Motivation

So, what keeps me going? I work hard because I do a job I love. Teaching has many challenges, more and more red tape these days, but if you teach a subject you are passionate about, as I do, you can balance that. I do get bogged down this time of year with 500+ reports to write and hoping I have prepared sufficiently the children for their exams, but I get to sing and play the piano every day, share my love and enthusiasm for music, hear children perform their own compositions, and am still recognised in the street and warmly greeted my past pupils (and, scarily, teach their daughters too) so I must be doing something right!

Our International Evening

I play hard, too. I love being in an orchestra or choir, with my own little bit of the jigsaw. I enjoy the challenge of learning new music and rehearsing, and the thrill of performing in a beautiful church for the concert.

All Saints church, Putney Common, with its wonderful Pre-Raphaelite windows by Burne-Jones, where we have many of our orchestral concerts.

Our little house in the West country is our most recent motivation. There is such a long way to go, and we face the prospect of planning applications, jumping through building regulations' hoops, dust, rubble and noise, but the prospect of a perfect getaway makes it all worthwhile.

And, ultimately, a long and happy retirement!

As ever, I say to myself every morning, "Don't worry, be happy!"