Going up to the next level

I had a lovely thing happen to me the other day. I walked into a shop in my local village and a young lady asked me if she could help and then did a double take.

"Did you used to be a teacher?" she said.

"I still am. Why?"

She said: "You used to teach me when I was about nine."

My first reaction was: "Oh dear, that makes me feel very old."

Then she said: "No, you look exactly the same as you did then."

We worked out it must have been about 12 years ago. That made me feel better.

I heard this week that our county requires all ECB Premier League clubs to have a qualified Level 2 scorer for every league match from next season. This is going to be a tall order.

I was at the Kent ACO meeting and we tried to work out how many registered Level 2 scorers we have at the moment and realised we fall short.

I have tried to get on a Level 2 course since passing my first exam about four years ago. I have only seen one or two regional courses advertised - they have been on Saturdays or full weekends in the winter which means I cannot attend due to work.

I am self employed, so cancelling work means doubling the cost of going on the course. I would love to do a correspondence version but there has not been one created as far as I can tell.

There seems to be lots of opportunities to train to Level 1 but Level 2 courses are few and far between. Maybe I shall have to bite the bullet, swallow the cost of lost income and travel for a day or two of training in another county over the winter as I am keen to improve. My club will need at least one Level 2 scorer next season - maybe they will be willing to help with the cost of training?

Meanwhile, back at the village shop. Working at a school was a challenging job, they closed it in the end and did one of those rebranding makeovers to give everyone a new start. I obviously did not need rebranding - maybe that's why I still look the same. But they made me redundant.