An Ugly Duckling.

It was fine, IT WAS FINE ! My prayers were answered, I kept my cool and was able to supply relevant 'teacher' knowledge of the 3 children chosen to be looked at in detail in terms of assessment of maths and physical development. As a team we were very strong in our respective areas, my Headteacher, the girl whose class I'm teaching (and myself). I've never had any doubt that what we are doing is good teaching but the parameters for the paperwork seem to change on a whim and we are at the mercy of those further up in the chain. But most of all we were blessed by the fact that the moderator who came (we had been expecting some one else), was supportive and in tune with the realities of teaching, she appeared to like what we are doing and apart from one or two adaptions to the paper work, we are doing all that we should be and our judgements are sound. Phew, now that is off my back I can enjoy the rest of the summer term. Arts fortnight starts next Monday HOORAY !

Romas had his drum lesson tonight so I was back down at Velator with half a loaf of stale bread to see if I could find the swan again. Small waterways run alongside the road with frequent little bridges to the fields.

Everywhere the flowers are a designer's dream. Pink & white or ......

..... bright gold & green.

And I found the swan, with her cygnet.

Here they are just a few feet from me, snaffling up the bread in the water.

I backed off to about 20 ft away when the swan got out of the water and then missed a brilliant shot of the swan with its wings totally outstretched because I knocked one of the buttons on the camera and couldn't get out of the menu in time.

We're having a chill out evening watching a film on tv (Raging Sharks) that is so really really bad it's very funny. It has a nice line in sharks that roar like tigers and the actors are all anorexic wannabes with massive collagen lips. Good for a laugh.

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Morte Point.

It was a wild and stormy night. The shipping forecast last night gave gale force 8 for this area and the winds continued into today.

Early morning at the top of the drive.

I had the day at home so the morning was spent hoovering ,chopping wood and clearing up. I had a carload of stuff for the dump then I rewarded myself with a walk at Morte Point. This is my favourite local walk because the rugged landscape reminds me of Cornwall , where I grew up.

I spotted three seals down in this gully. We usually see the seals in this area but you do have to know what you are looking for. One can be seen just on the edge of the shadow in the gully.

I took lots of photos of the seals but they were quite far away and most of the pictures were of the ' that dark smudge is a seal' variety.

Despite a heavy shower as I arrived in Mortehoe the skies eventually cleared though the wind remained really strong.

I took lots more photos but I'll save them for a later past.

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