I don't think I have a prayer of catching up now.

Sorry for the radio silence people - I have had so much work on that I have been drowning. However, the last deadline was last night and I can now update you all with the photos I've taken.. (probably. Might just make the whole thing last longer at the end of the year... Yeah, I'll do that. Nothing interesting happened until today, anyway!)

Here, have some of a story I wrote (ages ago, just found it) to make up for it:



Francesca stared across the table at the large screen being pointed at, but even she found it hard to concentrate with the heat and the complexities of the lesson.

“FOCUS, ASHLEY! You'll NEVER understand UNLESS YOU FOCUS!” The teacher roared towards the back of the class where Ashley Banks and his group of friends were sitting. Francesca looked round to see the tall, handsome, brown haired boy sitting innocently and looking at the teacher without smiling, while around him three girls and two boys tried hard not to laugh. They all did remarkably well.

“What was I doing, Miss?” Ashley asked politely.

“You know darn well what you were doing.”

“I don't.”

“Well don't do it.”

“I can't not do what I don't know I was doing if I don't know what it was that I was doing, Miss.” The people around him looked as though they would explode with laughter.

“That's it,” Miss Hinkly screeched, turning slightly pink. “Get out! Go on! Out! Wait outside. I'll decide how to deal with you later.” Various whooping noises came from the back from those who hadn't already collapsed with laughter.

“Oh yeah, better beware Ash, she's gonna deal with ya!”

The people seated around Ashley laughed harder and harder, but weren't sent out.

“Maybe you lot,” she cast a wary eye over those at the back once Ashley left. “Will behave better without Ashley distracting you.”

They eventually quietened down until Miss Hinkly could continue with the lesson. As she droned on and on, Francesca found herself drifting away from the lesson. She imagined that she, not Rachel, not Lei, not Di, but she was going out with Ashley or Max or Gary, that she was popular and funny, witty and cool. She wished that she could lose her virginity when she wanted to, and hadn't already especially seeing as she had–

“Francesca! Not you too! Focus!” She looked up and realized that it was almost the end of the lesson and they were concluding. In Hinkly's case this means fast and furious questions. Even Rachel, Di and Lei, the bad girls, and their boys, Max and Gary (obviously Ash is outside) had answered theirs, so Miss Hinkly was very disappointed when her star pupil wasn't listening.

“Sorry, Miss.” Francesca said as the bell rang.

Miss Hinkly tutted but set homework and dismissed the class, saying nothing more.

“Alright Francesca?” It was Max and Gary, one on either side of her. “Reckon you could us do a favor?” Asked Gary, as Max put his arm around her and played with her hair.

“Please? Just a bit of homework, we need some help. Reckon you could come over tonight and ... help us out?” Max said in his brilliant, sweet, suggestive tone that always melted Francesca's insides.

“Y – y – yes. OK,” Francesca stammered. “Where do you live?” Francesca actually already knew the answer to the question, she had once stalked him and Lei to his home with her friend Mary, then watched them get off on the sofa. Disgusting though it may sound, Francesca was exceptionally mixed up at that point, and was obsessed with Max. It was almost like having OCD about him, if she didn't talk to him at least once a day, even saying 'hi', then she would bang her head against the wall ten times minimum. And she had the marks to prove it.

“I think you already know the answer to that one,” he smiled, tapping her playfully on the cheek then walking off to Lei and doing exactly the same to her.

“We'll bring someone for you,” Gary winked, then walked to Di and slid his arm around her shoulders.

What did he mean by that? Francesca wondered, walking out of the door last, as usual, then meeting her friend Joella who was waiting in the hall.

“I saw Max flirting with you!” Joella exclaimed.

“He wasn't flirting,” Francesca mumbled, suddenly feeling very tired. “He wants 'homework help'.”

“He does now, does he?”

“Yes, now drop it for God's sake!” Francesca snapped unexpectedly, and Joella walked up the hall beside her in silence.

“Di Stratford has always been amazing. She's always been a gorgeous, popular person, every girl's idol and the person every boy wanted to go out with. She and Max are now common knowledge, and I doubt that they're going to be breaking up soon. She's had a hard life and I doubt she would want her 'one certainty' to be ruined by some bloke with a petty little crush. Can we now change the subject please?” Craig stared at Mitch staring at Di laughing around with her mates.

“Just ... just look at her, man. She's amazing. She's something else. She's ...”

“Taken and even if she wasn't she wouldn't even consider you. She hardly knows you exist!”

Mitch couldn't deny this truth. Di passes him loads, even if he manages to say 'hi', she either half-glances at him, eyes flicking up and down him, then she passes by, or she ignores him completely.

“Yeah, but ... if I could speak to her. If I was her partner for something ... I dunno. I'll find a way. She will talk to me! She will know my name! She will want me!”

Holy shit, thought Craig, still staring at Mitch, This is a man on a mission. He means it. He will.

Di moved her knees either side of Max's legs so that she was straddling him and he dropped himself from leaning on his hands to leaning on his elbows, so that he was lower, closer to the bed on which they were lying together.

Max saw the cross on the gold chain he had given her hanging around her neck and lying between her breasts hang lower and nearer her face as she lent towards him, stopping about two inches from his face. He closed his eyes and moved his lips upwards to meet hers. They kissed for a long time and –

“MAX! Tell me one thing I just said,” Mr Grant fumed, turning a violent shade of purple.

“Spain is near France?” Max guessed at a reply, making Gary who was next to him snort with laughter. Max didn't get the joke until after it was elaborated slightly by Mr. Grant.

“Incorrect. As a matter of fact, I was explaining how working down through Europe, there is France before Spain ...”

“So I was right, then,” Max pointed out. “I said the same with different words.”

“Exactly. Different words, Max.”

“But you didn't as for a word-to-word interpretation, sir, you asked what you said, so I replied with less words.”

“Uh ... well ... Max. Are you arguing with me?”

“Well I'm not wanting to Sir, but it seems to me that that's unfair. I just answered your question and you're saying it's wrong even though everyone here knows it's right. So I'm merely making my point known and giving you reasons why you're wrong ...”

“Or, in short, arguing with me.”

“I thought we aren't shortening things? Because that's all I did, sir ...”

“Out! Go on! Out of my class! Honestly, last thing on a Friday and all you can do is think about arguing. Honestly! And another word from you,” Mr Grant added hastily when Max looked as though he was about to speak, “and you'll be lucky to get away with a fifteen minute after-school detention.”