Running at Rossall

It was a very cold day today, I was so glad to get home and have a cuppa and thaw out. I was on playground duty this morning with Sian and I felt like the coat police....I must have said, "fasten your coat up!" about fifty times. It was freezing and children were coming out to play shivering but their coats were flapping around their elbows.

It was very, very cold in Fleetwood too. I drove one of the mini buses there, it was a good job it wasn't snowing because I won't drive my own car in the snow, never mind a bus full of children. Even though it was cold it was great to be outdoors rather than stuck in a classroom...the word 'bracing' comes to mind.

We met at Rossall School, it is a day and boarding school and it covers a huge site. Some of the buildings were lovely, but sadly I didn't get a chance to look around. There were about twenty schools competing and we all met on the field at the back of the school....in front of their own cricket pavilion!

I didn't get to see the sea but I could see Blackpool Tower. It was slightly frustrating knowing that the sea was only a hop, skip and a jump away, just over the promenade which was on top of a raised bank at the edge of the field. I did go for a little wander but I couldn't get onto the promenade unfortunately.

The children ran really well, especially the girls. The course isn't as exciting as ours though because we run through the woods. They ran round the field and up onto the path by the promenade, then back onto the field past the school's chapel.

I had spent the morning telling children to fasten their coats and then the afternoon telling them to fasten their laces...I really despair of them. How they thought they could run a race with their trainers slopping about I don't know. Am I being a fuddy duddy? Are they mollycoddled more nowadays with parents running them everywhere and doing everything for them? I don't know....but they just don't have any common sense. Some of them just lack any personal organisational skills, they don't look after or care for their own belongings and they will just stand like muppets waiting for someone to them out. I can only sigh and shake my head.

I've had to fiddle with the processing again so that the faces of the children are distorted, hopefully I can get out and take something better tomorrow that doesn't need messing around with.