Traffic!!

It occurred to me to wonder, on the way to work today, why there should be so many mobile cranes, slow moving diggers etc. on my route at 6.30 in the morning. Every day, at least three of them hold up the traffic on my route.
Shouldn't be allowed on the road during rush hour! Should only be allowed to move around during the hours of darkness.
And have you ever noticed the car that hurtles up behind you and tries to do the rest of the journey in the boot of your car? Nine times out of ten, it's a BMW! The tenth time, it's a Vauxhall Vectra. So they should be off the road too!
Then, there's 'White Van Man'. As soon as he sees that your car is being driven by the female of the species, he just HAS to overtake. If you were doing 100 mph, he'd pip you at the post! Should be banned!
And what about those who trundle along, oblivious to all around them, at half the speed of everyone else? You feel you just have to check that they're not pushing it with their feet and giving the engine a rest. Can't they be restricted to driving between 2 and 3.30 in the afternoon and on side roads only?
So that leaves you and me - the only perfect drivers in the world! If all these others were off the road, I'd get to work in the morning in half the time and feel a lot less frazzled!! :-)

Back to curriculum

Arts week is over, back to normal timetable this week. The children are fidgety (and overtired from watching too much football too late on TV!), I'm slightly irritable (only slightly, of course!)
Next week is Design and Technology week - or, to be more accurate, Design and Technology 3 days. Brilliant! Another chance to explore seldom visited areas of interest....
WRONG!!!
Subject - Textile tree. Now this term, our science has been Materials related, our art has been Materials related. You might be forgiven for thinking that we have done materials to death, but no - lest we should run away with the idea that there could be other, more interesting things to grapple with, our D&T is also Materials related.
Interesting!!! A totally alien concept to the originators of the National Curriculum. (Who in their right mind, for instance, could possibly imagine that Victorian washing days would be remotely interesting to 5 to 7 year olds? )But that's another story and I digress.
So, we are not going to spend 3 days learning to wrap cardboard cylinders in different fabrics (Yes, honestly! No kidding!!!)
We are going to design and print patterns on T shirts, have a go at tie dying (remember that?), create masterpieces of collage.
To put it differently we are going to have FUN while we learn!
Watch this space!! :-)

Runcorn Bridge :-(

For the second time in 12 months, 'they' are digging up Runcorn Bridge again. Well, they're doing something that requires cones, speed restrictions and endless queues of traffic anyway. Ours not to reason why. They couldn't have been thoughtful and considerate and left it until 23rd July (day after end of term).
As I zoom effortlessly from the sliproad onto the bridge (always supposing someone there is kind enough to let me in!), as I zoom... at, oooh, at least 5 miles an hour, I am struck by a blue police sign which indicates that this is a police speed check area! I would be more than happy if there was the remotest chance of reaching the 20 mph current speed limit! Still, someone in the Highways Agency obviously has a sense of humour!
(21 working days to go till the end of term!!)

Welsh Stonehenge???

The Welsh BBC news this evening had an item about the building of Stonehenge. The stone came from Pembrokeshire and was transported to Wiltshire. According to Keith, it was transported on prehistoric steam trains powered by good Welsh coal - what else??? As he has said before, the Welsh have always been a very forward looking nation.
Now, it appears that the discovery of Welsh teeth on the site (different to English teeth obviously!), indicates that Welshmen not only delivered the stones but helped erect them. So far so good, although I can't see why the presence of these teeth doesn't just mean that there was a fight with the native English and the Welsh got their teeth knocked out before legging it back to Wales! Keith maintains that the Welsh were a lot better organised than the English, which is why their labour was required.

OK, as my paternal grandmother was born in Mold, this being my one claim to any Welsh ancestry, I can just about let him get away with that.

What I am having difficulty with, however, is his final claim that these stalwart men actually pulled the stones onto the site with their teeth - which is why the teeth are lying around unconnected to their skulls, presumably. :-)