Dry.

There was more in the way of sunshine this morning and it hasn't rained at all. I slept until 9.00 then spent the rest of the morning working at my pc. 

Driving to work my attention was caught by the strange antics of a helicopter. It's not unusual to see helicopters flying low bringing patients to the local hospital but what caught my eye was the way this one was flying. At first glance it looked to be heading steeply upwards but this was due to the fact that it was banking into a turn. Next it flew down to hilltop height, this was at Burridge, then dropped even lower so that it was flying in the valley at the same height as the road I was driving along. It then made another turn dropping even lower at the entrance to the valley that leads to Muddiford and my last view was of it making another tighter turn as if it was going to land. It was bright yellow which is the colour of the coastguard's helicopter though that service was privatised last autumn by Cameron who then had the check to fly into Chivenor (where the coastguard helicopter was) on a visit to north Devon.

I had a rewarding afternoon with the Reception children working with just a few at a time to paint their self-portraits. I took in some small hand mirrors for the children to use as the school 'safety' mirrors aren't very good and tried to encourage them to paint what they saw rather than what they thought they saw ie cartoon images. After school we had a staff meeting which was mainly a diary dates meeting putting in dates right up to the Easter holiday.

Yesterday at the end of the afternoon playtime a group of children came running up to me to tell me that a child had his leg stuck in the fence. Sure enough a boy had his knee jammed between the upright fence planks and was crying hysterically. All I needed to do was lift him up a little so that his leg straightened and out it popped. End of drama, thank goodness it wasn't a stuck head though that wouldn't be possible with our fencing. Today at playtime a child came up to me complaining that another had spat at her. After talking to the offender it turned out that it wasn't quite the case and she had blown a raspberry at the other child. I pointed out this wasn't very nice and made her apologise but at least it wasn't any worse. (In this country spitting at somebody is legally an assault.)