This week has flown by, chock full of preparation for children to return to school. We had four full days of staff training, including ‘safeguarding’ (child safety) training, a seminar on race and inclusion, and each staff member presenting a session on their area of the curriculum. We set up our classrooms, got all of our stationary sorted out, tidied up the whole school and ensured we were all caught up on the covid-19 requirements. I was tired out on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings so just had quiet nights at home.

On Thursday night Peter and I headed over to Brixton and grabbed dinner at a thai café, which was absolutely delicious! From there we headed to BrewDog Brixton where we were attending a ‘Funk Factory’ tasting session with some of his bottle share group of friends. Funk Factory is a US brewery that makes geuzes, a type of Belgian lambic beer that is usually quite sour and bitey. Apparently BrewDog had bought up big for their AGM this year but obviously never got to drink the beers so have sent them out to their various locations and encouraged them to host local events. It was a good value event, with us getting to taste 1/3 pint of each of the 7 beers, alongside a huge cheese and salami platter – I was glad I had lactase in my bag so I could enjoy some cheese as well! The beers were extremely interesting, with funky farmhouse-style ales that were then aged with cherries, or in Riesling barrels or some other interesting combinations. We had to call it as it was getting too late when the last beer was coming out at 10:30 though, and we got home and collapsed into bed at 11:30.

Luckily Friday was a pretty cruisy day, just finishing up our staff seminars and finishing preparing our classrooms. Everyone was packing up by about 3:30 so we’d planned to have a few drinks outside, but I had to run off at 4 to head down to Forest Hill for a second viewing. It was nice to trial out my walk home and it was a very nice 40ish minute walk down there. We took a bunch of measurements and had another look around the place, re-appreciating how nice it is and thinking about how we might set it up. Once we’d finished up we headed across the road to the local pub (got to check that out!) and had a debrief over a glass of wine in a little outdoor garden. We ended up staying there for dinner before heading home to watch the finale of Canada’s Drag Race.

I woke up early on Saturday morning as usual, but it was nicely timed so that I could join in on a Zoom party some Melbourne friends were having. They were doing a Drag Race trivia session so we joined in and had a bit of fun before logging off at around 9. We had a quiet morning of bits and pieces around the flat before I went for a run just before lunch. After lunch we headed over to the Jack the Ripper Museum, where we were the only people in the whole place! It was a bit basic, so we were pleasantly surprised when the walking tour that was part of the price was actually really interesting and the tour guide was very well informed. She was able to point out buildings along the route that date to Victorian times and would have been there during 1888, during the timeframe of the killings. All around it was a very interesting afternoon that taught us a lot about the area that we live in! After the tour we headed home, made an Amazon food order for tomorrow and then had some dinner. We watched an episode of The Fall and then watched the first half of the virtual MBCC (Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen), tasting the beers included as we went. This is not quite a replacement for the actual beer festival in Copenhagen but gives us something before we use our tickets there next year!

Today is just a quiet day of food prep and relaxing before the craziness of school begins tomorrow!