Windy.

An overcast, warm and windy day. I spent the morning in the kitchen. First I baked some flapjacks and in my usual  disorganised fashion had the butter melting in a saucepan before I discovered that I had used up all the white sugar baking cakes when our visitors were here. Luckily I had some demerara sugar in the cupboard so used that instead. I also spent an hour peeling and chopping apples to cook and freeze as stewed apples to use in crumbles or on porridge. Then it was off to school for back to back phonics lessons and getting the children changed for PE. As I walked across the playground a 5 year old girl said "This has been the worst day of my life." I've known her for a year and she has never been the cheery sort. Apparently she had a tummy ache after eating lunch, so many of our children do, and she had just bumped into something. I gave her a sympathetic word and sent her on her way down to the playground.

After school we had a 2 hour training session on how to use the latest version of the all-singing, all-dancing assessment and tracking programme. There was just so much that our brains turned to mush after the first half hour or at least mine did. So many things have changed or gone for good and all the new jargon! - cognitive rating, digging deeper, golden points etc. Like the original format I'm sure it becomes much clearer when you start to use it but guess what? In my role as a cover teacher I don't have access to the system and I don't need to input any data. But I was told that I should stay for the session. At least I will be even more sympathetic over the class teachers' workload.   

Driving in to work at lunchtime my way was blocked by this digger. Here he is just about to pull over onto a wider part of the verge to let me pass.

Hot.

After a cool start it has felt like a hot and hazy summer's day. It was so nice that I treated myself to half an hour of reading in the sun before going to work. That was after I grouted the tiles under the mirror in the bathroom.

 Before.

After.

Somehow I've never got the hang of grouting tiles, it looks so easy when you see it being done on the TV. A swipe with the grout then a wipe over with some sort of squeegee thing and it's done. Overall it's not a brilliant job but I gave up looking for a replacement mirror of the same size and just used what I had to hand. Even though Peter uses that nice warm bathroom as his dressing room he hasn't noticed the new mirror. He has been in a lot of pain and lacking sleep lately but I am going to wait and see how long it does take him to notice.

Yesterday on the local news they were talking about how good a year it has been for butterflies. The small tortoiseshell butterfly numbers had dropped so low in previous years that there was concern we would lose them altogether. Luckily numbers are up this year and I would say there were 4x or 5x more small tortoiseshells than any other butterfly in the garden.  

I had another lovely afternoon working with a small group of children for phonics and then listening to readers. After school some of the children were going to a PE club being run by an outside company that uses our hall. We took them down to the hall, got them changed and then waited ....... and waited. There was obviously some mix up but as the parents would not be coming for another hour the Headteacher asked me if I would stay and run the club. I agreed even though sport is not really my thing. My only concern was a boy who has diabetes whose sugar levels still tend to fluctuate but his class teacher said she would be in the building if there were any problems. But apart from one child who fell and grazed her hand it went smoothly. It was nearly 6.00 by the time I got home in time for a gentle stroll around the garden catching the last of the evening sun.

Crisp.

A bright crisp morning today. I don't mind if it's a bit chilly as long as the sun is shining. That fills me with energy and this morning I did my usual routine before I stopped for breakfast and then went on to hoover upstairs. The corner spare room needed a tidy up after my sewing project but I'm pleased with how even hand washing the cover has brightened up the sofa. As  sofa it's not that comfortable but it does make an easy single or double spare bed.

By the time I was heading in to work it felt fairly warm and I didn't even bother with a fleece or bodywarmer. As I'm still an 'extra' in the Year 1 classes I had a lovely afternoon working with small groups of children for phonics and then listening to individual readers. Because I grabbed one group of children as they walked back from PE on the field I took them to sit in the dappled shade of a cherry tree on the No-Mow (fake grass). After work I went into town lugging 2 big bags of stuff for the charity shop. Although it seems as though I have been clearing stuff for years I now only have 1 bedroom that needs sorting out. Oh, and then there is the loft with more boxes and my mother's drawings and pictures.

Earlier in the morning I saw some movement in the field which turned out to be a couple of deer. Their dusty brown coats are almost a perfect match for the dry autumnal grasses and even with the binoculars it was hard to spot them.  By the time I got home from town the shade was creeping across the garden with the last few sunny sedums covered in bees. The number of swallows has decreased with maybe 1 or 2 families left. Soon they'll be off to Africa for the winter. On the other hand the owls have become quite noisy again squeaking and whoo-whooing in the trees at night.
Peter finally got to see the doctor today and it turns out that the shoulder cartilage is acutely inflamed. No wonder it has been so painful and he hasn't been able to sleep properly. He had 2 injections straight into the joint and a bit of a telling off for leaving it for so long. He's signed off work for the week at least though it may take months before it is fully recovered.

Overcast.

More cloud and a little cooler today with a good drying breeze. It's getting to the point where I'm not sure if I should have the doors and windows open or closed. I like a fresh air through the house though that's sometimes comes with the twang of slurry but soon it'll be time to conserve the heat. I'm still going around in shorts and flip-flops but with a body-warmer or fleece as well.

The long handled hoe is my favourite garden tool of the moment. Since I have no hens to keep down the weeds the hens' run has become rather overgrown. So right now I'm clearing the ground with the hoe - a bending-free method. The hoe also comes in handy for gathering up the apples. Flicking the reject windfalls to the side  brought back memories of playing hockey at school and it's a lot easier to bring the bigger apples to my feet so I can pick them up in one go. The red apples are a decent size but I should have thinned out the apples on the nearer tree as they are all quite small. At the moment I seem to always either have a pan of apples cooking away on top of the rayburn or a tray of puree drying in the warming oven.

At Peter's request I planted some chili seeds from peppers he had bought and we ended up with 2 plants. These are in the conservatory and having been carefully hand pollinated with a paint brush there are 22 chili peppers forming. 

Overcast.

It felt like such a luxury to be able to sleep for as long as I needed this morning. And that's after only 2 mornings of having to get up for a full day at work. It's been overcast today and a little cooler but after a late start and doing the housework there was still time for a potter around the garden. I did a little work as well, cutting down the rest of one of the clumps of big crocosmia. I also began the job of clearing the bank above the bottom lawn by picking up the broken twigs left over from the tree felling escapade. I thought it might be a good idea to collect them while they are dry, break them up and put them in a spare bin to use as kindling when we start using the woodburner in the sitting room. So a sort of 2 jobs in 1 activity.

There were less butterflies around today with most of them up in the scree garden on the sedum. When I bent down to pull up some weeds I could really smell the sweet scent of the nectar. With all the flowering grasses it's hard to walk along the path but I can see that come winter I'll need to clear a lot of weeds. 

I first grew this snapdragon many years ago but every now and again a seedling pops up.

Staying Warm.

Apologies for the lack of yesterday's post, After being at work all day I turned on my PC in the evening only have it decide to automatically update 25 programs and refuse to do anything else. 

I've had 2 full days at work which was a bit of a shock to the system especially getting up so early. Things were a bit hectic in class yesterday but we got lots done and today was much better. I was asked to do some maths on the children's knowledge and use of number bonds. We spread it over the whole morning so we could work with smaller groups. The children got quite excited playing Bingo with us. Anything that involves a 'game' goes down well with children. They had individual whiteboards to write their own numbers and it was easy for us adults to change the level of the game to see what the children knew and what they need more practise with. Both afternoons they worked in mixed ability groups on various map making/reading activities.

It is still very warm so it has been lovely each evening to take a slow walk in the garden listening to the birds and feeling the sun on my back. The mature beech tree in the corner is covered in beech mast and every now and again you can hear one fall to the ground. 

There is more cloud around but we have been promised a few more warm days. It does feel a little odd to have the air so warm yet see the autumnal colours and berries in the hedgerows.

Still Hot.

The warm weather continues, hooray! so this morning as well as a load of washing I hung out the spare, spare duvets to air. These were the 3 duvets that I didn't use when our summer visitors came but I'm loathe to throw them out because we might need them if we had a full house. At least now they are aired and ready to use. I was planning to grout the small tiles around the mirror I put up yesterday but when I got the grout out it had gone hard. Instead I did a little gardening, cutting back the old foliage on one of the hardy geraniums that I plan to divide. Now that my meagre vegetable harvest is almost eaten I'll use that plot for propagating the plants that I want to take with me when we move. As I worked outside all I could hear was the lazy cooing of a wood pigeon and the high pitched chirps of the swallows.

I had a lovely afternoon working with both Year 1 classes in turn getting them changed for or from PE and then running a whole class phonics session. That's quite challenging as there is a wide range of abilities and normally the children have their phonics lessons in ability groups. After school we had a staff meeting looking at the new literacy curriculum and specifically at the SATs papers the children will take at age 7. So now instead of asking the children to use describing words or adjectives it will be noun phrases . And who knows what a fronted adverbial is? Because the children should be using them in their writing. Thanks a lot Michael Gove (who is no longer minister for education). No doubt this will all change again in a year or two.

The sun was still shining as I drove home this evening but I turned temporarily into an angry person when I saw all the hunt followers' vehicles parked along the country road.