Warming Up.

It certainly feels a lot warmer now. My morning job was to rebuild the end of the stone wall which had collapsed due to the rubus growing into it.  To do a proper job I needed to dismantle at least half of that section of wall so that I could dig out all the roots grown into the wall. Instead I made do with taking down the end and then squirting strong weedkiller on the thick runners I couldn't pull out. I took the stones off carefully, putting them aside in order but somehow it wasn't so easy putting them back.

At school I was able to take my class out onto the field for their PE lesson. It's so much better as there is plenty of room to run around and if they fall over they don't graze their knees. They had bean bags for throwing today and we did the balance challenge again. It's surprisingly hard even for adults as we found out when we had the PE day. And what do you have to do? I hear you ask. Simply stand on one leg with your eyes shut. I can't even manage 10 seconds on either foot.

We also let all the children go into the field during the afternoon playtime and it was like a stampede through the gates. But it was lovely to see the children having so much more space. 

Instead of a staff meeting we had a talk from a financial advisor about our teachers' pensions. Incredibly complicated as there are several systems depending on how old you are and when you started teaching. With my part-time career and 10 years out to bring up my family I know I'm only getting pennies but at least I found out where to go to see just how much those pennies will actually be. And because I'll be getting a teachers' pension however tiny my state pension will be reduced.