Very Young .... and Very Old.

It didn't rain today! It was overcast in the morning but by the afternoon there was some sunshine. I spent most of the day in the garden, first battling with those garden thugs- brambles and bindweed, which were invading from my neighbour's land. Then as it got warmer I was finally able to do some painting on the outbuildings. I had done the preparation and an initial undercoat right at the beginning of the summer but then rain had stopped work. Finally I did some weeding and clearing up in my scree garden.

The scree garden is supposed to be a place of elegance and form, and is mostly, but I didn't have the heart to pull up these nasturtiums. These seedlings are part of a strip 10ft x 2ft, full of exuberant colour. When this garden was ready to plant, 2 years ago, I grew lots of poppies and nasturtiums, just to provide colour for that year, and the nasturtiums keep coming back. The whole garden is starting to show signs of autumn although many of the summer flowers are still there. The sedums are now coming into their own and are full of butterflies and bees. The house martins, who reared several broods next to out bedroom windows, left a few weeks ago and the swallows who were swooping into the outhouses only last week have also gone on their way to Africa.

When I'm gardening I often take a little break and wander up the drive to say hello to the horses in the adjoining fields so I thought I would show the oldest and the youngest of my neighbour's ponies.

This is Percy (Persephone) at a few days old. She is a Dartmoor pony and is very friendly. Even when she was 2 days old she would come to the fence and suck your fingers. She is now 3 months old and just as friendly. Her mum, Coral is quite used to Percy being petted by every single person who walks past.



This picture was taken in 2007, sadly neither pony is with us now. BUT Sir Echo, the little grey pony was 45 years old ,(that's real years), and Tolly, the palomino was 48 years old! Neither of them had many teeth and they had a special cooked diet. They were out in the field during the day and stabled at night. Note the electric fence that wasn't even switched on. The post is leaning because they would use it as a scratching post, often it fell right over but they still stayed in their field. Although I don't feed horses over the fence, (it makes them bite), I made an exception for these 2 with the occasional handful of raspberries from the garden. My neighbour is very knowledgeable and caring which is why these 2 lived to such an old age.

Oh, and there was a mass break-out today. I looked up to see 3 hens wandering up the drive. Good thing they come when I call . Must get that gate fixed!

A Quiet Weekend.

Yesterday was sunshine and showers again. I had to drive into town to collect Romas and water was pouring down the sides of the country roads and right across in several places. It seems strange to have flooded roads along the tops of hills but here the roads are always much lower than the adjacent fields probably due to 100s of years of erosion before the roads were surfaced. Even the verges are higher than the roads so any water goes straight onto the road. I feel a bit obsessed with the weather lately but it is even heading up the news on the radio. This last bout of rain has flooded 100s of homes in Northumberland and sadly 2 people have lost their lives. That is not to mention all the problems people are having in other countries.

This morning we went to church in Ifracombe and afterwards we went for a short walk by the sea. It was very windy but reasonably warm.

Ifracombe is a town that is in decline with a lot of social problems. It had its heyday in Victorian times when people came to walk along the cliffs and enjoy the sea air. There are some interesting buildings but many are in a state of disrepair.

It was surprisingly crowded this morning but maybe people are taking advantage of the reduced rates at the local holiday parks now that the school holidays are over and it certainly wasn't a day for sitting on the beach. Note the Hockings ice cream van, they make real ice-cream and only sell it from these vans in the local resorts. It is delicious creamy ice-cream but today I managed to resist as I have been a little indulgent over the summer.

On our way home we called in at the local re-cycling centre,(dump), to drop off some rubbish and yet another old monitor. It doesn't cost anything to leave stuff, (food/kitchen waste is not allowed and can only be put in the fortnightly roadside collection). You are expected to have sorted your rubbish into stuff for the compactor, wood, garden waste, old metal, tvs/monitors, old electrical goods and resaleable stuff. The money they make reselling goods goes towards the cost of the place. I am fascinated by the things they have and occasionally buy something- eg. plastic garden chairs £1. I hate to see things chucked away so if I have stuff that is not suitable for the charity shops and unwanted on freecycle then I would rather give it to be resold. It was quite busy this morning and one older lady had to overcome her British reserve and ask me why I was taking pictures of the dump. I explained that I was taking pictures of anywhere that was interesting. "Oh" she said.

My Gang of Thieves.

Rainclouds over Exmoor.

Yep, it's still raining. The wood across the road worked and even though we had 20mm of rain in the night the drive is still intact. They have been putting out weather warnings again on the radio saying we may get a month's worth of rain in the next 2 days. Radio4 announced the other day that we've had the gloomiest August since weather records began.

Let me introduce you to my gang of thieves.

They like boxes.

This is Birthday, the boss cat. About 4 years ago he left home to live in the fields and is away for weeks at a time. He is definitely not staying with any of the neighbours but comes home in excellent condition with rabbit shaped bulges. When he does come home he is the cuddliest of cats and likes to lie upside down in your lap or draped across your shoulder whilst purring very loudly.

Smudge is at the bottom of the pecking order but is very clever at opening cupboards to steal food. He was even able to open the last fridge we had.

These are the 'kittens', and yes Patch is twice the size of his sister Elwen. This is partly because he is a greedy guzzler but also their mother is a very tiny cat. Elwen looks sweet and gorgeous but swears mightily at the other cats and woe betide any dog that enters the house. She soon shows them who is boss.

The ginger cat is Squeeky aka Mrs Wrong Side of the Door, because that's where she always is. and yes, she does squeek, constantly.

And why are they featuring today? They've always been ready to steal any food left out but I thought I knew what my cats liked to eat, (Patch is very fond of cucumber and mushrooms and will steal them from the deepest cupboards) , but this morning I was flabbergasted. I left my bowl of cereal on the counter, without milk, and went out of the kitchen for a few moments. When I returned 2 guilty faces looked at me from the food counter, a forbidden place, and when I looked they had eaten most of the sultanas off my dry oats. How odd. Their normal food is dry cat food, which is pretty cheap when bought in bulk, and lots of the local rodents. That's what I say to Pete when he comments on the number of cats in the house.

More Rain Expected.

When will this rain ever stop? Yesterday we had sunshine and HEAVY showers. I got Romas to finish repairing the drive and overnight we had 60mm of rain. So by the morning it was wrecked again. I've never known it to be so bad in all the years we've been here. The forecast for tonight is just as bad so we're going to put wood right across the road as well as the soil that we've been using to create dams. Hopefully that will keep the worst of the water away.

This is just a view through a gateway on my way home from school. Finding good views used to be a lot easier when I had my old Landrover. Not only could I see over the hedgerows but I could climb up on the bonnet to get better shots. Sadly the chassis rusted out and it failed its MOT. I was able to sell it on ebay for a good price to a bloke who imports 25 year old landies to the US, repairs them and sells them on. Now I have a tiny Micra which is a lot more economical but doesn't drive off road or get me through the floods.I was driving home feeling rather cross because I had waited over an hour to give Romas a lift home from town only to find out that he had gone home on the bus, (which the college had told me wasn't running), and hadn't thought to ring the school to let me know. Teenagers! I suppose it's time I sorted myself out a mobile phone again. I did have one but the kids would never answer when I phoned them and after the first £10 credit ran out I didn't bother. Then when I did go to get credit someone had pinched the simcard!

Cheery news at school, a little boy with Downs syndrome who has had heart problems since birth, had heart surgery in the holidays. They were able to do the procedure through his groin and he is back and running around and as happy as ever.

Just been watching "Super Doctors" on BBC1, (should be available on BBCi player). A bit gruesome but uplifting to see this doctor and the work he is doing in Malawi.

Curtain Frog ?

I was lying on the floor the other day and saw this little curtain frog, OK it's really a small toad but look how cute he is.
I just had to take a photo of him and his friend. They had come indoors to shelter from the monsoon rain we've been having. But then I put him out again.
I was lying on the floor, as you do , to do some exercises, which make a tenuous link to this hilarious video I saw on some one's blog a little while ago.

And what's been happening to day - Sun, rain, work. Though I did get owned in class today. I was sitting with a group of children drawing themselves. One little blonde boy was colouring his hair black. I suggested that maybe his hair wasn't that particular colour. "Look" I said, "It's the same colour as mine." He looked at me, "Ah,..... grey."he said. Oh dear, perhaps I should revise my self image.

A Better Day.

Today the sun shone, occasionally, and I was able to get out into the garden to wash stones though I kept getting distracted by all the butterflies.

And then this would happen.

Yesterday we had 55mm of rain in 24 hours, half of it in just 2 hours. All the rain that falls onto the hillside gets caught on the road and then channelled down our gravel drive. Yesterday's deluge not only washed out most of the gravel that Romas had been barrowing up from the stream but overran the yard and threatened to flood out the waste water treatment thingy (septic tank). So out we went, clearing ditches and creating dams across the road to divert the water onto my neighbour's fields. Note- wearing shorts with wellington boots in heavy rain results in lots of water inside the boots. Peter had to try 3 different routes home last night to get round the flooded roads. When the postman came today he told me that many farmers' lanes had been washed away .

However, I've been reading a few blogs written by people in Louisiana, ( Thanks Julie for the 'Round the world' link,) and in comparison it wasn't all that bad.

Just another beautiful butterfly.

Dismal Days.

Yesterday, sunshine and showers.

Monsoon like conditions at mid-day today.

Matches my mood after coming home from the start of year staff meeting. I went in quite a relaxed mood as this term as I'll only be teaching part-time. Then we were told that a colleague in a nearby school died unexpectedly a few days ago, the father (39) of one of our families, who had a stroke just before the holidays, died leaving 3 young children , one of my last year's children has just been diagnosed with leukemia and the prognosis is very poor and another child will be joining us whose father has been battling cancer for 3 years and is about to have more major surgery. Other families are having desperate personal difficulties. And these are just the things that we know about. Our very caring Head emphasised that we should be focusing on getting to know our children and nurturing them before worrying about ticking government boxes. We have a couple of years' breathing space before the inspectors are due, as we had an Ofsted last December.

Sorry to write such a depressing post but these things are filling my head at the moment. Now is the time to give myself a kick in the butt and count all the blessings that God has given me and my family, no life threatening illnesses, many friends to talk to and a vision of the road ahead.

"Even in darkness there is light."