It's a sunny Easter Monday in Torquay, and instead of stuffing my face with chocolate eggs or soaking up the atmosphere of 'the English Riviera' I've been sitting near a heavily-chlorinated indoor swimming pool listening to moaning teachers.
More than 1,000 members of the National Union of Teachers have descended upon this popular seaside resort for its annual conference - the first time for 85 years that the event has been held in the South Devon town.
The town best known as home to Agatha Christie's fictional character Hercule Poirot and - in real life - as the final home for the industrial engineeer and railway building Brunel, is the unlikely setting for the usual mutterings of strike action and opposition to every single Government policy.
Do we care what they think? Do teachers have to plucked from their clasrooms and plonked into dodgy leisure centres in order to be taken more seriously? A motion debated at the ATL conference in Gateshead about four-wheel drives attracted a record 200-plus comments on this blog - why is an issue like that generating so much debate rather than the usual bread-and-butter subjects like pay and conditions?
Whether you are a teacher and/or a delegate or not, let us know what you think about the teachers' 'annual gabfest'...
