Peacocks ruffle feathers as they show their might

In beauty and in knowledge, it’s their identity.

And without the winning streak they feel

Their power slipping through cold fingers.

They would rather die, or peck you to your death

Than lose to you as they take their dirty dying breath.

It’s coming to the end of my first full term and the excitement is palpable. And then it’s also Christmas so everyone is feeling a bit hyped up, despite the fact that we are all feeling so tired that it felt like we were hanging on with our fingernails.

But we’ve made it! And so we deserve some fun!

So enter the Christmas Quiz.

Staff were asked to stay behind and we were split into department teams. A box was delivered to each team ahead of time with strict instructions not to open it until we were told. And then we were asked to log onto Teams.

And so the quiz began. We had five rounds and we had to email answers in at the end of each round. We also had to build a paper castle in the time that the quiz took and we would be marked on all of the rounds.

Of course, the Maths department became ultra competitive as they always do. The English department sadly produced the worst example of a castle and we were late delivering it to the hall for judging.

We will find out the results in the morning when all of the Maths department will make a fuss because they are contesting answers that they got wrong.

But I love it. After a year of everything being really difficult it’s nice to see everyone coming together and having fun. I know that we were doing the quiz through our computer screens, but it felt normal and we laughed in a way that we didn’t really imagine we could nine months ago.

Aren’t we amazing creatures in the way that we can adapt? The Christmas quiz always needs to go ahead and the Maths department always need to win. And we’ve done that (although English will win, obvz).

Make sure you have as normal an end to the year as you can manage. Laugh at the people taking it seriously and also try to win yourself. We’ve learnt that we don’t know what’s around the corner so love every minute of it.

Much Love

Rachel xx