I got paid today.

First time I've earned any money in more than five years.

I didn't get paid very much, mind you. But it's nice that we'll be able to pay our bills this month without dipping into our savings. I think my habit of calculating purchases in terms of the hours I'd work to earn that money is starting to grate on the kids' nerves; I distinctly caught a glimpse of eye-rolling the other day when they asked me to open a new packet of biscuits and I started translating bites of cookie into minutes of my labour.

Almost three weeks in, I'm starting to feel fairly competent at work. I can finally find my way around the buildings, for instance. In my defence, part of the reason that it's taken me this long is because it's a big school, and some classes are in strange places. To get to the music building, for instance, you have to exit the main building, walk through the car park, go through a narrow passageway next to the finance building, continue through the stable yard, past the horses (first school I've ever been in where they have horses) and then go up a steep flight of stone stairs. The other part of the reason why it's taken me this long to learn my way around is, I must admit, that I have an atrocious sense of direction. Sadly, Ems seems to have inherited this from me - she's the only kid I've ever met who's actually got lost in an aeroplane.