just a fantastic piece of telly. We’re big fans of anything apocalyptic in our house, so it was onto a winner from the start, but its jeopardy and originality really make it stand out. It’s dubbed, which might spoil it for some, but still if you enjoy the odd fright and a bit of a rollercoaster ride of a programme, then I’d highly recommend tuning in.

While not wanting to go into too much specific detail and attract any unwanted – and frankly unwarranted – criticism, my daughter’s GCSE grades really put a smile on my face. Our faces, in fact, because it was a boost for all the family. She’s worked incredibly hard over the last few years in preparation for them and in the end got very much what she deserved. It’s a set of grades that should help open some doors for her and hopefully help with her progress as she enters further education and even when heading into the world of work eventually. She has a habit of asking, shall we say, ill-thought out questions, as well as just saying ridiculous things, but it turned out that we have a very, very bright kid on our hands and her success made me immensely proud.

Football can be a very cruel sport. Especially when you’re particularly invested in it, as I am. In fact, football was very cruel just a couple of weeks ago, when my team Newcastle United lost a game in time that had been added on to the time that was added. In essence, we lost a game because the referee seemed to revert to playground rules, allowing play to continue until the home team scored the winner.

However, just before this game we had rescued a point in an away game at Wolverhampton Wanderers with an absolute wonder goal from Alain Saint Maximin, our maverick Frenchman. The ball was cleared from deep inside the Wolves box, going so high I expected it to come down with snow on. And what did Alain do? Volleyed it straight into the back of the net from around 20 yards out! Smile? It made me leap around our front room like a giddy teenager again!

The final thing that has given me a bit of a boost over the past couple of weeks has been the surprise I’ve had upon going back to work. Two weeks ago I was dreading returning back to work after 6 weeks of summer holidays. I always do and wrote a post about it.

Teaching: That first week back.

However, although I still can’t declare myself happy to be back working, I’m surprised by how smoothly it feels like I’ve got back into the old routines. I suppose, having been a high school teacher for quite a while now, I should expect just to be able to do my job with the minimum of fuss. But there’s still anxiety at this time of year, every year. Still though, although I’m tired beyond belief at the end of every day – age can be a cruel mistress, dear reader – I’ve not encountered any problems at all and have just been able to take up where I left off a couple of months ago. Definitely a reason to allow myself a bit of a smile!

More again soon on this topic. I’ve enjoyed writing about the things that have made me smile and I think it definitely helps with my mood! Feel free to leave a comment if you enjoyed reading!