{"id":5,"date":"2009-10-27T22:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T22:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/?p=5"},"modified":"2010-02-28T01:43:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-28T01:43:08","slug":"darkest-before-the-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katebailward.com\/drivinglikeamaniac\/2009\/10\/darkest-before-the-dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Darkest Before the Dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next day dawns sunny and gorgeous.\u00a0 Fantastic.\u00a0 We head into school late morning, hoping to catch up with the boss and start getting organised for the start of term in a few days’ time.\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Not so much.\u00a0 The school is quiet – although we do get cake from one of the receptionists, who is getting married soon – and the boss isn’t in.\u00a0 When Alex calls him, he is given a bit of an earful and told that the meeting is at 5, as organised (no, actually, it wasn’t, but never mind …).\u00a0 George and I start to poke around the teachers’ room to see what the books are like.\u00a0 Alex seems worried and self-deprecating, and very keen to point out that he’s not the senior teacher.\u00a0 OK, fine – but you’ve been here an awful lot longer than we have, so how about you give us an idea of the setup?\u00a0 No, it’s not happening.\u00a0 He is wrapped up in his own private misery for the moment.\u00a0 This will pass, but at this point in time it seems worryingly ominous.\u00a0 Coupled with this, George is becoming twitchier and twitchier by the minute, and looking increasingly likely to jump ship before Christmas.\u00a0 To top it all off, the weather breaks and it starts bucketing it down with rain.\u00a0 I am wet, miserable, and homesick.\u00a0 This really isn’t the way things are supposed to be panning out.<\/span>

George and I go for coffee in town, and he confirms what I suspected: he can’t see himself coming back after the Christmas holidays.\u00a0 My heart plummets.\u00a0 By the next afternoon, when we have had a day sitting inside the flat watching the rain, with nothing to do, he is saying that he can’t see himself lasting the week.\u00a0 We spend Sunday cooped up indoors, trapped by the weather and lack of transport.\u00a0 On Monday, a day when I am hitting my personal lowest ebb, he goes into school and hands in his notice.\u00a0 He catches the train to Milan the next day.\u00a0 I spend the night crying. <\/span>

This has been the longest – and possibly loneliest – 4 days of my life.<\/span>
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