Warm.

Outside a fierce storm is blowing. All day strong winds from the south had brought us some welcome warmth but the rain didn't begin until 5.00, just as forecast. 

I've been at school all day with the same class again. It is the most challenging class of the school, that's not just my opinion, so by the end of 2 full days with them I feel shattered. I went into town afterwards hoping for a therapeutic wander around a few shops but sorting out the paperwork and several conversations at school meant I didn't get there until some shops were nearly closing. I did get a new battery put in my watch, bought some underwear for Peter and put some credit on my phone. Only when I checked the amount of credit left did I see that I still had a lot of credit left and the you may only make emergency calls message I got the other day was due to being out of signal range. One good thing though, the man in the shop told me that if I didn't use my phone for 3 months the sim card would be cancelled and I would loose all my credit. I shall make sure I send a text to Peter on the first Saturday of each month to avoid that happening. My phone is there for emergencies as I am happy to do all my on-line activities on the nice big screen of my PC.

When I came home I had a quick walk around the house and caused a whole flock of pheasants to take off from the other side of the stream and fly into the woodland away from the scary human. 

Warm.

I'm feeling rather worn out this evening. Not only was I teaching all day but a nasty cold has crept up on me and I'm at the achey stage. School itself was fun with a morning visit to Pilton Street where the children tried particular places by solving clues. (The literacy focus was to look at what makes a good clue.) The street is packed full of wonderful old buildings with lots of interesting features though I think the highlight from the children's point of view was  a degu in its cage inside a ground floor window (most of the houses along Pilton Street are right on the pavement.) We also went into Rotary Gardens to collect leaves, measure trees and look for minibeasts. I did try and get them to listen for birds but the sound of the tree surgeons working on the biggest tree with chainsaws put an end to that. It was great fun for the children but there is a certain amount of stress when you are ultimately responsible for 30 children on a narrow pavement and crossing the road. The parents who came along were a great help, such trips wouldn't be possible without them. Back at school the children were only too happy to sit on the carpet and eat their morning fruit while we talked about the wildlife we saw. That was then followed by a literacy task for a couple of groups and after phonics in the afternoon the children planted seeds in plastic bags, a kind of hydroponics, drew and labelled previously planted seeds and drew some of the many leaves we had brought back from the park. Never a moment to relax. After school I drove across town and attempted to do several things and failed at most of them. The custom logo shop doesn't do fabric badges only items of clothing, I didn't find 2 things I wanted to buy and when I presented myself at Tesco's pharmacy for a flu jab the qualified person was about to go home. Not a very successful shopping trip. Then to add insult I managed to knock a container of oat bran out of the cupboard, the lid fell off and oat bran scattered all over the kitchen floor. Still it's Friday tomorrow and after another full day in school I will certainly appreciate the weekend.

Grey Then Sunny.

I drove to work early under dismal grey skies and light rain but later in the day the weather front (which can be seen in the photo above) shifted eastwards enough to allow the sun to shine down on us and generally warm things up.

I've had 3 different classes today. Year 2 in the morning and Year 1 classes in the afternoon. I had just started my morning maths lesson when I looked up to see that the Headteacher was paying us a drop-in visit. Luckily with my distrust of technology I had already checked and found that the power point I was supposed to be using had been blocked due to a virus being detected and so had reworked the intro to the main topic. I kept my head and remembered all the things I should be doing and asking, getting the children to explain the different ways they had worked out the answers in the warm-up activity while keeping them on task etc. At the staff meeting the headteacher said she was happy with everything she had seen so I guess I did okay. Wednesday is swimming day for the Year 2 children so off we went to the pool again. One little girl wasn't swimming due to having a bad cough along with asthma and hayfever so she sat with me while I kept an eye on the weaker swimmers. Heaving that bag of sand the other day didn't do my back any good and I was finding it hard to straighten up after sitting for half an hour. My little companion asked me in the most concerned voice "Are you alright?" I assured her I would be fine in a minute but that was so sweet.

In the afternoon it was phonics and RE twice followed by a staff meeting looking at the new ICT curriculum. We shall be teaching our 5-7 year old children; algorithms,  programming & development, data and data representation, hardware & processing, communications & networks and information technology!!!! We need a few training sessions for all that.

Cloudy.

At last the front patio is done. I had just enough time after a bit of a lie-in to mix up a bucket of mortar (making mud pies grown-up style) and fill in the last of the gaps between the paving before I was off to school for a very messy afternoon with the reception children. 

There was the usual phonics session at the start of the afternoon and hearing readers at the end of the day but in between I got on with lots of paint mixing, painting and printing. First of all I honed in on a group of children who don't usually choose to paint. I gave them the little whiteboards we mainly use for  phonics and let them explore the results of mixing primary colours. Mixing was done with fingers and hands so it was a fun activity. I took some photos (we constantly write observations and take pictures) and their expressions were so full of enjoyment. Getting messy is fun! I placed paper on top of their mixed colours and the resulting prints will make up the 'mud' section of the Bear Hunt display. After that it was back to brushes for a new group of children to mix browns and paint trees for the 'forest'. Followed by potato printing for the leaves. The class teacher had asked if I could get the whole thing done in 1 1/2 days which was a bit of a rush but hopefully she will be happy with the result. 

It had been mainly overcast during the day though towards evening some gaps in the cloud cover appeared lighting up the sea and the moors to the north of us. 

Grey.

Although it was dark when the alarm went off this morning I could hear the rain and the wind in the trees. The rain eased off later on to a fine drizzle but there has been nothing but greyness overhead. I've spent the whole day working with the reception children and we've had great fun mixing paint to make different shades of grey (dark cave), green (swishy grass) and blue (deep river) which will be used in a class display of "We're going on a Bear Hunt." I didn't think the children would be inspired by making subtle shades of white for the blizzard section so instead they collaged white cotton wool, fabric and tissue paper to great effect. 

After school I went and bought another bag of sand and then called in at the Co-Op. I just had to take a picture of this dog waiting patiently for his owner with his lead by his side. 

I stopped at Burridge to take a few scenic photos. On the automatic settings the camera compensated for the dark grey sky, (above), so I used the manual setting. That got me the right colour sky but unfortunately the focus was off. I was too keen to get home to check properly so those pictures have been deleted. 

Too wet to do any cementing tonight so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Colder.

It's been overcast all day and there is beginning to be a bit of a nip in the air. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be wearing shorts at home and even now I wear a fleece top with my shorts. Working outdoors I've returned to my old joggers and an ancient fleece top with flip-flops as an homage to warmer days. Being a fresh air fiend some of our windows are still open for most of the day, might as well enjoy it while I can. The colder evenings have got me digging out my fleece pj's though when it is really cold we'll burn some of that wood stacked out in the shed.

The front patio is nearly done. I could have finished today if I hadn't run out of cement, or sand to be exact. I'm only buying sand and cement a bag at a time as I need. There's no difference in cost and the builders' merchants is near the Co-Op so I don't have to make any extra journeys. Maybe this time I'll get the buying process correct as the yard man gave me a cheery ticking off last time because I got it wrong. Unlike Mole Valley Farmers where you pay first and then take a slip to the yard man you have to get the yard man to load the goods, he gives you a slip (and takes a note of your car number plate in case you plan to drive off) then you drive or walk round to the showroom and pay at the counter. 

As I worked outside the angry squirrel was chattering away and birds were singing as usual. I had been listening out for the sound of music drifting over the valley but not a sound. A week ago a neighbour had phoned in a flustered state saying there was going to be a village meeting regarding a music festival that was going to be held in a large barn at Okewill Cross. Apparently there had already been a music event of some sort there in the summer. I had heard the noise but just assumed someone was having a weekend party. We don't actually object to a festival/rave in such a isolated spot and the only signs we saw were some rather bedraggled hippy types putting up a notice on the main road on Friday. Coming home from Gemma's that night there were a few vehicles and some lonely souls in hi-viz jackets at the turnings along the country road presumably there to give directions. I hope they had a good time.

Autumnal.

We've had a few heavy showers mainly in the middle of the day. I was up too late to take advantage of the morning sun but I still got another section of re-pointing done. I've almost finished the front patio but all the rest needs doing too, if the weather holds out. During a rainy spell I finished and sent off a document for school outlining the RE themes for years 1 and 2 for the whole year. Along with the usual housework that has been my day.

The climbing roses are putting on a final flush of flowers. 

 The last blast of afternoon sun.

While Elwen preferred to sit out in the sun and then the rain, the other cats are spending more time close to the warmth of the rayburn.