Locked Out.

Today it has been ..... raining! When I woke this morning it was the sort of morning where it would be wonderful to lie tucked up in bed listening to the wind and rain howling outside. Unfortunately I had to get up for work and I was not impressed by hearing the weatherman saying that it was a dry and sunny morning in the south-west. Not in our bit of it it wasn't.

Arriving nice and early at school I was met by the school caretaker brandishing a hammer and informing me that the locking mechanism on my classroom door had jammed and it couldn't be opened. Luckily I always try and set up my classroom the night before and I had planned to do some printing in the staffroom. Things did improve as first I was offered access through the fire escape door which would have meant everyone traipsing over a muddy field and then the door person took off the lock so we could use the door. It did have to be tied open all day until he returned to replace the locking mechanism after school but that wasn't a problem.

All my teaching activities went really well today and I wasn't so stressed out at the end of the day. Peter had to come and collect me at the end of the day as his car was being serviced. We drove down to collect it from Bugford, a tiny hamlet only a few miles away. I had never been there before yesterday so it was interesting to drive down a new set of steep, winding country lanes.

Yesterday I was so exhausted I completely forgot to take a photo of the diet chart. I had thought this would be the end of the diet but it has taken me several weeks to get back on track. One more sheet and then it should definitely be over.

PC Problems.

Today has gone by in the usual blur. I thought I was all organised but not quite. First I hadn't noticed that I was supposed to be doing PE at 9.30 so I had a quick mental reschedule, got my class down to the hall only to find it being occupied by some visitors so that was back to plan A. Then there was the visit of students from the local secondary school to talk to my class about what kind of stories they liked. That was another thing I had forgotten about so my maths lesson got compressed and then after school I enlisted the help of some of the other teachers to help me locate some computer programs that should have been on my desk top or at least on my pc. I had thought I was being especially dense in not being able to find them but actually they had disappeared into the ether. It's a complex computer system at school, you can log in as an administrator, yourself or any of the 6 different classes. We had a partial system rebuild last year so lots of things are in the wrong place on the network and we simply do not have the time to sort things out ourselves. It drives us all mad and we actually have a house brick on the desk next to the staffroom pc for that final solution. We so need an IT technician not just the occasional outside help that we get. Today has been mostly dry and completely grey so instead I'm posting some pictures from yesterday afternoon.
When I went up to the scree garden in the late afternoon it was almost like walking in a butterfly house. At each step a cloud of butterflies flew up around me. There were also plenty of dragonflies and although I didn't see the actual capture I did see a dragonfly flying along clutching a poor butterfly.

At the very centre of this picture is a humming bird hawk moth. I took so many similar pictures I couldn't remember which one it was in and forgot to do a close-up picture before I deleted them from my camera. While I was watching the butterflies every now and then I would get a strong waft of the sweet smell of the sedum, no wonder the butterflies were going mad. Lots of rain forecast for the rest of the week - wonderful!

Sunday Stroll.

It's been a lovely day today so we headed off for a walk around Morte Point. Zooming in on the picture will show that quite a few other people had the same idea. There was a small crowd on the path watching a group of seals in their usual spot. There were 6 seals a couple of which were out on the rocks. They were being quite vocal as more tried to get out of the water into a good sunbathing spot. Lots of people were busy taking pictures so I took a few just for the record.
We had a gentle stroll around the point and then stopped at a bench to have a picnic lunch. Fresh air, beautiful scenery and the sun shining on our faces, that's my idea of a perfect Sunday lunch.

Even though there were more people than usual for most of the time there were still plenty of lovely empty views.

Perfect.

Back home I was up and down a ladder clearing leaves from the back gutter. A man had been round in the morning to look at the work that needs doing on the gutters. We have a frequently overflowing gutter at the back and all the down gutters leak at the top making the walls wet. Hopefully this is now going to be sorted out.

A Little Sunshine.

At last, the week-end. It's been remarkably warm today but mainly wet. During one of the brief sunny interludes I did some gardening! It was only dead heading the hanging baskets but at least I was outside. They're looking a bit straggly but still provide a cheery splash of colour. I've managed to get all my school planning done leaving tomorrow clear for .... housework, gardening, going for a walk ? I did spend some time emptying my mind doing more of my jigsaw puzzle. It's out in the conservatory which was nice and warm. Every now and then I had to stop to take out another butterfly which had come inside in the last few days and was now fluttering against the windows.

Linas made a brief appearance today to collect a few more of his belongings and to see a friend. He had to buy a new motorbike in the week (yes, bank of mum again), as his scooter had come grinding to a halt , the crankshaft had gone and would have cost too much to fix. He's now the proud owner of a Honda CBF 125. He came up on the train, single fare £6.50, day return £6.55. Only 5p for the return journey! I've just returned from taking him to the station so I missed the first programme of the new Strictly series but apparently it was really cheesy. Let's hope it gets better.

Friday At Last.

It wasn't a bad day at school today. I'm feeling more in control and the children (most of them) have settled in really well. The noise level was getting to be a bit of a problem with the 2 more able groups who are expected to work independently. At lunchtime I made a couple of double sided notices to hang on the wall by each of those groups. One side said "We are working quietly." and the other side had "Oh Dear. We have forgotten to work quietly." and a sad smiley. I explained to the children that if their sign stayed with the quiet side showing for the whole of the time they were supposed to be working they would all be able to move their cars along the road (our class reward chart), but if even one child had to be asked to quieten down they would have to turn the sign over and no-one could move their cars. I was on my own with the class in the afternoon and it was so peaceful. All I could hear from the 2 groups were shushes as all the children got on with finishing off and improving work from the week. Unfortunately one lad who does have a very loud voice got over-exuberant and caused his group's sign to be turned over. I thought the rest of his group were going to lynch him for that! A trip to the doctor after work which was a waste of time as the doctor I saw, to ask for a referral for a second opinion about my surgery, said I would have to talk this through with my regular doctor when she comes back from holiday. So that's another 2 weeks until there is an evening appointment available. I was also not impressed by finding that there is no longer a receptionist, just a help desk. you have to sign yourself in on a computer screen. How long before all we do is put our symptoms into a computer which then churns out a prescription? After this fruitless visit I called in at Lidll's and finally bought a packet of those vegetable crisps simply because they intrigue me. Also bought some fresh figs which were on special offer and had those for my supper plus some home-made wholemeal bread.

A Spot Of Sun.

This morning my body just wanted to go back to sleep. In fact once the radio had woken me up I automatically turned off my back-up alarm clock and went back to sleep - dreaming that I was on the way to school, in the wrong clothes! Luckily my body clock woke me up 10 mins later and apart from losing that half hour where I sit in bed with a cup of tea, no harm was done. Once I was up I was rewarded with the sight, through one of the bedroom windows, of a shining golden edge to a distant cloud which quickly spread until the sun was fully risen. Himalayan Balsam along the drive, a pretty though unwelcome invader that has seed pods that explore with terrific force when you touch them.

The day itself has been HOT. Shame about being stuck in a classroom. Our playground duty rota is a bit flexible at the moment (ie no one is too sure when they're supposed to be on duty) but on afternoons like this all of us can be found enjoying the warmth of the sun in the playground.
Now that the silage is in the muck spreaders are out again. As I turned into the drive the fields were covered with a great flock of seagulls but they took flight when I stopped to take some pictures.

Being down in the valley the garden had lost a lot of its sun by the time I got home. This butterfly was warming itself in the very last patch of sun by the scree garden.

Misty Morning.

This morning as I drove to work the mist lay in thick blankets over the valleys making the countryside look ethereal. It is not that unusual a phenomenon but today the mist was especially dense. At one point the road runs across the head of a valley and the cloud that was hanging in there was completely impenetrable. My journey in to work brings me down from the hills so I am treated to views right across central Devon to Dartmoor (which I now know is 70 miles away).
For the rest of the day there was a lot of sunshine with sudden black clouds bringing swift showers. This afternoon I had PPA time so I was able to work quietly in the staffroom sorting out my children's work to put up a display in their cloakroom. By 5.30 I'd got the display up and looking reasonable. There are a couple of areas in the classroom which need sorting out urgently, perhaps by the end of next week? Having got up at 5.00 to do research on the Internet I'm aiming for an earlier night tonight.