Windy.

We had a clear starry night followed by a bright and breezy day. We don't get too many good drying days in the winter so I got some more washing done and out on the line to dry. Before hanging up the washing I went up and gave the rope line a wipe and because I still had a bucket of hot soapy water I gave my car a wash too.

I went in to do an extra afternoon in the reception class and it turned out to be quite a relaxed afternoon. After the usual phonics lesson I took my class out for 10 minutes in the playground. It wasn't a proper PE lesson but I took out a box of soft balls for the children to play with. My only rule was that if the ball went out into the car park or up on the roof you didn't get another one. Then it was time for me to have both classes, 60 children, to watch an animated version of the Nativity story. It wasn't the best version I've seen and was rather long. I gave the children a chance to run around the playground after about 20 minutes and then cut the DVD short when we got to Herod ordering the killing of the babies! The children know the basic story because they have started practising their Nativity which they will perform for their parents.

After school I joined the Friday traffic jam going over the bridge and checked out the new Asda that opened a couple of weeks ago. Because they don't yet have settled customer numbers there was a lot of fresh stuff in the various reduced sections. I came out with a good haul of greatly reduced items; potatoes, mushrooms, radishes, raspberries, pork chops, a cook-in-the-bag chicken, fresh prawns, anti pasta, bread, bagels, scotch eggs, custard tarts and a couple of fresh cream meringues. I'll be eating a prawn salad tonight followed by fresh raspberries and mango. Tempting as the cheese cakes, profiteroles and other fresh cream cakes were I bravely thought about my diet and left them for other people to enjoy. The custard tarts are for Peter and the meringues are ....... a treat for me. Overall I don't think I'll be tempted to go to Asda for my everyday supermarket shopping. The prices were about the same as Tesco's and though Lidl's have a much smaller range I like their continental foods at very good prices.