An Icy Morning.

7.00 this morning.

I am lucky in that the first 3 miles of the journey to town are due east so that I get to enjoy the sunrise and then the sunset on the journey home. One year I worked at a school in a town to the west so as I travelled up over the hills I only caught glimpses of the sunsets & sunrises in my rear view mirror, that was really frustrating. Once again today we had clear skies but the road was not too bad considering that the temperature was -8C. I had taken the cautious option of leaving the micra up the hill and catching a lift up with Peter.

And today was another good day at school. I started the morning with a science investigation into ice (how apt) which I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out as I was trying something new with a lot more emphasis on the children's ideas. In the end the session was great with lots of ideas and questions that I can use to base a more formal investigation on. Using all my silicone cake and muffin tins & some latex gloves I had made ice blocks of all shaped and sizes and simply asked the children to work in teams to see what they could find out. Guess what? When you put paper on ice it gets wet. A couple of groups got very excited about hacking at their ice shapes with scissors but that could be moved into an investigation into the strength of ice. I think next week we'll do an investigation into a few of their questions and then the following week we'll investigate melting and solidifying chocolate. Why is it that so many of my science investigations involve food? Does that say something about me?

We had a whole school celebration assembly in the afternoon then half of my class went off to do Gardening Club (run by parents) and the other half had golden time apart from 2 who had spent most of the assembly chatting despite glares form me and so had to practise their handwriting while I put up a display.

After school Linas dropped in. He'd come up from Plymouth for a doctor's appointment and had asked me to bring some things from home. While he was at the doctors' I picked up a few items from the DIY store and then we stopped at Lydl's on the way to the station. That shop is the only place I know that sells a good range of tinned mackerel in sauces. Easy to prepare and very good for you. Tonight's supper was couscous and mackerel in barbecue sauce mmm.

Off now to get lost in that enormous bed.