Of all the places I should have chosen not to land, the private special school should not have been one of them. It’s a red brick building placed in the middle of a council estate in a nice middle-class market town. I never knew it existed until I was asked if I would be interested in doing some supply there. I had nothing to lose. Did I?

My first day was a shocker. It was the calmest day that the place had experienced; calm before the storm. I had old JC creeping in again telling me that I could be of use to these lost souls and that I could bring about a miraculous change through my empathetic teaching. I thought about this for a short, a very short time, and stamped on it. It was a nice day of false sunshine followed by days of rain and thunder.

What…

Sunday morning has arrived with another deluge. It’s been one long shower since the decision, “By the people”, to go it alone. We were up relatively early so that we could fulfil our parental responsibilities. I got the shopping adventure whilst my wife took our youngest one off to a maths class.

Just in case.

I always build in additional time and arrive early at destinations or meetings, just in case. With twenty minutes to spare, I was sitting outside our local discount supermarket and awaiting the opening of the doors. As I looked for something to read, I noticed other ‘just in cases’ arriving into the carpark. Just onto my second page of a book about running and personal philosophy, I was aware that the place was truly filling up. This was like Glastonbury for Sunday morning shoppers.

I was first into the carpark but second through the doors…