Son 1 is at
lycée - we await the end of the day (technically they can finish as late as 5.30pm, but possibly not every day) to see how he's got on! Thanks for all your comments about this yesterday - Ben and I cycled up with him for the first day, and then stood to one side and watched (with a load of other parents in the car park) as our offspring went in without a backwards glance... So today it's just Son 2 and me at home - and I'm getting ready for my own
rentrée! This means a good tidy-up...
The guest bedroom is going back to being my teaching room, after accommodating some wonderful house-sitters over the summer (Izzie and George, what would we have done without them?). So the bed is allowed to go all vintage again, and I have my first Rentrée Resolution - keep the spare room tidy!
There's plenty of motivation - every Wednesday my teaching (usually spread all around Toulouse) narrows down to the nearest town and villages and I have a stream of local children and teenagers coming for lessons on their day/afternoon off. I also have an adult coming for lessons on Thursday evenings this year, so a good desk and a pleasant atmosphere are a must. The good desk was donated a whole year ago - do you remember
this post?
A pupil donated me her old desk, and I had an interesting time reading your comments about how to tie modern and vintage together -
Wendz was particularly helpful and it only took me a year (sigh) to talk Ben into putting holes in the wall for all the pictures she suggested. (Yes, many of you can hang your own pictures. I suffer from clumsiness and have a perfectionist, but very capable husband, so I usually DON'T.) Here is the delightful result:
You'll have spotted the Willows having a good look around - I got Mr Toad off my laptop ASAP, I can tell you! Who can tell what would have happened if he'd got onto my Facebook page?
My baby blanket is on the bed, on top of a thrifted crochet throw, a modern machine-boutis cover and our very favourite but now ancient duvet cover (circa 1993, I think).
Beautiful American hand-crafted lampshades, given to us as a wedding present,
sit with a few interesting bits and bobs on either side of the bed we made when we got back from our honeymoon.
An oil painting by a friend (another wedding present) and a photo of Talkin Tarn, given by church friends when we left Brampton, Cumbria, sit above shelves of children's books, used for both teaching and nostalgia. Other books that guests might enjoy tuck in where there's space.
My grandma's oil painting of Brixham, presented by the Soroptimists when she left the town after years of service, is above the bed. It preserves the Brixham of the 1970s that I hold in my memory - I stood at the top of those stairs holding a collecting tin with my grandma so many times - the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, ('Try to look like a rescued child, my dear - they might give us more...'). I also counted the steps up with increasing exhaustion when returning from trips around the town. You can see why I hankered after this painting so much...
So, in this mild yet memorable mish-mash, the old desk I picked up for 30€ really didn't stand out too badly. OK, it was a bit wobbly, and when the handle fell off I replaced it with cord, which confused some of my pupils, and anyone with longer legs might find them slightly stuck under the drawer, but it worked OK...
Until last week, when a lovely 12-year old girl I teach (we'll call her Student X, she'll enjoy that) phoned me up and asked me if I wanted her old desk. The conversation went like this:
Thus, a sleek, white, modern desk is now nestling into a corner of our spare room. It is bigger, stronger, and better for teaching.
This is my first real test of the excellent principles set out in Emily Chalmer's latest book, Modern Vintage Style. She looks at how an eclectic home filled with things you have, plus things you like, plus things you collect, can be the best of all worlds, and not a meaningless mish-mash. I knew when I read/sighed/dreamed over this lovely book that I wanted to interpret this style in my own way. This desk is my first opportunity. Thanks, Student X and Emily Chalmers!
I bought a huge pack of whiteboard pens for home and teaching, and Son 2 was transformed from a sulky boy who deeply resented his spelling homework into a model student - all because of colour!
Then I started looking at the use of colour in my own teaching. I spray-painted these wooden letters years ago. Here my youngest pupil, who is just learning to read, is using them. The consonants are blue and the vowels are red, a well-known strategy for helping children to see the patterns in spelling and how vowels differ from the rest of the letters! See the patterns...
They are also useful when you're older - another pupil here is using them to make the word 'people', which is one of those horrible little words, isn't it? He'd got a bit of a mental block with writing it, so we switched to making it with the letters, which he can feel and see, and ended up timing him - he can now make the word 'people' perfectly in about 6 seconds!
So, I think that colour is not just an indulgence in life, but is frankly part of what makes life work. It's wonderful to live in a colourful world!
.jpg)
