Naughty November

Well, naughty sounds a bit mischievous and so, with the nights drawing in and the clocks having gone back, a bit of mischief to see us through the month seems appropriate.

Not sure what that would look like, though. Perhaps we should have Nice November instead - certainly having a few friends round for meals is definitely nice, something to enjoy. So we did... asking friends old and new on several occasions. And home group, every Thursday evening, is always welcomed and full of laughter.

The weather has been naughty, though. Torrential rain began the first day of half term and barely stopped, with some impressive rain and hail storms every day until mid-way through the month. A corner of the garden, where some topsoil had been removed to form a raised vegetable bed, was under water for a week, the ground remaining soggy for some time afterwards.

The poor bees, who had taken up residence in a hole in the front bank at the beginning of October, huddled inside, sending out only solitary envoys occasionally. We miss them: there were so many buzing in and out, passing us by without a second glance. Hopefully they will survive the winter...

The term wound on, reports ever-looming. There were many light moments: the child who told his rather voluble classmate: "Your mouth is so big it should have its own postcode" caused inadvertent laughter to escape from my mouth. I had to do a lot of reassuring...it is, after all, rather insulting to have such a thing said to you. Then I had one child away ill... it turned out to be appendicitis. Or so the caretaker told me. I didn't hear it from anyone else, though did check with the person who should have told me, as class teacher, if that was true before we sent the get well card...
Then there was the six year old in RE who said we could send money to the poor. "Yes," I replied, "to Guernsey Welfare" (the foodbank charity the school supports). The child looked puzzled. "Australia," he replied...

The weather changed half way through the month, becoming drier. Cycling home was no longer such a chore (some days I arrived, drenched to the skin), providing treats in the dusk of stunning and sunsets and glimpses of owls. One evening, a barn owl flew over the fields on either side, swooping and flying at an astonishingly fast speed along the hedges, its wings gleaming palely in the gloaming as it criss-crossed. Mesmerising. I was grateful for the deserted lane I had chosen to follow home. Especially when my light's battery almost died one evening, so I coasted carefully down the lane in the twilight, barely enough natural light to see by...

And so we roll on towards December...