Toad Alert.

There's been a lot of drizzle today. We let the children play outside unless it is really raining but I did call them in when I noticed that they were getting soaking wet. I had a hard job persuading some children from the other class that they needed to go in and they were trying every argument to stay outside. When I left for home I could see that the clouds were very low, right below the tops of the hills even just on the outskirts of Barnstaple. The whole of the Muddiford valley was filled with cloud/mist and visibility was poor from that point on.

These are the trees on the edge of Paul's lake taken from inside the car.

This shows just how poor the visibility was even coming down our hill.

The damp atmosphere and the warmer temperatures have brought out the toads on their springtime perambulations. There were several by the front door and my biggest fear is treading on one. For the next few weeks I'll have to go out with rubber gloves and a bucket to remove all the toads that are in danger of being squashed by the car. Even then we usually end up with some sad flattened corpses on the drive.

(photo from Google) In some parts of the country there are even toad road signs and down in Croyde, not far from here, volunteers go out and collect & move the migrating toads safely across the main road.