Arch Triumphal.

I've spent most of the day perched preciously on ladders clipping the leylandii arch. The job is finally done though it's lost the clean line at the top of the front because I decided to even up the curve which had become very lopsided. In fact looking at my photos spurred me into going out once more, dragging the heavy roof ladders from the back of the house , where I had put them away and doing a bit more tidying up of the curve. I know that if I leave it for another day it will never get done. I'm not very good with heights and it was heavy work dragging heavy ladders around and stretching to cut at arms length without falling off the ladder. I tried my best to get the top even but it is not easy when one end of the ladder is on a slope and the other resting on a wobbly hedge. I had a couple of scary moments and the thought crossed my mind that if I did fall and injure myself the boys might then be sorry that none of them completed the job they agreed to do last year. Then reality struck and I decided they would probably say that they knew the job was too dangerous anyway and there would be no sympathy for Mum. Luckily ladders and I stayed upright and the only casualty is my finger which has a big blister.

Snip, Snip, Snip.

I've been a busy bee today, (and doesn't my back know it), working away in the garden mostly up and down ladders. I started the day by having my breakfast outside. The sky was bright blue, the sun shone and the birds were singing. The only other sounds were the gentle chiming of my windchimes and the voice of someone taking a riding lesson next door. You don't get better than that. My first job of the day was to cut and tie back the honeysuckle and roses that grow up the front of the house. Cliched I know but I always wanted roses over the front door. I was lucky to find a climbing rose that is happy to grow in a minimal amount of soil. (The raised bed is 12" deep on top of solid clay.) In fact it does so well that it now reaches the roof and and tries to cover 2 of the windows. I usually do the major tidy up of the wall in autumn but the weather and work put a stop to that. Today I was up and down the ladder tying and snipping with the occasional unladylike word as a thorn dug into me or I realised I had cut off a piece of the wisteria that hides in the honeysuckle.
My second task of the day was to trim the top and back of the leylandii hedge. The sporadic work done on it last year by the boys meant that in some spots I had to saw off rather thick branches. It wouldn't get any topiary prizes but at least it is tidy and under control. Tomorrow hopefully, I shall tackle the archway.

A Chilly Morning.

It was cold this morning, -4C when I left for work. I was back in my Year 2 class for the whole day and it was quite an eventful morning. There is one child in the class with extreme behaviour problems and today he got into such a state he had to be sent home. I thought I wouldn't have any problems with him today as he had an adult working with him but things became unmanageable. I was worried that I had precipitated the situation but then I found out that his behaviour had been difficult yesterday afternoon and this was just a continuation. Apart from that the rest of the day wasn't too bad. The school is having a multicultural week next week and I, maybe foolishly, volunteered to produce a dragon dance for our celebration assembly. Today the children wrote stories loosely based on a Chinese dragon story, made Lucky Money and Lucky Money envelopes, (a bit of shape work and addition thrown in there), designed dragons for our dance and made dragon puppets. And the sun shone brightly all day long.

Each day as I drive home from work I pass these stands of snowdrops. They are in a roadside hedgerow but have obviously been planted by the occupants of the cottages across the road. It is not unusual for people to plant garden plants in hedgerows near their homes. A long stretch of a high bank opposite the village school in Shirwell is planted with all sorts of daffodils and narcissi which have been left to naturalise themselves and look very pretty in the spring.

World Book Day.

For a change today I was teaching in the morning. The children were all quite excited as most of them came to school dressed up as a fairy tale character for World Book Day. The adults had also been asked to dress up and this time I came as Mother Bear from Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. It was an easy costume for me as I have a furry brown hoody to which I sewed some velvet ears. An apron,brown trousers, large necklace and wooden spoon completed the ensemble together with a painted nose. I must have made the ears a bit too big because some children thought I was a monkey or a mouse. Not as observant as the small child that said 'Hello Elf,' to me as I walked across the playground. I didn't keep the costume on when I went into town in the afternoon. I might have got a few strange looks walking round the library dressed as a bear/mouse. The day has been cold but sunny so I was able to put in a couple of hours in the garden. I had been enjoying the birdsong all around when the peace was shattered by my neighbour doing some work with a chainsaw right behind our house. In between his racket I could hear his little boy shouting 'Dad,Dad.' and then joining in with the chainsaw noises. Never mind, it's usually pretty peaceful here.

Dentist Torture.

Today was the day of my visit to the dentist to have the crowns which I have been waiting 4 weeks for, fitted on the stumps which had been left in my mouth after the old crowns had been removed. (My gums have receded a little and left sensitive edges at the bases of these 2 crowns.) The dentist had warned me that I might have some sensitivity on those uncapped stumps but they haven't been too bad until Sunday. It was then that I made the grave error of eating a grapefruit. The fruit acid burned right through to an/some exposed nerve endings and my whole mouth went into toothache overload. I must have worked my way through every kind of painkiller in the house. It was not nice.On Monday my whole mouth was still super sensitive with even my jaw bones sore on one side. By yesterday it had toned down a bit but was still very sensitive. I told my tale of woe to the dentist today and he suggested that I would need pain killing injections on both sides as he would probably need to do some drilling and other work to make sure the crowns fitted properly. No big problem as I don't mind injections though I go into panic mode over drilling. The first 2 injections in the more sensitive side were ok, the first one on the other side was ok but the second one wasn't. At first there was simply that odd sensation that you get with injections and then all of a sudden it felt as if I had been stabbed in the mouth. I winced and tried to sink further into the chair. I think the injection must have gone in the wrong place, (or maybe I have a funny nerve layout), because when he started working on that side my mouth wasn't properly numb. Much pain and whimpering from me as even the air thingy was killing my tooth and the drilling !!!!! so the dentist gave me 2 more injections on that side. He finally got the crowns fitted but I have to say it was all fairly painful. He has only put the crown on the side that had originally been so painful in with a temporary cement because he wants to check that there is not an underlying problem before he uses the permanent cement. So my poor mouth was completely numbed up and I had to go into work. Teaching phonics was a bit of a laugh as I was so worried about biting my tongue or the inside of my mouth that I kept my back teeth clamped together when I spoke. Much laughter in the staffroom, the meanies. Luckily the 4 year olds managed to understand me as I mumbled and dribbled my way through the afternoon. Only one good thing came out of the dentist visit. I have a filling in the back of one of my front teeth done in the days when the NHS would only let you have metal fillings. It shows through my tooth and doesn't look too good so I asked how much it would cost to have it replaced with the white stuff. Nowadays for a filling in such an obvious place even the NHS lets you have white fillings so I can have have it done in white on the NHS which will be considerably cheaper. I'm having it done when I go back to have the crown fixed on permanently. The cost of the 2 crowns and treatment was £200 compared to nearly £1000 at a private dentist (who probably wouldn't have tortured me).
Quite an interesting sky on the way home tonight. The whole day has been a bit overcast but dry and I put in an hour in the garden before going to the dentist and another hour when I got home. Little by little the work is getting done.

Night And Day.

Last night the moon was almost bright enough to read by. I'm quite pleased at the amount of detail my camera managed to pick up, normally when I go into the digital zoom range the picture loses definition but the above picture is not bad.

Last night's clear sky let the temperature drop and we had a sharp frost in the morning. This soon went in the warmth of the sunshine. I had some time to work in the garden before going to school. It was so warm that first I took off my coat and then my second fleece. It was such a lovely morning that I had my late morning coffee sitting outside by the scree garden. What a great thing the imagination is, I was able to look at the small parts of the scree garden that have been tidied up and let my mind morph the tidiness onto the rest of the garden which still needs work. Slowly the garden is being cleared, ready for the burst of spring growth bringing form and colour to this corner of the valley. Perhaps there will even be time for me to sit and contemplate my little world or !!! read a book to the sound of the wind rushing through the trees and the birds all around.

I reluctantly dragged myself away from the garden to go and do some paid work. When I got to school the spring time feeling was reinforced by the sight and smell of the first cutting of the grass in the junior school field behind our classrooms. Plenty of cut grass being thrown around by enthusiastic children. Once I got back home it was still light enough to do another hour of work outside. I'm really pushing on with the garden before I need to rest my back after the injections and also while it is not raining as it's been known to rain for weeks on end here.

Lots Of Work.

Woke up today to a bright but misty morning.

It didn't take long for the mist to clear leaving more lovely sunshine. Out in the garden there are many early signs of spring including these cob nut catkins. It was sunny in the front yard so it was a good time to have a good tidy up. As I swept the paving slabs with a dustpan and brush, (the yard broom yet again has parted company with the handle), I was grumbling to myself on how it is that it is always me that does these tidying up job?. Answer - because nobody else notices or even cares about the mess. So why am I doing it? Because I don't like looking at mess and having a good tidy now makes it easier to clear up on the rare occasion that someone comes to visit. Grumble, grumble. On the plus side, if Peter was one of those people who like things neat and tidy all the time we would have fallen out years ago because although I aspire to tidyness I never quite achieve it.

For our lunch break Peter and I took some sandwiches and coffee down to Barricane beach. In the distance Lundy was floating on a cloud of haze with a few puffs of cloud above.

We sat on the rocks and watched the waves as we ate our lunch. There were quite a few people about which was surprising, early holiday makers? We are so lucky that we can get down to the beach in 20 mins when we want though it was one of the reasons that we moved here.

back home I trimmed the front of the leylandii hedge. It's a horrible job as the position of the hedge means that you are mainly cutting over your head with all the bits falling on your face and into your clothes. I got so hot zipped up in my old gardening coat that when I had finished I had to strip down to my t-shirt to cool off. I have tried to get the boys to cut the hedge but they get fed up and complain that I haven't got electric hedge cutters. The reason is that the hedge sits on a steep bank which slopes in 2 directions and it is hard enough to keep your balance with a pair of shears let alone an electric cutter whizzing away. I got Linas to move the big ladder for me so I could cut the top of the hedge which hadn't been done last year and took a lot of work. I also went up the ladder and blocked the holes to the loft above Romas' bedroom with wire netting to keep out the jackdaws which are still hanging around. All in all a good day's work.