Allsorts.

Today has been the quiet between the storms. We haven't been affected but last night's winds, up to 106 mph, resulted in 100,000 homes without power this morning and on the news tonight I hear that half of them are still without power this evening. 

I woke this morning to a heavy sprinkling of white over the garden. On closer inspection it turned out to be be hail not snow. Some rain and the later sunshine cleared the road quickly so I had no problem in driving to school. (The local news is on showing snow up on the moors and there are severe warnings for both wind and floods for tomorrow.)

The afternoon started with bright sun. It was so warm that not only had I stripped down to my vest but we kept the classroom door open. That was also due to the children being extra whiffy this afternoon. (There was some sort of poo incident in the boys' toilets but we couldn't track down the culprit.) As usual the afternoon started with a phonics session. We were playing a game called 'Silly Silent Sentences' where I write a simple but silly sentence for the children to read silently and then they put their thumbs up or down for a silent yes or no. The trouble was, that as I was quietening the children down a bird sat on the tree by the classroom door and proceeded to sing at the top of its voice. He must have been celebrating the warm sun. The children all had a good laugh when I told it to be quiet too. In less than half an hour the temperature dropped, the sky went dark and we had a heavy hail shower. Luckily it dried up by playtime. Out at play the children were busy scrabbling up handfuls of hailstones ('We've got snowballs.') to throw at each other. The other teachers were OK with them doing this though personally I would have said no. We couldn't help laughing when one boy came up to us having had a 'snowball' thrown in his face. From the state of his face we could see it was no snowball but just a handful of mud that had been scooped up from the ground.

I stayed on at school to mark and stick work in books and now that's it until after the half-term holiday next week. I went into town before coming home to visit the bank, library, health food shop and then join the last minute throng to choose a Valentine's Day card. 

Cold.

It's been very cold today. The warning is for strong winds, 60 mph here and up to 100 mph in Wales, and a month's rain in the next couple of days. It feels like that already here. The morning was cold with frequent icy showers. I couldn't check if the snow was still there on Exmoor because even from the top of the hill the visibility was only about a mile. The rain eased off as I got to school and we had a dry afternoon though the strong winds were icy cold. No staff meeting today so I left early just as the sun came out. I couldn't go my usual way home because the road was closed at Burridge by the Muddiford turn off. I could see workmen and someone up a cherry picker so presumably there was a problem with the overhead electricity wires and /or the trees that overhang the road there. Driving down to Muddiford I kept a wary eye on the big trees at the side of the road as they swayed violently in the wind. A number of fallen branches could already be seen at the side of the road. By the time I got home the sun had gone and the bad weather had closed in again. I took a brief walk around the garden looking for something to photograph and as I turned the corner of the house the wind nearly blew me over. Right now the wind is howling around the house and down into the fireplaces. It's a good thing we got that chimney sorted or it would surely have fallen down by now.

I tried to take some pictures of the small birds on the feeder but it was so windy all my pictures were blurred. This hen pheasant is part of a group that were walking around on the back lawn. 

Peter came home but he is rushing out again for a gig club committee meeting. As safety officer and trainer of the junior crews he needs to go to this meeting though he would much rather stay at home.

Cold.

Although the day started out wet and grey  the cloud soon disappeared and it was bright and sunny. I don't enjoy too much heat and constant blue skies would soon be boring but living under grey skies is so depressing.

The sun was only shining down by the house but it gave such a lift to my spirits and everything seemed to be glowing. I got in an hour's outdoor work before it was time to leave. Driving to work I needed my sunglasses but as I came down from the hills I could see a big grey cloud over town. It carried on getting much colder through the afternoon and by the time I left school heavy icy rain was falling. 

I was teaching one of my Year 2 classes this afternoon, they were making a web chart (the main learning objective) of the things they had found out about kings and queens over the last few weeks. Apparently Queen Victoria got her head chopped off and Henry VIII was a king not a queen. But quite a few children had retained more accurate facts. During the afternoon one little girl came up to me and asked for a hug. As I gave her a hug she told me that somebody in her family had just died. It wasn't a relative she knew but it was sudden and obviously her parents have been talking about it. I gave her a hug, we had a little chat and all was fine.

Driving home, when I got my first view of Exmoor as I drove through Shirwell I was surprised to see snow out on the moor. 

The view from the top of the drive.

Wet.

The rain and the flooding continue. Today the Thames burst its banks (above - Shepperton in Surrey) while in Somerset (below) some villages have been flooded since Christmas. The politicians are blaming officials from the Environment agency for not doing their jobs properly and the officials are blaming the politicians  for massive cuts in their budget. (photos from the web)

We had a bit of a stressful start to the day. I got in Peter's Rav so he could give me a lift up the hill when shock, horror he had a flat battery. On Friday evening I had noticed that his interior light was still on at bedtime so I went down and closed the car door properly. Normally a couple of hours with the light on shouldn't have drained the battery but it was in a poor state anyway. So we had to quick march up the hill to where my car was and then there was the fiddly business of putting in the code which Peter isn't used to. Then he stalled the engine and the stress levels went up. Not only was Peter picking up a couple of people on the way in to work but if they clock in even 1 minute late they are fined 15 mins pay. Luckily they got in at 7.59.

I had been asked to teach all day because we were having a massive sort out and clear out all through the school. A large skip (dumpster) had been delivered and after the children had gone home it was filled to overflowing with rubbish, ancient out of date stuff and also stuff that could have been reused or rehomed but nobody was bothered. All the staff stayed until 5.00 which will be counted towards an inset day. New storage boxes were bought and furniture moved around. In one day the staffroom has been spruced up, the pe cupboard which had become a complete jumble has had all the equipment sorted and rearranged, the same with the technology cupboard where people had resorted to piling stuff on the floor not to mention classroom walk-in cupboards which have been spring cleaned. One teacher, well known for a walk-in cupboard whose door could only be opened 6 inches so that you had to snake an arm around to grab the thing you needed, added a large number of bags to the skip. We are now wondering just how long it will take him to fill the cupboard up once more. I carried on clearing up until Peter came to collect me at 5.30.

Once we got home Peter had to change his old car battery, which was all salted over, with the new one he had bought. It was nothing like as easy as when I used to have to change the Landrover battery, with a number of awkward nuts to be tightened up. I had to hold the lights and a screwdriver to hold something in place while Peter struggled with a spanner. It's done now and he's upstairs shooting aliens on his pc.

A Tiny Bit of Snow.

It was still wild and windy this morning so we were thinking about a walk on the beach. Then the sky turned grey and the window ledge was covered with hailstones. 'Perhaps no walk today', I said and by the time the sky had cleared Peter was already doing his exercises and it was too late to change our plans. The weather couldn't make up its mind today. Short spells of sun between rain, hail and the occasional bit of snow. 

With the forecast warning of ice tomorrow morning I took the Pug up the hill and left it at the top. I'm working all day tomorrow so Peter can give me a lift up the hill in the Rav when he goes to work. 

There was an icy wind but it was refreshing to walk down the hill in the sun.  

I spent the rest of the afternoon working outside until a hail shower stopped play. At last the scree garden is done for now though I've left the moss and leaves where they provide a bit of protection for the new shoots that are already appearing.

On the stone wall the red saxifrage flowers are already starting to open.

Wet.

Last night's weather didn't seem as dramatic as forecast though Peter did wake me up just after 2.00 saying that he had heard thunder. So we both got up to unplug the tvs, pcs and broadband hub as well as unscrewing the socket that got fried last time. This morning we had some showers mixed with steady rain but now the wind has got up and it is howling around the house and conservatory. Worryingly the kitchen tv, which gets its signal from an aerial in the hedge half-way up the hill behind us, has lost its signal. This could either be a transmitter fault or a problem with the aerial.

After a decent lie-in I have just pottered around and done some catching up with friends on the pc. Nothing much else apart from 2 lots of exercises and my daily routine housework. Peter was disappointed when his rowing session in the afternoon was cancelled but with the wind blowing at 30 mph and gusts of up to 50 mph it was felt not safe enough to go out on the river.

Dry.

The sun was out this morning making me realise just how much I missed it. I flew through my morning jobs so that I could spend the day working outside. It wasn't until Peter got home as I was clearing up that I saw that I had been working for 5 hours without a break. My first and main job was to clear up the mess where the scaffolding had been. I'm not a neat freak but too much mess makes me feel uncomfortable. I put away the ladders, bagged up junk for the dump and cleared away all the weeds and every bit off broken concrete and brick. I also cut down most of the ivy that had regrown on the wall then scraped the bark off the remaining main stem and sprayed it with heavy duty weed killer. Have to use chemicals sometimes.

 Before.

 After.

The sky turned grey in the afternoon but the rain held off and I carried on. Much as I would have liked to finish off up in the scree garden now that I have my ladders back I thought it was more important to clear out the gutters at the back of the house. Cleaning out the twigs and stinky sludge was not fun but I'm glad I got it done. Then I noticed that weeds were beginning to appear in the bog garden by the stream. It's never too early to get rid of the weeds and some of them had started to flower. So I pulled up all the weeds and cut down the dry stalks of the astilbes too. 

Elsewhere in the garden new shoots are appearing. These are some montbretia and something else which I'm not sure of. On my journey to work there are some clumps of snowdrops flowering in the hedgerow opposite the houses at Burridge and a bit nearer town there is a large patch of primroses in flower. Roll on spring.