And it’s not even midday yet.  GP2 was crowing at breakfast that he was going to have his last biology lesson ever today.  His Biology teacher this year (not you Fearghal!) seems to have single-handedly killed all interest in the subject in the entire class, as only one of their number has picked biology for next year.  It is a little sad, as we’re both working biologists.  In contrast, he has been enthused by Geography and we’ve been getting quizzes at every opportunity, appropriate or otherwise.  0730 on Saturday morning, while getting ready for a swim meet, I was required to name all the countries in South America.  We’ve had all the States in America beginning with M or all the provinces of Australia and on Sunday morning, whilst I was trying to persuade him to wear shorts to a football day in Glasgow, I was informed, very politely, that Glasgow gets 4 times as much rain as East Lothian and he’d be fine in joggers, thank you very much.   So please, Mr H, could you move on to longest rivers, highest mountains, deepest seas, biggest earthquakes…

It has set me wondering just what it is that makes an inspirational teacher.  I remember well, from my own University days, having the most awful lecturers in Vertebrate Biology and in Mycology.  As I had no biology background, I had no foundation knowledge or interest in those topics to get me through and so I pretty much gave up going to their classes; I regretted this big time when it came to the exams as in fact their questions would have been the easiest had I done the work.  On the other hand, we had David Bellamy lecturing on Plant Ecology.  He was aeons out of date but who cared – his enthusiasm made me want to be an ecologist.  I find it remarkable that, on the couple of occasions I’ve met him since, he has recognised me. 

Then the rest of this morning.  The postman rang the doorbell with a package I’ve been waiting for (nice shiny books on Cheilostomatous Bryozoa and Echinoderms!) and I just managed to hop downstairs without breaking the other leg before he disappeared.  Back to the PC to find an irate and, frankly, offensive message from a swimmer’s parent.  My own fault because I’d put out a carelessly phrased request for help at next week’s meet.  However, the response from the dad of one of our lets say more challenging swimmers was OTT and has really upset me and I wonder why I bother.  I have a strict policy these days of not hitting the reply button on the computer when something arrives that I don’t like.  I always wait at least 24 hours so that I can type something measured that I mean and won’t regret.  If I were to reply immediately to the one I received this morning (which is clearly what an otherwise very sensible dad has done) it would be a long time before we were speaking to each other!  So, deep breaths…

And finally, to cap it all, I googled trimalleolar fracture to see what the long term prognosis is.  I very rapidly wished I hadn’t but console myself with the thought that people who post about these things are most likely to be the ones with problems.  However, I may well not be defending my Scottish aquathlon title in September.  Think positive gpm.