New Term

I am taking it easy this term and teaching very little. My evening class last night was a bit of a trial as I now have Level 1s instead of Level 2s and some of them have never learned grammar before; have no idea that there are the present simple and present continuous and have always muddled along with some approximation of the two. I feel sad that I have to break the news that they have so much to learn. Those who have come from Entry 3 of course, at least know the names of some of the tenses, and know what a noun is; what a verb is and what an adjective is. I wrote definitions of these on the board last night. I had not planned to but I realised that this was needed. Actually, I am not a bad teacher, but have to hurry around the class too much .

I miss my old class!

Last night I couldn't sleep - probably woken by hunger and the acorns falling on the roof - I was very hungry as I didn't eat properly in the evening - but I want to lose weight anyway. So I went to F's room and read a lot more of Virginia Woolf's diary Vol 2 - same old cheap edition; the cover has fallen off but I can use it as a bookmark. I am enjoying all the Bloomsbury gossip. She has started to report conversations for the sheer fun of it; it's lovely to read. She is very funny sometimes. She gets very down in the dumps about certain things - feels such intense rivalry with Katherine Mansfield - they all think J.M. Murry is a terrible man but they think he's bound for glory, which galls them, The Woolfs heard that their view at Rodmell was about to be destroyed by a new house being built right next to their garden, you can almost feel Virginia's angst and anger - that didn't happen, (thank God, because it's so lovely now), and Leonard and V. bought the land themselves and extended their garden, so they finally could relax about that. VW has started to be comfortable around Tom Eliot "Eliot's visit passed off successfully, & yet I am disappointed to find that I am no longer afraid of him." - He is rather proud of some poems he wants the Hogarth to print - called "The Waste Land". Then she is still up against her servants Lottie and Nelly. "Refer back to some other scene of the kind if you wish to know how many hours have been wasted; how many reflections upon the lower classes formulated; & how often L[eonard] has approached me before I order dinner with a pained, solicitous appearance, begging me on no account to say this or that, strongly advising me at all costs to make something else plain."

I went to the dentist this morning and now I have another gold tooth - hope it will be comfortable like the others. I have a most expensive mouth.  It has been a terribly expensive month, and this comes on top of Australia, which cost I don't like to say how much. We had to spend a lot on F - buy stethoscope, memberships, warm coat, food, towels, all sorts of things. Then my dentistry. The dentist, Catherine, says I huff and sigh in the chair and she is quite sarcastic about it, finds it irritating although I don't know I'm doing it; I don't feel like a bad patient.

Went to the happiest shop I know - Waitrose in Hersham. Everybody smiles and is happy and chatty. The staff seem to spend all day gossiping but they do run a good shop. They just can't do enough to help you.

Then went to the garden centre for something to cover the seedlings. I bought a sort of kit - a bit like K'nex for putting bamboo canes together, and a big net. Better go and do it now.