Optimistic and Awesome October

Indeed. There is something about October which heralds promise: summer is over by the end of September, but October promises autumnal splendour. Autumn colours; Harvest Festival; a crispness to the air; sunny days...

Fort Grey on a sunny evening

Sunset over Rocqaine Bay

Murmuring whelks

And still a few blackberries, many mushrooms, hazelnuts aplenty and hedgerows dotted with rose hips.

Purple peril, happily growing next to the spinach in the compost heap.

Not that there are any of the latter two, nuts or rosehips, left on our bushes at school: the 'Jubilee Hedge', planted with trees from the Woodland Trust several years ago, has already been decimated by the children playing in the mud, digging up or crushing tender young saplings. The hazel bushes have grown tall and splendid, but they now produce hazelnuts and so, because one of the children has nut allergies, they have been chopped down and removed. (Actually, only one so far, falsely identified as the source of the nuts which have found their way into pockets, desk drawers and lockers: the real culprit has escaped since the senior leader who investigated had misunderstood where the children were playing and so did not notice the tree. An easy mistake because, of course, it had already been stripped of nuts whereas the innocent one still had nuts left on it.)

I take a deep breath: the gardens I had, over the years, so lovingly developed and nurtured are, mostly, no more. One area was demolished to make way for the outdoor classroom while the other has suffered both neglect - we have no gardeners assigned to look after our flower beds and flowering shrubs - and outright vandalism as children have broken branches off trees or pushed their way through the living walls of the willow tunnel, breaking the withies. The willow tries valiantly to survive, but much of the walls of the tunnel now have gaping holes in them. Yet, as a school, we promote Outdoor Learning...

Anyway. I took a few remaining hazelnuts safely home...while walnuts from a tree overhanging the school field were avidly collected by the children. Don't think there are any walnut allergies in school.

October has been full of parents' evenings: enjoyable - I love meeting the parents. We all agreed about our understanding of the children, too - always gratifying to know I have 'read' the children correctly. Teaching-wise, we have used ICT to create leaflets, always a challenge, but the children coped really well. They went on to use their newly-acquired skills to type up stories before analysing which writing features they had managed to use, colour-coding their findings. A final ICT project before half term was to make timelines. Satisfying to see how successful they have been... standing in good stead for the future.

And more than satisfying to get a wonderful 'thank you' letter, quite unprompted, from one of the girls. She was SO positive and appreciative that I nearly cried...

By that time, it was October 25th. The rest of the month is at www.travelswithpickle.blogspot.com 

Half term. Always an optimistic ending. And so we head on to Halloween...

Hedgeveg with a vengeance...

The end of the month saw us off to England again, for the motorhome's annual check and our annual trip to catch up with family and friends... all details on https://travelswithpickle.blogspot.com/2019/10/autumn-jhalf-term-away-again.html

Stunning September

Well, by the middle of September, July and August had vanished in a blur. However, the weather did not disappoint, and by the third week of the month, the sun was as warm as the summer months. September 21st, the 'beginning of autumn', was hot, sunny and delightful.

Inbetween, it was back to school and catching up at home with a vengeance and we were both very busy. The children seemed to have come back intent on obtaining individual attention by any means: not easy when there are 21 in the class! All lovely individuals, though. One boy, C, is especially kind-hearted and helpful to others, unobtrusively comforting and assisting his neighbour in trouble. In addition, when I had changed out of PE kit after lunch, he blurted out in front of the class I like your top!"  Then another child started to discuss the pattern on my brightly coloured shirt, somewhat inarticulately - eventually I realised he was talking about Aboriginal art. You've got to love ten year olds....

Still, they are hard work sometimes. I hear my colleague give the same instruction on repeat, time after time after time...

I've carried on cycling to school, sometimes with my 'old' bike, laden with panniers and wide tyres; often with the electric bike. Yet another motoroist delighted me one morning when, drawing up behind me at traffic lights, he got out of his car and berated the driver of the car in front who had cut in on me dangerously and unnecessarily. Absolutely MADE MY DAY.

Richard has been super busy cleaning and tidying up the motorhome, ready for its service in England next month, and doing all kinds of maintenance and catch up jobs. Not least the garden...so many hedges to cut.

Meanwhile, I try to retain some measure of individual 'freedom', as far as I am able when back at work full time. Small delights: picking blackberries or a walk on the cliffs...a quick excursion with a bodyboard to catch the surf... catching up with friends over tea, coffee, breakfast, supper... celebrating a 60th birthday milestone... going to hear Graham Kendrick in concert: a wonderful, worshipful evening.

The tomato plants lovely Nicky gifted me...

And the resultant tomatoes...love the smell of tomato plants

Afternoon on the cliffs...

Evening walk...

On our way home from church...

Vazon super surfing...

Super hectic, but a super September.