Things I have learned in the last few days.

1. Bad weather is great for bird watching. We've been making sure we keep our feeders topped up over the last week. We have been rewarded by tens of birds visiting our garden. We've had feeders that look like pictures in an RSPB catalogue. We've also had some rarish visitors like flocks of waxwings and fieldfare. So feed the birds! (bit more than tuppence a bag but it's worth it)

2. Get a job as a banker if you can. How can they get bonuses? A bonus has to be performance related. Some of these guys seem to have negotiated contracts where their bonuses are guaranteed!!!

Things I learned Yesterday

Yesterday for the first time in 15 years of teaching the school where I teach shut, due to the snow.

Here are some things I learned on my day off.

1. Being able to sit and eat your breakfast whilst reading the days paper on the day it arrives is very pleasurable (but not for my wife as I spent all day saying...In the guardian this morning do you know what someone wrote?)
   
   
2. Watching a Reed Bunting and other birds around your feeders in the snow is very pleasurable.



3. Most of the world still views that my job is not to educate children in a safe and stimulating environment, its basically to look after them all day so their parents can go to work. Maybe they can tell Ofsted and the DCSF thats all they want.



4. That most people don't understand that children have the right to be educated in this country, they don't have a right to free childcare.



5. That Oliver Postgate was a poet. The opening to Noggin and Nog is as lyrical piece of prose as you could wish to read.

Big up the Dipper

One fantastic walk.

Sunday dawned clear and sunny once again. My three wonderful boys were visiting us for the weekend and so we decided to go for a walk. Choosing a route we had not been for a while and one that can be wet we set off. We shortly came across an old weir and evidence (like some lost civilisation) of 18th and 19th century industry. The river after the weir was shallower the water running quicker and then we saw them. A flash of dark brown, then a glimpse of white and we stood enchanted for a short while by two pairs of dippers feeding and foraging in the water. This rare and shy bird is not often seen but fascinating to watch when you do find them. They feed by running / swimming underwater to catch invertebrates hiding in the river bed. More well known bird watchers than ourselves have failed to see Dippers, indeed I seem to remember seeing a BBC clip recently where the presenter tried and only caught a glimpse of these shy birds. So here we were about 7 miles from the centre of Sheffield watching them. I think even my boys were impressed. And now the dilemma...do I tell you were we were?????????