Good intentions

Well, I've failed to blog on a regular basis - so much for the good intentions. Started to delete the entries from this blog in order to start another, but wondered what the point of that was. So, a couple of entries remain.
What has happened since the last entry?

- J, j and I made a family trip to Krakow at half term

- we survived OFSTED!!! and were even good, now all we have to do is get over the anger about the shallow process and hoop jumping so that we can get on with the real business of running a good school that works for our children, their parents and the staff.

- We've all been plagued by illness (fortunately not the actual plague, however)

- other stuff

Krakow is an interesting city. We were hit by the smell of coal in the air, from coal fires, the moment we got off the plane and it lingered all through our visit. Committed first cultural faux pas on the scary taxi ride in from the airport (Poland has one of the highest fatality rates on the roads of Europe) - looking at some tiny, wooden structures with gardens and saying "What super little allotment sheds!".... I'll never complain about the size of my kitchen again.

Everything in Krakow seemed to be medieval and covered with a layer of soot - even the snow, lots of it. The city escaped bombing in WW2, so most of the buildings remain intact. Pity the same can't be said about the Polish people.

Visited Auschwitz - can't really say anything about the experience that hasn't already been said, but I would say that, although I thought I understood what happened there, before the visit, I was totally unprepared for the scale of the camps and the solidness of the infrastructure. It brought home the industrial nature and scale of the operation.

Shoes, mountains of shoes. All faded to a homogenous grey except the red ones - mostly women's and children's. Where was the owner of the high heeled red wedges going the day she was taken by the Nazis?

Who was destined to wear all those hand-sewn and knitted clothes from dead babies and children?

What were they thinking?