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Homes I have lived in #5

This year I am celebrating my silver wedding anniversary ... Just for something to do I have begun to sketch all the houses we have lived in during that time.

So here is house number #5

A rather quaint fisherman's cottage, tucked back off the main road coming out of Paignton towards Totnes/Brixham. This was our first family home, a small two-bedroomed cottage in easy reach of the town centre, which we rented for about eighteen months.


Things of significance that happened here:

  • There was no parking, so I arranged to park my car in the car park of a nearby office. Unfortunately this meant that the car had to be removed from said car park by 7:30am every morning except Sunday. No lie-ins, however as we had two children under 2 years these were a long distant memory anyway.
  • For the first time, we became settled in a local Church community, Living Waters AoG Church in Preston, Paignton. This fellowship has seen a lot of changes over the years, but continues to support us in our work today, for which we are very grateful.
  • Began playing football for the local Christians in Sport team - fostered a record of a goal a game for a short time (6 weeks) before an ankle injury forced me out. (This co-incided with the realisation that I was never at home, so there was no real motivation in my returning also my conscience was increasingly troubled by what CiS meant, eg a prayer at the beginning followed by 90 minutes of aggression and language that I found troubling, as it was being done in the name of Jesus, and not at all what the founder of the team had sought to establish!)
  • My PGCE dominated the year, it is rightly labelled as possibly the hardest year of training and given the lack of sleep due to car parking issues and children, much of the year passed by in a blur! However, I passed and qualified as a Secondary Teacher 11-18, Design & Technology Teacher. 
  • I got my first laptop computer, a second-hand 386 machine, which took an age to do anything ... eventually the screen broke, but it got me through the PGCE.
  • At the end of my PGCE I got my first teaching post, and so began my career as a teacher at Knowles Hill School in Newton Abbot. On arrival in September I was assigned to a year 10 group which was made up of an amalgamation of students from other classes which were deemed to be too large. Thus was formed 10H ... the only group in the school with the 'H' label (e.g. in each year there was an K, N, O, W, L, E and S class.) This made it fun on sports day because we alone were gaining points for H house!!! Still, looking back they were a great bunch of kids, growing, developing, trying hard with lots of challenges, but we had fun and a few tears together! (I miss teaching, especially the pastoral care of young adults ... what a privilege. Oh, and the education is quite important too!)
  • Lots of walks on Dartmoor, or the sea front, and the beginnings of my liking for photography - second hand Pentax ME Super plus lenses.
  • I auditioned to join a folk band, however I quickly realised that my guitar playing was woefully inadequate and I was not invited back. Through the process I did learn two 'jigs' on the tin whistle which I can still play today ... not enough for a concert, but good for the occasional impromptu moment at Christmas or other such time.
  • Rented a TV and Video setup ... I only add this to see if others remember doing such a thing ... this was a blast from the past. Also, given the growing inquisitiveness of the aforementioned children, I seem to recall regularly removing toast, crayons or other objects from the VCR.
All in all, a very busy time but the house was a literally a little haven of peace.

Press on!
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