...Hello, hello, I'm back again.....

Here she is again, my beautiful grand-daughter Charlie as shot by her doting Daddy, the Son and Heir.

Apologies for not posting earlier, but last night at around 11.00p.m., in the middle of watching Iron Man II I crashed and burned. The Boss let me sleep and then sent me off to bed around midnight.

I think what did for me was a combination of:-

Saturdaynight/Sunday morning broken sleep from the S&H phoning updates on YH's labour, followed by the excitement of Charlie's arrival.
Monday, the emotional crash as the phone call about the visit came through and the frantic preparations.
Tuesday, more preparations, a late night at work, coaching to try and keep a sense of reality.
Wednesday, the strain of the first day of the visit, another late evening at work, lack of food and a late night preparing lessons.
Thursday, the depressing progress report on how the visit was going, the build up of tension until around 7p.m. until we got the notification that we were "satisfactory", followed by the releif, and the Leaver's Dinner with a high acohol intake.
Friday, the report back and the realisation how close we had come to disaster because of petty nit picking and the devious tricks pulled by trying to set staff one against the other, or catch people out by asking loaded questions. The soaring elation that we hadn't let the "wicked witch of the west" get away with her mind games, followed by the come down as the fatigue really hit us all. The elation of being able to visit Charlie again, a huge Chinese meal and more alcohol. The incandescent rage I felt when I discovered that my mate hebs had been reduced to tears by the inspection team, and the absolute fury that I hadn't known about it and couldn't get to her to offer a shoulder and the realisation that the careers of several people could have been ruined by the process.

And so I crashed and burned............but now I'm back and fighting fit.

I'm on a mission to find some ammo.......our lead Inspector, it turns out, has only been in the Teaching profession for 9 years!

Nine years for fuck's sake.....I've been doing the job for 31 years............and I think I'm pretty good at it................but even I don't have the arrogance to think I could walk into someone else's school with a check list and a set of tick boxes and tell them they're not up to the job.

And how the Holy Hell do you get to the top of the tree in nine years? It took my mate B about 25 years to get to that position (he too is an HMI).

I was going to post more comments but I've deleted them to protect the innocent and to avoid the slight risk of causing problems before the report is officially published, but my colleagues know what I think...........and I will get to the bottom of it all.

On a lighter note, big fishing match tomorrow, same venue as last week when I came second, same tactics to be employed, only this time without the thirty-odd phone calls and texts about Charlie's birth. I'll let you know what happens.

Das vidanya moy padruga.