Design

"The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles." I've just read this quote on a friend's Face book page and thought it very apt. I'm dreadful for moaning on about all the things that are going on and making myself more miserable in the process. So today was good in that all my parents turned up on time and I kept each meeting to the required less than 10 mins . Also when I found out that my poor TA (teaching assistant) has laryngitis and won't be in for the rest of the week, I was 'lent' a capable student from another class and was able to get on with sorting out books for the parents to see as parents would be arriving almost as soon as the children left the classroom. Driving home with the gentle rain obscuring the hills, I didn't even bother to look in the mirror to see what was happening with the sunset. It wasn't until I was on the last stretch that I spotted the break in the cloud cover w...

Both my journeys today were very similar. This morning the lack of cloud cover meant the temperature had plummeted and there was ice on the car windscreen but this was balanced by increased light levels. Venus was living up to its alternative name The Morning Star or Eosphus and shining brightly in the deep blue sky. To the east the deep blue was lightening to a royal blue with the first streaks of turquoise on the horizon. It was so good to be able to see where I was going and not be blinded by the car lights bouncing back off the rain or fog. Just after Ashelford Corner I came upon a hare running down the road. I slowed down and gave it the chance to jink sideways into the hedge. Coming home tonight it was another clear night and this time my way was lit by the full moon. Once again the deep blue sky shaded down to a dirty turquoise changing to orange brown shades on the horizon across the sea. Small grey clouds could be seen scattered in the evening sky over the dark hills dotted...

Evening sun at school looking towards the junior school with the corner of my classroom/hut in the foreground. The school play is now taking over our lives, long rehearsals started in earnest today and next week's timetable is mainly rehearsals and singing practice. At this stage it seems to be going well, only 2 more weeks and we'll be doing it for real. This year we are doing 2 evening performances to fit in with parents' schedules. It would be nice if we had a couple of hours later start on the following mornings to fit in with our personal schedules. Dream on. Look blue skies! makes a nice change. This morning I had the Headteacher and one of the Literacy co- ordinators come to observe my guided reading session (where a group of children read the same book not together but at their own pace.) I do my guided reading out in our cloakroom where we sprawl on a couple of PE mats that I have stashed away in there. The fun part of these sessions is that we do a lot of talk...

I've got into the habit of watching tv late in the evening and generally that means some sort of crime drama set in British cities. This has brought home to me how lucky I am to be living here - simply in visual terms. I lived for many years in the heart of London and the lack of beauty in the environment was one of the things I found so depressing. You could if you narrowed your focus find beautiful things to see but you had to look really hard and develop tunnel vision to filter out all the crap around. There are magnificent buildings but for the most part everything is drab and dirty and the sky is generally only glimpsed above a non descript sky line. And out in suburbia (which thank goodness I only passed through) there is the added unremitting monotony. Here I am fortunate enough to have beauty at every turn. Tonight the sky was that lovely mix of high cirrus clouds with lower fluffy cumulus clouds. I wasn't too pleased with the blurry foreground in these shots wh...

I have to admit I wasn't too thrilled at having to leave my cosy home at 9.30 last night to drive into town to pick up Linas from the train station. However I was rewarded with the sight of a blazing sunset, and the pink glow of the sunset reflected on the clouds to the east. Now that I've worked out how to use the manual settings on my camera I have a better chance of capturing the true colours of the sky. It was still light and warm at this late- ish hour reminding me that we've just passed the summer Solstice. I try not to think about this as now the nights are getting longer . I don't really want to focus on that as it's still another 4 weeks until the school summer holidays. As my life's rhythms have always been dictated by the academic year, ( my school days, uni, the boys' school days and now my work), for me summer starts at the end of July when the school summer holidays start. Driving into town in this soft light I saw buzzards , rabbits and ...

It has been a gloriously sunny day today. Cold but sunny. I didn't get a chance to work outside today as the piano tuner was coming to tweek the piano back into shape. It's been 18 months since he last came, (he rings me when he is working locally) , but he knows this piano stays in tune quite well as it is in a cold room. (The far end of the sitting room, well away from the wood burner.) Instead of stomping about in the garden I tidied up the place and even washed all the blue glass on the kitchen window sill as the sun was shinning through and highlighting all the cobwebs in the window. Now the window and all the glass are sparkling in the welcome sun. Well not right now 'cos it's dark but you get the picture. Then it was off to teach for the afternoon and earn some pennies for the bank. A little shopping after school and home with a few stops to capture the afternoon sun.