Grey with Drizzle.

We were back to grey skies again, slightly warmer with a bit of drizzle that had turned to rain by the end of the day. Last night, after some not so subtle hints from Peter, I took down all the tree decorations and did as much cutting of the branches as I could with my secateurs. This morning I finished off the job with the branch loppers and finally took a saw to the trunk. It had been such a good tree that not a needle fell until I started taking things down. I boxed up all the various decorations but they haven't quite made it up to the loft as I want to pack them securely and maybe .... clear out any things I don't want. Before Christmas I saw so many interesting ideas for making recycled paper decorations that  I thought about getting rid of the majority of my current decorations and making paper ones each year that could then go on the fire instead of having to be stored. But then many of my commercially made decorations hold special memories and I'm not sure I could just get rid of them.

At school this afternoon I worked with the Year 1 children. The RE theme this term is Belonging so today we talked about belonging to a family and the children drew pictures of their families which I will put into a class book. After school our staff meeting was to talk about all the children who have significant needs. I can't be specific but we have a number of children who really need full-time 1:1 support to make any progress or indeed to remain in school and sadly there just isn't the funding for that. At least today's meeting has made us all more aware of the ways we can support these children and which strategies work when they are having a melt-down.

At home I have thrown out the spherical bird feeder as the birds really didn't like it and replaced it with a peanut feeder. (The last one disappeared -downstream? during a recent storm.) This new bird feeder is very popular and there is usually a queue of blue tits, great tits and robins waiting in the bushes for a turn at the nuts. The other day a woodpecker came down and scared the little birds away but it wasn't too keen on the nuts and soon moved onto a tree trunk. I don't get very good photos  of the birds through the stair window which is in an awkward position to clean from outside.

Final update on the Lost Cat - my friend at work spoke to the lady with similar cats and although it wasn't hers she knew the cat's owner and took the details. A happy ending to that little adventure.

Sunshine and Showers.

It was brighter and a little colder today. I don't go in for making New Year's resolutions but I'm going to try and keep to - A Little Bit Every Day. That can apply to any of the myriad tasks I set myself, be it getting back into an exercise routine, clearing out stuff we don't need or garden projects not to mention the general maintenance of the house and garden. Even if it is only a tiny bit at a time they will add up and eventually the jobs will get done. That said the Christmas tree is half undressed and if I end up with another night when I can't get to sleep I may come down and finish it off rather than sitting and looking at the PC.

At school I worked with the reception children on healthy eating once more. Most of them have a pretty good idea that fruit and vegetables are good for you and that sugary, fatty foods are not so good and should only be eaten as treats. The school's healthy snack policy with free fruit or vegetables every day does set them up with some good eating habits. Having had a decadent fortnight eating chocolates, cake and other 'unhealthy' foods I too am returning to eating salads and fruit. Every other other advert on TV seems to be for diet this and that as most of the population try and lose their Christmas weight. At least I was very restrained before Christmas and lost weight with the express purpose of not feeling guilty as I enjoyed the seasonal treats. Vytas and Sally gave me a box of Indian sweetmeats which I have put in the freezer so that I can have a few at a time.

Coming home tonight I could see a plume of smoke across a valley, probably from a pile of brush cuttings where somebody was tidying up their hedges.

Tonight |i got out of school quite quickly so the sun was just setting as I drove home. 

Mild.

All change and back to work today as a new term begins. As I got out of my car at school I was greeted by the happy sounds of the children playing outside. I love the quiet of our valley but there is something special about hearing all those young voices and having children run up to me to say hello. I had to smile later when a child came up to me and said "Guess what? I got an i-pad for Christmas and can I go to the toilet?, all in one breath. That's life back to normal.

There may be some progress in the Tale of the Cat. I was telling my colleagues about my cat adventure when one of them said it might belong to a lady in her road which is not far from where I found the cat. Apparently this lady does have cats of a similar description so I gave my friend the details and phone number of the rescue people the cat is with.

Here is Speedy doing what most cats like to do - sitting in something, next to a birdhouse that was a Christmas present from my friends. Not only is it lovely to look at but it was made by a couple at their church and the proceeds from the sale go to The Potters village, a charity supporting women and children in Africa.

 A few more photos from yesterday.

Dry.

It was a quiet dry morning when I got up after only a few hours sleep (thank goodness I'm a morning person), to make a hearty breakfast for everyone. Fortified by sausages, hash browns, beans, mushrooms and scrambled eggs we headed out to Woolacombe for a walk along the beach. There were no spaces along the road so we parked in the car park (£3). From the beach we could see the cloudbank that was blocking out the sun at home but above us the cloud was more broken up and we even had some sunny moments. Milo the Jack Russell enjoyed this rare opportunity to run off the lead though with his poor sight he had a tendency to wander off with other people. 

Retrieving Milo used up some of Sam's energy, he would have liked to march all the way down to Putsborough unlike the rest of us who were happy with a moderate stroll. We went as far as the first set of rocks where we stopped for tea and coffee before heading back to Woolacombe. 

At least on the way back we had the wind pushing us along. There were a lot of people out walking dogs and children and a few hardy surfers were catching the waves. It's the first time we had been out to the beach this holidays and it was so good to let the wind blow the cobwebs away. Back home we lunched on home-made butternut squash soup before Sam and Kate set off for Tewkesbury.  

That's the holiday nearly over. We've had a good chance to rest and enjoyed having family and friends to stay. Now it's time to think about taking down the decorations and the tree, not a needle has dropped and it's still looking so festive. I split some logs and brought in another load for tonight's fire. Tomorrow it will be time to start making plans for the spring. Who knows, maybe this was our last Christmas here.

Stormy.

We woke this morning to the sight of sheets of rain going across the garden and the trees waving wildly in the wind. We spent the morning on a final tidy up as our friends were on their way down to stay. They arrived this afternoon in time for some home-made chicken soup. It was only as I was turning off the Christmas tree lights that I realized I had forgotten to blog, hence the brief post.

Sunny.

We had a clear sunny morning noticeably colder than the last few days. I finally managed to get a photo of a daffodil that didn't have the bright yellow flower over-exposed. I had to negotiate the stream to get a better angle, not so easy when at least one welly has a split in the toe. I keep meaning to throw out the leaky boots but they are fine for general work around the place. I was grateful for the security of knowing that my toes were protected by steel toe caps when I set to with the axe to split some logs. It's been a while since I did any log splitting so I was amazed when 3 times in a row the axe hit exactly the same spot on a log. Most of my day has been spent at the PC. When I turned it on this morning I got a blue screen of death. Luckily Peter was able to trace that back to the motherboard not liking my school pen-drive that I had left plugged in. Peter is currently doing something major to my system (lots of new bits I think) and today I made sure that not only all my photo files were backed up on to my external hard drive but also any downloads and documents. At the same time I was busy cutting out pictures of healthy and unhealthy foods to use in school next week. The postman was rather surprised at my cries of joy when the junk mail included pictures that I could use. 

Down in the bog garden the recent frosts have made the formerly statuesque arum lily leaves look like wilted spinach.  

Happy New Year.

Maybe because it's not been part of our family traditions or upbringing but I've always found it hard to get excited by the New Year celebrations. It is fun to join in with the local celebrations where lots of people dress up, attend a free concert in the square and watch the fireworks before either heading home or going on to the pubs and clubs but yesterday we just had a quiet evening in. But to everyone out there I hope that the New Year brings joy and good health.

This morning it was mild and grey. As I walked around the garden I could see a number of jobs that need doing but I'll leave them for the time being. There were a few primroses, celandines and winter flowering heathers out as well as a couple of daffodils that have been flowering since before Christmas. My main job today was planning the work I shall be doing with the reception classes over the next half term. I'll be covering 'keeping healthy' and will be teaching both classes each afternoon, a short whole class input session and then an activity with half the class. I'm not quite finished but when it's done that's my planning for the half term with them done. I'm not too sure what is happening with the Year 1 classes as there are 2 new teachers starting and they may want me to do something different to the RE that I was teaching last term.  

The rain has really set in now, I can hear it lashing against the windows while the logs blaze merrily in the woodburner.