Finton House School, Wandsworth

It had been a nice weekend for myself and my wife. My parents had come down to Somerset to stay and had manfully put up with being jumped on by my four-year-old son at frequent intervals. They resisted the temptation to feed him to the Cheetahs on a visit to Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park, and were finally on their way back to Essex - with me following on! I was held up for a while when my wife phoned in a panic from Taunton saying she had lost her car keys, but thankfully they were soon located for her.

The drive up to Essex was remarkably good - until I got to first the Dartford Tunnel - a five mile queue. And then to junction 28 for the A12 where there was a two mile queue. I think I spent more time in both those queues than I did for the rest of the journey.

After an early night at my parents I was on the road at 5.30am to head to Wandsworth in south west London for a visit to Finton House School - my third visit in three years. It is such a nice school, warmly welcoming, bright and clear rooms to work in, charming chatty teachers, sparky funny children and some of the best school food you will ever sample! The opening talk went really well and then the group split into their three groups. As this is a private school their timings are a bit different from state schools and we didn't break for lunch until one o'clock. I finished the morning session up in their science room with a bit of the old hanging drawing and quartering and a fun question and answer session.

As the afternoon didn't start until 2.10pm it was an extremely trunkated session. We had some fun and laughs with the stocks, before moving on to a wild and fun jousting session in which the gentlemen (their low numbers helped by the addition of a lady dressed as a man in their team!) snatched a victory in the final against the ladies that seemed hardly likely on the final change over as they were so far behind! But that is the beauty of this type of jousting! After a final farewell and great help loading the car, I was on my way. Despite some occasional very heavy downpours and some hold ups in South London I was home by just after 6.30pm. It had been a lovely visit to one of my favourite schools and they have booked me back again for the same date next year. Lovely. I was also delighted to educate some of the teachers as to the truth about Terry Deary. That capped the day off a treat!

Tomorrow (Thursday) I am back to Cotford St Luke near Taunton for a return visit after my previous trip back in March (see this blog passim). Should be fun!