Meteors!

My ears pricked up this morning when from the radio I heard the news that we were in the middle of a meteor shower (the Quadrantids) which was due to peak in about 10 mins. I leapt out of bed and after pressing my nose against the window to check the cloud cover I threw on lots of clothes. Within minutes I was standing outside clutching a cup of coffee and peering up at the night sky. Conditions weren't good and there was over 50% cloud cover but I did get to see one meteor. All the same I enjoyed being outside in the dark with the wind roaring through the trees and a tawny owl hooting over by the lake.

I had to be up anyway as I was going in to work for the morning. We had an inset day with 2 morning training sessions. The first was on assessing and teaching maths which is an enormous subject not helped by the number of different assessment schemes being used often side by side. The other session was on communicating with children who have language and communication difficulties. As this applies to 1:5 children in the country it is not surprising that there are a number of children in each class with these difficulties which often result in behaviour problems. It felt really good to be using my brain again and feeling full of enthusiasm I was regretful that I do not have my own class anymore. Then I brought myself back to reality thinking about all the areas of the curriculum that have to be delivered at the same depth while also coping with behaviour issues, the day to day running of the class, stimulating displays, marking and feedback and all those little emergencies that happen every day. That's why teachers get burnt out.

My working day finished at lunchtime when I went to collect my car from the garage. In the morning I had asked them to check a squeaky fan belt and put on my new wing mirror. Alec also fixed a rattle which was coming from underneath and was part of the exhaust falling off - again. The total cost was £36 but he is trustworthy unlike many garages which see women as easy prey. When I drove away it was raining heavily so I tried to turn on the windscreen wipers but they didn't work. I went straight back but it turned out that the wiper had slipped down and got caught in the bonnet when they closed it after fixing the fan belt.I stopped in a side street where you get an hour's free parking so that I could have a walk round the High Street to check out the sales. I bought some earrings which I may remake longer and danglier. These charm bead bracelets seem to have been popular for a few years now and I bought some on sale before Christmas to give as presents. Today I bought another one so that I now have 2. Finally I bought a small cheap diary to keep a record of my photos. I up/down? load a file nearly every day and while the pictures are doing their thing I make a quick note in the diary. I am not so organised at backing up my photos onto my external hard drive which I plan to do at the end of each week but usually forget and then I have lots of files to copy.
The stormy weather has returned so back home I finished off lining my little Saltrock bag and did a few bits of housework.