Best job in the world?

It's not everyone's cup of tea, and a few years ago I would NEVER have imagined myself doing it, but being a Cycle Safety Trainer has to be one of the best jobs I have ever had.

On Monday, at lunchtime, I bumped into Dave, a fellow trainer with whom I worked last year, a retired fireman. We were discussing the job over a Tesco lunch, and Dave said "I never go home from this job feeling I've had a bad day".

I thought about that a lot afterwards, the words echoing around my head like a mantra.

I thought back to a couple of weeks ago, when I was at quite a difficult school. The first two days I arrived home a seething mass of stress and tension, because the children, many of them from gipsy families, were very demanding, and I didn't feel the work I was doing with them would add up to anything. The last day, though, everything clicked. They all did really well in their assessments and written tests. I was on Cloud 9, and I can't wait to get back there again next year.

My current school is similar. A big school, I'm there for 3 weeks. It's a 12.5 mile cycle there, then I have to walk a mile or so carrying heavy road signs to mark out my territory, then back to school, then walk out again with my groups. It's physically very demanding and the children are mentally demanding. The local traffic is insane, to say the least, but we have to work with what's there.

The kids get stuck in, and they cope with whatever I, or circumstances, throw at them. They're ace.

The LSAs who have to come out with me usually start off quite diffident. They don't want to be there and have obviously drawn the short straw or they've done something wrong for which this is their punishment. I try to involve them in any way I can, and they invariably come back having enjoyed the experience, and wanting to come out again.

At the end of six hours, I'm completely drained of energy and emotion, and I still have to get the kids safely back to school and put my signs away. I still have to cycle 12.5 miles home.

Today, I could have sang all the way, and I still have a week and a half to go.