One door closes, another opens and other cliches.

I am writing this from the shop. It’s a little too quiet. Some lovely people pottering and browsing, but I would like a little more buzz! Our new signs are being delivered this week and we hope the passing trade will increase then.

However, I am taking a moment, I can hear the birds from my workplace now. The occasional melancholy cry of a buzzard, the twitter of sparrows. There is a corner of the warehouse that I cannot go to until the nest of starling chicks have fledged.

I need this moment because for the last month I have been working two full-time jobs (three if you count running a household and teenage children).

I have been a secondary school English teacher since 2001. The last fifteen years have been in a secondary school in Shropshire. As I’m sure you can imagine, it has been stressful and rewarding in not always equal measure. One of the rewarding things, the most rewarding thing, has been the school residential trip. For the last five years I have run this outward bound trip, following in the footsteps of the geography teacher who ran it for at least twenty years before she retired. Thousands of Shropshire school children have spent a week at Arthog, I took Year 8 pupils whose grandparents had been on this residential when they were thirteen. It is the most beautiful place, just above Fairbourne and the view from there is out of this world.

Running such a trip is stressful. Very stressful. The paperwork alone would cause most sane people to declare that it’s not worth it. Despite what some people think, you are not paid extra to go away with the school, and it’s not a free holiday. I have had parents scream at me down the phone because they don’t like the group their child has been placed in. I have made last minute changes demanded because two children aren’t speaking when we leave the school car park, only to have them best friends when we cross the border into Wales. You don’t sleep. Because the children won’t sleep. And when they do, you have one ear open all the time. It’s like having a newborn, but there are 50 of them, and they are massive!

However, it is all worth it. The way the children develop over the week, the wild space, the laughter, the conquering of fears. It’s my favourite week of the teaching year.

And it’s the one thing I will miss.

I will return to my school after half-term as a casual teacher on two days a week. I don’t expect I’ll ever go back to Arthog Outdoor Education Centre. Perhaps I can sneak back to Fairbourne for a couple of days as a civilian. Let’s see. Polly.