Canterbury - 19th June, 2006

Some time since I last posted! We have been so busy with getting the apartments up and running.

I has been hard work but then we have had a nearly 100% rate of occupancy for the last 8 weeks. The end of June and begining of July look a little less busy but then our bookings pick up again.

I have rediscovered the joys of ironing - something which I really enjoy but rarely used to do. Now when 4 people move out of an apartment, you need to wash and iron all the bed clothes to prepare for the next lot. We do have 2 sets for each bed but we seem to be turning them around pretty quickly at the moment. Last week we had 10 people move out - that's 20 sheets and 20 pillow cases. I think ironing may be outsourced shortly!

It seems that the one bed apartments is the mosts popular. It has been 100% occupied since it first came on stream which was 7 hours after we completed on the purchase on the 26th of April. We may need to find another 1 bed apartment to keep up with the demand. I have had to turn customers away.

We are invigilating too. We are now doing the actual GCSEs which are quite fun. There seems to be a little more commitment by the students this time around although we still have those who finish an exam of 1 and half hours in less than 20 minutes.

We tried Julian on the foundation science paper (Did you know that there were different levels of exam at GCSE? Neither did we. Some of the core papers are split into Foundation, Intermediate and Higher tiers. I am reliably told that you cannot get higher than a grade C at Foundation level and so on) and he scored over 50%. Typical question: What is the liquid rock called that comes out of a Volcano? Choose your answer from: core, lava, metamorphic, sedimentary.

The RE "A" level was good stuff. "Scripture is the word of God", discuss. How much time do we have?

We enjoyed a free Elton Jon concert last Saturday night as he was playing at the Kent County Cricket ground just over the road from us. We all lay in bed and sang along. Sammy has recently discovered the joy of vinyl records and we inherited a gramophone (as Julie still calls it) with one of our houses here. Julian and Sammy now often go to bed singing along to the Seekers or Police from records they found in the local charity shops.