Brian has just eaten two wax crayons (allegedly non-toxic, but we'll see) scribbled all over my Alive-O book and told me that the reason he has a sore head is because his Da hit him with a candlestick. Social services for him or me is the question here. It's still only 9.40 a.m. and even the prospect of a caffeine fix is too distant to be of any comfort.

Then the Conveyor Belt Syndrome starts. There is a constant stream of traffic through my classroom as issues ranging from trivial to frantic demand my immediate attention.

Family groups are needed in the GP room for school photos, the roll numbers must be checked, the health nurse will be testing sight and hearing after lunch and a parent appears to avail of our "`open-door policy" that we must update soon to a "revolving door" one as it is in such constant use. The computer has quietly given up the ghost in the midst of all this mayhem.

A cup of coffee appears magically on my desk, but the first impression it gives off that someone actually cares is displaced by the sudden realisation that yard duty looms. So, it's a case of sup up and don the woolly hat and hardened attitude that is required of patrolling 120 children.

Then the mantras start. "Tie your laces, tie your laces, don't pull out of her jumper, that was a very bold thing to do and you'll be right as rain in a minute." On a bad day it sinks to "I don't care if it hurts, that's what happens when you stick a straw up your nose!"

Next, a salesman arrives bearing multicoloured blocks and jigsaws with a price list that would give the Sultan of Brunei a shudder in the wallet. The news has reached him that a newly acquired Infant Grant has arrived in our coffers and magically, the total cost of his wares tallies exactly with what we have received from St Micheal.

Three tenors disappear towards school choir practice and Brian throws up quietly on top of his Sugradh annual. Delayed concussion, wax poisoning or a tummy bug that might lay him low for a week if I'm lucky. There's nothing for it but Domestos and a good stomach. I wield a mop in one hand and the cordless phone in the other as I explain to the computer technician that I will not get involved in doing a motherboard transplant-by-phone on the machine in front of me.

There is a limit to all our talents.