Wet.

I've been teaching all day and this morning's trip to the swimming pool was not without incident. First there was the crying child who was working herself into a hysterical state because she was scared of jumping into the pool even though the instructor said she didn't have to if she didn't want to. Wisely the instructor changed the final activity for this the best group of swimmers to a sit dive instead but it still took one trip to the toilets and an assurance from me that if she showed any signs of downing I would jump in fully clothed, to rescue her and then a lot of verbal encouragement from me to get her swimming again. But worse was to occur. Ever since the pool, which is privately run, was 'refurbished' a few years back I have complained about the floor tiles. They are ridged but could only be considered non-slip if they were perfectly dry. They extend through to the changing rooms and are lethal when wet. We walk around in bare feet and even when walking it feels that you could slip over at any time. And that is what happened today. As we walked back to the changing rooms one child in front of me slipped over and banged her knee and almost at the same time a child behind me slipped and caught his back on the tilled corned of a tiled step that runs along the wall. The scrape across his back was a good 6" long and very painful. I only shudder to think what might have happened if he had hit his head instead. I asked for an ice pack and a first aider took the child and his aunty (who was helping getting the children changed) and put a dressing on his back. As we left I asked for a complaints form of which there were none and I informed them the school would be making an official written complaint. They used to have rubber mats to walk on because of the slipperiness of the tiles but I expect that made extra work when cleaning the floors and the mats are no more. The lad was fine later but I did speak to his mother and our headteacher will be making an official complaint.

I took a few photos on the way back to school. This is the controversial rock installation at the entrance to the New Bridge.

The stone on the far left was reshaped after many ribald comments about its resemblance a certain part of the anatomy.

Crossing the New Bridge the River Taw flowing down to the sea.

My afternoon was spent with the reception children and then after school we had a training session about ways to deal with challenging behaviour. Today's session was about negative and positive signals that we give out both verbally and non-verbally as well as the legal position if we have to hold or move a child.

Right now it is raining heavily again and every now and again the wind howls down the chimney.