Windy.

Off to the hospital again this morning for my sore hips. When I looked at my paperwork it has been a whole year since my last appointment where I saw a different consultant, had injections that didn't work and went down the route of physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. Even today I wasn't sure if I was going to see the top guy so it was a pleasant surprise to find that myself in his room after only waiting for about 5 minutes. It turns out that he prefers to give a stronger, longer lasting injection to the one usually used. The reason other doctors tend not to use it is that it can cause some atrophy of the fat at the injection site which results in dimpling. I'm lucky genetically not to have cellulite but I told him that dimpling was fine. After all I'm not planning a new career as a swimwear model. The injections weren't too bad though they are still stinging 8 hours later. (No pain, no gain?) We had a pleasant chat about children and schooling while he was doing the injections as I teach the children of one of his doctor friends. That's the small town thing I like about living here. As I was walking out of the hospital I met another of my pupils who was there with his mother who works in our office so we had a chat on our way out.

I refuse to pay to park at the hospital so my car was 5 minutes walk away very close to where the ponies had escaped from the other day. Above was where I left my car to divert the ponies back down their drive on the right. 

These are the fields the ponies came from. You can see that this place is on the very edge of town.

And looking back up the road towards the hospital which is just out of sight on the right.

After my appointment I had a few hours before I had to go back to school for the staff meeting. As I had been instructed to rest that's what I did, in front of the pc and then the tv. Not very constructive but I felt like a break. Back to school for the staff meeting, diary dates this time. It seems like the summer term has just started and already we are making plans for all the end of term events; sports' day, a street party, performances, leavers' assembly and parent evenings.

Breezy.

It was a bright and breezy day so Peter and I went down to Barricane Beach for some sea air. The tide was in so we couldn't go for much of a walk or explore the rock pools but it was good to be out breathing in the ozone. The array of the shells on the beach depends on conditions out at sea and today there were a lot of whole shells of various sorts. I like to collect the shiny purple, white and gold shells (some kind of oyster) and sea glass for craft projects and just because I like them.

As it is not yet the holiday season there were only 4 or 5 other groups of people on the beach. Being lucky enough to live so close to the sea we are a little spoiled and don't enjoy it as much when the beach is packed full of people. The beach cafe, which is a converted shipping container is back again and we plan to treat ourselves to a Sri Lankan curry there on the next dry weekend we are free. (Next Saturday it's the Eurovision song contest so we'll be staying home for that.) I always thought that the cafe was brought down the path on a trailer but I found out today that they lower it over the side of the cliff with a crane.

Looking down at Woolacombe Beach we could see that they were digging on the beach. Not someone digging for treasure, Peter's suggestion or somebody getting in some practice for the annual sandcastle competition, my idea but  they were taking sand to build up the beach in front of the main sand dunes, presumably to protect them from erosion by the sea.

Coming home I planned to hang out the washing but a big black cloud appeared and then we had a lot of rain. Instead I put the washing over the rayburn for a while and then ironed dry my favourite duvet cover while watching a film. The rain has stopped now but I'm happy that our bed has fresh ironed sheets.

I saw the female deer in the field again in the afternoon. 

Mostly Overcast.

It didn't start raining until later in the afternoon so while I got on with my hedge cutting (back and part of the top done now), Peter got out the circular saw and cut up all the branches that were in a big pile on the back patio. I was able to get one of the fireplace alcoves filled with these small logs and I'll be able to stack some by the side of the wood-burner but I'll have to think where to store the rest. Somewhere dry preferably without a damp floor. 

I saw the stag out in the field again yesterday evening, at least I think it was the same one but I couldn't see the side with the wound. He was being followed at a distance of about 30ft by another deer, either a female or a young one as it didn't have any antlers.

Dry.

After listening to last week's Archers omnibus (shock, horror, didn't see that coming even though we enjoy making up the most outrageous plot twists), I looked out of our bedroom window to see this young stag in the field.

He had some nasty wounds in his side but they look to be healing and he didn't behave like a 'sick' animal.  It looks as if he was the loser in a fight with a bigger, stronger stag. 

Today I've been hedge cutting again and I've cut everything that I can reach from the front. It's no work of topiary but at least I've been able to remove the thick branches growing from the top thanks to the long branch loppers and generally tidied up. While I did that Peter mowed all the grass which was good as I was surprisingly worn out by the hedge trimming. At least today I picked up the cuttings as I went along which gave me a chance to cool down. When I tried cutting the hedge in just my t-shirt my arms got quite scratched by the sharp twigs so I had to wear my heavy old gardening coat and get rather hot. It's Bank Holiday Monday tomorrow so naturally the forecast is for rain which is why I worked so hard today.

Dry.

The day started overcast but it became sunnier in the afternoon.Although I had a good night's sleep  I found it hard to get going in the morning. I baked a batch of flapjacks for Peter by which time I had woken up enough to get on with some outside work.

My latest task is to tidy up the leylandii hedge. Peter had bought me an electric hedge trimmer and it was literally a matter of minutes, well certainly less than half an hour, to cut the first 6ft of the front of the hedge. 

After that it became trickier as I had to balance on a wobbly ladder resting on the hedge itself. No way was I going to wave the hedge trimmer around in that situation so I returned to using a pair of secateurs which left me one hand free to hold on to the hedge. Peter had also bought me a pair of extending branch loppers which were excellent for cutting the bigger branches growing right out of the top of the hedge. By far the longest and most arduous part of the job was picking up all the cuttings from the bank below. However it is a start on a long overdue job.

The first of the hardy geraniums.

Dry.

 I've been at school all day today and considering how little sleep I had last night (just one of those things) the day went remarkably well. With the younger children you are kept constantly on the go and the time simply flies by. In the afternoon after a quiet morning, in terms of the way the children sat on the carpet and focused on the weighing we were doing and also how they lined up and went into the hall for assembly, I thought I would go for an even calmer afternoon. So I did the afternoon register in a whisper and the children whispered back, they thought that was great fun and it was helpful for those children who have a tendency to be a bit boisterous and also for the children with specific behaviour difficulties. That set the tone for the rest of the afternoon and we had a very calm phonics lesson. We finished the day with outdoor pe with bats, balls, beanbags and quoits when the children had a chance to burn up some energy though once again I did focus on their listening skills as well as the physical activity. It's nice when a day does go so calmly and everyone including the adults leaves with a smile on their face. 

After work I walked into town for a wander round and a visit to the library. It was only when I put my books into the scanner at the library that I saw I had brought along my Sudoku book by mistake. I took out a couple of new books and renewed the ones I had at home. 

When I got home I walked up to the ponies' field to get a photo of the new goose family. I met Sarah as she was coming up to get Coral and Boris and we had  a bit of a chat. Boris' sire is an all white Dartmoor pony and Sarah thinks that Boris may well grow up to be white too.

Teaching All Day.

For the last few weeks I've been seeing only one goose up on the field and I assumed that sadly it had lost its mate. But this morning as I was driving up the hill to work there were both geese and 6 fluffy goslings, so sweet. It was pouring with rain so I was quite happy to be going to work and earning an extra day's pay. The cloud level was down to the tops of the hills and going past the entrance to the Muddiford valley there was also a small individual cloud below the cloud layer. At school I worked with my usual reception class and we had a day of comparing size,  length and weight. 

The rain dried up by lunchtime though as I drove home I could see the clouds rolling in from the sea. 

The occasional gap in the cloud cover lit up the countryside which is leaving behind the drab winter browns and greys and slowly turning green.