Wet All Day.

On the 1st of November I counted 23 types of flower still hanging on though after all the recent bed weather I expect some of them will have given up for the winter. On the house wall is this winter jasmine which only started flowering a few weeks ago and should continue to put on a cheerful show for many weeks.

It was a wet and miserable day with the children being stuck in their classroom all day and only getting out for a run in the afternoon playtime. The children with packed lunches even ate their lunch in the classroom instead of in the hall, I'm not sure why. This always makes the classroom humid and smelling of food. I took refuge in the staffroom. It was completely dark as drove home because I had gone over to Brian Ford's,(a local cut price (sometimes) food store) to do my food shopping. The selection varies a lot but sometime you can get excellent bargains and when something is going cheap I fill up the freezer. It is always much quieter on Thursday evenings than on Fridays. This may be linked to the fact that Fridays used to be cattle market day and it is still the main day for fruit, vegetables and plants in the Pannier Market and includes farmers' stalls.

Now I'm off to complete the accessories for my costume, photos tomorrow - maybe.

A Busy Day.

The sun was just starting to set as I drove home from school. The morning was spent slaving behind a sewing machine and the costume is looking .... acceptable, though I will need some safety pins at strategic points. Year 1 children in the afternoon and then back to school for a New Parents' Meeting. As I drove into town the full moon was making the clouds look very dramatic in shades of grey. I got to wondering, does the phase of the moon stay the same or is it different depending where you are in the world? Did you have a full moon last night? Vytas, you've got a degree in space science , perhaps you could email me an (abridged) explanation.

It was a well run meeting despite our boss having been off sick ( literally) on Monday and running a temperature by the end of the meeting. The parents I spoke to all seemed very nice, I taught the older brother of one of my 3 new children and I got on well with the whole family . Mind you some of the less caring/co-operative parents will be ones who wouldn't come to meetings.

As I drove home I reveled in the warmth of the hot air blowing on my feet. My 25 year old landrover had a lever for heat but it didn't seem to make any difference so I always kept small blankets to put over our laps to keep warm. That landrover is now restored and being driven around in the US. I don't know if it would have new registration plates now but its number when I had it was A613 LEG.

Still Costume Making.

Not quite a sunset but I can't resist the sun streaming through clouds on my way home. We had blue skies and showers today and lots of wind. The boys came home some time in the night after the gig at Yeovil. I resisted the urge to wait up though I did allow myself a bit of worry as Sam has only just passed his test a few weeks ago and it was a 2 hour drive in the dark after 6 hours standing/headbanging at a gig. What mother wouldn't be worried? Still, they had a good time.

I went into town before work and I think I've got what I need for my costume. Back to the sewing machine tomorrow.

This afternoon I was talking with my class about nurses and one of them knew the difference between doctors and nurses- "Nurses do the operations and doctors talk to you." he might even be right though I did feel I had to point out that doctors study for many years to learn about our bodies.

A short post tonight as I need to get back to the costume/mess making dept in the kitchen. Wish me luck.

Good News, Bad News.

Bad news- our regular oil company can't deliver oil for 2 weeks, good news- I find another company who will deliver by the end of the week or even earlier( I told my tale of woe), bad/good? news- Peter spoke sternly to the original company and they are now going to deliver in the next 2 days, good news- we both ordered less than half a tank. Good news- no pe course after school, bad news- it's next week. Bad news- I had to wait for yet another Star Wars collector to call, good news - he bought it all at the asking price. Stop! I can't bear this.

Normal style resumes, we had torrential rain last night, flooded roads again and some damage to the drive.

Low hanging clouds taken on my way into work at lunchtime today.

Remember the blue sky and fluffy cloud photo shot from this corner just a couple of weeks ago? This photo was taken at about 4.00 today. All the way home the road kept disappearing into the clouds at the top of each hill. Plenty of water running down and across the roads as well.

Wild and Windy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEMMA !

Gemma is Linas' girlfriend, she gets on well with all of us and has smoothed some of Linas' rough edges. The picture above was taken at her prom 18 months ago, (when Linas had long hair). They came down on Friday and left mid morning today. Yesterday while Gemma was visiting relatives Linas braved the wet weather and dismantled all the old collapsed wall, (for cash). He informs me that there were 40 concrete blocks. That is a job I would have found very hard to manage but now, when it stops raining, I can carry on with tidying up the bank and edge of the drive.

I've been a bit grumpy today because so many things seem to have gone awry this weekend. It started with finding out that a party next Friday to celebrate one of my colleague's husband's birthday is a superheros/fancy dress do. I love dressing up but its hard to think of something I can get together , without spending too much and yet not look totally ridiculous. My family will know what I would like to go as and I have a few ideas but you'll just have to wait and see. If I get really fed up I'll go as the Invisible Girl,(found by googling) and stay at home. I went round all the charity shops in town on Saturday to see if I could find something I could alter or some fabric which could team up with a top I already have ... but nothing! Then I thought I would weigh myself in Boots to calibrate my scales at home. The weighing was ok as I've been dieting since September but the biggest shock was finding that although I've always thought myself to be 5ft 10ins the machine says I'm 5ft 8ins. That plays havoc with my BMI so I wasn't very happy. Then this morning we stayed in because a builder was coming round to put concrete beams under our heating oil tank but he failed to arrive. This can only be done when the tank is nearly empty but I'll have to order oil pronto or we'll lose heat, hot water and cooking. He did phone later to say he had lost his way and our phone number but I suspect it was more to do with the rain. I was also waiting for someone to come and look at a collection of Star Wars stuff which I had advertised in the paper but yet again no show, then someone else phoned, arranged to come ... and didn't turn up. The first person phoned and says he'll come tomorrow morning, we'll see. I had 2 no shows last weekend, what is it with these collectors? I find waiting for people very irritating because I tidy up and hang around without being able to get on with things.

On the good side I decided to make a cloak from some soft grey fabric and apart from the sewing machine getting temperamental towards the end that project worked out well. Peter brought home a pumpkin from work and some pumpkin bread that I made using a recipe from the web is very heavy but quite tasty.

Last night it rained heavily and the wind was howling around the house while we sat cosily with a fire roaring in the wood burner, and we seem to be having more of the same tonight. I love stormy weather so long as I'm not actually cold and wet. When I was a baby my mother would wrap me up and take me out on the beach in St Ives in the winter storms. Perhaps that is where I got my love of such weather.

Here are some photos of boats in the estuary taken yesterday. I could probably do with one of them to sail down the road tomorrow.

Tarka Trail.

Today I was awarded The Uber Amazing Blog Award , thank you Sarah. It is given to sites who:
- inspire you,
- make you smile and laugh,
- or any other reason that makes them uber amazing.

The rules of the award are:
- nominate at least 5 blogs that for you are uber amazing,
-let them know they have received this award by commenting on this blog
-share the love and link to this post and to the person you received this award from.
so here are the blogs I'm awarding The Uber Amazing Blog Award to, in no particular order:
Domestic Executive Julie and her husband are Brits who have moved to New Zealand and built their own home(not literally), a dream we have in this household. Julie takes amazing photos of her life, home, garden, beautiful surroundings and especially of her 2 very comic Basset Hounds.
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman Ree lives on a working cattle ranch in the USA and is home schooling her 4 children. She takes amazing photos , has a wicked sense of humour and her blog/site is a work of art .
The Farmer's Wife Suzanne lives in the countryside in Maryland? Her blog is varied with all sorts of interesting snippets about her life and a lot of craft ideas.
HappyOne is a lovely lady who lives in the USA. She walks 6 miles every morning and seems to meet all sorts of interesting people. She posts superb photos taken on her walks and also photos of her new house that is being built.
Cesca is a lively New Zealand lass with a great attitude to life. She has 2 children and her husband had a major pedestrian v car accident very recently yet she is so positive. I'm also so glad to have found someone who gives housework the same lack of priority that I do. Her blog always makes me smile .

I had to have a quick lesson from Linas on hyperlinks as up till now Ive just pasted in the URL thing. Apologies if any of them have gone wrong. Some of my regular blog friends ( who have already had the award) can be found in my blog favourites. As someone who would be quite happy being on her own for most of the time, which I'm not actually, I would like to say a big thank you to all my blogger friends for welcoming me into the blogging community and expanding my circle of friends.


Today was wet to start so as we both wanted to go into Barnstaple, Peter and I decided to take a walk along the Tarka Trail which runs alongside the estuary from Bideford to Barnstaple and then down to Braunton. We walked some of the bit between Barnstaple and Bideford. Luckily the rain cleared and the sun even tried to shine.

Looking up towards Barnstaple.

Originally the track was the railway line that linked all the small towns in the area. It is a favourite with cyclists. We haven't walked it before as the lure of the rugged coast has always been stronger.

A road bridge that went over the railway, ...

..... and from the other side.

Planning For Next Term.

It was raining this morning as I left for work, dry during the day and raining again as I set out for home. It has been an interesting day as the morning was spent talking about daily/weekly routines, planning, assessment etc for the reception classes with the current teacher, ( who is fantastically organised and very professional ), and the new teacher who will be taking the class that starts in January. I will also have to have 3 new children as my class will be just 28 children and one little girl with Downs Syndrome is technically in year 1 and is counted on their register. I think 31 children in one class is too many but that's the system for you. I taught the reception class in the afternoon, music was a firework poem with lots of instruments and voice work and then it was a maths activity making collages of Menorahs. I thought we were going to have a very quiet weekend as Romas has gone down to Bude and won't be returning until late on Monday after he and his friends have been to see a band at Yeovil. However I was just sitting down to a simple plate of steamed vegetables with soy sauce, (something I quite like and very low calorie), when Linas and Gemma turned up with bags of shopping. They cooked themselves a stir fry and will be around for the weekend. Just heard a suspicious crunching in the kitchen, went to investigate and found the cats tucking into a bag of cheesey puff snacks which they had hooked out of one of the cupboards. Big telling off and the rest of the snacks have been put somewhere safer.

On my way home the sunset shone through a hole in the clouds and I got some reasonable photos. My main problem now is getting the camera to focus properly. It's got a 10x optical zoom but is a little temperamental about focusing. Any tips? (I can change the shutter speed and aperture manually).

The hills in the background are about 12 miles away.