Stormy.

That's it - the final Christmas goodie has been nibbled and it's time to go back on the diet. Even the delicious Indian sweets which I put in the freezer thinking I would have a few each week were irresistible and are no more. At least I know I can lose the weight when I put my mind to it.

It has rained all day long. Midnight last night, as usual I was listening to the shipping forecast and when it got to Lundy (we are only a few miles inland so that's us) the wind was force 6 to 7 with occasional severe gale force 9. The shipping forecast starts at the top of the UK and works its way clockwise around the coast and when it got back up to the top of Scotland it was .... and occasional hurricane force 12! There were some fierce gusts last night but no damage thank goodness. 

This morning I was in the kitchen when I heard a rustling from under the sink where the bin is. We  already have a latch on that cupboard door to keep the cats out  but when I opened the door there was a house mouse exploring the bin. After the sightings and noise of a wood mouse upstairs I bought a humane live trap but once we had taken away the bag of porridge oats the wood mouse had been eating there were no further signs and the cheese, chocolate and flapjack in the trap remained untouched. I've put the trap, a metal box with one-way entrances, under the sink and hopefully I can remove our latest visitor. Coming home this evening I had to slow down for a hare that was panicking and running in front of me along the lane. 

My keeping healthy subject this week with the Reception children is ...... Teeth. We have these great giant rubber teeth which the children enjoyed brushing (with a dry toothbrush). I also made up a feely bag with different brushes; hair, scrubbing, nail, bottle and washing up to generate more talk.

After school I braved the rain and walked into town where I went the library and then tried on dresses in Monsoon and M&S so I'll know which size to get when I'm shopping on line.

Cold.

Last night the wind was ferocious and I could hear hailstones rattling against the windows but this morning the wind had eased up a bit and it was dry. After getting to grips with my school planning for this week I wrapped up well, rubbed coconut oil onto my face against the wind and carried on with my weeding. I got the bank done but everywhere I look there are weeds growing. Maybe this year I'll get round the whole garden before spring finally arrives or before I get caught up in another project.

Having been driven inside by the rain I looked out of the window to see a deer in the woodland. I think that's a scar on its flank which would mean that it is the deer that had the nasty wound last year. It's all farmland around here so the only danger to deer is road traffic or possibly poachers. The stag hunting fraternity sticks to the open moorland out on Exmoor. (Yes it still goes on even though foxhunting was banned.)

It's not quite 5.00 but it's almost dark outside. Speedy is sleeping on my lap and just now I hear the call of a pheasant, a combination of the calls here, low and longer.

Having not done too well on my dress hunt in town I turned to eBay and found some last year's Monsoon and Per Una summer dresses which were more to my taste. Next I'll have to go to both shops and try on some of their dresses to check which sizes to be looking at. Even with standard dress sizes shops can vary. Then I can have fun hunting for something I like with the bonus of a reasonable price.

Windy.

It was still mild this morning but very windy. Peter had to go to work today so as it was Saturday I did give myself an extra hour's sleep once I had drunk my early morning cup of tea. The sun shone occasionally and after I had done the housework I wrapped up well to get some gardening done. 

I hadn't done any weeding for a long while so this afternoon I tackled the bank at the side of the drive. It was a little more sheltered there and doesn't involve quite so much bending. There's a bit more to do but while most of me was nice and warm the tips of my fingers, even inside my work gloves, started to lose all feeling and I've given up for the day.

All the recent rain has filled up the little pond, it's such a shame that the water level drops in dry weather. It's turning colder again this evening as a cold front works its way down from the north. Time to wrap up and then get a fire going.

Windy.

This morning I parked my car at school and walked into town for a few hours. I had a couple of big puzzles to give to a charity shop and then I went and part-exchanged an old phone for a Sony MP3 player. I didn't get on with my MP4 player which did a million different things with a difficult to use touch screen so at Christmas I tried out Vytas' MP3 player which did the things I wanted and was easy to use. The one I've got is secondhand but comes with a year's warranty  so now all I've got to do is load up some music and audio books. Speaking of technology, this afternoon I was shown how to plug my lap-top into a big audio system in the school hall. I was teaching a Year 2 class and had been asked to teach some country dancing. Any style, so I opted for a bit of line dancing, my version at least. Yesterday I had spent ages finding some tracks with lyrics suitable for children, all that love & cheating not being appropriate for 7 year olds. In the end I had Achey Breaky Heart and Funky Cowboy downloaded as MP3 files which I could play on my work lap-top. We had a great session in the hall with the children making up their own moves and teaching them to each other. It must have caught the children's imagination because at playtime a little group of boys carried on dancing in the playground.

It has been very windy today but not too cold. Driving in this morning it wasn't so much grey as white where the clouds were down so low. These photos were all taken at 4.00 on my way home. 

Once I got up into the hills I could see clouds being blown across the tops of the hedges by the strong winds and now the rain has started to fall.

Part of the reason for the visit to town this morning was to continue my search for a dress to wear to a wedding in June. So far I'm not having a lot of success.  A lot of the dresses I saw today were simply horrible or at least not anything I would wear. Many of this winter's party dresses are black and/or too sparkly for a wedding. Also this winter's colours seem to be maroon and brown even in Monsoon which usually has such pretty stuff. I did find one sleeveless dress with a v-neck in a turquoise on black pattern but it was a size too big and the bottom half was not good. I shall just have to keep on looking. 

Not Too Cold.

After last night's heavy rain it was a surprise to find that it had all cleared up by the morning. It was still miserably grey and maybe that was why I found it very hard to get going this morning. That's where my morning housework routine is so useful. It doesn't take that long but once I've done it I know the downstairs of the house is clean and tidy even if I did decide to crawl back into bed. However once I've forced myself to do the hoovering etc I nearly always find I'm energised enough to get on with the rest of the day. This morning I sorted through the Christmas decorations, found 4! to give away and put the bags back in the loft. Instead of putting the ladder away I then took it outside and cut back the climbers on the front of the house ..... again. Some of the roses I cut down in the autumn had grown 3 or 4 ft. I try not to touch the wisteria as it took 10 years before it even flowered but the honeysuckle is as tough as old boots and I gave it a proper trim. The long-handled loppers helped me cut back some of the rose growing over the porch but I couldn't quite reach it all. 

Then it was time to split another barrow load of logs. Who needs to go to a gym when you have logs to split? They keep predicting severe storms so I try and bring extra logs in each day while it is dry. 

Grey with Drizzle.

We were back to grey skies again, slightly warmer with a bit of drizzle that had turned to rain by the end of the day. Last night, after some not so subtle hints from Peter, I took down all the tree decorations and did as much cutting of the branches as I could with my secateurs. This morning I finished off the job with the branch loppers and finally took a saw to the trunk. It had been such a good tree that not a needle fell until I started taking things down. I boxed up all the various decorations but they haven't quite made it up to the loft as I want to pack them securely and maybe .... clear out any things I don't want. Before Christmas I saw so many interesting ideas for making recycled paper decorations that  I thought about getting rid of the majority of my current decorations and making paper ones each year that could then go on the fire instead of having to be stored. But then many of my commercially made decorations hold special memories and I'm not sure I could just get rid of them.

At school this afternoon I worked with the Year 1 children. The RE theme this term is Belonging so today we talked about belonging to a family and the children drew pictures of their families which I will put into a class book. After school our staff meeting was to talk about all the children who have significant needs. I can't be specific but we have a number of children who really need full-time 1:1 support to make any progress or indeed to remain in school and sadly there just isn't the funding for that. At least today's meeting has made us all more aware of the ways we can support these children and which strategies work when they are having a melt-down.

At home I have thrown out the spherical bird feeder as the birds really didn't like it and replaced it with a peanut feeder. (The last one disappeared -downstream? during a recent storm.) This new bird feeder is very popular and there is usually a queue of blue tits, great tits and robins waiting in the bushes for a turn at the nuts. The other day a woodpecker came down and scared the little birds away but it wasn't too keen on the nuts and soon moved onto a tree trunk. I don't get very good photos  of the birds through the stair window which is in an awkward position to clean from outside.

Final update on the Lost Cat - my friend at work spoke to the lady with similar cats and although it wasn't hers she knew the cat's owner and took the details. A happy ending to that little adventure.

Sunshine and Showers.

It was brighter and a little colder today. I don't go in for making New Year's resolutions but I'm going to try and keep to - A Little Bit Every Day. That can apply to any of the myriad tasks I set myself, be it getting back into an exercise routine, clearing out stuff we don't need or garden projects not to mention the general maintenance of the house and garden. Even if it is only a tiny bit at a time they will add up and eventually the jobs will get done. That said the Christmas tree is half undressed and if I end up with another night when I can't get to sleep I may come down and finish it off rather than sitting and looking at the PC.

At school I worked with the reception children on healthy eating once more. Most of them have a pretty good idea that fruit and vegetables are good for you and that sugary, fatty foods are not so good and should only be eaten as treats. The school's healthy snack policy with free fruit or vegetables every day does set them up with some good eating habits. Having had a decadent fortnight eating chocolates, cake and other 'unhealthy' foods I too am returning to eating salads and fruit. Every other other advert on TV seems to be for diet this and that as most of the population try and lose their Christmas weight. At least I was very restrained before Christmas and lost weight with the express purpose of not feeling guilty as I enjoyed the seasonal treats. Vytas and Sally gave me a box of Indian sweetmeats which I have put in the freezer so that I can have a few at a time.

Coming home tonight I could see a plume of smoke across a valley, probably from a pile of brush cuttings where somebody was tidying up their hedges.

Tonight |i got out of school quite quickly so the sun was just setting as I drove home.