Balancing Act.

Still cloudy today but even warmer than yesterday. As we had more people coming to view the house this afternoon my morning was spent tidying up. I even laid a fire to have burning in the sitting room to make the place more welcoming. Sadly although the people loved the place, the house and the garden in particular was too big. (You'd have thought the 6 bedrooms would have been a clue to the size.) Peter is getting fed up with keeping the place so tidy but for me it's the fact that we can't get on with the next phase of our lives that is frustrating. We've had one chap come to look at the plastering we want done in the upstairs corridor but it's too much for him so he's given Peter the name of somebody who would be able to tackle it.

At school I had my Year 2 class and once again it was PE. Today the children were working on trying different body shapes to make while balancing on their bottoms. As I walked around I was encouraging them to try some of the variations we had all had a go at. With me that means demonstrating as well as talking. Just unfortunate that as I lifted a leg to demonstrate whilst still standing, I clipped my foot against the edge of the other and overbalanced backwards ending up sitting on the floor against some stacked up chairs. A bit embarrassing but not one child thought it was funny and the only comments were those of concern. Later in the classroom one boy remarked "You were teaching us how to balance, we should have been teaching you to balance."

After school I walked into town to find some wool for another project. Again it's a present so I can say no more for a while.

Grey.

Only a little  wind today so not very cold. I went out in the afternoon, initially to tidy up the wall by the scree garden but then I did some leaf picking in the scree garden itself. It takes a while to get the whole area done but the stones look so good when they are clear. At least I think so.

Not much else going on today except a bit of piano and guitar practice. Peter cooked up a beef stew yesterday using up all the root vegetables from the basket. If it was me I would just throw everything in and hope for the best but he looked up a recipe and measured out all the herbs and spices. I'm sure it will taste lovely.

Bramble Bashing.

It's been quite a nice day with the occasional burst of sun. I was taking the scraps up to the compost heap when I caught sight of the sun lighting up the trees in the woods. By the time I had got my camera it had clouded over again so while I waited for the next break in the clouds I did a bit of hoeing. While the primrose flowers were a welcome sight I was glad of the opportunity to get rid of the weeds some of which are also starting to flower. 

Still trying to take things easy I did a bit more work on my blog notes but eventually the lure of the outside had me wrapping up to do a bit of gardening. My original intention was to tidy up the top of the wall by the scree garden but the sight of the brambles in the blackcurrant bushes had me dragging out brambles instead.  

With many of the other plants dormant for the winter it is a good time to tackle the brambles growing alongside the drive directly above the garden. Only several feet high at the moment it doesn't take long before the brambles are hanging over the drive putting cars in danger of multiple scratches. I've got enough 'Devon racing stripes' as it is and it isn't a good introduction to any prospective house buyers.

Snow in the Distance.

We seem to have escaped the worst of yesterday's weather unlike other parts of the country. Yesterday's snow showers soon turned to rain and eventually icy winds. Luckily the winds dried the roads before ice had a chance to form though I understand the gritters were out in force on the main roads. Today, walking up the drive I could see Exmoor with a covering of snow.

The reason I was walking up the drive was a phone call from the estate agents booking a viewing for the afternoon. I was off up the hill to leave my car at the top of the drive. Thank goodness the drive wasn't icy and the sun was shining.  Peter was in town at the time so I whizzed around the house giving it an extra thorough cleaning and putting away all the clutter we hide from viewers. We've got to the point where we just don't get enthusiastic but the agent said things are picking up in terms of viewings anyway. (Just had another viewing booked for Monday.)

Snow Showers.

After a morning of steady rain the winds increased and we had some snow showers. (The white streaks in the above photo are my only evidence.) During the morning I had been out and made sure that all the dams were in place and the gulley down the centre of the drive clear because the weather forecasters seemed to be mainly talking about rain. I've had a look at Metcheck  which now gives % probability of snow. Currently it's 90% and over for the rest of the day and tomorrow is between 70% and 93%. I'm glad I don't need to go into town. It doesn't feel especially cold but I've just got a fire going in the woodburner to warm the sitting room up for the evening. The last snow shower was on the 26th April last year.

Apart from battening down the hatches (so to speak) outside I've been sorting through school papers, playing the guitar and the piano though I've discovered that having a cat jump up onto the keys, sit on the top wailing and then jump back down onto the keys is even more disruptive than letting the cat sit on my lap as I play.

The postman came bearing various parcels including yet another pair of shoes.  Sadly these too will have to go back as although they are wide enough when I take out the removable insoles my heel is down so low that the sides of the shoes dig into my ankle bones.

I've also been going through my 2016 posts making notes for the family journal which I'm trying to update. So many sunny days and all that optimism over selling the house. It's the 9th month now and getting a bit tedious.

 This is about the highest the stream got today, not quite flooding the bog garden.

Windy.

A sunny, cold morning and very windy. As usual the wind was roaring through the trees. Something is going to happen tomorrow through to Friday but the forecasters are not sure if it will be heavy rain or snow and they're not yet saying exactly where all this wild weather will be happening. Possibly here but more likely to be to the south-east and north of the country. My teaching week is finished so I don't have to leave the valley until Monday. 

At school the teaching assistant who works with me had to be out for most of the afternoon so I went into super multi-tasking mode. I've made a bit of a game of all the children listening out for any noise from each group as they go to the cloakroom to get their coats so they try really hard to 'creep out like little mice' and they do this really well. (The Head teacher's office is opposite the classroom door and understandably she's not best pleased if the children are making a row in the corridor.) I had a group of 3 children scheduled to read in a guided session after play but I also needed to read a story to the rest of the class at the same time. As a compromise I did the guided reading at a table in the playground during playtime. Not ideal but better than nothing. We had our staff meeting after school. This was mainly filling in the diary dates for this half of the term or rather writing down things then crossing them out because they clashed with other events. We've just got a new on-line calendar (along with new email addresses) so everything should appear on that but there's nothing like good old pen and paper.

As I drove home the moon was hanging dramatically in the sky so I tried to take some photos. Naturally the automatic exposure compensated for the almost black sky and it was too cold to fiddle around with the manual settings. Time to give myself a tutorial on using the manual settings when I can actually see what I am doing.

Windy.

No rain this morning only windy and a bit colder than yesterday. There was full cloud cover but it must have been fairly thin as it was still very bright outside. Light rain eventually arrived at the very end of the day. 

This afternoon I worked with the reception children once again doing pen self portraits. They had the original drawings they had made at the beginning of last term and photos of themselves to look at. It is satisfying to see the progress they have made. One little boy said of his original portrait "I look like an elf," (Circular head, triangular ears, a few hairs standing up and dots for eyes.) and tried hard to make a more realistic picture this time.

After work as we weren't having a staff meeting, (they usually alternate between Tuesdays and Wednesdays,) I went into town again. This time I got most of the things I was after including a new small diary to record my daily photos and a chamois leather to wipe the inside of my car windows.

Driving home along the back road in the dusk a hare ran out into the road in front of the car then ran down the middle of the road as they do until eventually it ran under a gate and into a field. Next I had to slow down for a girl walking her dog and as I went around Ashelford Corner along came a runner full of January enthusiasm and only visible by the reflective stripes on his clothing. Who says the countryside is quiet?

I was filling up the bird feeder over the stream when a flash of yellow caught my eye. The first daffodil was flowering on the far bank.