Glorious Lunch

This year I have started sneaking out for lunch more often.

The Exit - Furitve Glances and Palmed Wallets

There is something magical about driving out of the school gates and getting jealous and suspicious glances from your colleague on gate duty. And it really is sneaking. While we're 'allowed' to leave school grounds, there are always social politics about who to invite and how many people can fit in the car. For quick and efficient get-aways only small groups work - I'd say 2-4 people is ideal. Any more and you faff around waiting for each other too long, and you inevitably lose somebody on the way to the car or somebody forgets their wallet and has to run back up. Any more and you can't actually bitch about what's gone wrong that morning for fear of offending somebody.

The Unlucky Ones - Those Left Behind

Once outside the gates there is a freedom you just can't feel when you sit cooped up in the staffroom for lunch. Sitting up there you have to wait in line for the toaster, squeeze past other people to get to the fridge/drawer/cupboard in a kind of awkward waltz that ensues in a space too small for the 60 people who use it.

Then while you sit eating your lunch, glancing over whatever section of the Dom Post you can find on the table, you have to surive the virutal gauntlet of colleagues walking through who might want a 'quick word' about a student or to remind you about some piece of admin you haven't done and the students who ask to see you (who wait at the other end of a maze of corridors, which you have to wearily navigate before you can find out whether or not they were worth interrupting your cup of tea for).

Teachers do not see the lunch hour as a sacred time of eating and socialising. They see it as an opportunity to find people they need stuff from. If they're teaching all day, this is the only time they have for such things. They're opportunists.

Anyhow.

Back to my escaping.

Coffee - The Price of Ambience

This year there are various breakaway groups of us who go out for lunch. These may have always existed (I'm sure they have) but I have always balked at the idea. In the past I would have considered it some kind of mission impossible to leave the grounds, get a park, have lunch and get back before the bell. Thus I would always diligently say, 'No thanks' when asked.

But this year I'm all for it.

Regular haunts include Deluxe and Salvation, both of which have excellent coffee, nice food and quick service. Then for something different there's the Brookly Bakery or Mojo's. For a takeaway treat there's Moore Wilson's (and I've become addicted to their flavoured broad bean snacks).

I have managed to add in trips to favourite shops into my lunch time jaunts. I can easily pop into Miss Wong or Magnolia if I'm at that end of town. There's something delicious about coming back to work with new stuff.

Home - The Bastion of Domesticity

Yesterday I even managed to come home for lunch. It's strange how coming home on a sunny day made me want to do chores I would usually avoid. I hung out my washing, emptied the dish-washer, tidied my room a little. My theory is that in the morning I'm in a rush and in the evening I'm tired, so neither of them is any good for chores. Then the weekend comes and there are much better things to do, or everything has built up so much that it's daunting. Lunch time chores are the ultimate solution!

Then I made my first sandwich of the year. I sat and watched 15 minutes of Dr Phil while I ate it. Bliss! Then I MySkyed the Oscars and some other TV shows I didn't want to miss that day.

Lunch rules.

(Then there are still the days where I barely have time to eat a few crackers because I had to stay behind in class talking to kids, then there was an urgent email to respond to, then there was photo-copying to do for my afternoon classes.)

Having raved about lunch, it's only fair to mention that I also love breakfast. Cereal rules.