Baker’s Beacon Blog – Week 35

Dear Parents,

Finally, some hot weather!  I used to dread warm days in the Summer and early Autumn Term at my last job.  Hot, crowded trains full of sweaty adults to then arrive at a hot, Victorian building…the oasis of outside space and cool, air-conditioned classrooms at The Beacon is never more welcome than in weather like this.  As much as the sunshine puts smiles on people’s faces, it seems to have also brought on the delayed onset of hayfever to sufferers like myself.  Earlier on this month, I optimistically thought I might have finally outgrown my (admittedly ever receding with age) allergy but the dry, tickly throat and itchy eyes have returned with earnest this week.  I find wearing sunglasses helps enormously.  Years ago I had prescription sunglasses that I would sometimes leave on when going indoors when pollen levels were particularly high, “Very cool Sir” was the rather sarcastic remark I received at the North London comprehensive I was working in at the time, despite my protestations that my actions were purely medicinal…

The Year 6, 7 and 8 residentials are ‘coming home’ today and I hope you appreciated the stream of photos coming through on the various trip WhatsApp streams – my phone has been ‘dinging’ all week!  Alas, the England Football Team’s prospect of doing the same seems a long way away after the insipid performances of the last week or so.  Constant criticism does no-one any good, and hopefully the team can ignore the media noise and put together a decent showing this Sunday.  England always have (at least) one good performance in them in any major championship so I’m backing them this weekend to set up a titanic Quarter Final clash against (what will probably be) the Italians next Saturday.  With a significant cohort of Italian families amongst our Beacon community, whatever happens will mean that a number of us will have a vested interest as the tournament progresses…

Have a good weekend,

Nick Baker

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