Drove home once more in the dark, through rain, wisps of mist and minor floods, typical Devon weather. The day, as most others in school, was hectic, moving from one activity to another with barely enough time to organise the resources. It was a very practical day, which the children loved, as we are focusing on instructional writing. For one activity they sat back to back one instructing the other to arrange or draw shapes. That was rather noisy but they learnt a lot about giving clear instructions. We'll get round to doing some writing tomorrow before planning and writing instructions to make clay Divas (lamps).
As Peter was doing the driving on Saturday it gave me a chance to take pictures through the car window. Many were blurred or suddenly obscured by a roadside tree but here are a few of the clearer ones to give a flavour of the countryside along the M5.
The road runs north/south and the countryside is mainly flat with small ranges of limestone hills crossing east/west. Travelling southwards from Bristol you get vast views across the countryside with the next line of hills on the horizon.
Looming on the right of the picture and stretching westwards are the the Mendips, home of the famous Cheddar Gorge and the small town of Cheddar where the cheese originated.
This is the Link Road section which is not a motorway but a fast road that runs westwards from the M5 across the top of Devon to Barnstaple. Here it is all hilly with the road plunging directly down some long steep hills and straight up the other sides of the valleys. This can be quite hard work for older vehicles and we had one car that would get slower and slower as we laboured up the hills. Sometimes I wondered if we would make it at all, so embarrassing. When they built the road there wasn't enough money to make it 2 lanes on both sides so it is 2 lanes wide on the uphill parts and 1 lane wide on the downhill parts. It does mean that the traffic doesn't get too held up by all the holiday caravans that use the road but the changing from 1 to 2 lanes is quite dangerous especially when people are not used to it. Also the road invites speeding as it doesn't pass through any towns or villages and only has 2 roundabouts along the whole 50 miles and there have been many serious accidents.
As Peter was doing the driving on Saturday it gave me a chance to take pictures through the car window. Many were blurred or suddenly obscured by a roadside tree but here are a few of the clearer ones to give a flavour of the countryside along the M5.
The road runs north/south and the countryside is mainly flat with small ranges of limestone hills crossing east/west. Travelling southwards from Bristol you get vast views across the countryside with the next line of hills on the horizon.
Looming on the right of the picture and stretching westwards are the the Mendips, home of the famous Cheddar Gorge and the small town of Cheddar where the cheese originated.
This is the Link Road section which is not a motorway but a fast road that runs westwards from the M5 across the top of Devon to Barnstaple. Here it is all hilly with the road plunging directly down some long steep hills and straight up the other sides of the valleys. This can be quite hard work for older vehicles and we had one car that would get slower and slower as we laboured up the hills. Sometimes I wondered if we would make it at all, so embarrassing. When they built the road there wasn't enough money to make it 2 lanes on both sides so it is 2 lanes wide on the uphill parts and 1 lane wide on the downhill parts. It does mean that the traffic doesn't get too held up by all the holiday caravans that use the road but the changing from 1 to 2 lanes is quite dangerous especially when people are not used to it. Also the road invites speeding as it doesn't pass through any towns or villages and only has 2 roundabouts along the whole 50 miles and there have been many serious accidents. 
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