harriet

My boss Harriet (Head of House at school) is leaving at the end of term after two year’s in the role to become Head of a Language Faculty at another school. She’s been brilliant and (unlike me!) always seems able to achieve things in a very understated way, with the minimum of fuss. She also has a gift for being able to keep the House tutors “in the loop” at all times and to be their strongest advocate when the “powers-that-be” at school decide to make unnecessary changes or to criticise individuals. All the House tutors (and me) got together for a special goodbye meal tonight in Wells. Part of our farewell gift to Harriet was a framed picture of the tutors (with added comments!). Arrangements for taking the photograph were all a little hurried, to say the least and, crucially, I omitted Kate’s name (my new boss!) from the e-mail which outlined the cunning plan – and later discovered that she was on a course and wouldn’t be in school that day (the very last opportunity for taking the photo)!! I ended up downloading one of Kate’s wedding pictures from her facebook page so she could at least “appear” in the photograph! Not a good start to the new Kate-Steve partnership! Kate is my third boss in three years – what’s wrong with me?
Love, hugs+best wishes for your new role, Harriet!
PS: it’s Sports Day tomorrow at school and we have to enter a House team for the staff relay (2 men/2 women). Somewhat bizarrely, there was actually competition for places (unheard of in other quarters!) and it was decided to hold an impromptu “run off” on the patch of green in front of Wells Cathedral’s west façade at 10.00pm! In the end, there was a boys’ and a girls’ race (and, yes, I was persuaded to run – and at least finished in front of Andy, but didn’t achieve the Olympic standard) and Kate L, Rynagh, Ifi and Tom duly qualified (we could easily have entered two mixed teams for tomorrow!).
Photo: Quantock House tutors/co-tutors (most of them anyway!).