I was, as Wodehouse would have it, feeling quite gruntled, almost excited. My 25th year at it and I still had most of my own hair - a considerable swathe of the original colour, too.

Two months of R and R has solved or salved the trials of last year and I was now geared positive, very much front-about. See the good, the bright and the beautiful everywhere, I told myself. Nil desperandum illigitimi. I had this survival business synthesised, utterly sussed.

And then, as they say, the wheels came off. In the first hour of term, I had a salutary lesson in the vagaries of the FAS scheme. Caretaker and secretary, with us now for three years, were gone. Utterly. Like they had been lifted in some SS-style pre-dawn round-up, and no plausible explanations.

Meanwhile, all around the place were people, dammit, a goodly number of them, clamouring for the ministrations of the late-departed secretary. She who knew about tracksuit sizes, crests, forgotten files, family nuances and a thousands and one other things which made her worth her weight in saffron was not there for these poor agitated souls either.

Hour number two: the Sicilian connection revealed. Ari, a handsome bronze lad with ne'er a word of English - or Irish for that matter - had joined us. He quickly proved to be an effectual communicator, rightly flaking a dozen or so of my white-faced debolezzas to impress on them with his playground requirements, much to the natives horror.

At the other end of the yard, someone wanted me to see the new weeds. No, not the tearful junior infants, but the verdant eruptions through the pride of the school - our newly-laid tarmac ball-area.

After the break, a delegation arrived to announce that the county council had given permission for an MMDS antenna just up the road from the school. So, it now appeared on the cards I was going to be slowly (and maybe not so slowly) broiled by microwaves all the way to my revered lump-sum.

A quiet mug of tea - aah, lovely therapeutic tea - and a few moments to draw breath. But no. Two sniffling six-year-olds, both boys, creep to my table. "He hit me a dig in the mouth." Stentorian-voiced roleplaying principal: "Did you strike this boy?'

"Yes, teacher."

"And WHY did you strike this boy?"

"Well, he was trying to kiss me."

Mmmm . . . thinks. Surviving can indeed present some unexpected challenges.