Ferocious February? No, Feeble February. Even FANTASTIC February

Well, we had hoped that February would be drier than January, but it certainly didn’t start off that way and by February 3^rd the garden was completely awash again: the pump could barely keep up and water flowed into the ‘swamp’ as quickly as water was pumped out.

Even February 2^nd – Candlemas – was a disappointment. In my mind, it should be crisp and clear. To add to that, the film Groundhog Day, featuring the semi-mythical groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, wasn’t even on television. Not that I would have had time to watch: I was mired in online marking as, once again, we struggled to carry on teaching through lockdown. I worked out that I had in the region of 250 assessments a week to feedback on...

So I did what any self-respecting teacher would do and took up some crafting hobbies. Specifically, a little darning, a little crochet and a little embroidery, customizing my elegantly navy face mask with yellow and white flowers and a little rainbow. #littlethingstokeepmesane

At school, we were told to decorate/embellish a mask, send in the photo and the deputy head would create a 'Guess Who' powerpoint. I made quite sure that I would be completely unrecognisable...

...though I did have my own more respectable, embroidered one.

Half term was a relief and provided an opportunity to catch up on marking... those assignments that had been handed in, anyway. And then it snowed! Light grains, consistently for a few hours, were enough to put patchy coverings on banks and lawn. Fun.

Guernsey continued in lockdown... mask wearing in force.

Generally, February turned into a maw of lockdown and weather. Warm days, sunny days – heating up the front porch to ridiculous temperatures, cold days. We had grainy snow one afternoon, which lingered in ice puddles for several days, but not the wonderful soft sticky stuff we longed for. High winds, waves, bright seas...every day seemed different. And, despite the greyness, it became gradually lighter.

It seemed hard to stay in touch with friends and family, despite Zoom or Skype. Overwhelmed with marking online work, which trickled relentlessly over long days, it was hard to find creativity for anything else. The lockdown was not at all as enjoyable as last year's, when we had the wonderful company of Jonny and Adele, and then Nicky and Richard next door...

Still, I made lemon curd; finished customising my face mask with embroidery; started, half-heartedly, a crochet project before running out of wool. The woodburner came into its own, greedily eating up garden kindling, throwing heat out into the room. I discovered a new and successful recipe for gluten-free Christmas cake. The trouble was... I had adapted it, but not remembered what I had done. Prunes were a factor, as were apricots and too much liquid. Had to try again.

Feeling sorry for the birds, I decided to be more intentional and discovered that they loved porridge oats. The robins were particular fans and we soon discovered that four of them lived in the garden when they dcied on the oats even before I had retreated into the house after restocking the feeder every morning. Great tits, coal tits, dunnocks and even a wren were soon seen to join the robins. What a joy.

 Christmas decorations were, finally, tucked away, save for the collection of hearts which moved to a twig tree in the entrance hall. A little tidying up, a little catching up of emails. A sense of time wasted, spinning in circles as we waited for warmth.

A serious energy deficit, a sense of impotency in Feeble February. 

And then... it all changed. My winter posts are heavily weather dominated, not least because the weather has such an effect on our wellbeing. The last week in February was marked by much warmer weather, no rain and brilliant sunshine. Flowers bloomed: daffodils, primroses, violets, celandines...

Sitting outside on the last Saturday of the month, my shoulders were sun-tinged. I can't say sunburnt - we are talking February in the northern hemisphere, after all - but definitely a change of colour after an hour of basking in the sun on the bench outside the front door. No wind, 'feels like' temperatures in the twenties.

Add to that: lockdown rules relaxed. We were allowed to 'bubble' with one other household and could gather outside, masked and socially distanced, with up to five of us altogether. It made such a difference being able to meet friends again. Of course, I'd had a great deal of online interaction: meetings with children and colleagues; Bible studies online; and numerous one to one or group gatherings via Zoom. Still, being able to have friends round, or go out to breakfast, was a joy. The last Saturday, in fact, we had a pre-breakfast cycle ride on our way to our 'bubble' for breakfast; bumped into a friend out for a walk on the way home; a family stopped on their cycle ride past our house; and my dear friend and colleague Carry and husband dropped in on their cycles for a socially distanced chat. Really wonderful.

So my motivation returned. I was inspired by Orsola De Castro, an Italian woman who has founded and created Fashion Revolution in a bid to change the way we approach fashion, encouraging us to conserve and restore the environment with the choices we make about fashion. One of the simplest changes was to repair, rather than throw away, clothes.

In theory, that has never been a problem for me, but I don't always catch the necessary repairs in time. All through lockdown I have kept cosy in a couple of old - at least 25 years between them - cashmere jumpers. Both of them had been repaired but still had worn completely through at the elbows, the sleeves hanging in tatters. Inspried by Orsola, I cut the sleeves off to just above elbow length, hemming them neatly, patching the larger holes and embroidering wherever I could, albeit in the same colour. 

I was thrilled with the result and am inspired to, perhaps, seek out similar garments in charity shop throw outs to see if I can similarly rehabilitate beautiful wool. A new hobby...

So, when I look back, I see a full month. I may have felt, at times, as if I did nothing except sit in front of  a computer, teaching lessons, marking work or attempting to sort out a myriad of different issues, but in fact life was considerably richer than that. Prayers with friends over Zoom, or writing a prayer in a birthday card, were answered subtly and quietly. Creativity in embroidery and sewing lifted my spirits. And talks with family - Cara particularly becoming ever more interactive - were a joy.

Fantastic February indeed.

March mayhem. Not madness. Just merriment.

The month began with snow... #saynomore #hugelongblogpost

Then it all calmed down. A few days later the temperature rose ten degrees and the sun was shining. Not, of course, all the time. Typical March: one on, one definitely off - cloudy, murky, raining. For the first half of the month, anyway.

Grape hyacinths just outside the front door...

'Little guy' not so little any more... producing a long tendril, carrying offspring.  #morelittleguys

The month was filled with fun.

At school, we had all kinds of challenges which had little to do with teaching but, perhaps, a lot to do with education in many areas.

First off was 'team building'. Teachers and teaching assistants working in one part of the school were requested to go on some kind of team building activity; perhaps playing golf, or watching a film together as one of the other teams had done. Our ideas ranged from a chocolate-making workshop to an adventure activity involving problem solving (at a cost of a mere £50 plus....). Putting aside my strong objection to being required to take part in a work-related activity in my own time at my own expense (yes! really! #worldofeducationworkers #neverheardofcorporatefunding), I went, with half a dozen colleagues, to take part in a quiz.

It was GREAT. A fundraising event held by parents for and at the Upper School (our secondary education department), it was a really good evening. The questions were all based on school subjects and were easily doable or guessable. We had to guess quite a lot.... the History round was surprisingly tricky and quite informative. Who would recognise the name of the inventor of the 'kitchen time saving device' and then correctly identify said device? (Our 'educated' guess of microwave was CORRECT!)

One round involved building a world-famous landmark out of spaghetti and marshmallows. Trying to guess what the children might be impressed by, we went for the pyramids of Egypt. We even managed to make a (very sticky) marshmallow mummy. It was very hard to tell from the faces of the Year 7 children whether we had impressed them or not. Possibly not. Their response seemed rather like that of an indulgent parent, looking at the attempts of their three year old to reproduce the Mona Lisa... or the wonders of the ancient world, in this case.

Anyway, we came a very respectable fourth out of 15 teams. It was also a fun evening of reconnecting with former parents and pupils (including one young man who was almost unrecognisable as the nine year old I remember) and, of course, building stronger relationhips with our team.

Otherwise, March is building up to the End of Term and the School Production. And Production It Is.  This year, the musical 'Seussical', based on the books of Dr Seuss, has been chosen. We were treated to the opening sequence one assembly: much polishing to take place, apparently, but to the untutored eye it was already impressive, worthy of a West End production.  Rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals was the Word of The Week... the last TWO weeks of term, in fact. More to come in April...

On top of learning lines and songs and, in the case of Year 6, complicated actions, the children had other tasks to achieve. Complicated Science homework for National Science Week, including designing a poster; an art competition for a play promotion poster; and taking part in a photography competition. (Staff were required to enter as well: I managed to drag something out of the archive of photos we took in France at half term, but it did motivate me to snap various other 'nature inspired' shots as we went on walks...

With all of this, there is no time for any charity fundraising: for the first time since I arrived at the school, we are not supporting Sports Relief...

Instead, we had an 'Outdoor Neuroplasticity Challenge Day'. I was indeed challenged in trying to come up with an activity which would engage 4 year olds equally as well as 11 year olds... and help them to work together in a team. Solution: build a Lego tree house in honour of our former head, who is seriously into Outdoor Learning and was visiting especially to officially 'open' our new outdoor classroom.  I had various 'Mr Walton' figures, from a block of wood sporting his photograph to a heavy metal Darth Vader figure (Mr Walton after eating a big dinner' and a Lego figure, appropriately dressed for hiking with hat, backpack and waterbottle. The children had great fun...

At home, we Skyped family: missing them so much and yet rejoicing in their adventurous and exciting lives. We watched the Six Nations Rugby, and a New Zealand film 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople', which brought back many memories, including the time we ended up being part of the background on John Campbell's news programme Campbell Live (we were in Manganui World Famous Fish and Chip Shop at the time) and stumbling across a huge car wrecker's yard at Horopito....recognising much of the scenery from our visits there.

Richard acquired a mechanical log splitter - and a load of firewood, just in time for another spell of cold weather. Many happy hours spent splitting and stacking wood: much easier than using a sledgehammer.

And the clocks 'spring forward', giving us an extra hour of life in the evenings. Time to get out in the garden...

Celandines heralding spring

Fattsia survives the snow

Evening view... con trails melting into the atmosphere... 

This beetle was covered with tiny crawling dudus... mites? aphids? spiders? Fast-moving on a sluggish beetle, yet he flew away out of the jar the next morning.

Another beetle, iridescent blue.

Thistle. #beautifulintherightplace #butnotinmygarden

End of the month - nearly - meant end of term. Endless Seussical rehearsals for my class; admiring the amazing Lego treehouses (I couldn't bear to break them up until the very last minute, holding an 'exhibition' in the classroom for the rest of the school); and....drum roll...coming runner up in the inaugural House Photography Competition with a photo of mistletoe-adorned trees lining the Canal D'Ille de Rance.  I'd only entered as a show of support. When the result was announced in the final assembly, I'd been so busy practising my 'jolly well done' smile for the winners that, shocked, I found myself clapping...myself!  #definitelynotaphotographer #notarty #supersurprised  I can't help feeling just a little bit happy that my little photo did so well, when the competition was judged by a professional photographer.  (Thank you, John Fitzgerald!)  Here it is...


The day after: the treat of a spa day at a local hotel with my good friend Kareena. Brunch, pool, sauna, spa, afternoon tea, chat, reading.... #supertreat

End of the month: finally: Good Friday.

Motorhome to France.
Another ferry crossing.
Another fortnight.

Filled with adventure
Pickle takes up residence
in her home on wheels.