On Headaches and Hangovers

Do I feel the need to get drunk to avoid my family or make them seem somehow more bearable than they are? Or is it out of a spirit of conviviality that I drink every glass of wine, cointreau and whatever the homemade stuff is that Dad passes my way?

I have a headache. My eyes are tired and I have a whole load of lesson plans that I haven’t done. plus I have 9O first thing on Monday….translation for those not undergoing teacher training in Skerton: Trial by Fire.

I met two Swedish guys on the train coming home, them and my Mum’s headmaster. The two Swedish guys were in a rock band and strangely excited about going to Grimsby, in their part of Sweden saying that you’ve been to Grimsby is like me saying I’ve gone to Las Vegas. They know that its a real place yet it retains romantic associations although part of its allure is strangely trashy.

For me Grimsby is always going to be the fishy smelling place with the shops that were within reach if I wanted a three mile hike to the bus stop. Where all my friends from school lived and pretended not to, ‘What Grimsby? I live in…Waltham, Irby, Laceby, anywhere but Grimsby’ except for the really dire cases who had to admit they were born and raised in Nunsthorpe. Grimsby, the only place I could go clubbing when I was thirteen because hey they really didn’t care. And how I thought that the greasy, smelly generally icky clubs were fun places to go only thirteen-year-old-Mish will ever know. Grimsby Grimsby, oh dear, Grimsby.

And yet these Swedes were really excited to be going…although as they were also genuinely interested in the comparative education systems of Europe maybe their words should not be taken as derivative of the country as a whole. Grimsby to them was a mysterious and exciting place that they had come to play their first big international gig at. I’m sorry I shall miss them, they’re playing tommorrow night.

I’m tired and stressed. I’m glad I have only a weeks worth of teaching to do before the Easter holidays. I’m also frankly terrified. I’m not very good at this teaching lark, thats probably one of the reasons I don’t want to do it for real.