Joel: The snow stuck for three nights, but today it began to melt. I'm not too disappointed. On Monday, I skidded over on the ice just inside the school gates. Three or four of the kids saw me but luckily they were the younger ones. If any of the grade 6 lads had seen my fall from grace, I doubt I'd have heard the end of it. They've definitely got cockier in the last six months of school and are now clearly ready to move on to middle school. There's only three weeks left of the academic year; one before Christmas and two after the winter break (which seems a little odd). Then it will be all change.

Christmas is now only five days away and it's been great to receive so many cards and parcels from friends and family. We bought a little crimbo tree from the pound shop in the station and now have a lovely stash of little presents beneath it. Thanks to all. Despite the distance, we're going to be having a right old proper Christmas. Brussels sprouts are conspicuous by their absence, but we've got stuffing and gravy so we'll be concocting a right old Christmas feast.

Going over to Sam's on Saturday was great. Sam and Shane are both dead funny and Shane had helped Sam to put on a great Christmas spread. The snowball fight was really good fun. Dumping such an enormous snowball on Shane's head was Rakhi's idea by the way. Notice how she set up the photo. I was only taking orders - honest.

So, now I've got two more days at school before Christmas, and five before Luke arrives then I'm off for three weeks. Today, the girls from my grade 5/6 special class found it quite amusing to reel off a list of my most frequent utterances. Among them were "BE QUIET!", "LISTEN", "OK, soooo..." and "Put your hand up if you can tell me...". It was pretty funny to be presented with quite how much of a teaching cliche' I've clearly become. It was all in good humour though. I'm still really enjoying working with kids. So often, they have me in stitches. And some of them are so bright and perceptive. I'm right with Jarvis cocker when he suggests that, if anything, people become "more stupid" as they get older. It's definitely been true in my case.