Back On Line.

What a week! Monday started well with lovely sun that continued all week lifting every one's spirits and making it feel like summer. Then Tuesday we had the phone call ... the OFSTED inspection team would be arriving on Thursday! That's the big event everybody fears but knows will be happening one day, currently it's at 3 year intervals. After many late hours of hard work and a forest's worth of paperwork prepared the inspectors arrived. Although all the talk is very positive in reality you know it is more like an inquisition. Figures and results are all important and most decisions have been made before they actually turn up. We are not allowed to divulge the findings until the final draft of the report is done and released to the parents, probably in about a week's time but I can say that most of the staff were out celebrating on Friday night. Not me because I was feeling a bit rough, too tired and a nasty cold brewing. Also Linas was paying us a flying visit. Peter had to go back into town to collect him and we had a kebab meal to celebrate the end of a hard week. Linas is still waiting to hear the result of an interview for a job in Ivybridge that he would really like but is also halfway through the interview process for another job in Exeter. Keep your fingers crossed as it is so hard for youngsters, even those with good degrees, to get a job. Having got the OFSTED over my next trail was the phone line going down again. So no Internet. A BT man came on Saturday and diagnosed the problem as being 2,500m up the wires somewhere but couldn't deal with it then. Luckily another man was able to connect us up on pair of wires this afternoon but apparently the overhead cables from Bowden Corner to Indicott need replacing which would mean closing the road so it may be a little while before that job is done. We couldn't let the good weather pass without going for a walk on the coast. It was bright and sunny but there was a chill breeze and a sea mist.

There were a lot of people out today as holiday makers start to flock to the area so we headed for the high ground to find a sheltered spot to have our coffee. Looking down we had great views of the path we follow around the coast.

The gorse is always blooming but now the grass is dotted with bright yellow celandines and these pretty violets.

After our walk I continued with some gentle gardening work, mainly weeding and cutting back while Peter got on with his great sausage making project. Sometime ago he bought himself a hand mincer, just like his mother had, so that he could make his own tasty sausages without all the nasty additives that manufacturers put in. He's still at it but the results look good though I have been leaving him to work in peace.

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A Blanket of Fog.

It was rather cloudy and drizzly this morning on my way into school. Fortunately it cleared up later and we even had some sunny spells. By the time I was heading home, after a fairly non-descript day, it was quite foggy. I drove out of town with my lights on and limited visibility with the outlines of trees looming around me. As I got higher I noticed that it was getting lighter and I could even see the occasional patch of blue above. Approaching Shirwell I suddenly burst into bright sunshine. In my mirror I could see that the whole of the river valley was covered with a thick blanket of fog.
I stopped up by the Lewis' farm to take in the amazing view. I was bathed in bright sun looking down on a sea of fog that had obscured all of the valleys.




I was a bit later than usual as I'd had to go and buy some more cat food due to leaving the top off the bin that I keep the bags of cat food in and 2 of the cats spending a happy Saturday taking it in turns to climb into the box and stuff themselves full of cat food. Their bulging stomachs gave the miscreants away. The diversion to the supermarket made it a bit late to go walking today.
Rant of the day, am I old fashioned in objecting to nouns being used as adverbs? It really makes me cringe to hear such things as 'She sang beautiful(ly)'. or ' He played amazing(ly)'. I find this inability to add a suffix to be lazy speech rather than a natural evolution, on a par with saying 'we was'. Perhaps the English language is being dumbed down to the lowest common denomenator and I'm just a finickity old woman, after all I'm not above using a split infintive to strongly emphasise a point!

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A Brisk Walk.

No more snow today , at least in this corner of the UK. The weather people are saying it's the worst early cold snap for 17 years. Out in the garden the snow was sparkling in the sunshine.
The road was completely clear so I walked up to bring down the Rav. (Photos never show just how steep this section is.)

When I got up to the bad weather car park, (field gateway), it was so bright that I simply had to continue on for a brisk walk up to Indicott.

This used to be my running road before my knee made it clear that my running days are over.

I went as far a the gateway that overlooks our valley. Our house is hidden in the trees but our neighbour's barns and house are in the middle of the shot.

Back home I felt invigorated by my walk and after climbing up in the loft to get the decorations I sat down to write up my plans for next week. Then I decided to tackle a form that had been bounced back to me with insufficient information. I spent over an hour detailing every little thing I do in my class to make sure struggling pupils get sufficient support. Then saved the document following exactly the same procedures that I used successfully at school. But my pc runs windows 2003 not 2007 and it got lost forever! Took another hour to redo the form, Blah !

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Work, Work, Work.

The weather did a complete flip today, pouring with rain in the morning and sunny on the way home. I'm not too sure when the sun started to shine because it's been really busy at school, what a surprise. I've come to the realisation that yes, the level of input we do does make our teaching better but it's far too much for any one person and eventually you get burnt out. But the government doesn't care because then you shouldn't be teaching and they can employ some other eager candidate. At the moment there are about 100 applicants for each teaching job in this area. I was in school until 6.15 as I was putting up a large jungle display in my classroom which involved tearing lots of paper into strips and then pinning/ stapling them to the wall. That took ages and then I hid their paintings of tiger and leopard patterns in the foliage to look as if there were a couple of big cats hiding there. I selected 3 of the most life-like of the animal faces they had painted (not the ones with big smiles) to finish off the animals and also added some of the very good pastel drawings of jungle plants they had done today using both photographs and an orchid which I had bought for the classroom simply because it is so beautiful. I've craftily incorporated it into the India theme with a fancy label.
I often stop at one particular gateway on the way home to check out the sunset over the sea. Originally it was to see if there a good photo opportunity but recently I just stop to look at the view for a few minutes. Sometimes the sea is silver and at other times gold. I can't see Lundy from there but can look across to Appledore and Hartland.

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Oops No Battery.

We've been out for a good walk around Morte Point today. I took one slightly blurry picture of Lundy before my battery gave up which was doubly annoying as I had swapped over batteries before leaving home not realising that for once my system had failed and the spare wasn't charged. We did have some very good views of a sparrow hawk hovering close by while hunting. It stayed in one spot for a very long time and I could have got some good pictures if ........... . The sun was shining and it was quite warm once out of the chill wind. Next time I must remember to take a container to pick blackberries as there are still plenty around. We watched a couple who had picked lots into a carrier bag which is something I wouldn't recomend, squashed berries dripping out of the bottom would be my concern. The usual seals were sunning themselves out on the rocks being watched by people up on the cliffs. It was so clear looking across to Lundy we could make out all the main buildings, the church, pub, lighthouses and even the buildings at the base of the old lighthouse but having given my 40x binoculars to Peter (because I can't get both eyes working together with them) my 25x binoculars didn't quite show Stoney Croft against the lighthouse buildings. Can't wait to go back.

As promised me in my shalwar kameez. It's really comfortable to wear and I can imagine how practical it would be in a hot climate. I'll wear it to school on Friday as part of out India topic. I've just turned our central heating on and I've realised that my fingers are getting very cold. Time for the fingerless gloves when I'm on my pc in this cold sitting room. I spent a couple of hours sorting out my planning for the week this afternoon, result - 17 pages, not all mine but I need to know everything that's on them and I still need to do 2 pages of daily plans each day for me and my TA (part time teaching assistant).

Off now for a relaxing evening watching The 300.

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Watersmeet.

It was such a lovely day today that we decided to drive the 45 mins to Watersmeet, the wooded Exmoor gorge that is the setting for Lorna Doone. The dappled shade in the gorge with a gentle breeze made for perfect walking conditions. The air was filled with the sounds of water pouring over waterfalls and crashing through tumbling rocks.

Watersmeet itself where the 2 rivers join, had a number of visitors (Devon term for tourists) about but most of them seemed to be enjoying a cup of tea on the lawns of the tea house and enjoying the views at that point.

We headed north along the path on the right hand side of the above photo and immediately had the place to ourselves hardly seeing another soul on our 3 mile walk.


The paths are well maintained by the National Trust, the one on the other side of the river was much rockier and good exercise for our knees and ankles.

In some places the paths was right down by the river.

And in others we were high up where one false step would send you tumbling down the cliffs into the river.

Hopefully we'll find the time to make a few more visits to the area. The temptation is always to head out to our local beaches or Morthoe only 20 mins away but there are many beautiful spots in this region. On our way home we checked out the garden where I had seen the golden eagle on Saturday and as there was nothing there today I must have been correct in saying that it was a live golden eagle.
Back home, once I'd done some housework and baked some chocolate muffins to take to school tomorrow (everyone is usually quite stressed by the end of the week and we all the miss our last head teacher's home baking), it seemed a shame to waste the sunshine and I had some time doing nothing more but read a book outside.

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A Starry Night.

After a staff meeting talking about the latest method of ongoing assessment (APP ) it was lovely to be driving home in the evening sunshine. I really love it in the early mornings and evenings when the angle of the light casts lengthy shadows that highlight the undulations of the landscape. This morning's drive was also a treat to the eyes as thick pillows of mist covered my view of mid-Devon with dark ridges topped by the silhouettes of trees and Dartmoor in the distance rising out of the snow white mists. ( No good places to stop and take photos unfortunately).
Looking at this view it is hard to imagine that there is a deep valley in the centre with our house and the neighbouring stables nestled in it.

The bracken out on the moors at Trentishoe is turning a lovely autumnal brown. We don't go that way for walks very often as Morte Point is just so spectacular.

Although the sun was shining, standing where I was in the shade, it was rather cold. I've just popped out to get something from the car and was able to look up into the clear sky at bright stars and the Milky Way. Another chilly night on the way!

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A Chilly Morning.

Last night's clear skies resulted in a chilly morning. We are now having to wake up in the dark, (we never draw any curtains), the upside being that I get to see the sunrise as I rub the sleep from my eyes and try to wake up. I am actually a morning person so once I've had a reviving cup of tea I'm usually OK. I stopped on the way in to work to try and capture the morning light across the hills.

The composition would have been better if I had been prepared to walk on the long very wet grass to get into a better position. However as I had my crocs on and was going straight into work I decided practicality would have to override artistic sensibilities.

I had a reasonably good day at school. I am getting a better idea of how long the children need to do various things and they are learning the classroom routine and my (hopefully very clear), expectations of them. One or two children have still not quite settled yet but most of them seem to be happy for most of the time. Hopefully it will not be long before they are all happy and eager to come to school each day. After work, (after the staff meeting) I went over to Brian Ford's to do a big shop. I find that it is fairly empty on a Thursday evening whereas if I go on a Friday evening it is positively crowded. With 2 hungry lads at home it is always good to find short coded items at 70 or 80% off. At BF's you can pick up an odd selection of cheap items. Today it was snack type foods but as both the boys are as thin as whippets that's fine. As I drove over the New Bridge the traffic was quite slow so I opened the windows and turned on the camera. I didn't even look at the camera, just aimed it out of the window and clicked the shutter button. Most of the photos were rather wonky but I quite like this one looking down the estuary towards the sea.

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Off To Scout Camp.

Romas and I managed to leave on time this morning. Off we went at 5.00 driving into the sunrise on reasonably empty roads. After a couple of hours we had left the Devon hills and climbed up to Salisbury Plain. The underlying rock is chalk and the landscape is totally different to the deep hills of Devon.
Not only is the topography different but so are the roadside plants and the crops in the field (mainly wheat I think) and even the houses in the few villages I went past.

Driving up onto the Salisbury Plain there are some amazing panoramic views over the countryside but not many lay-bys with good views. The journey up took 4hrs 15mins because even though we drive that road every year Romas and I still managed to go down the wrong road a few times and have to retrace our way. I did that on the way back, it was quite annoying because there are these wonderful roads you can zoom along at 70 mph but they have no signs telling you which road you are on and the roundabouts are not very well sign posted. If you go wrong and head off down the wrong road it might be 5 miles until you can turn around. The journey home took 5hrs 45mins mainly because for about 20 miles the A303 was crawling. Literally stop and start. At least I was able to stop when we were going past Stonehenge and take some pictures. Nowadays it is all fenced off and costs a fortune to go and see. I remember the days when a drive down to Cornwall included stopping at Stonehenge to clamber all over the stones. It's amazing to think that these stones have been here for 4000 years and that the site was used for 1000 years before that.

We passed through some heavy showers on our way up to Sodyba. One of the good things about the site is the sandy soil which drains quickly. I remember many years when hot weather was broken by sudden thunderstorms but generally all activities take place out of doors.

Camp does not start till tomorrow , Romas is part of the group who come down early to tidy the site and start setting up the 4 camps (boys, girls, family & seniors). There will be lots of chainsawing of trees and not a hint of health and safety. Even with a camp full of teenage boys attempting to be macho with machetes and assorted knives building all sorts of high structures nobody ever gets injured.

Romas is waiting in the 'kitchen' for the rain to stop. I spent several years helping in the kitchens cooking on giant gas burners in very basic conditions when Romas was old enough to join in with the camp activities but not old enough to stay in the boys camp. I think Romas was about 3 when I first started taking them all to camp and now he and Vytas help run the camp each year despite the fact that I have failed in my duties to teach them Lithuanian. (Peter speaks it but I only understand basic 'household' language.)

This is the communal dinning table which will be decorated with natural objects, probably by the girls. Romas' tent sits on its own in the boys camp which will eventually have fence, gate and flagpole built from tree trunks and string.

Across the road is the house, Headly Park, which is run as a country club. I have many memories of staying there over the years for cultural (drinking) weekends. In the house are 2 bars, Lithuanians don't do anything without drinking, not even going to church. Yes, the Lithuanian church where we were married has a bar !
The back of the house sits right on the road with the scout camp across the road. I stayed and helped Romas get his tent up before the rain arrived and then set off, in the pouring rain for the long journey back. Luckily I was driving Peter's car which has all mod cons. We passed the journey time by listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It is very easy listening and each cd of 6 runs for 4 hours. It was that or Aristotle or Homer which I didn't think would be so entertaining. When I finally got home after 10 hrs of driving I managed to do some gardening. After getting up at 4.00 I think I need an early night , at least Peter will be doing the driving up to Bristol and then Tewksbury tomorrow. I don't know how my eyes will feel or if I can get onto my blog tomorrow so I'm signing out till Sunday. See you then with my new eyes, hopefully.

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Cattle And Caterpillars.

I couldn't resist posting a picture of my class' colour -mixing caterpillars as I think they look so colourful. (The dangly bits on the left are the canopy of our Jungle Explorers' Camp.) I'm so looking forward to Arts' Fortnight when we can do some really big projects.

The children found a web of tiny newly hatched ? spiders, each about 2mm, on top of one of the fence posts in the playground. Perfect timing for our minibeast investigations.The journey home is as beautiful as ever with the bright glow of the buttercups shinning through the cow parsley.

Here are some more views from yesterday's walk at Velator.

Beyond the meadows is the 'Big Sand Dune', ( we're a very imaginative family when it comes to assigning names). Over the 15 years we've been coming here it has shrunk in height by about 50%, due to the wind and/or people jumping and leaping down the almost vertical face. It is irresistible even if you do end up with shoes full of the soft sand. It was scary the first few times standing at the top ready to launch yourself downwards but even I, total wimp, love the experience.

These walks on the marshes have whetted my appetite and I'm going to try and find time to have some proper walks on the Burrows. This would be a good time of year to spot the specialised sand dune plants that are totally different to the lush hedgerow plants I see every day.

Once the rain had set in these cattle had wisely found the sheltered side of a ruined stone barn.




Finally, I took this picture because a morion is not an everyday object in most people's homes. This helmet was borrowed by Romas at last weekend's muster and he'll be returning it when he goes to a Major muster near Guildford this Bank Holiday weekend. He would love to have his own morion and armour but they're quite expensive. Peter's old armour and morion have been passed onto Vytas who has made good use of them. (Spellchecker doesn't like the word morion and is suggesting I use moron instead!)

Today was the last day before the holidays for the children at school. I shall be spending my holiday putting information into the children's e-profiles and doing all sorts of other paperwork. Tomorrow, with 3 other teachers, I'll be going for a day course on Forest Schools. As far as I can make out it's all to do with using the outdoor environment and I'm expecting a combination of field trip activities and scout camp (many happy years spent there). We have been told that we'll be cooking our own lunch,presumably over an open fire. I'm just wondering how it will fit in with the current risk assessment culture, once upon a time there was a thing called common sense which people were credited with but not any more.

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