Chapter 21

The following morning the sun woke me half an hour before my alarm clock. I got up and decided to have a morning off from the running. I made myself a cup of coffee and fired up the laptop, I was making good headway on my book and another couple of hours before breakfast should see me finish another couple of chapters.

Marcia had done the proofreading and made some suggestions for changes.

I set my alarm to remind myself to go down for breakfast. The time seemed to fly by. My alarm broke the spell, I had a shower and shave before heading down to the dining hall. As I had not run that morning, I decided a healthy breakfast was in order, so a bowl of cornflakes and a bowl of fruit plus a fruit smoothie was the order of the day.

I sat at an empty table as the staff ones were all full, I was soon joined by Natalie. She had a couple of slices of toast and a mug of tea. We exchanged good mornings as she sat down.

“So how are you this morning?” I asked as she popped open a tub of jam and spread it over her toast.

“Oh, I am okay, and you?” she replied and bit into slice of toast.

“Just, Okay?” I asked as she did not look happy.

“Yes, I am okay, I have a few things on my mind, “she said with a weak smile and looked around before stroking the back of my hand.

“Anything I can help with?” I inquired.

“No, but thank you for offering, it’s just work stuff,” she said with a smile. But the smile looked forced.

“Well, if you need to talk about it, you know where I am,” I said.

She gave me another smile and then she glanced over my shoulder and winked at me.

“Shush,” she whispered.

Seconds later Carothers and Miss Green placed their breakfast trays on our table and good mornings were exchanged. The smell of stale whiskey wafted across the table. I had finished my food, so I drained my smoothie glass and was glad to see that Natalie had taken the hint. She drained her teacup and we both got up at the same time.

“Well have a great day all,” I said as I took my tray back up to the dirty crockery collection point.

Natalie followed me and we walked out of the dining room.

“Those two are a disgrace to the school, “she said as we went out of the school’s front doors.

“They do seem to have an issue with the drink,” I said, glancing at my watch. I had an hour to kill before my first lesson.

“They stunk this morning, it used to be only weekends but now it’s nearly every day,” she said shaking her head.

“Have you time for a cuppa?” Natalie asked.

“Yes, that sounds like a good plan,” I said, wondering if she meant a cuppa or something else.

It turned out to be just a cuppa We went back to her room, and she put the kettle on.

“Do you prefer tea or coffee?” she asked as she got two cups out of the cupboard.

“Coffee please “I replied and sat down on the sofa.

I watched as she made the drinks, the placed them on coasters on the table.

We sat in silence for a good few minutes before she broke the silence.

“So, the board of governors has asked me if I want to take over as headmistress when the professor retires,” she said.

“I guess that’s a good move or am I guessing wrong,” I asked, not sure of the correct protocol.

“It’s a move upwards and I would get to move the school in a direction that I think is right,” she said and took a sip of coffee.

“I sense there is a but coming” I replied.

“Well teaching is my first love, I get a real buzz from educating, “she said with a sigh, “the heads post is more of a management role, and I would have to stop teaching.”

“So, I guess there is no chance you can do a bit of both?” I asked already knowing the answer.

“Nope they have said it’s a full-time job, I know Professor McClusky does the odd lesson but only when someone is off sick” she replied.

“But if you are headmistress, you can make your own rules?” I asked.

“I guess so but he has set precedence!” she said and the look on her face told me she was full of doubt.

I could see her dilemma, an old teammate of mine had been headhunted a few years ago. He was late in his playing life and was training to be a coach, he was looking for a player-coach role. When a club came and made him a good offer it was as a full-time coach.

When he told them, he wanted to play on as well as coach they said it was one or the other and that they felt he wanted his cake and to eat it as well. He turned that offer down as he still felt he had enough fuel in the tank to play on. he eventually moved to a team in France and had three more years of playing as well as coaching before retiring from playing the game and becoming one of the best coaches in their league.

“How long do you have before you need to make the decision?” I asked and reached across and took her hand in mine.

“I have two weeks before I meet with them again, “she said.

“Well how about we meet on Sunday and have a chat about it,” I asked.

“That sounds nice, I would appreciate that, “she said and leaned over and kissed my lips lightly. I was tempted to return the kiss with more pressure but sensed it was neither the time nor the place.

Natalie glanced up at the clock on the wall.

“Oh, Shit look at the time,” she said and stood up, “I have a lesson in ten minutes.”

“Me too,” I said and took the cups to the sink and washed them and left them on the draining board.

We hugged and kissed again before we headed out of the rooms and off to work.

I opened the gym and told the year twos who were my first class to get ready for a run in the country. There were the normal moans and groans, but they all headed off to get changed. I did the same, I headed into the changing room behind my office.

I took the lads out onto the training pitch, and we did some warms up. So, after a short session of burpees, sit-ups, press-ups, and squat thrusts I led the lads off for a nice cross-country run in the sun.

The run gave me a chance to have a good think about things, about what advice I would give to Natalie, what I would do in her position and also how much I wanted to win the match on Saturday.

I ran up and down the line, checking on both the hares and the tortoises. The sun was out and there was a nice breeze, it was ideal running weather. We went down, past the lake and out through the woods. then we cut across part of the moor and up the slopes of a small hill. At the top, of the hill I made all the lads do ten burpees, ten press-ups and ten sit-ups before sending them back down the hill.

Once we were back at the gym the lads went off to the showers and I made a coffee. I had the year three lads next and decided to do the same run again. There was no point in me getting changed.

The year three lads also moaned and groaned when I told them we were off for a run, but they did it all the same. The rain came back as we headed back into the gym by the time they had showered and left the sun was back out, typical Scottish weather, you could not hang your hat on it.

I only had two classes that morning, so I showered and got changed before heading into the dining room and grabbing a sandwich, some fruit, and a takeaway coffee.

I went back to the gym and checked my email. Personal first, some from mates and family. old teammates and one from my publisher asking for an update.

Then work emails, mostly memos, reminders about meeting targets and one asking me to attend a staff meeting on Friday at four-thirty.

I deleted, read, and sent a reply as needed. After the email was sorted, I started to work on my lesson plans for the next few weeks. My afternoon was made up of a double session with some year fives and it would be all about rugby. That made my day, rugby was what I was here for.

The lads turned up and got changed, we took some tackle bags and stuff out to the training pitch. A good warm-up session was followed by a run around the pitch. Once the run was done, I split the lads into rugby squad and non-rugby squad lads.

I thought it was not fair to mix them as the lads in the squad were all at a much better level of fitness and all had better rugby skills than the rest of the lads.

We worked on the same drills, I showed them what I wanted them to do, and they then went off and did some repetitions of the drill. We worked on handling, passing, and making sure you do not die with the ball. What I mean by not dying with the ball is to make sure you pass the ball away as you are tackled, it is a skill, it is an art form, and it can unlock defences.

Pro teams work hard to make sure that the tackled player gets the ball away as he is hit and that the players following him up the pitch are ready to take the ball.

The guys worked hard at it, after half an hour I blew the whistle and brought the lads in for a water break.

After the water break, we worked on tackling, using the bags to start with but then doing some live tackling. Gone are the days when only forwards tackled no it was a fifteen-man game, all players had to defend, and all players had to attack.

The last part of the session was a game of rugby, I mixed up the two squads we had enough time for a twenty-minute each-way game. I refereed the game and loved the fact that the lads used the stuff we had been working on during the match.

I blew the whistle for the end of the match and watched as the lads wandered off to get showered and changed. I checked my emails and had a coffee while the lads got sorted. Once they had finished and left, I gave the dressing room and showers the once over. Then I locked up and headed back to my rooms.

Tonight, was a training night so I wanted an early dinner. I showered and got changed into a clean set of training kit before heading down to the dining hall. I was the first one in.

I grabbed a tray and took a bowl of soup, beef broth, then a bowl of vegetable pasta and salad. A pint of water was my drink of choice. I had finished my food before the room started to fill up. The rugby lads came in and a few said hello as they walked past me.