Sunday 8th February 2009 - A perfect moment

We enjoyed yesterday so much, that my daughter Natlaie and I went back to Painshill park today for another walk. This time we expored areas we hadn't seen yesterday. The day was cold, but much sunnier than yesterday and it was amazing how much snow had disappeared over night. The picture below was taken from a seat at the top of a hill. We sat there for quite a while. I loved the way the sunlight was reflected on the still frozen lake. All we could hear was bird song and it was a just a perfect moment.

Saturday 7th February - A walk in the park

Painshill Park was originally an 18th century garden which over the years fell into disarray. In the 1980s a trust was set up to restore it and although it is not complete, it is most of the way there.

Despite it being in the village where I live, I am ashamed to say that I had never visited it until today. My daughter Natalie and I thought it would be a somewhere to go for a walk and I'm so glad we did as it was stunning. I bought a year's pass and we are going to go again tomorrow.

Here's a link to their site



Here's a link to my photos of the walk

Friday 6th February - Puss, my lovely cat

This is a picture of one of my cats. I have three - Puss, Fred and Charlie. This is Puss, he is the oldest and he is gorgeous. He doesn't have great health and needs a lot of babying, but that's a nice thing to do.

Thursday 5th February - My office wall

This is a part of one of the walls in my office - it is a collection of some of the cards that I have been given over the years by students and staff. The earliest ones come from my first year of teaching, 13 years ago, and they go right up to one that I was given yesterday by one of the Deputy Head Teachers for doing him a favour.

There are also a couple of posters which advertise the bi-annual Religious Studies conference my department puts on for our sixth formers (16-18 yrs old) and some photos of my kids and also past colleagues who are still good friends.

The wall always cheers me up when I am having a bad day and reminds me that the job is really worth doing, even when doesn't always feel like it.

Okay, technically this is not a photo. Instead it is a screen-capture of my Weight Watchers' progress chart. I've been dieting since 4th Jan (celebrating my 1 month anniversary of the start of it today). Losing weight is really important to me as my health is pretty shocking and with 2 grandchildren expected this year, it really does seem like this is the time to do it. So, with the actual weigh cunningly hidden, you can see that I have lost over 15lbs in the last 4 weeks.

Tuesday 3rd February

Yet another picture of the weather - I've always been fascinated by icicles and so when I saw these this morning, I just had to take a photograph. I'm at home for the second day running as school is still closed for students. I'm going to spend the day doing some reading, watching DVDs and doing a bit of exercise on the wii fit. Oh happy days!

Monday 2nd February 2009

I woke up this morning and found that the world had turned white over night. According to the news, it has been 18 years since the South of England has experienced so much snow in one go. All the trains were cancelled and school was closed. Sarah and I walked Natalie down to work at 10am and we walked around the village for over 2 hours just looking and taking photos. The snow was stunning and people were so friendly. The two most beautiful places were the river and the church.