Well, the week wasn't quite what I expected. The intense Monday and Tuesday left me shattered on Wednesday morning but I was saved by an unusual number of cancellations. My Friday, in particular, dropped from 6 hours to 2 hours. Although it is disappointing in that I was completely prepared for all those classes and I lose some potential income, it does give me more leeway time-wise in the coming week as I already have a class plan for all of the cancelled classes. This week is looking to be a quieter week in terms of lessons but will be the time when I'll be applying myself assiduously to the side-project.

Other auspicious developments are in my garden. There are little heads on my broccoli (I'm salivating at the prospect) as well as caterpillars on the broccoli leaves, which I left to the mercy of the neighbourhood's avian gangsters. The peas are growing onwards and upwards and one of the once small tomato plants is starting to look rather like a strapping adolescent.

After several months of nothing my volunteer work for the Volunteer Stroke Scheme finally got underway three weeks ago. Unfortunately, a lot of what I learnt has already been blown away by the gusts of work and other bits of life. I finished the course when I was still living at Mum's house!

One of the fascinating things about the stroke victims is the words that there are recurring words and phrases that come out meaninglessly. My person says'good, good, good', 'and all of a sudden' and 'buh-buh-buh-buh-buh' whenever he is trying to put a sentence. The latter was interesting because I heard one of my students at FPH says the same thing when he was searching for a chinese word for something (he is learning Chinese). It seems that some phrases just get frozen in your mouth. What words and phrases would be the words you are left with?

The sheer frustration of someone with a stroke is probably the thing that strikes one the most: How hard it can become to express yourself when something like that happens.