#Project 366 Week 8

Week 8 already- where has the time gone? I thought it would be difficult to keep going, but the world around me changes on a daily basis. The tides and weather make a great difference to the views.

Sunday 19th February

This is the working harbour in St Helier with the tugs and cranes. At the corner of the harbour is my favourite fish stall. The fish is delivered by the boats as they come in and sold directly to the public. Today we decided to have local lobster and some scallops.

View from Class 12

Monday 20th February

 I was teaching upstairs in the college and took some photos of the view from my window. The sun was shining and it is always relaxing to work in the classes which look out over the bank of greenery. My
favourite view is from class 10- you get a little secret glimpse of the sea at the foot of the hill.

View from Class 11

View from the window of class 10

Tuesday 21st February 
Thinking about food today. I remembered my daughter telling me that she tried to buy a cabbage loaf in London, not realising it was a Jersey speciality, and the shopkeeper didn't know what she was talking about! It made us smile, so I bought a loaf to remind her. It is baked wrapped in cabbage leaves, which gives the bread a very distinctive flavour. Yummy!






Wednesday 22nd February
Today was all about pain! I managed to hurt my knee yesterday and couldn't bend my leg without screaming. I thought it would get better by itself, so left it for a day, and hit the painkillers,but I had to bite the bullet and visit the doctor to get some anti-inflammatories and sledgehammer strong painkillers in the end.

Thursday 23rd February

Pain under control today so I was looking forward to a nice normal day. It was not such a good one for anyone travelling to or from the island, though. We had thick fog, which prevented planes from takingoff and landing. You get used to weather conditions when you live on an island, but it is still very disruptive. I took a photos from class 10 again, to show the difference. It looks like the end of the world- you can't even tell that there is sea down there!

Friday 24th February                                                         

We were planning to go to the Arts centre to a concert, but the fog prevented the musicians from arriving in time. After a call apologising for the cancellation, we decided to go to the local pub for an espetada.This is a type of kebab from Madeira, which has a very special stand.Here you can see one beef, and one chicken espetada. They are really delicious.

Saturday 25th February

Today is our 23rd Wedding Anniversary. I took out the vases that my mother gave us as part of our wedding present.I always try to use them at this time of the year and I remember her. We have many wedding presents we still use frequently, although the giver has now gone. Looking forward to a meal with friends in the evening. Rob will be celebrating his 11th birthday in a couple of days- He was born on 29th February and only manages a birthday every 4 years. Every four years we have a joint celebration, and a nice meal together. My knee almost feels OK- just the odd twinge- so fingers crossed for next week.

Project#366 Week 7

Not much going on this week. The EVO sessions came to an end and the island seems to have rediscovered Springtime. The temperature was mostly around the 11 degrees mark all week.  

(By the way,I just discovered that if you click on one of the photos, you can see all of them as close-ups.)

Sunday 12th February

It was nice to see some spring flowers for sale today. I treated my next door neighbour too, and we had enough to decorate each of our bay windows. I always have problems with Daffodils. My cat thinks that it is OK to drink the water from the vases, but they give off a poison, which could make her sick. Here she is pretending that she is not interested, just waiting for me to turn my back.

Monday 13th February

This is where I park my car - on the top floor of the local supermarket. The view from the top is of the gas tank, with Victoria College behind it. The school is a fee-paying boys school for children from 11-18. I taught there briefly when they had a boarding school department and foreign students.
In the other direction you can look out over Wellington Hill, where you can just see the Catholic church at the rear of the picture.

 Tuesday 14th February

This was given to me as a gift to match my cat collection.

I think it rings true in our house, as I wouldn't like to be without the cats. I have hung it on the doorknob for now, but it will need a final resting place by the fireplace once we stop using the fire. That is not likely to be any time soon.

Wednesday 15th February

 Today I recorded my student giving a presentation. I decided to make a video so that we could analyse it together. This is me, at home, figuring out how to put it on a disc for school tomorrow.

                                                          Thursday 16th February

This is Maisie and Ebony facing off. They were fighting over a little cloth mouse which my neighbour gave them. There are, in fact two mice, but they both want to have the same one! I think they sleep all day and wake up in time for a mad-half-hour when I get home.

Friday 17th February

 No music tonight.The man who  normally organises us  has gone to Brazil to see his son, and to experience Carnival.  We will be seeing each other tomorrow anyway. My husband and I decided to eat out, and headed for the pizza place near the beach. I had a pizza with a hole cut in the middle, which was filled with salad. My husband had an enormous pizza.

Saturday 18th February

Name that tune!

A bit damp out today, so we stayed in and did the housework. In the evening we met up with friends to take part in the annual quiz night organised by Amnesty International's local branch.This year is the Jersey branch's 50th.  We didn't disgrace ourselves by coming last, or anywhere near last, but we were stumped by some of the questions.  

Amnesty cupcakes.Yum.

Project #366 Week 6

This week seems to feature transport more than anything else. Part of the reason is that the cold weather brings out all the cars on the island, as no-one wants to cycle anywhere, including me, and partly because my husband is underfoot when he can't play on his boat.

Sunday 5th February 2012

This was one of the roads I drove down on Sunday, and the sign attracted my notice. You can see the Jerriais language at work again in the accented Es in the middle of the road name. Also interesting is the La at the beginning. This is starting to creep in to signs which never had one in the past.  If you look closely you can see the Parish of St John crest to the left of the name. The beautiful pink granite is typical of island buildings, as it is the local stone.

 Monday 6th February
This is St Aubin where I work.The Salle Paroisalle, or Parish Hall, used to be the railway station and still retains the character. It sits next to the harbour and in the close up, you will see that there are two offices: one is the Bureau du Connetable, and the other the Bureau des Centeniers. These are the local honorary police titles.You can just see the back of one of the harbour geese to the left of the picture.
Tuesday 7th February

  I found myself driving to work behind a couple of H-registered cars. This is quite unusual in February, although they can be a menace later in the year. The H stands for Hire car, although many locals say it stands for Horror!. They do have a habit of stopping suddenly to consult a map! I took a photo of a normal J-reg so that you can see what the locals drive around in. The tourists really stand out, and it makes us more careful on the roads.

Wednesday 8th February 

 This is a picture of my whiteboard at one point during the day. I used photos from an ELTpics on Flickr set. These are photos, taken by EFL teachers, for other teachers to use. My lesson was looking at comparatives and superlatives, and the  pictures were ideal for a discussion about transport to and from the island.

Thursday 9th February

 On my way home I saw that the tide was out. Every day is different. St Aubin is a harbour where the big boats which went cod-fishing in Canada used to tie up and could be repaired, as it is a dry area. St Helier is in the background.

Friday 10th February

 After work I went for a drive on the West Coast, which brought me to the lighthouse of La Corbiere. You can walk out to the lighthouse, but have to leave the causeway when the siren announces that the tide is incoming. It is a lovely place to see across the bay to the other side of the Five-mile road.  It is again taken at low tide, allowing you to see the rocks.

Saturday 11th February

 Today the ceilidh band that I play in offered their services to a local choir who wanted to have a fundraiser for charity. It doesn't take us long to set up so we get there a little before the public, and lay our all the equipment. My final pictures for this week show the band setting up for what was to be a really good evening.

Project #366 Week Five

This week the focus was on keeping warm! It is particularly cold in various parts of Europe, and the Island will not be as cold because of the sea surrounding us, but the wind is biting.




Sunday 29th January
Sunday dawned bright and cold. I decided to take my recycling to the dump. It's a very sociable thing- you always meet friends up there doing the same thing. The dump takes everything you could possibly want to recycle, and we normally go there every second or third Sunday.

 Monday 30th January 
Back to work today.These are part of the staffroom. The notice board is full of thank you notes and messages for new teachers. The wall is full of boxes of material with ideas for teaching teenagers of different levels.


Tuesday 31st January
Oh my goodness. It's freezing today. After such a lovely mild winter so far, the wind is now coming from the North East, bringing with it temperatures of 2 degrees. I know that everyone else is having it much worse, but it is a shock to the system. I had to find my gloves and hat for the first time in ages. You can imagine how my South American students are feeling. We have an extra heater in our class!

Wednesday 1st February

My cat collection has been growing for a while. I decided to move the cat baskets over to the bottom shelf on each side of the fireplace as the window seat that they usually use was icy cold. On the right you can see Ebony, cosily tucked in her basket. On the right, Maisie is more reluctant to have her photo taken!

Thursday 2nd February

This is the fire at home. It has been on from the minute I got home but it still feels cold in the room. The thermometer says 13 degrees! I'm lucky that my Bulgarian student, who normally comes to me on a Thursday, has gone home to Sofia for a holiday. Time to put another pullover on, I think.


Friday 3rd February

Still very cold.The forecast is threatening snow, but it isn't really cold enough here and the wind is dropping and swinging round to the South West. It should bring warmer, although wet, conditions. Went to a local pub to play music, as always, and they had a fantastic fire going, and cosy candles on the tables. A typical old English pub. Note the beams and the low ceiling. It was great to feel warm again.

Saturday 4th February

Saturday was crisp and dry, and the Ceilidh Band had booked lunch in a local restaurant. I wandered down into town, and met up with everyone in time to eat. On returning home, we cleaned out the cupboard under the stairs and discovered that my daughter had left her warm, fluffy slippers behind when she went back to university. They fit me, too, and they are toasty-warm. My cat thought that she would just check them out first!. The rain came down just as night started to draw in. Heavy rain, but no snow!!