me and coffee we go waaaaaaaaay back, there has been good times and bad times but even the bad times are not that bad they are in fact funny times.

yesterday i was sat in the staff room, it was 8.30 am and i was drinking my first cup of the day (the first one is always the best), all the teachers where present as we always have a small staff meeting before the start of the teaching day.

towards the end of the meeting i grabbed my cup and tried to swallow the last part of the coffee, i say tried because what happened was that it went the wrong way and i ended up spluttering my coffee all over the room, table, registers, teachers, it was like some sort of human fountain, slow motion human fountain.

some of the teachers actually screamed, never mind the fact that i couldn't breath, and i was having a coughing fit but at the same time laughing as i couldn't believe that i had committed this act.

the headteacher kept asking if i was ok and i kept laughing, i had to leave the room to wash myself (and throw myself out of the window).

i smelt of coffee all day, and my register was drenched in the good stuff.

its been a year nearly since the last trip to ice skating and again i got asked to accompany the students which i was more than happy to do as ice skating is a great sport.

around 60 girls where going and we where to travel by tram, to get to the tram station we had to walk for about 20 minutes. we had just left the school and walking past a church which was open for Friday mass when one of the members of the congregation stopped in his tracks and stood staring at us, he then began to shout:

'you of to celebrate St Georges day?'

he got no answer from the girls who carried on walking past him and giggling as girls do.

he then shouted again

'this is England, this is England'

at the same time pointing down at the ground.

i was the last person to walk past him (as a teacher you always have to have some one at the back just in case we leave anyone behind), and as i walked past him he said to me: 'you have to celebrate St Georges Day'

i decided i wouldn't ignore him so instead i asked him: 'have you got a problem?'

to which he replied: 'yes actually i certainly do, i have a problem with you people being in England and not celebrating our festivities'.

so i was dealing with a racist, i hate the reference 'you people' it really irritates me and can get me going.

i thought to myself, sondes, you gota stay calm, so i asked him a question: when you you look at me, what do you see, what am i?'

to that he replied: 'your an Islamic'

i said to him: 'actually your wrong, I'm a Muslim not an Islamic, just like i wouldn't call you Christianity'

he said: oh so now you have a problem with the word islamic' ?????????

what???????

to which i said: 'no but I'm making you aware of the correct reference'

he then said:' well i don't care, to me your a mohammadian and always will be'

this is getting interesting...

"a mohammidian? right without sounding patronising, i hate to break this to you but we don't worship prophet Mohamed, we worship God, prophet Mohamed like his title is a prophet just like Jesus'

the man says: 'so your teaching me about Islam now'

me: 'no, just correcting your knowledge'

man: 'right so are you celebrating St Georges day?'

me: 'no'

man: 'your in England, its your duty to celebrate it'

me: 'not really'

man: 'look at you taking these girls to celebrate things that have nothing to do with England'

me: 'they are going on a field trip to ice skate in altrincham, what celebrations are you talking about?

man: oh tahts ok then, have a happy St Georges day'

me: (completely perplexed) you to.

he then turns around and walks into the church.

at this point the girls where asking me a thousand questions and i didn't know what to say.

on the way back i jotted down the telephone number of the church and called the pastor who replied straight away.

i introduced myself and then told him the reason why i had called, he was completely sympathetic and horrified that this happened outside his church, he then went on to tell me that because hes Irish he gets told by some members of his own congregation to go back to Ireland and he said that on St Patricks Day he always encounters some sort of hatred.

i was really happy with how the conversation went and I'm actually considering visiting the church and seeing if we can establish some friendship and hopefully get some of the girls to visit and speak to the congregation on Islam.

the ash from the volcano in Iceland has caused havoc especially in Britain and Europe, my dad has been stuck abroad for nearly a week and a half due to this but hes one of the lucky ones hes staying with friends, so many people have had to fork out hundreds and even thousands for food, hotels, transport etc.

the cheeky hotel industry are abusing the fact that people are stranded and so have increased there hotel prices to get a hefty profit from all of this.

now something to be proud of...

the Libyan families in Switzerland have taken the initiative to help there stranded fellow Libyans, every day many of them are venturing to the airports and picking up stranded passengers and taking them home to rest, how cool is that :))))

how many of us would help strangers like that?

now i think the mosques all over Europe and Britain should have done the same for all Passenger's Muslim and Non- Muslim that would have been absolutely fantastic.

i swear that made my day today...

as Libyans why can we be so in-patient with one another??????

and have no element of customer service for our people?

i maybe, actually probably going Libya this year inshallah, and my Libyan passport has expired so i need to re-new my passport for the 3rd time, not that i have actually used it!

and that's another thing that's annoying why is it that you can only get a maximum of 4 years for a passport and only if its re-newed in Libya, last year i re-newed my passport at the London embassy and they gave me less than a year before it expired, so frustrating i swear.

anyway so theres this application form that you need to fill in, which is dated 2007!!! and i filled it in but i wasn't sure whether to send photos (last time they sent back the photos and used the old photo of me looking much younger) and how much it was gonna cost me, so my husband calls the embassy and some Libyan dude replies (not the sudani guy)my hubby asks him regarding the ijraat (procedures) around re-newing a passport, to which the man cuts him short and says check the website, it has all the details. my husband says to him ok but i don't have a computer on me at the moment and seeing how I've called now could you just let me know about what is needed exactly, to which the man says 'if i was to answer the phone for every person who calls asking questions like this, i would never get any work done' and said it in a very rude manner.

??????????? the mind boggles...

how about the fact that as part of the embassy job description, they are obliged to answer queries and help Libyans sort out passport issues!!!!!!!

my god things like this seriously annoy me.

I'm going to call the embassy on Monday and speak to whoever answers in English and see whether that will make any difference, and if it does its not gonna make happy, it will just confirm my theory that customer service does not exist in Libya or the Libyan embassy, maybe I'm generalising, but i will make it a point to research this when i go, maybe its civil servant jobs!

oh and the website is down, so how are people meant to check out passport information duuuuuuuh!!!

on bank holiday monday i went to conwy in wales for a day trip, the weather managed to hold and it did not rain, though it was freeeeeeeezing.

its only 1 hour and a half away from manchester and its soooo pretty.

as usual here are the photos to share with you all.

sign of spring? who knows...
my future car, i want one of these..
going up the castle..
generaly i hate pigioens (flying rats) but these 2 looked cute :)
the welsh flag
i watched these two birds for 20 minutes! one was holding onto the other ones beak, for what? i have no idea, couldnt tell whether they where fighting or flirting lol
smallest house in britain, i think the lady who owns it may also be the smallest old lady in britain as well ;)
later we looked for fish and chips, the problem was not finding a shop, they where every where, the problem was finding one that fried the chips and cod in a seprate place to the pork sausage.

sadly we didnt find a place excpet for a dodgy kebab house which had the saddest chips and something which till now, dont know whether was fish or human !!!!