Sorry! It's been too long...

Sorry that it has been so long since I last posted... I have been manic; after filling in all those applications, I have visited one school informally (in Middlesex, wanted a teacher of Italian post) and had two interviews (for Teacher of French posts).

At the weekend, my fiance and I went to a wedding in Wrexham, which was great fun (no photos, sorry) and I even managed to get him up and dancing for about 30 seconds.. progress! Then on Sunday afternoon, I drove to Middlesex to visit the school. That evening I drove to Southampton to stay with my sister before an interview on Tuesday. I had to get up at 0600 to be at the school by 0815... but it was all worth it in the end; I GOT THE JOB! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

You might have noticed that I am really quite excited; I will have my own classroom, and I will teach French to Key Stage 3. It is a lovely school, in the middle of no-where near Southampton. The staff seem so friendly and the head mistress even made us a cup of tea! I can't wait... Oh, and I am going to be a year 7 tutor, so I will grow as they do!

Tonight I am lesson planning for tomorrow... and at the weekend, my Mum and I are going to the Good Food show in Birmingham to meet up with some fellow foodies from Violet's Pantry. I can't wait! Now I can really relax, and focus on my last few weeks as a student teacher!

For all other PGCE Students out there; keep going with the silly applications; I had almost given up hope but got there in the end!

Teaching applications

No-one ever said that life as a PGCE student was meant to be easy, in fact they always said it would be hard, but when they mentioned it, they tell you about the hours of planning, they tell you about the endless paperwork and they tell you about the lack of social life (life, what's that?)

What they don't tell you about is the endless application forms that you fill in for jobs... Thus far, I have filled in 19 applications, I have had 3 interviews and I am fed up of it! I keep being told that the right job is out there for me, but it is gutting when I fill in form after form, turn up at interview and they give the job to a girl who works in the school already and has never had another interview....grrrrr

Over the past week, I have filled in 4 application forms (each taking 2+ hours) and tonight I have done another 3....Fingers crossed...

More on the challenge

Well, so far we have bust our budget... we went to Tesco last night to get the bits that we needed, and they had free range chicken breasts reduced. As they never ever have free range stuff reduced, we decided to stock up... and spent £18 on chicken alone... but it has all gone into the freezer and we will have it over the coming months. We did save £12 in reductions though!

Also, isn't it always the way that when you are trying to save money, you run out of everything expensive; we were out of tea (an absolute essential but costs £5 per box!) and also olive oil (another essential, but £4 odd per litre.)

So, if we really take just what will be used this week only, we are still within our budget having got the following:

(£7 left of the £10)

Bread flour - 42p
Yeast - 60p (we are going to try Tesco's own brand... it'll be interesting to see if that works as well as Hovis)
Pate (for packed lunches) - £1 (*on special so we got a nice one)
Sausages - £5 but most of these will go in the freezer - again on special 20 sausages for £5, we will use 4 this week, we will have spent £1.

Total spend for this week: £3.02!

I know that it sounds odd to say 'well we've not spent that, and we've not spent that' but in the long run, by budgeting that to another week, and including what we have in the freezer for this week, we will have saved ourselves money...