Clarissa et al.

What a day!

A new workshop in a new location in the hall so a little bit on edge with thoughts of whether it will run smoothly. At least in the morning it wasn't my particular worry with Katie delivering and me just watching and lending a hand when and where needed.

All does go smoothly, until . . .

THE FIRE ALARM GOES OFF!

The children - only eight and nine years old - behave impeccably and file down two flights of stairs with no fuss, no backward glances, no attempts to pick up bags and coats, and assemble outside.

We wait to be allowed back in, confident that it is a practice.

But it isn't. It's the real thing.

Not, as it happens, a real fire, but a real alarm.

The full time staff at the hall follow their correct procedure and check through the hall, but can find no evidence of a fire, but - again in accordance with correct procedure in an historic building open to the public - they have to wait for the fire brigade to give the all clear before the rest of us are allowed back in the hall, although they do allow staff members to hand the children's coats and bags which were hung up in the entrance hall out to the teachers who are waiting on the front steps to hand them on the children, still waiting at a safe (but chilly) distance.

We then go over to the Park Education rooms where the children are to eat their lunch, where Katie picks up where she left off and calmly delivers the last ten minutes of the workshop to them there.

We then commend the children for their excellent behaviour and go off to enjoy our lunctime break, but not our lunches which are still out of bounds on the top floor of the hall along with our handbags - including our purses so we can't even go to the cafe! We make whoopee on black tea and instant coffee, or - in my case - the very last scrapings from an out of date jar of instant hot chocolate. Not a good lunch, and by the time we get back into the hall to reset the workshop for the next group there is time only to snatch the quickest of quick bites on, so to speak, the wing.

I deliver the afternoon workshop satisfactorily, but - to my way of thinking - in a rather lack-lustre manner, though the children seem happy enough.

We then clear up, eat our much delayed lunches, drink a much needed cup of proper tea, and I go on to the museum to collect all the stuff I need for Monday's outreach workshop. It is more than an hour after our usual finish time before I am done for the afternoon, and then there is a visit to Morrisons for petrol, catfood and firelighters.

When I get home, Jess tells me "You'll never guess what! We had a fire alarm at school today and it wasn't a practice!"

Our 'fire' remains a mystery: theirs was a careless child leaning on the alarm.

While waiting at a traffic light this morning I observed some children on their way to school.

Most of the children were being held on to or at least escorted by an adult. They were wearing a multiplicity of coloured coats, fleeces, anoraks etc. and carrying an equal variety of bags. Most of the girls as well as the boys were wearing trousers. Most had trainers or trainer style leather shoes on their feet.

One little girl of about seven or eight stood out from the rest. She was walking alone - briskly enjoying the walk 'with shining morning face' not at all unwillingly to school. Her fair hair was in two shiny plaits with neatly tied brown ribbons at the end. She wore a brown blazer and knee-length pleated brown skirt. Her legs were clad in brown tights with shiny brown leather strap shoes on her feet and she had an equally shiny leather satchel on her back.

I gather that the uniform is that of a local convent school, and she looked as if she had stepped straight out of my childhood when most children over the age of six or seven walked themselves to school.

What a shame that freedom has been lost.

My first Christmas Card arrived today! It was from a real person with real handwritten letter - not that I actually know the lady in question: she was a student friend of my late mother, and I believe my father has met her just once many, many years ago.

Well, is it a record? Is this the earliest Christmas card?

Mind you, I was given my first Christmas present on October 31st - although there was a reason for that - and I won't be opening it until the proper day.

My beautiful little stray is dead. He went out for some fresh air at half-past-four on Wednesday afternoon, and some swine ran him over and killed him right outside our gate. They didn't even have the decency to knock on the door and tell us, but instead my father found him when he came back from a meeting at half-past-eight.

He had been with us for ten weeks and had developed from a frightened, hungry creature, always mewing who shied away from people and wolfed his food for fear that there would not be another meal, to a happy pet who lay in front of the fire or on a chair, sofa or bed, sleek, well fed and happily purring. While no-one was planning to have a third cat, he could have stayed here quite happily, and grown to be a much loved pet. Albert already saw him as a friend; he was also outside on Wednesday evening, but hasn't stepped out of the door since - not that I would ever let a cat out on November 5th anyway, but he hasn't even tried to go out.