Monday

Yet another Monday comes round, this and one more to go, plus a Tuesday, and school will be out.
It's lovely and sunny at the moment but it was a cool night.  I was glad to snuggle under the quilt to stay warm.

Yesterday was an OK day.  I baked six little loaves of bread, gave three of them to Beth and demolished half of one myself for tea as it was pretty delicious.  Lunch was nice.  There were home/allotment grown potatoes, broad beans and runner beans (from last year, frozen) and Beth had home made chick pea and apricot curry while Al and I had chicken pie (NOT home made).  All very scrummy and filling.

Earlier in the day I planted those three little tomato plants in the bed and sowed some more carrot seeds, the packet assuring me that it certainly was not too late, so fingers crossed.

Then Beth and I settled to watch 'Frozen' which Beth has never seen and I went to sleep!  When I woke up everything was muffled and it took me a while to realise that one of my hearing aid batteries had died.  It bleeps at me, you see, but I must have been very asleep!

I felt very tired for the rest of the day and went to bed pretty early, thankful that I can!

And now it is today!

Sunday

I have often mentioned that I sit here and watch the sunrise as shown by the shadows that gradually retreat on the walls of the houses I can see through my smallest window.  You see, I have a south-ish facing garden and the sun rises to the front/side of the house where I can't see it.  This is what I see.

I took it this morning, from the garden, zoomed a bit, but it is the view I get.  To the right of the photo is the road and then countryside and to the left is the rest of the estate.  I love watching the shadows go as the sun takes ownership of the day but not so much when the shadows fight back and the sun vanished again, as has happened this morning.


It has been raining overnight so that saves me a watering job.  I did the growhouse tomatoes last night so they will be OK.  The place is virtually bursting to the seams and it makes me wish I had the room, the skill and the time for a proper greenhouse.  However, I don't, so the growhouse is a great half way solution!

As I have mentioned before, I am growing tomatoes for all three of us this year, me, Beth and Alex, so I am delighted that the outside tomatoes are coming on a real treat.  Six plants should give me plenty of fruit and I'm feeding them now as the first trusses are showing.

The veg bed is looking a bit thin on the ground but the space is for leeks and broccoli when it is the right time for Beth to get them over to me.  The carrots ( seen through the runner beans) aren't doing so well and I think a cat is doing some damage as one of the plastic labels has been dislodged and is in the middle of the bed.  I need to sow some more seed and just hope it isn't too late.  The corn in the background seems to have decided to stay and is now starting to send up new growth so maybe that will be OK.
I have three smaller tomato plants that are refusing to die so I think I might pop them in the bed along one side and just see what happens to them.  After all, you can't have too many tomatoes, can you?

The flowers are OK.  Sometimes I think they are all a bit of a muddle and sometimes I like the random look.  I need to be more organised.  I'm not sure the crocosmia is really in the right place, the bright red is a jarring colour amid the mostly blues, pinks and lilacs and they do grow so very tall.  I know I wanted tall but . . .   I'm starting to think I might have them out in the Autumn and perhaps pop them either in a large pot so that they can go into a shady corner, or round the front where it is out of direct sunlight for more than half of the day.  Oh, I'm hopeless at making decisions.

The green and aromatic bed has a new focus as the grass in the middle sends up its flowers.  That adds height too but it works because the various greens are in harmony.  The red you can see is the tomato food bottle (ooops), not a flower.

Sorry, I know I am going on about the garden a lot and it's not as if it is a particularly interesting or sizeable garden but there's not a lot of interest going on at school right now apart from sorting stuff out and paperwork, endless, overwhelming paperwork!!!  When I started teaching it was totally the other extreme: very little accountability and hardly any paperwork at all.  I'm not sure we even did reports, I don't remember them anyway.  Things had to change and they did but it is now totally to the opposite extreme and equally stupid.

Still - just three weeks to go.  Three weeks minus one day as next Monday (not tomorrow) the Tour de France is coming right past us, actually on that road I mentioned above.  All the roads round here will be closed and no-one will be able to get anywhere.  Well, I could get to school because it's just down the bottom of the road, but hardly anyone else will and it also affects a goodly number of pupils as we have a lot of out of catchment children who come by car.  So school is closed that day!  
Sad, innit?

Addition

I forgot to say, my new microwave arrived yesterday.  It's the same make as the dead one (because it suits me, it's a Bosch, it's just the right size, right price, etc) so I've just realised I will have a spare - oh, what do you call it? - the glass thing that goes round? - turntable!!!  Not that I've ever had an accident with a turntable before but you never know.  I'm sure I shall sleep sounder at night knowing I have a spare.  Yes, definitely I will!  :-)

Here it is!

Saturday . . .

. . . and the end of a frantically busy week with loads going on and very little spare time for non-essentials (like teaching??? - no, not really, that still had to be done too).  There's still a couple of thing on my 'aaarrrggghhh' list but I think I can see my way through them OK now.

So, yesterday.  The morning was wall to wall meetings.  I really shouldn't have tried to fit in two meetings in one morning but we managed and even had time for a coffee and a relax in between.  They were very good meetings too.  Helpful and informative.

Then in the afternoon I bustled around getting the relevant paperwork for the meetings amended, corrected and sent off to the LEA.  After that I had a good blitz of my mountain of 'stuff' which is now all in filing pockets ready to go into the appropriate file today.  Yes, I'm off into school this afternoon for several hours of work which should make the place look very, very different, I hope.  It's a pain but it will make the place look very, very different and a lot less stressful so it is worth the time.

After that, apart from planning, that's it for the weekend, I reckon!  Phew!

As I was doing the early morning watering I found these in the grow house - it shouldn't be long before some of the others get the idea too and, hey presto, tomatoes galore!  I feel quite excited about it!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Friday

Was there a storm last night, I wonder?  I ask because I went to bed (and to sleep - yay) very early last night and I never hear anything once my hearing aids are out, but the ground was wet this morning.  I ummed and ahed about my early morning watering before deciding that I would.  I'm glad I did because I saw this little fellow.

Yes - my first runner bean!  Isn't it cute?

And I am really glad I planted some more beans where I killed the original ones because they're growing up strongly (albeit rather nibbled in places) so I should get a crop from them.  They're way behind the rest, of course, but never mind.

Sports Afternoon yesterday went really well.  The sun shone but there was a refreshing breeze, the children were happy, the adults were happy - what more could one ask?  There were a few tumbles, inevitably, but no disasters and no glaring gaps in the organisation thereof!  Phew!  As always, the year sixes were splendid, explaining the activities, scoring them, cheering the children on as well as helping to keep scores up to date and giving out programmes at the gate, etc . . . we couldn't do it without them, that's for sure!  That's another one ticked off the list.

Two meetings this morning.  Darn it!  Too too many as I'm stiff and weary - all afternoon walking around was not that good for my knee and ankle (yes, I am an old crock!!) and I might not be that cheerful, but never mind!  We will get there in the end and there's always ibuprofen or the equivalent.

I am hoping no emergencies come up and that I can sort out and file loads of paperwork and get loads of other paperwork sent off and ticked off.  Fingers crossed.

Thursday

The days don't get any easier at the moment but working with such fantastic colleagues helps more than I can say.  Yesterday was unrelenting but we all survived.

Thank you to everyone for your responses to my bug photo.    Maybe I will see another one at some point.  At the moment I am battling blackfly and am definitely using bug stuff not weed stuff.

Yesterday some perennials I ordered were delivered.  One was a blue 'poppy', one was a Japanese anemone and the last was an 'everlasting' flower.  All perennials so I will leave them in the pots they arrived in while I decide where to plant them.  I think they will be lovely!

Today - well, it is sports day so things will be very busy and hectic and I will be glad when the afternoon is over.  I think I have planned everything but you never know, do you!

Fingers crossed.

Now to water the garden!

Wednesday

Atishoo, atishoo, atishoo!  Better get the tablet down me!

I went out the water the garden and that's the result.  With both humidity and pollen count quite high, it's all a bit overwhelming but I am very thankful that it is not like this all summer and that cooler, more comfortable weather will come along.  I'm also thankful for the sun!

Yesterday was - well, yesterday.  I think I am almost ready for Sports Day, the paperwork just needs polishing up a bit and staff meeting shouldn't be too challenging this evening.  So why am I not sleeping?  It's ridiculous.

While watering the garden yesterday I saw this little chap.  Does anyone know what it is?

He was very polite and stood absolutely still on the hose while I took some photos.  I think that if you click on the photo it will enlarge.

Better go, I need to be off soon.  Have a pleasant day, everyone.