Monday 27 June

A huge intake today of 90.  Our biggest room can only take 40 at a squeeze so new students were scattered around school being tested and inducted.  Temperatures soared but I managed to grab a fan which I kept on me for the whole morning - some of the students were barely dressed in extra short shorts and strappy tops so they looked pretty cool, but I'm 'properly' attired so need all the help I can get.  The timetable has changed (again) and I have lessons Monday afternoons now too.  These are the students I need to write reports on (due today but late, oh dear) but they're generally a pretty good group and remarks like 'needs to maintain his/her steady progress' are true - unfortunately it's so much easier to write reports on obviously 'bad' students.

Saturday's The Independent has an article on camping in people's back gardens.  The journalist walked around the so-called 'Capital Ring' around London, passing very close to us and then camped overnight in a back garden in Crystal Palace.  He wrote about the people he stayed with, the food he ate and the route but unfortunately didn't say anything about the equipment he carried.  How much did it weigh? What sort of tent? Airbed? etc.

I had a look at the website campinmygarden.com and they still only have a few people signed up around the country.  They give general advice to would-be landlords including

"Contacting your council is usually unwise: Council's are not generally interested, except when being paid, yet they will exclude liability for anything said even if in error and will in fact be looking to find fault and enforce against anything it might find on site, which may have no connection with the matter of your query e.g. argue some other feature is unlawful like an extension, outbuilding, decking or boundary feature."

I wonder how long it'll be before a local council takes exception to this?  The website's advertising for more back gardens for the the 2012 Olympics.  If we were stay in London next year ...  actually we probably won't do that!