Putsborough Beach.

Another grey but mild day. It's nice that it's already light by the time I've gone out to feed the hens but I was just half an hour later going home,( I went to Brian Fords to do the food shopping as Thursdays are much quieter than Friday evenings), and it was dark for the homeward journey. Not good. Pete gets home much later so he's been driving in the dark for some time but my body tells me that when it is dark I should be tucked up in bed. Or at least curled up on the sofa under a rug watching some non-taxing tv.

I had a year 1 class for the whole day. In the afternoon they were drawing pictures and writing about a 'special place' they would like to visit. The group I was sitting with had the usual type of choices - "Jessica's house because she is my friend ," and "The North Pole because Father Christmas is there," but we also had "inside some one's tummy so I can see all their bones," and so poignantly " My Mum's house because I love her," this was from a lad who lives with his dad. There are times when you just want to give them a big hug. When I returned to teaching 12 years ago I went on a back-to-teaching course and we were solemnly told that there were no circumstances where we needed to have physical contact with the children. This was in the days of total paranoia over accusations of child abuse. I thought as an infant teacher this was a load of b******s. For a start how do you get 30, 4 year olds into pe kit without any physical contact? And sure enough within a couple of years the official word was that contact should be appropriate. So no problems if a tearful child needs a hug or a nervous child needs to sit on an adult's lap for a while. Many children, especially those with difficult homes, run up as you walk across the playground for a quick hug. Last year I had a child who had violent outbursts and one of us would have to sit or kneel behind him and wrap our arms around him to prevent him scratching, biting or kicking until he calmed down. That was a hard year and it wasn't fair on the other children in the class.

To make up for my recent sunset photo-failures here are some photos taken in October a couple of years ago while Romas was surfing at Putsborough Beach. For these evening surfing trips I would make a flask of coffee, take school work to do while it was still light and sit up on the cliff listening to the whoosh of the waves and enjoying the sea air and the wonderful views. Puts is my favourite surfing beach to go to because it is hardly developed. Apart from the car park/field with a small caravan site directly overlooking the beach, there is just a small beach shop, a block of about 12 flats and about 4 houses. You can walk 2 miles along the beach to the village of Woolacombe which is a popular touristy/surf village. All the headlands and most of the coast in this area is owned by the National Trust who maintain them in their natural state and keep them safe from development.

On the horizon is Lundy Island with the lighthouse(centre) and the the church tower (left) just visible.

The golden light was reflecting off the wet sand.

The surf was not bad and there were quite a few surfers still in the water.

Click on the link below for a live web cam on Putsborough Beach.
http://www.eyeball-surfcheck.co.uk/putsborough.html