Honestly not sure I’m even faring as well as this old boat (or is it a ship?) just now!
I’ve been ‘off school’ for a meagre three weeks and already I’m in a mess. It would seem that just as I predicted in Saved by the... (wasp!) Jacqui is not so good at navigating the highly inconsistent seas of work, sport and life without her heavy-duty sea anchor (school teacher).
It’s not so much to do with the wise counsel of Monsieur le Professeur, though I surely receive plenty, but more to do with the constancy - the immovability - of his classes. They provide a very special kind of stability in my otherwise turbulent and rapidly changing life.
Knowing that I must be somewhere at a certain time (and very much on time at that) is exceedingly good for me especially because Mon Prof is not a man to be trifled with. Being late, missing lessons without exceptionally good reason and/or failing to hand in homework are all seriously made to not be worth one’s while and as such provide a level of rigour, consistency and dare I say; certainty in a most uncertain of eras.
I knew at the time, despite my protestations and posturing to the contrary, that having a ‘summer holiday’ - as in, time off from school - was an especially bad idea.
Whilst I, ordinarily, would very much look forward to some terribly well-earned time off, I correctly deduced that the timing wasn’t so good. I knew that this summer was going to be unreservedly tough both personally and professionally and I rightly adjudged that attempting this passage without a high quality, reliable sea anchor was going to be excessively challenging.
Just three weeks in and calamity has already struck!
I’ve already lost around 7 of the 21 days ‘off school’ to severe-to-medium migraine attacks, which is disappointing in the extreme, as my HoH and I have worked so hard this year to bring these down to a more bearable amount.
Prior to ‘the summer holidays’ we had reduced instances of migraine from one every 5-7 days to one per month. We were all very pleased about it too, hence it has been unimaginably disappointing to slide backwards on the health front.
I’m currently reading up on so-called “leisure sickness” whereby people in stressful jobs and/or who have excessive workloads complain of illness during weekends and whilst on annual leave or vacation. All I know, on a personal level, is that I had less sickness during term time and that is good enough for me.
Another source of calamity has been the steep elevation in the amount of discipline that Jem has had to dish out over the past three weeks.
Having just taken a peek at July’s Spanking Stats, so far, I can confirm that this has been the worst month (or best, depending on one’s perspective) for discipline this year.
In addition to the usual maintenance sessions, I’ve had 87 ‘miscellaneous’ hand spanks which are pretty much always ‘attitude’ related, as well as two with the little red-riding whip for eye rolling, twelve with the Boudoir (stiff leather) Paddle for disobedience (yes, you read that right) and three with the shorn-off cricket bat (that you Yanks call ‘the wooden paddle’) for rudeness.
I am not sitting comfortably and no doubt there is more to come - I’ve already been promised another session tomorrow night for exceptional and highly uncharacteristic misbehaviour during yesterday morning’s disciplinary paddling.
Utterly humiliating as it is to own up to; I behaved dreadfully yesterday, at one point being told to ‘take the grit out of your [my] voice, lest swats be added to the total’. Sure enough, two swats became three for ‘poor attitude to discipline’ and now I’ll be repeating the whole sorry affair - minus the brattish nonsense - tomorrow evening.
It really hasn’t been my month and I put it down to a partial loss of routine. I loathe having my routine interfered with, even for genuine good reason, this is why I struggle with holidays.
My last one to Texas back in 2020, some of which I wrote up in San Antonio Spanking, was an absolute spanking fest due to ridiculous amounts of bad behaviour on my part. In fact, two of the six spanking incidents that made the book that year - SIX OF THE BEST 2020 - were from that one holiday to Texas! I never do well when my schedule is messed with, which is why I ordinarily fight tooth and nail to keep it fixed!
Alas, this enforced holiday from school cannot be helped but it has been illuminating. My behaviour is categorically worse and my HoH is tearing out what is left of his hair… at this point I think he is looking forward to ‘back to school’ more than I am!
It isn’t only minor infractions that have arisen either.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted a major transgression; disobedience. It is, of course, one of the sacrosanct 4D’s of Domestic Discipline.
Disrespect
Disobedience
Dishonesty
Danger
It’s the second time in twelve-and-a-half years that I’ve been disobedient to my HoH - neither incident was worth it and I regret both of them deeply.
I shall write about the first time I disobeyed him in my forthcoming book SIX OF THE BEST 2019 which I’ve had in note-form for several years but haven’t found the time to write it up in full.
The second instance of disobedience will 100% make this year’s book: SIX OF THE BEST 2022 which will be published, as always, on Christmas Eve. (As it goes, I already have six significant spanking encounters to write up for this year and it is only July, I still have five months of the year to accrue more! I know I say it every year, but perhaps this year really will be TWELVE OF THE BEST 2022!)
Suffice to say, my latest ‘major’ was another big deal to the two of us and I got a suitably sincere and painful punishment for my trouble.
Disrespect happens far too frequently, so you’ll be hearing about major discipline sessions over that, but danger hasn’t occurred since around 2017 and that was a one off.
So too was dishonesty, I haven’t been dishonest with my HoH since 2010… and in fairness to me, I wasn’t really being dishonest: it was a joke that went wrong. However, as ours was a new relationship at the time, Sir decided to draw a high line and I have to say that one has served us very well indeed.
It’s actually a pretty amazing story that I will write up in full in due course, that one is called: Jacqui Must Not Tell Lies and it includes my first ever caning.
As you can see, with the exception of ‘disrespect’, I rarely fall short on the 4 ‘majors;’ in 12.5 years I have accrued:
Disrespect - perennial
Disobedience - 2 offences
Dishonesty - 1 ‘offence’
Danger - 1 ‘offence’
Most of my misdemeanours are just that - relatively minor, low-level instances of challenging authority, or basically being a bit of a brat.
The one that needs more work from me is ‘disrespect’ and we both talk and ‘talk’ often about it.
Sir’s standards are more-or-less absolute, so I guess I’m doing extremely well in three of the four major areas but I accept that the disrespect also has to be knocked out of me.
Funnily enough, Mon Prof had cause to make the following observation a couple of years back:
“I think you, Jacqui, need to spend more time under the supervision of educational professionals.”
He was more right than he could possibly have known at the time…
So, there you have it, I’m roughly half-way through my ‘summer holidays’ and I’ve already been awarded a fist full of minors and one major.
God, I hope this ‘holiday’ goes away fast!
I will have to much better prepare for the next sodding one… mind you, judging by the way my long-term French vocabulary recall is going, there is every chance that Christmas will once again be cancelled anyway!
Best (s)Wishes,
Jacqui James
Live-Lash-Love
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