Baker’s Beacon Blog – Week 14

Dear Parents,

Happy New Year and welcome to The Beacon 2023!

I trust everyone had an enjoyable and restful Christmas. The Bakers were ‘at home’ for all but Christmas Day, catching up with friends, family and of course, each other. The holiday was also an opportunity to catch up with my old podcast friends. When I worked in London, I had over an hour each way to fill and would pass the time catching up with correspondence and listening online to a wide variety of people discussing current affairs, sport, history and offbeat topics. All the autumn episodes had been patiently waiting for me in my Spotify and I devoured them all, getting right up to date with Adam Buxton (The Adam Buxton Podcast), Samira Ahmed (How I Found My Voice Podcast), Jason Bateman (Smartless Podcast) and Lauren Laverne (Desert Island Discs Podcast), to name but a few – the Richard E Grant Desert Island Discs is a particularly moving episode.  None of these people know me of course but as far as I’m concerned, they have become close personal friends over a number of years – was great to hear from them again!

As I said to the boys in Assembly on Monday, I’m not one for vague or generic New Year’s resolutions. I am someone that needs a target, and with that in mind I have signed up and got a place on RideLondon, the epic 100 mile closed roads event at the end of May this year, raising money for the BPS and our school charities. It’s some years since I have managed that sort of distance in one day but with the best part of five months to prepare, I reckon I can do it.  A few light sessions on the bike trainer during the week and then road work at the weekends, half term and Easter, along with some much appreciated moral support from those Beacon boys should get me ready.  What would also help immensely is if I could shift a stone, ideally a stone and a half. A physio friend of mine would always say, “you can’t out train a bad diet” so I am adopting the ‘Nick Baker Diet Plan’ for at least the first five months of this year. You won’t find the ‘Nick Baker Diet Plan’ in any good bookshop or even on the internet but it’s a Diet Plan that has served me well over the years. It’s a simple plan that involves cutting out (my favourite) snack items of peanuts and cheese in between meals. Easy at school, difficult at home, so we have removed all such foodstuffs from the house for 2023 – let’s see how I get on…

Looking through the fantastic and beautifully produced Autumn Term Digital Magazine (great work Marketing Team colleagues) reminds me of how much we achieved last term; always lots going on at The Beacon and the calendar is full for 2023. So much for us all to look forward to!

Have a good weekend,

Nick Baker