Dry.

The sun was out this morning making me realise just how much I missed it. I flew through my morning jobs so that I could spend the day working outside. It wasn't until Peter got home as I was clearing up that I saw that I had been working for 5 hours without a break. My first and main job was to clear up the mess where the scaffolding had been. I'm not a neat freak but too much mess makes me feel uncomfortable. I put away the ladders, bagged up junk for the dump and cleared away all the weeds and every bit off broken concrete and brick. I also cut down most of the ivy that had regrown on the wall then scraped the bark off the remaining main stem and sprayed it with heavy duty weed killer. Have to use chemicals sometimes.

 Before.

 After.

The sky turned grey in the afternoon but the rain held off and I carried on. Much as I would have liked to finish off up in the scree garden now that I have my ladders back I thought it was more important to clear out the gutters at the back of the house. Cleaning out the twigs and stinky sludge was not fun but I'm glad I got it done. Then I noticed that weeds were beginning to appear in the bog garden by the stream. It's never too early to get rid of the weeds and some of them had started to flower. So I pulled up all the weeds and cut down the dry stalks of the astilbes too. 

Elsewhere in the garden new shoots are appearing. These are some montbretia and something else which I'm not sure of. On my journey to work there are some clumps of snowdrops flowering in the hedgerow opposite the houses at Burridge and a bit nearer town there is a large patch of primroses in flower. Roll on spring.

Wet.

Not a breath of wind today but it has been raining almost constantly. I suppose this is the calm before the next storm. My morning was spent doing housework and not a lot else. I did transfer some spices from plastic bags into washed spice jars. Peter had bought himself some vital spices from a stall in the market where they sell loose spices by weight. There were fennel seeds and cumin and I hope that Peter remembers what the other 2 are as they didn't have labels on. One is a bigger quantity of dried herb but we've already got basil, parsley, oregano and coriander. (I've got a bit of a cold so I can't tell by smelling it), and the other is tiny black seeds but I don't think they are poppy seeds. Update - he's come home and the seeds are nigella seeds but he can't remember what the herb is.

As it was so wet my Year 2 class worked through playtime, this week they were finding out about Queen Victoria. I did my usual sticking in and marking at the end of the day then dropped in at the Co-Op for some fruit and veg. 

The light was fading when I got home so I played around using the flash.

I even like the effect with no flash. 

Stormy.

Last night's storm died down by midnight and apart from being a bit wetter than usual and more small branches on the roads we weren't really affected. But for the south-west in general the storm was the worst one yet this winter. This morning the radio spoke of over 7,000 homes without power and this evening there are still thousands of homes affected. The flooding, especially in Somerset continues to get worse and on the south coast the railway has been completely undercut by the sea. Peter has just come home and he tells me that even worse storms are predicted for this week-end. It seems that the global weather systems are becoming more and more extreme.

This morning I went out during a dry spell to rescue our 2 empty dustbins that had been blown across the garden one almost into the stream. Then there was just time to wash my hair and make a batch of Peter's flapjacks before setting out for school. As I drove down the hill from the Lewis' farm this double tanker was right across the road having problems in getting around the corner. I stopped up the hill to give him plenty of room to manoeuver but he pulled back to let me through.

Handwriting again with the reception children and guided reading which this time we did in the hall sitting on a couple of pe mats. After school the time had come around again for us all to have training in Safeguarding (child protection). Just the same as last time with the usual shocking figures for Devon. Shocking, not because Devon is worse than anywhere else but because it is awful to think of so many children suffering from abuse (that covers neglect & emotional abuse as well as physical and sexual abuse). The course is a useful refresher and we do have a number of new members of staff who hadn't been through the course.

Photo from the web of the railway line at Dawlish.

Stormy.

Another big storm is blowing in from the Atlantic. I can hear the wind howling outside and the rain is coming down heavily. Even though it's nearly dark I can see the trees swaying in the wind. I've been at work all day so I haven't taken much notice of the weather. As I drag myself awake for a morning's work at school I can console myself with not having to do my morning exercises and the extra money that will be in my pay slip the following month. There always seem to be those little extras to buy, a new car or a new chimney, that sort of thing. But somehow although I don't have money to spare there is always just enough to cover my needs and for that I am grateful. 

In the afternoon the children were treated to a pantomime style performance of Jack and the Beanstalk. As usual it was very loud with lots of light effects. We sit the youngest children on benches at the back so they don't get frightened and although there were a few tears amongst the other children for most of the time they were joining in enthusiastically. I sat some of my more worried Year 2 children near me for moral support but spent more of my time watching the reception children's faces. Firstly to spot any that might not be coping but mostly I was simply enjoying watching their faces. I watched 2 little 4 year old boys sitting side by side not only holding hands but holding their outside hands together as well. But they were fine looking after each other and one of them had just sung all the words of a song which I guess was either from a kids film or a pop song. Performance laws allow the use of short excerpts from  other people's music and the children loved singing along. As I never listen to pop music or watch kids films it was all new to me. I nearly lost my composure at one point because they played the start of Samuel Barber's Adagio to change the mood which was a piece played at Linas' funeral. I thought if they played it again I would have to beat a hasty retreat to compose myself. I wasn't quite in the mood to play along with the villain's declarations of love though the children thought that was hilarious. 

Grey skies, and a raindrop on the way home.

PS I've got sound once more.

Dry Then Wet.

It started to rain half way through the afternoon and now it's raining heavily. The man came to take down the scaffolding first thing this morning so no more chances to climb up and take aerial views of the garden. It didn't seem quite so cold when I went out to do another stint in the scree garden. Not long before I will have finished that job. The postman brought the car seat covers I had bought for the pug. Nothing fancy, just plain black to cover the slightly tired seat fabric. I was just putting the covers on the front seats when a van drew up. It was someone we know who calls by occasionally so we had a cup of tea and a catch up. Housework took up the rest of the day and I've been going through the plan for tomorrow as I'm teaching all day. 

Peter spent a lot of time yesterday working on my pc but the recovery wasn't successful and I'll have to pay out for Windows 7. And now I've got no sound so I can't watch those video clips and it wasn't so much fun doing a jigsaw without the satisfying click when a piece fits.

The first daffodils flowering at the back of the house.

Hail.

I was fast asleep this morning when Peter went off to row at the crack of dawn. The day started quite cold with rain and hail showers but then it warmed right up in the afternoon.

I climbed up to the chimney to start tidying up to find that some of the paint on the top had started to flake off. I'm not that surprised considering the weather conditions when I painted it but there wasn't a lot of choice. I brushed down the loose paint flakes, gave the whole chimney another coat and then added an old brolly for protection. It hasn't rained since I was up there so hopefully this coat of paint will dry on properly. The scaffolding is coming down in a day or two so that was almost my last chance.

I also tagged the back of the chimney (and I've since dotted the i). I just thought it would be nice to have Linas' name on the property while we are still here. It's been a year and a day since we got that dreadful news. What can I say?  

Windy.

It's been a wild and stormy day. The rain keeps lashing down and the trees are swaying in the wind. There was one burst of sun in the afternoon and the showers got a bit less frequent. Eventually I wrapped up well and went out for a weeding session. In case it rained heavily I took up a book and my reading glasses so that I could wait out the rain under the shelter. As it turned out I only took one reading break because by the time the next lot of heavy rain started the light was failing. And my toes were feeling a little cold. As I then went and did my afternoon stint of 'the plank' which requires bare feet my toes are only now beginning to warm up in my beloved sheepskin slippers.

Peter has decided to try and reload Windows XP before paying out for Windows 7 so I have been instructed to copy all my documents on to my external hard drive. The instruction 'and anything else you want to keep' is too vague for me as I have no idea what most of the other stuff is. Being in the sitting room my pc has been used by the whole family despite everyone else having their own pcs in their rooms.

I've had lots of Vytas' and Sally's photos to look at on FB which has cheered me up even if I can't use Skype for the moment.

 Bako National Park, Borneo.

This is my haul of cheap and cheerful earrings from yesterday. I'm going to customise the 2 shorter pairs making them longer and maybe adding a few more elements.