Flameburst

We decided quite late on to go to the display at Baker's Field not having been to see any fireworks for several years. It's normally just the fact that Rosie gets so upset by them that causes us to notice it's that time of year again. However, Glen and Dan were keen to go and off we went little knowing how good they'd be.

The arena was full of bright lights and crowds of families alongside the milling groups of teens enjoying the rides and sounds of the fair. A live band did a very good range of covers including lots of blues but being Graham Mack's Blues Band I guess that was only to be expected. He's the morning DJ from 2CR and he made a good impression on the crowd with lots of confidence before leading the countdown to the fireworks. They were spectacular and set to music including the fianl part of the 1812 overture, cannon sounds included. You could feel the explosions speed through you they were that strong.

I was much more impressed than I'd expected although Glen and Dan played it all down being far too cool to say it was any good.

Potterne to Moors Valley and more

Yesterday was generally dry and a good day for the fireworks later in the evening at Flameburst. I took Glen to football training and walked Rosie to Moors Valley while waiting. Joe as home for the weekend with his girlfriend and, as you can see in the photo, he successfully encouraged them to play a network game of Unreal Tournament.

Glen's fish are still doing great with no losses for six months bar one neon tetra.

Ice skating in Plymouth

These are some of the photos from trip to Plymouth on Thursday. There are more at flickr.com. We went to the Pavillions and the children all skated showing impressive technique in every case. There were very few falls at all although I did manage to get a photo of Lewis on the floor. Mind you he didn't mind crashing into people as he made it back to the side of the rink and was told off for throwing ice around. We finished off the day with a trip to the Ship at Elburton where the girls, Emily, Charlotte and Rochelle ate their own weight in roast potatoes, vegetables, yorkshire pudding, gravy and turkey.

Servicing the cars

These pictures were taken as we went down to Verwood to collect our cars from their services. Despite being booked in on consecutive days we ended up without mine for two days as a lot of work was required. The garage were very good and added a complimentary car wash for Alison's car as a reward for the £1250 work needed. The bill came as something of a shock!

We took the route across the golf course.

Weymouth

Joe was home for the weekend and we took him back yesterday with the intention of going to Weymouth and starting some Christmas shopping with him. As it turned out he got quite a few gifts while managing to retain most of his own money! We must be such soft touches : )

We had an all day breakfast in a cafe where we'd gone with Morag and Rochelle in the summer and then shopped around for a few hours. Very impressed by Brewers Quay and imagine we'll be back again to visit before long.

http://www.brewers-quay.co.uk/

In the evening it was off to QE for 7 a side football in the pouring rain and I mean pouring. I was astonished the game was on even though it was an all weather pitch and got soaked through. Fortunately I'd taken a change of clothes and towel which made sitting in the pub discussing our 4 - 1 defeat more comfortable. There must have been at least an inch of rain!

Saturday in the woods

Our walk on Saturday was a little overcast and the ground is becoming muddier with the rain of last week. We went through the woods with the field becoming boggy where the horses drink and by the stile. The bracken is becoming brown and the leaves are on the fall but the beetles are still out in force clearing the leaf litter. They seem to clear up just about everything in there.

AS you can see Maisy is more than able to hold her own in the woods despite her size and enjoyed clambering over the logged tree trunks. Rosie had her nose down in the grass and was busy excavating while I sat and listened to the football commentary. Spurs equalised against Man U as I sat there. I enjoy listening to 5Live on the Saturday afternoon.

Martindown

Rosie and I spent a few hours at Martindown on Sunday and it was alomst totally deserted. Bokerly Dyke runs alongside it; there is a good deal of history to the region.

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4647

There were plenty of skylarks about with large areas fenced off to prevent disturbance to their nests during the summer. Poor Rosie got an electric shock from one fence and wimpered sadly while I watched the stonechats on the other side. Other birds included lapwings and plenty of gulls feeding in the adjacent fields which had been recently ploughed. The hegdes were still full of crimson berries and I imagine will be sustaining the birds for several weeks to come.

Half term approaching!

Here comes half-term.

For some reason internet access is not working in school right now meaning I can’t get on with working on the SEF which for those of you who don’t follow school acronyms stands for Self-Evaluation Form. I should be working on that today as most other members of staff are involved with citywide INSET, in service training.

In the meantime I thought I’d update the blog.

Thirty Plus lost 2 - 1 on Monday in the start of the new season in 7 a side at Wimborne. We finished fourth out of 11 in the first season and aim to do just enough to avoid promotion where it is far too serious for us old ‘uns. Surprisingly I was told to play up front again having moved into defence on the grounds that I had the best touch and could hold the ball up which I’m sure should mean you are even worse at the back than you are up front.
The week at school started with tutor review interviews in which students talk with their tutors individually and that meant no formal lessons giving me time to work on SMT related matters, the TLR structure in particular. Sorry to keep using these abbreviations. The teaching and learning responsibilities requirements have meant us looking at the structure of the school in detail and planning for 2009. It has also meant the possibility of upsetting people as their salaries may fall as they do not qualify for a particular strand or they are unhappy about having no official responsibilities despite their salaries remaining the same.
Partly resulting from the above but for other reasons as well, my colleague Jim, who started here at the same time as me, has been for interview and been appointed Head of History at another school starting after Christmas. He will be greatly missed and his absence will leave a huge gap in the timetable with few prospects of appointing anyone until Easter.
The evening INSET on Weds was good and allowed me to meet Head of English and the Head of Humanities for their performance management interviews. There are so many meetings though! Today I have met with colleagues from another local school to talk to them about our inclusion room and the impact it has had on the school. I didn’t tell them about the girl yesterday who had water thrown over her because she kept winding the others up. She’s Year 7 and has no concept of how other people see her and is soooooo irritating.

The good news is that it is half-term after today and I have lots of plans to do very little.

The oral assessments on Romeo and Juliet have been fantastic in the main and allowed the students to score highly even if I did get a little bored doing 50 or so individual sessions with the same questions.

Weekend walk - Saturday

The weather is almost like early summer allowing me to walk in just a t shirt listening to the football coverage from 5 Live. The skies were clear and blue and there were plenty of dragonflies too, one of which is pictured. I think it is a brown hawker according to Google which says it has bronze coloured wings.

Only another week to go before half term which would be great if the weather continues in this vein.

Weekend walk

Today I went round the Woodlands circle starting at Martin's Farm and ending up at the new golf course which is blossoming. You can see a blue tit feeding in the cherry tree which is rapidly losing its leaves and a robin singing in the morning sunshine. The garden spider is just one of many in the garden witht he webs showing up beautifully in th emornings as they are covered in dew.

The picture of Maisy shows her about to pounce on Rosie near Bounty Farm. She's just walked for almost an hour and a half and is fairly exhausted.

Woodlands Walk

The images are of the paths and fields between Martin's Farm and the new golf course.

Badbury Rings

Three of us visited Badbury Rings this afternoon taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Although we took Glen's mountain board it would have been a little irresponsible to use it on this iron age fort. Details can be found in one of the pistures on the following website: -

http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/early%20ages/badbury%20rings.htm

There are great views in all directions and plenty of walks besides the fort. The fields surrounding have been allowed to recover after harvesting and provide shelter for wildlife including a hare we disturbed. The edges of the fields have not been cut at all and are turning to seed in an effort to encourage the recovery of ground nesting birds.

Bird feeding

Just a few of the pictures I took this morning of the birds feeding in both the front and back gardens. They aren't particularly wonderful shots unfortunately as I struggle to get to grips with the didgtal zoom but the goldfinches do appear colourful, there is a lovely blue tit on the peanuts and a coal tit too.

We've been lucky to have a nuthatch visit regularly, actually there must be at least two of them, along with the sparrows, starlings, robin, dunnock, jackdaw, blackbird, long tailed tit, collared dove, greenfinch and so on. I'm going to try and get photos of them properly over the next weekends.

Misty Mornings

As you can see the weather on Saturday morning was damp and misty (the photo from the woods in the sunshine was taken the weekend before). Rosie and Maisy were running all over the place near the new golf course. From my old hunt sab days I believe the scents are good in this type of weather, lower to the ground in the damp air.

Alsion and I finished the levelling of the old rabbit run and have placed lots of pots there along with the 5 compost bins. We aim to grow some herbs and a little veg there and there will be plenty of compost to help the process along. I turned all of the heaps and managed to avoid any aches or panis this weekend compared to last. I think it had been so long since I had done any digging it made my muscles ache from lack of use.