Blown Away.

The sun was out again today making our walk at Morte Point a real pleasure. That was after I had washed some of the long sitting room curtains and got them out on the line to dry in the strong wind. Down by the sea the wind had whipped up the sea into a white froth which was being blown right up onto the cliff.

Little balls of foam were flying up into the air and lying all over the grass.

We had wrapped up like a pair of elderly SAS members with ear muffs, neck warmers pulled up to our noses, Gortex caps and dark glasses to protect our eyes from the sun and wind. It was too windy to stop for our coffee break on this side and going around the Point I clung to the rocks to keep myself from being blown over.

Instead we stopped on the more sheltered side to enjoy some coffee and chestnut cake. Once home it was more housework and yet more school planning. Back to work again tomorrow, oh joy!

Sun !

The sun was shinning today making even this bunch of fading tulips look special. The wind was blowing strongly and it would have been a good day for a walk. Unfortunately Peter had to take his car into the garage so we'll keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow.On the weekends I like to start the day at my PC to see what's happening in the world. I looked up to see this pheasant peering in at the window checking me out ! By the time I got my camera he had moved away but soon he was back,

this time checking out what was in the conservatory. ( A mess as usual.)

I couldn't stay in on a day like today so I wrapped up against the wind and did some garden work. The other day when I'd been out on the cliffs my wrap around sunglasses had been great at keeping the wind out of my eyes but were a little too dark for the conditions. A quick browse on eBay and I now have some very similar in shape but clear safety specs which do the job brilliantly. First job of the day was to rake up the drive after all yesterday's rain and then I was able to take things easy picking out leaves and moss from the stones in the scree garden. It's not hard work but even kneeling down eventually my back seizes up. I also baked a chestnut cake making up my own recipe with a tin of chestnut puree that was sitting in the cupboard. It came out quite well though a cream cheese topping would have finished it off perfectly. Peter is crashing about in the kitchen making some steak and kidney pies (how do I tell him I don't really like steak and kidney let alone pie, which is why we have no pie dishes let alone a pie funnel.)

Plip Plop.

As forecast it has been raining all day. I haven't done very much at all today, mainly pottering around, tidying up and a bit of reading. I still have my planning to do but that will have to be tomorrow. One thing I did achieve was to mend a kitchen drawer which had broken yet again. As the kitchen was put in before we came (we re-used the original carcasses, moving them around and adding beech work tops when we knocked 2 rooms into 1), everything is in imperial sizes not metric and you can't buy a new drawers to replace the original ones when they fall apart. To fix the drawer I had to resort to screwing into wood when I could and using resin to glue when I couldn't. It should hold for a few years so long as we don't put heavy stuff in the drawer.

A Little Gardening.

My poor PC definitely is on a go slow so I've backed up all my reports which have been completed though I need to give them a read through in a day or two. I expect I'll think they're awful but they've taken 4 days and I've had enough for the moment. I had to go into town to visit the dental hygienist so I dropped in at a few shops on the way. One place was BJ's which is an offshoot of Brian Ford's. It is a big warehouse type of place like a hardware store with a surprisingly good garden centre and like Brian Ford's you can sometimes find some odd bargains. The first things that caught my eye were these little fluorescent jackets and leads in the pet dept. The bigger one is for a rabbit and the smaller one for a ferret. What can I say?
I went out to the plant area to buy a plant for my class and saw a big bin of these sweet little terracotta saucers going for 1p each. Mmm I thought, I'm sure my children could do something with them and as Mothering Sunday is coming up in a few weeks they would make ideal presents after being decorated with some acrylic paints. At that price I bought 80 of them, enough for the other class as well. There were also some very sad looking ferns in pots for 10p that someone had obviously forgotten to water so I bought 4 and have put them in a damp and shady corner of the garden.
Back home as it wasn't actually raining I abandoned my plans to get on with next week's school planning as the forecast is for rain, rain and more rain for the rest of the week and went out and did a bit of gardening. I dug up some nettle roots in the hen run which was quite hard work so I took myself off to the scree garden. To lie back in a garden chair, close my eyes and simply listen to the sounds of the valley was utter bliss. I could hear the buzz of a quad bike (my neighbour's preferred mode of transport around his land), but mainly it was the sound of the birds tweeting away in the trees. There was the whirr of tiny wings near my head as a pair of small birds flew under the shelter and out again, they may be nesting up on one of the beams there. One of the little birds got in such a state it flew into one of the many wind chimes that hang up there, that made me smile. After a break I got on with some weeding until drizzle and lack of light sent me indoors.

PS. Looking closely at the first picture I can see an even smaller size vest and lead, presumably for a pet rat (or a skinny guinea pig).

Tired PC.

Should this blog suddenly fail to appear it's not that I'm lying slumped over my PC clutching files of children's assessments (though that is a real possibility), but that my PC has given up the ghost. Yesterday, as I came to the end of many hours spent on those blasted reports, my poor PC began to go slow on even the simplest of Word tasks making me wait for what seemed like ages before anything at all happened. I'm nearing the end of the reports (first draft at least) so I hope I can get through them this morning before going off to the dental hygienist. The weather yesterday matched my cheery mood being rainy for most of the day. The oil man came with a delivery (so that's £860 of oil used up since 13th Dec) and he wasn't very happy with the stand the oil tank is on telling me dire tales of £30,000 fines for a small oil leak into a waterway. We'll have to wait until the tank is nearly empty before we can do that job.
I was looking at the bird feeders from the stairway window when I spotted a fox slinking along the stream bank. I'm not too happy to have a fox around the place so I banged on the window to get him to clear off. When I went outside to make sure he'd gone my sympathies changed as across the fields I could hear the hated sound of the hunt. The baying of the hounds and the stupid tootling of the huntsman's horn. My thoughts about people who kill animals for pleasure are not printable. Luckily the hunt was up on the road by Ron's farm and could not get down directly to our place. Ron used to hunt but ever since we've been here he has not allowed the hunt on his land.The other field that backs onto our garden was planted up as deciduous woodland some years ago and the hunt can't go there either. I could hear the hunt up on the other hill so just in case they decided to head down onto our property I got one of the boys' guns and had it loaded in the kitchen ready to deter any dogs. (The hunt dogs have been known to rip people's cats to pieces.)
So yesterday did not improve my mood. Back now to the reports.

Bed - Reports - Bed?

A calming picture from our walk around Morte Point.

Another long day spent writing reports. We were given a day off to write reports which makes it 10-15 mins per report. I'm fairly new to report writing so with these longer 'short' reports it's taking me over half an hour just to get the basic information onto the reports. Then I need to add in the maths and check through everything so I could be taking up to 30 hours to do these 30 reports. No Way! That's the whole of my half-term holiday gone. At last now I'm getting to the middle group of children I'm able to do a lot of cut & paste with just a few changes. I had so wanted to be able to get out and do some gardening this week not sit chained to the bloody computer.
The bed foot-end finally came this morning after an early phone call which woke me from my slumbers. I didn't pick up in time but called back and left a message that I was dismantling the bed and would definitely be at home. When the delivery man came he denied being yesterday's courier so I allowed myself the satisfaction of telling him what I thought of deliverymen who just knocked and left. I made the guy wait until I unwrapped and checked the new foot-end and wrapped up the old one for him to take away. It was only 5 mins later when I went to rebuild the bed that I realised I'd left the bolts on the old foot-end. I made a frantic phone call and the guy came back reluctantly so that I could rescue those vital bolts. (Ruta is able to make use of effective describing words.- I've got reports on my brain.)

Aargh !!

I'm all cross at the moment. The day started well enough. I got up just after Peter left, dismantled our new bed and brought the foot end downstairs as a replacement piece was being delivered sometime today. That was not an easy task as the mattress is very awkward and I had to prop up the rest of the bed on stools and books while I loosened the screws holding the end on. I then tidied the kitchen, hoovered said kitchen, boiled t-towels, made bread and generally prevaricated before sitting down at my PC in the sitting room to work on those blasted reports. I wasn't out of the kitchen for more than half an hour , had no radio or music on yet a while later I found a card slipped under the porch door saying they couldn't find anyone at home. WHAT !! The lights were on, the car was in the yard and the sitting room has windows that overlook the front door. The delivery man must be as thick as 2 short planks! I rang the delivery people explaining that it had cost me considerable effort to dismantle the bed and now we had nothing to sleep on but they insisted that the guy could not deliver today. It was only after a second call that they agreed to deliver tomorrow and will phone me 30 mins before as I'm not dismantling the bed in advance, but I am so cross. The front door was even wide open for half the morning to get rid of the smell of some fish that I cooked yesterday. I rang the bed company, who have been absolutely fine and made a complaint about the delivery company. Part of my crossness is also due to not yet getting into the swing of these reports. I was sort of OK then one of my colleagues sent me some to look at and I need to go back and put more detail in. Maybe its a good thing that it is grey and drizzly outside otherwise I would be fed up with being stuck indoors. That's my short blogging break over so back to those reports.

Oh and those t-towels I so carefully boiled - I threw them in the machine with a new pink sheet and they came out pink too. Into a bucket of stain remover they've gone and they'll get washed again tomorrow.

A Windy Walk.

I've been tree hugging today. Not in a free spirit 60's sort of way but in a hanging on for dear life while balancing on top of a wobbly ladder to cut all the branches off a tree sort of way. We have 2 willow trees that need to be polled each year, the only alternative would be to cut them down completely as the branches grow up to 10ft in a year and the trees would soon be out of hand. That job is now done and all the branches cleared away so I'm happy. My gardening came after a walk down at Morte Point with Peter. It was very windy but nice and sunny. The irritating thing about living a few miles inland is that, as was the case today, it is sunny at the coast but inland grey clouds hide the sun. So many times we've had a great time at the coast only to return to gloomy conditions. One more reason to move right to the coast when we finally leave this place.Out at Morte Point there was a very strong offshore wind which made the homeward stretch exhilarating but a lot harder especially the final climb up the hill.
Lots of big waves even though the tide was at its lowest. We stopped at a handy bench for coffee and a bit of wave watching.

Back in the village we heard the familiar sound of jackdaws as they perched on the church wind vane and surrounding chimneys. This morning I watched one of our jackdaws march round our chimney cage giving every bar a good pull with its beak before climbing to the top and bashing the bars again from that vantage point. One sore beak I think.

Grey And Drizzly.

It has been a grey and drizzly day today so I got on with my reports. They are all electronic until the final approval and printing but I like to have a paper summary in front of me rather than skipping from one document to another on the PC. The continual assessment and leveling that we have been doing does help with writing these reports which are the 'short' reports. We have to give levels for effort and attainment in literacy,science and numeracy along with a comment and 'next steps' and then a general comment. The end of year reports will be much more detailed. When I did get out in the garden I found the pond full of frogspawn much of which already is forming tadpole shapes.

Earlier in the day I had a visit from Jack, the neighbours' son. Accompanied by 2 older girls he had brought me a stone for my garden. Later he was back on his own with a letter he had written saying - I hope you have a lovely spring. I will come and help you with the garden. He also brought me a small oak seedling in a pot. I'll have to think carefully where to plant it. About 15 years ago I dug up a 6" oak seedling from the rough field next door and transplanted to the top of the drive. It is about 5' high now and I think that it is time to take off another of the big branches of the hawthorn tree next to it. That tree is old and in poor condition as well as being covered with ivy so I thought that the oak would be a good replacement. There are 2 native species of oak tree in Britain but at least a dozen species can be found growing in gardens and there are 400-600 species of oak worldwide (depending on your source). I particularly like the red oaks of which there are a few grand specimens locally.

Report Day.

It's report writing day so I have ....... not been writing reports, apart from a bit of preparatory work in the morning. Instead I went into town, had a good browse around the shops, met a friend for coffee and did a few town jobs. I try and save up my jobs for one trip because apart from the cost of fuel it takes a big chunk of time. One thing I did was go to my medical centre and ask to be taken off my doctor's list and put on another doctor at the same practice. My old doctor hadn't done anything wrong but you don't feel she's that bothered (she sounds concerned but then gives you a prescription for something you are already taking and then when you point that out simply doubles the dose!) One funny thing there, while I was talking to the receptionist I glanced into the large open plan office to see a very large black cat sleeping on one of the office chairs. Apparently he's there every day. I didn't find out if he's actually theirs or someones house cat that has found himself a good day job.

Another of my tasks today was to drive up to the local college to see if the woodworking dept had any bags of wood shavings for my hen house. There weren't any today but I'll try again earlier in the week. Sometimes I get a good car load all bagged up and ready to go. It all depends when their dustmen have been or if anyone else has taken the free wood shavings.

In town I bought a new seed bird feeder which I have now hung over the stream. I also got some more solar powered lamps to put alongside the path for those dark evenings. Next to the bird seed is a bag of oat bran which I buy from a health store partly because I like to support small businesses and partly because I enjoy being able to fill up my bag from a big tub. The plastic eggs are to hang from some twigs in class. The heart shaped candles, in glass dishes and heart shaped silicone cup cake cases were 70% off at Tescos. I had finally made it to the new Tescos that has been built on the site of my beloved Brian Fords. It is quite big with a long sloping escalator so you can take your trolley to the upper level, which was a new experience. (There are only 2 other escalators in Barnstaple.) There was an automated voice saying over and over again ' Please push your trolley off the escalator.' which must have been highly annoying for any staff working near there. Perhaps they'll be able to turn it off when everyone has got over the novelty of the escalator. I didn't buy that much as we are trying to work our way through the stock pile of food we still have. There was a small section of Polish foods and I couldn't resist a packet of bortsch (beetroot soup) and some chocolate. They also have a section with ingredients for Asian cooking with a bit more than your usual curry sauces and powders, some interesting things to try one day. Highly reduced were cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and rice noodles so it will be a noodle dish of some sort tomorrow. I am very pleased to say that even though some fresh cream cakes were being reduced by 50% (banoffee cake, chocolate eclairs, profiteroles etc) I resisted, (after a little deliberation). As they were all family sized boxes I couldn't kid myself that it would be a little treat, and I had eaten a very nice slice of raspberry cheesecake when I met my friend earlier.
I just needed to check out the chocolate to see if it is better than the continental chocolate I buy at Lidlls. I did stock up on strong flour as Tescos value strong flour is still the cheapest around here (50p for 1.5 kg of white & £1.19 for wholemeal). Too late now to think about reports and I have got some library books waiting to be read.

Half-Term !

Today, at 12C Barnstaple was the warmest place in the country. Lots of sun made life so much more cheerful and I made sure that my class had the opportunity to spend extra time outside with the small PE equipment. The Year 1 children have a dedicated space outside with activities set up though some of the children seem to spend hours at a time racing up and down on the scooters. My poor Year 2 children have a heavy schedule with the SATs coming up so cannot spend a lot of time outside in 'independent learning' even with our limited amount of equipment.Tomorrow is a non-pupil day set aside for report writing (oh joy!) and then we have a whole week off for the half-term holiday. My class are very creative so after some whole class maths (I'm on my own with 29 children most afternoons), I declared Golden Time and let them use up any materials left over from our D&T /Art work. They had a great time making their own projects and I was able to catch up with individual children for reading or assessments.

About an hour after the above picture was taken the sky was full of pink clouds which will hopefully mean good weather for tomorrow. My journey home starts in the light and it is usually just getting dark as I arrive home. Better make a start on those reports now.

Happy Birthday Vytas.

It's Vytas' birthday, he's 25 today and hopefully celebrating with friends up in Leicester. (My family only seem to ring when they want something)Facebook is a great way for me to at least hear what my boys (Vytas & Romas ) are up to and I'm also a photo stealer. If they get tagged in someone else's album I copy the photo to a folder on my pc. I get some interesting photos that way. Vytas usually appears in SK events as he is still a keen member of River's Regt.
Here he is casually marching along with a pike on his shoulder and his morion at a rakish angle for some reason.
Currently he is still working on his PhD though I'm not sure how long the funding will last. With so many cutbacks due to the economic climate I can only hope that he will be able to complete his PhD.

Rain.

It has been a very wet day today though there was some bright sun at lunchtime. The roads aren't flooded -yet, but will be soon if this rain keeps up. We had a couple of sports specialists who are promoting their after school sports club which will be run in school twice a week (for a small fee), come and take each class for a taster lesson. That would have been a break for me if I hadn't been dealing with a howling little darling who was in a right strop because I had confiscated her hair clip which she had been jabbing into another child. Those sort of tears certainly don't melt my heart. We're still busy on our castle theme in class. Last week we borrowed some bricks from another class and the children built many wonderful castles. The one above was built by a big group who decided to work together. Sadly now the bricks have been returned and we are left with lego which does not lend itself to such flights of fantasy. After school I put up the backing paper all along one of the cloakroom walls preparatory to making a big castle display with lots of the children's work. Hopefully I'll be able to get the work up tomorrow as I don't like looking at blank walls.

Happy Valentine's Day.

While I try to fight against the rampant commercialism of all our traditions I would have been very disappointed not to have any tokens of appreciation this morning. And bless his socks (I've trained him well), card, chocolate (bar not box) and roses brightened up my morning. In the UK the exchange of Valentine's cards is very much a romantic declaration. However I did cut out little hearts from pink post-its, added smiley stickers and stuck them on each child's tray this morning (from the tooth fairy?) We then encouraged the children to write compliments on pink paper to give to their friends as a sign of friendship.

In general it has been a good day in school. The sun shone and it was so warm in the afternoon that we even had the classroom windows open to let some fresh air in. This week the children are making books about castles, something they are all interested in so I am expecting a good standard of work and motivation.

Back to last Saturday. The frogs have been very busy in the pond which is already a third full of frog spawn. This happened last year, then we had a cold spell, the pond froze over and so did most of the frog spawn.
Click on the above picture to enlarge it and check out how many frogs can be seen in the water. I have to creep up the steps to the terrace to catch a view of the frogs because as soon as they see me coming they dive down frantically leaving only a few ripples and an awful lot of frog spawn. Also on Saturday we watched the jackdaws gathered in the trees viewing the new chimney cages. They took turns to fly down to the chimney and inspect our defences, hopefully now they'll clear off and we wont have to worry about a chimney full of sticks and mess.

A Week-End Of Firsts.

This morning we had the first egg of the year from one of our 3 not so young hens. Keeping a few hens is not a money saving exercise as the cost of feeding them all year round doesn't balance the eggs they lay even taking into account the higher price of free range eggs. I just enjoy being able to re-cycle some of our kitchen waste into fantastic eggs laid by contented free range hens. True to the forecast it has been grey and wet today so my day has been spent pottering around indoors, catching up with school work and even some housework. I have been making myself tackle one small housework task each evening so now I don't feel guilty about not spending the whole of my week-end cleaning. I may be cracking this housework lark as I find that even 15-30 mins of some boring task makes me feel better both physically and mentally. All the benefits of going to the gym without the cost or time. Also I would get very dispirited when the boys were home, first because I knew that any tidying up would soon be undone by one of those 3 mess makers but also I would get cross at the thought that here were grown young men who should be helping but only did so after much pleading/nagging. Now things stay tidy and I'm not waiting for someone else to do a job but do it straight away(ish) myself. Peter does a share but now he is working full-time (hang on, I think I do too!) it is mainly cooking or sorting out maintenance problems.

While enjoying the sun yesterday I also spotted the first daffodils flowering along the stream that runs behind the house. The bank is sheltered by the house so while the other daffodils in the garden are just green spears poking up from the ground these are already beginning to show their springtime colours.

Next to my piano in the sitting room is a full length window giving me a lovely view of these daffodils to enjoy.

Meanwhile at the front of the house the first snowdrops have appeared. When I was on my way to Mortehoe yesterday I saw great clumps of them flowering in front of Indicott Farm. I can't remember if Ron gave me the snowdrops but I do recall him bringing me a lot of daffodil bulbs when we first moved in. Many of the plants in the garden were given to me by kind neighbours when we first moved in as there was no garden here at all.

Out For A Walk.

I've had a good day today. First the bliss of a lie-in. It is such a treat after getting up in the dark all week that it does deserve a mention. Knowing that I can simply turn over and go back to sleep is such luxury. The forecast for the week-end was dry today and wet tomorrow so I spent some time out in the garden getting rid of brambles first from a small woodland area which I leave natural apart from removing the brambles and stinging nettles, and also from the blackcurrant bushes and a patch of raspberry canes. I then felt justified in taking myself off, with a flask of coffee and a snack, down to Morte Point for a walk. (Peter had gone to Exeter for an OU tutorial so I was on my own.) It was still bright and sunny when I got there and I was surprised not to see more people out walking but generally I had the place to myself. I'm going off on more walks on my own as I've decided there is no point in getting fed up when Peter can't come with me. It is nicer to have company but I still enjoy my solitary rambles.
This makes up for all those years living in London when we walked (daily with dogs and children) on our local common ignoring the traffic and all the buildings around.

I had thought about taking the longer route going right around Bull Point lighthouse and back via Rockham bay but the path is higher up on the cliffs and for a large part of the walk you are some distance from the sea so I stuck to the usual walk.

I had planned to stop at the point to have my coffee by the crashing waves but when I got there the wind was cold and so strong that it was hard to stand up so I didn't linger for too long.

Instead I found a bench in a more sheltered spot in the company of a few sheep grazing out of the wind. It was getting rather overcast by this time and not exactly warm but it was still good to be out.

This sheep was on look out duty behind me and the small black speck above is a sparrowhawk hovering overhead.

Back home I made a meat loaf using some lamb mince I had bought reduced on Friday and we had some of it with carrots and new potatoes. The rest will be eaten later in the week so I shan't have to do much cooking.

Glad To Be Back.

Had fun going through all the photos on my camera but first the biggest news is that we have water again. Nearly 2 weeks without any water at all was getting a little tiring. I had to bring home drinking water each day and we used water from the handy stream behind the house to fill the toilet cisterns. At least we had those options but I was relieved when Peter finally pinpointed the problem down to a fault in the electrical system in the outbuildings. He has re-run some wiring but the whole system needs to be re-wired professionally as there are all sorts of fuse boxes, defunct sockets and underground cables involved. Well done Peter. Every day the sun rises 5 minutes earlier so when it is not grey and rainy I get to enjoy the sunrise on my way to school.
I did stop at the pet carrier and take a picture of this mini sales venture. Roadside stalls like this are not a common sight around here but I would rather buy direct from a farmer/smallholder than pay for all the middlemen to take a profit. On the radio last week I heard that the average hill farmer's year's profit was £11,500. No wonder so many are going out of business.

This ornamental feature which now graces all 3 of our chimney pots has put an end to the days of the jackdaws sneaking up and us running outside waving an airgun at them and taking potshots to deter them from nesting in the chimneys.

The cages were put on last Saturday which was a really stormy day. We had thought that the builder (we have neither the roof ladders nor the head for heights to go up ourselves), would postpone his visit but he turned up nonetheless forcing us to leap out of bed where we had been having a lie-in listening to the wind howling through the trees. He did admit to having a few scary moments perched on top of the roof but it was his choice as we would have waited for a calmer day.

Skip on a few days, the weather has been a lot warmer and one morning I was treated to the sight of a great cloud bank sitting over the river valley and covering the town.

The cloud/fog lay there like a fluffy duvet with feathers leaking out of the edges. Not so pretty of course once I drove into it.

Back to last Saturday, we couldn't resist the stormy weather so we wrapped up well, packed a flask of coffee and headed off for a stroll at Barricane beach.

It would have been more spectacular if the tide had been in with the waves crashing against the cliffs but it was good to walk on the beach and blow the cobwebs out of our heads. We found a sheltered spot in the rocks to perch and enjoy a hot cup of coffee. I would do that any day rather than go to the poshest of restaurants.

Today we had some very mild weather so I abandoned my timetable and took my class out to skip for half an hour in the warm sun. We've had so many wet playtimes recently and you never know when we'll see the sun again. Some of my class came up with the most ingenious methods of skipping together including 3 of them all skipping in a line at the same time with 2 skipping ropes linked together. The boys are happy to skip because they see boxers and footballers skipping as part of their fitness regimes though I don't think much of the current fad of WWF(E) which some of my more active boys are into.

That's all for tonight, back tomorrow.

I'm Back!

Hi Folks. It has taken me this long to get over having my pc invader by a nasty virus. One of those ones that look through all your files. The worst thing was finding out that the hacker was actually looking at us through my switched off, web cam. How do we know? Well Peter had come to my rescue when all the screens went black, realised what kind of a virus was in my pc and before cutting this virus out of my system he made a rude gesture at the web cam - which was responded to by an indecipherable comment issuing from my pc just before being cut off. That's not nice to think that people can watch you. My web cam now has a lovely view of the inside of a pot until I actually want to use it. Luckily I don't bank on-line so my biggest threat is identity theft. No money has been lost but it took until today to get my new bank cards and a stronger anti-virus put on the pc. Peter, who tends to take a dismal view of things says I should scrap everything with my old email address but I don't know how to move this blog over to my new email so I'll leave things for a while and think things through.

Oh and if you were wondering, it's eggs that are being sold from that pet carrier. I stopped and bought 6 in a gesture of solidarity for small enterprise. Pictures will be back tomorrow.