Dry.

It was a bright sunny morning but by the time I was ready to work outside it was mainly overcast and when the sun did reappear the garden was all in shade anyway. I do find it a little galling to see the hilltops and my neighbour's house bathed in sunlight when we are in the gloom. All the more reason to make sure that our next home catches a bit more sun.

I started my gardening with a bit of here-and-there weeding. In an ideal world my garden would be so well maintained that that's all I would need to do - walk around pulling up the occasional weed. Needless to say I soon found parts of the garden needing a more concentrated effort. I did manage to tidy up around most of the flower bed edges making sure that the grass didn't sneak its way in. Then I spotted a big section of the hillside bank covered by couch grass spreading over the hardy geraniums. That took priority and hopefully I've removed most of it. I also had quite a lot to do clearing the rill at the bottom of the bank. I was scooping up mud off the stones that form the bed of the rill when I discovered I was holding a toad that had been sleeping in the mud. That was a bit of a surprise.

I've sent off for another type of humane mouse trap as there are increasing signs of tiny rodents moving into the house. Last night I was brushing my teeth when in the mirror I saw a small grey shape running across the floor. I chose the first trap which claims to trap up to 10 mice because it has a big clear panel through which I thought I could take photos but so far it has proved useless. The one I've ordered we had before and I do know that it works. 

Sunny.

We've had a lot of sun today but the wind has changed direction and is now coming from the east, the tundra? and it is bitterly cold. I split more logs this morning including a couple which I had previously put back as being too hard to split. I had too laugh, there was I doing my best to wield an axe while on the other side of the trees I could hear my neighbour sawing trees with his chainsaw. It may take me a while but I get there in the end. After that I just had time to spray weedkiller on the brambles I had spotted yesterday. I try not to use weedkiller but their roots go down under the rocks so I'll never be able to dig them right out.

I had an extra afternoon's work at school today. My reception class again but today once we had done phonics they had golden time (choosing) while I kept a general eye on things and the TA started getting activities ready for Monday. It was wear something red day  for charity and it was lovely to see the children looking like individuals for a change. I didn't have anything red in my extensive wardrobe so I borrowed a red polo top of Peter's. Perfect apart from the fact that it had an embroidered logo saying North Devon Beer Festival. Not appropriate for school so I covered it up with a large blue fabric and feather flower.

Finally an in-focus photo of the necklace I bought to go with the dress.

Overcast.

I've had the whole day at home which I really enjoy. I thought I would get a lot of things done but it wasn't as productive day as I had hoped. First up I had planned to bake some chocolate muffins for Peter to take to work tomorrow. I had got as far as melting the butter when I discovered that there were no eggs. There had been some but Peter must have taken them to work to give to a friend. Peter gets eggs by the tray from another friend and often gives some away. Not much good for my baking though, I couldn't even bake biscuits as my basic recipe uses 1 egg. Instead I made some chocolate chunk flapjacks for tomorrow. 

Then I had planned to move some art materials from a cupboard in the kitchen to a desk drawer so that I could move the drinks bottles from a shelf into the cupboard and finally shift some of my jug collection from the mantlepiece on to the shelf. That sequence of events stopped when I found that the bottles were too tall to go in the cupboard.

I was a bit fed up by this time so I decided to go outside. First I thought I would tackle a rusty patch on the roof of my car. I had the right black sandpaper but when I looked for the metal primer paint which we always had with the model painting kit it was nowhere to be found. No point in rubbing down the rusty patch until I buy some more primer, I might even buy the correct bright green touch up paint though I'm not too worried about the overall look, just don't want a hole in the roof.

After all that I turned to general gardening, sweeping up leaves and weeding. The rushes growing in the wildflower patch were beginning to encroach upon some of the winter flowering heathers so I thought I'd clear them back a bit. The green stems were no more than 6" tall but the woody roots/runners were another matter. In no time at all I had filled a bucket with runners the thickness of a pencil. Then I made my way along the path that runs across the bank clearing leaves and weeding, plantain from the path and mainly grass from the beds above and below the path. Got the whole lot done which was good. I can see lots more weeding to do but hopefully I'll get it all done before it's time to start mowing once more.

The postman brought me a very cheap and cheerful necklace that I bought to go with my dress for the wedding so I put on it and the dress on and took some photos but guess what? They came out all blurry! 

I looked through the kitchen window to see a little wren hopping about. At 10cms long it is our smallest bird. During the winter they sneak in under the eaves and roost in our attic.

(A very tired Peter has just come home bearing a tray of 30 eggs for us.)

Sunny.

It was another chilly morning today. It started off overcast but then the sun came out and shone on the raised bed by the front door, exactly where I was working. Once again I was clearing leaves and twigs from the stones. There were too many twigs to use the hoover but it was quite pleasant kneeling in the sun on my comfy gel knee pads picking up each individual leaf and twig. I feel it is very calming to look at the tidy gravel and the smooth pebbles I have collected over the years. Sort of a Zen effect.

Driving home tonight I was bathed in golden sunshine. That was 1- because the sun was shining and 2- because I had forgotten that this week's staff meeting had been moved from Wednesday night to Tuesday night. I realised this when I got an email this morning asking me about if I could take a Year 2 class to the Dance Festival. I'm not sure about that because I would only have 1 day to teach and practise a dance to show in front of all the other schools who take their dance very seriously. Most of the children taking part are 3 or 4 years older and the standard is quite high. Also I'm already teaching the reception children that afternoon.  

That's my shadow (below) as I stood in the gateway. 

At home I was greeted by a very rotund Speedy. He's positively bulging, possibly a rabbit though with his funny tastes he could be eating the horses' feed next door.

Sunny.

It's been a lovely sunny day after an icy start. Chopping and moving wood soon had me warmed up. I split 2 or 3 logs in each barrow load as there are still a lot of branch sized logs in the shed. Some of the bigger logs are so knotted I can't split them at all so I'm leaving those until hopefully somebody younger and stronger comes to stay. In the afternoon I was teaching the reception children, more on Where does our food come from? I had a bit of an IT setback in the first class. I had set everything up at lunchtime but when I turned to the laptop it had gone dead. Slight panic on my part as we were going to watch some short videos about growing crops before playing a game on the interactive whiteboard. We jiggled all the connections but neither myself nor the TA could get it to work. So we called for help from the TA from the other class because he is a bit more experienced with computers. He spotted the reason straight away. Somebody, possibly the cleaner, had turned off the wall switch. The laptop kept on going until its battery ran out and confused us all. One of the games the children played involved dragging a picture of a food source to the appropriate label. One boy was too short to drag his picture to a spot high up on the screen but unlike the other children who had accepted my 'help' as I put my finger next to theirs to finish off the move he was determined to do it himself. I had to get a chair for him to stand on and then make sure he didn't fall off in the process.

I was out of school quite promptly and drove home while it was still light. 

Icy Winds.

Our little long tailed visitor was back again last night. This time in our bedroom. Even with my headphones in and Peter snoring I could hear some little scrabbling noises as I lay in bed. I tracked them down to my wardrobe where I still had a couple of sealed bags of porridge oats one of which had been nibbled into. Today I took the cheese and flapjack out of the humane mouse trap which so far has failed to catch a single mouse in the spare bedroom or the kitchen, put porridge oats in  and have left it on the floor near my wardrobe. Watch this space.

I was teaching all day today so it was an early start driving up the hill with Peter to pick up my car from the gateway. The cars were heavily covered in ice but the roads themselves were clear. The icy winds have made it feel cold outside all day long so I was quite happy to be in a nice warm school. In the afternoon I was teaching the children about where their food comes from. During one activity I was told quite decidedly that carrots come from carrot trees. Also that bread was made from milk! Earlier on one child had come up to me and informed me that "when you are old, say 20 or you are a nanny, really old like 100 then you will die." Kids are so funny.

After school I popped into town for an hour. Back home I took the rubbish up to the road, laid a fire, turned on the central heating as well and that's all my jobs done for the day.

Sunny.

I looked out of the window at 2.30 am and the garden was covered with snow but it had all disappeared by the time morning came. The wind was still icy cold but with the sun shining what else could we do but head out for a stroll on the beach.

With the wind blowing straight in from the sea there weren't too many people around and the surf was too messy for even the most hardy of surfers. 

Down on the beach the surface had changed again, instead of mainly sand with some bands of broken shells it was all broken shells (around about 1cm across). I'm not sure if the sand layer has been washed off or if the shells have covered the sand. Last winter the storms washed most of the sand off so that the beach was much lower and many of the underlying stones were exposed. 

We found a sheltered corner to drink our coffee but didn't stay too long. It's so good even to spend a little while out in the sea air. 

The coastguard helicopter was hovering over Baggy Point. That was most likely a training session though we have witnessed a couple of real rescues while walking out on the cliffs.

We called in at Tesco's on the way home so that I had the ingredients to do a little baking. I wanted to bake some banana (and chocolate chunk - Peter's suggestion) muffins. That was because Larry, a friend who works with Peter took all day to get through one of my biscuits on Friday due to having had 3 wisdom teeth out at the beginning of the week. So I'm sending one in specially for him tomorrow. The rest of the team will have to wait until Friday for my usual baking treat. I had to test a couple as I got them out of the oven, (how else can you check they are baked?) and they were rather nice.

Speedy had to have a bath today. He came in this morning with black mud on his face, tummy, back legs and side. I should have taken a photo but I was concerned about the mess getting everywhere as at that point I wasn't sure if it was mud, oil or something nastier so I wrapped him in an old towel and got the worst off. I left him to dry off in the warmer oven of the rayburn (he took himself in there) but but he was still looking muddy so bath time it was. He wasn't too keen on being placed in several inches of warm water in the bath but he didn't struggle and I was able to gently wash all the mud off from everywhere apart from his face. It's not often I have to wash a cat but all my cats have been calm enough to be washed without claws coming out.