Hi Bibliofriends – Happy 4th of July American friends!

How are you all doing? June really knocked the wind out of my sails blogging and reading-wise. I’ve gone from reading about 9 books a month to finishing just 3.

The School Grumbles…

The sole reason for this is being back at school full-time. We’ve been open anyway the whole way through lockdown, even extending our opening hours into the evenings for keyworkers. May half-term was spent entirely in school trying to finish risk-assessments and put all of the social distancing measures in place around the whole school as well as work out staggered drop-offs, pick-ups, toilet allocations, bubble groupings etc etc. And since June 1st it’s literally been non-stop. We’ve now managed to get every single one of our kids who wanted to come back into school and I’m feeling so proud of our team for pulling together, being flexible and achieving something which it doesn’t sound like many school (in our area anyway) have been able to achieve. As a member of the Senior Leadership Team it kind of fell to us to put all of those plans into place and action them as quickly as we could. I’m exhausted, mentally drained, have barely anything left to give and am practically crawling to the finish-line in July. Reading all of the teacher-bashing in the media has been a real exercise in ‘switching off the negative voices’ but on the plus side I’ve also met some wonderfully supportive people in the teacher community. To anyone who thinks they could have done a better job: you are welcome to come and spend a week with me at school. Even though I’m knackered, it has been so worth it to see our children back in school, trying their best to work with the ‘new normal’ and their smiles and resilience have made these last few months and weeks all worth it!

Books I’ve Read

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Atomic Habits by James Clear (Audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shadow and Flame by Mindee Arnett ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Currently Reading

These Divided Shores by Sara Raasch
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Audiobook)

Films I’ve Seen

Downton Abbey: The Movie ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Kitchen: ⭐️⭐️
Maleficent – Mistress of Evil: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Driven: ⭐️⭐️
Prince of Persia – Sands of Time: ⭐️⭐️
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Incredibles 2: ⭐️⭐️
Jack Reacher: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Seven: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Captain Phillips: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Godzilla – King of Monsters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Alien: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Aliens: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Take (Bastille Day): ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Elsewhere in my little world, with lockdown easing I finally got to see my friend who is expecting her baby in a few weeks time. It was so wonderful just to have a BBQ and sit and talk to friends face to face rather than via Zoom or text messages and it really feels as if the world is slowly becoming more normal again!

Hopefully with the summer looming my reading will pick up again in July and I’ll be well on my way to meeting the elusive reading goal of 45 books which has somehow escaped me over the past couple of years!

What was your June highlight? What are you looking forward to doing now that lockdown is easing? What are your July reading goals? Feel free to drop me your blog links below and leave a comment if you want to chat!

Have a good month everyone!

T xx