Wet.

The rain and the flooding continue. Today the Thames burst its banks (above - Shepperton in Surrey) while in Somerset (below) some villages have been flooded since Christmas. The politicians are blaming officials from the Environment agency for not doing their jobs properly and the officials are blaming the politicians  for massive cuts in their budget. (photos from the web)

We had a bit of a stressful start to the day. I got in Peter's Rav so he could give me a lift up the hill when shock, horror he had a flat battery. On Friday evening I had noticed that his interior light was still on at bedtime so I went down and closed the car door properly. Normally a couple of hours with the light on shouldn't have drained the battery but it was in a poor state anyway. So we had to quick march up the hill to where my car was and then there was the fiddly business of putting in the code which Peter isn't used to. Then he stalled the engine and the stress levels went up. Not only was Peter picking up a couple of people on the way in to work but if they clock in even 1 minute late they are fined 15 mins pay. Luckily they got in at 7.59.

I had been asked to teach all day because we were having a massive sort out and clear out all through the school. A large skip (dumpster) had been delivered and after the children had gone home it was filled to overflowing with rubbish, ancient out of date stuff and also stuff that could have been reused or rehomed but nobody was bothered. All the staff stayed until 5.00 which will be counted towards an inset day. New storage boxes were bought and furniture moved around. In one day the staffroom has been spruced up, the pe cupboard which had become a complete jumble has had all the equipment sorted and rearranged, the same with the technology cupboard where people had resorted to piling stuff on the floor not to mention classroom walk-in cupboards which have been spring cleaned. One teacher, well known for a walk-in cupboard whose door could only be opened 6 inches so that you had to snake an arm around to grab the thing you needed, added a large number of bags to the skip. We are now wondering just how long it will take him to fill the cupboard up once more. I carried on clearing up until Peter came to collect me at 5.30.

Once we got home Peter had to change his old car battery, which was all salted over, with the new one he had bought. It was nothing like as easy as when I used to have to change the Landrover battery, with a number of awkward nuts to be tightened up. I had to hold the lights and a screwdriver to hold something in place while Peter struggled with a spanner. It's done now and he's upstairs shooting aliens on his pc.