Project#366 week 12

 Week 12, and what a difference in weather from last week. This week we've had blue skies, easterly winds and warm -ish temperatures. My trainees have done lots of their preparation outside in the college garden and I have been able to get out into mine and start to make a difference to the wilderness!

Sunday 18th March

Today is Mother's Day and I was sent a voucher to use on Amazon by my daughter in London.  Yesterday I bought some ticking to recover the chairs in the kitchen, and Miles who normally comes to dinner on Sunday, isn't coming, after he came off his motorbike and ended up too bruised to drive. My husband decided to work on his boat and  it was nice to see the boat bits disappearing from the back of the house and making their way back to where they belong. Suddenly it feels as if Spring is here.

Monday 19th March

Week 3 of the Cert TESOL and the first morning is given over to looking at advances in technology which can be used in teaching. I use lots of tech during, and even before, the course, and this group of  trainees are really switched on! This is them doing a collaborative task on Google docs.

Tuesday 20th March

Today at lunchtime I wandered up the hill from the College and took a picture of the Shell garden. As you can see, there is very little surface left to decorate. Tourists always stop to have a look and you can now have a look round on payment of a small sum to charity. This was one man's passion for shells- and an idea that became an obsession.

Wednesday 21st March

I came across these beautiful animals on their way to be milked. The lane is very beautiful and colourful at this time of the year. You can just see the farmer in the background.  He gives all his farm-workers pocketfuls of bulbs and tells them to plant them on their way around the farm and surrounding area. When the daffodils come up the island is golden in the sunlight.

Thursday 22nd March

Today I managed to get a colleague to take over my class. This freed me up to do some paperwork - and to check out the #ELTchat symposium at IATEFL during the afternoon. It looks as though they had a full house. I also managed to catch the Pecha Kuchas in the evening, which were super as always. It is great to be able to join in from a distance, although I was really disappointed that IATEFL was happening in March, and would have loved to have been there in person.

Friday 23rd March

What a beautiful sunny day. I spotted these flowers from my classroom window, and I don't know what they are. They smell lovely though. There are lots of them on the bank. The college sits in a valley, and the gardens stretch up on either side, so the view from the windows is always interesting. 

Saturday 24th March.

 Today I'm supposed to be busy marking. The moderator arrives next week and I like to have everything prepared. Unfortunately Ebony, my cat, decided to help me so I wandered out into the garden instead. 

Staring to really warm up now

Both sides of the garden wall

Buds on the vine

It's warm and sunny and the flowers on each side of the garden wall are in full bloom. The neighbours magnolias make a lovely backdrop for my camellias. I also noticed that there are buds on the vine. In a few short weeks, the back wall of the garden will be completely covered in green. At the moment you can see the pink granite and shale which it is made from, and which makes the garden look, and feel, warm even in the middle of winter.

#Project 366 Week Eleven

Where has the time gone. I can't believe we are already 11 weeks into the year! This week I was concentrated on my trainees-  it was their first week in the classroom. We have been looking at ways to make learning more student-centred and fun. The weather has been indifferent: I started each morning by driving to work in the fog. By early afternoon the sun had usually burnt it off, and the day improved from that point onwards. There are definitely more tourists about this week . And Spring is really apparent now.

Sunday 11th March 2012

Green Island Mound

Today we went for a walk around the coast and ended up at Green Island where we stopped for a break. This is one of the Neolithic sites in the Island, and archaeologists have been working there for years. The problem is that it is now being eroded by the tide and the wind, and it is debatable whether it can be protected, or even if it should be protected, from nature.

Looking East from the beach

Monday 12th  March

Second week of the  training course and this week we are looking at skills in the classroom. Today was The Writing Skill. To illustrate a way to ask our students to start writing simple instructions, we looked at Kinder eggs. Inside there is usually something to build, and a set of pictures.
I give out an egg to each pair and they write the instructions that are in picture form.

Here are our instructions!

They then pass the instructions and the toy across to another table, and if the instructions are clear the other pair will be able to build it. It is a bit of fun to start the week, along with many more techniques.

found this little cutie in an egg

We found that one or two of the eggs had little characters inside, so it is a good idea to have more toys than you need for the size of the class, just in case!

Tuesday 13th March

I had a couple of late starts this week as my colleague was doing some of the input sessions. This gave me time to admire the beautiful Magnolia in a neighbour's garden. This is such a lovely time of the year, as everything starts to blossom afresh.

Wednesday 14th March

Elizabeth Castle in the fog

Where is the other side?

High tide in the fog

 Fog!. It's like living at the edge of the known world. I couldn't see the other side of the bay and each day the horizon  became more difficult to find.

Thursday 15th March

I had to pop into St Helier briefly and found myself at West's Centre. Jersey is justifiably famous for its cows, and here we have a set of bronze sculptures of the beasts. Tourists love to sit their small children on them for a photo opportunity, and I didn't have time to wait until the street was empty, so you can see what I mean in my picture.

Friday 16th March

Our new park on the outskirts of town is being well used. The person who designed the water features should be given a pat on the back. Although this one is at the main road end, the noise of the water falling cancels out the traffic noise quite effectively. It will be a super place to sit and contemplate life in the Summer. 

Saturday 17th March

Nice atmosphere

Leprechaun

Table decoration

Ask any Irishman the date and he'll tell you that it's St Patrick's Day. He is the Patron Saint of Ireland, and the country loves to celebrate. I play in a ceilidh band, but tonight we have been asked to do a Ceili, an Irish evening, for some of the Local Irish community. It is also a fund-raiser for the Brain injury charity Headway. It is being held in a local hotel and they have decorated the room in the Irish colours of Green, White and Orange.

The evening was a success and raised a lot of money for the charity. It was nice to be involved and also to play some of our other stock of music, which doesn't always get played, as we are predominantly an English folk music band.

#Project 366 Week 10

 Week 10! Lots of  outside shots this week. The weather was sunny, and occasionally warm, and the tide was out any time I had a chance to go outside.  Jersey has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world and it is a really different place at high, low or half-tide.

Sunday 4th March 2012

My husband decided to go down to work on his boat, so I dropped him off and took the opportunity to photograph him and his pretty little day boat, Jamesina. She is an Oyster-man Gaff cutter. I was happy for the peace to get on with the preparations for my course.

 The harbour pictures give an idea of the working and pleasure boats in St Helier. On the left you can see all the way down to the town, and the picture on the right shows the corner where the fishing boats are moored.

Monday 5th March

 Today is a big day. I have my new intake of trainees for the Trinity Cert.TESOL.  They range in age and experience, but have already started to bond, so I'm hoping for great things from this lot :-)

Tuesday 6th March

 I managed to finish at a sensible time today and it is really noticeable that the days are getting longer. I decided to attack the wall in my front garden, as the paint had blown in places. Unfortunately, so had some of the render, so I've given myself a much larger job than I expected.

Ooops!

 I am also watching the Azalea outside my bay window  with interest as it has now got buds on it, and I enjoy the flowers when it blooms.

Wednesday 7th March


My daughter sent me parcel returning a bag which I had lent her. In it was this ornament for my bathroom. I haven't decided where to put it yet, but I tried it on the music stand which I sprayed silver and tucked behind the bath. Everyone laughs at my black candles and says they look like black magic, but they match the tiles. My bath is a fantastic place to relax at the end of a busy day. It beats a shower hands down!

Thursday  8th March

The trainees ran out of milk for their coffee, so I offered to walk down the hill to the village. The tide was out and it was an ideal opportunity to take a couple of snaps. The boats always look odd when they are out of the water. You can see across the bay to the southern part of the island.

Friday 9th March

 Most people know that I buy fresh flowers every Sunday, except at Christmas-time. It has been very warm in the window this week and my tulips don't look as if they will survive until Sunday. They look as though they will fall apart if the cats brush against them, as they are wont to do! I might just have to remove them before I get pollen all over the place.

Saturday 10th March

Another sign that spring is here, is that my neighbour has opened up his little shop in his garage. He supports an orphanage in Kenya, which he visits every year to help them build what they need. Every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer he sells pocket-money type goods in his garage, which fronts onto the street. He does very well from the children and tourists who pass by and I often buy my costume jewellery from him- at very reasonable prices!

#Project 366 Week 9

 After the fog of last week, we had a sunny start to this one. I was working in the morning and preparing for next week's Cert.TESOL in the afternoons. That gave me time to shake off a cold and do a bit of catching up in the garden too.

Sunday 26th February

Friends were coming to dinner to help us celebrate our anniversary, so I went down to the fishmonger to see what looked good. I decided on some scallops, which I cooked with bacon and herbs. Both my husband and friends love seafood, so it was easy to choose lobster for the starter. You can see that my kitchen worktop is a bright shiny red, a colour which can be found in most rooms in my house:-) 

Monday 27th February

Back to work. I love my job, so it isn't a hardship  to get out of bed on a Monday morning, although I like it better when the weather is sunny. This is the school where I am based. It was built around the turn of the last century and belonged to the Church, who put a covenant on it so that it can only be used for educational purposes. As usual, it is built  from pink Jersey granite. That makes it difficult to heat in the winter, but it is lovely and cool in summer. It looks a little bleak until the trees turn green.

Tuesday 28th February

One of my twitter colleagues put out a request for pictures taken inside the classroom, so I decided to oblige him. I took this photo while some of my students were completing an exercise:  that way I didn't get their faces.They gave me permission to post it, though.The students round the corner were also photographed, but I didn't check with them first, so I haven't put it up.

Wednesday 29th February

Felling a bit under the weather today. Everyone seems to have a lurgy as the temperature is starting to warm up. It's just a bit of a cold, and should be easy to shake off in time for the weekend. I made myself a hot toddy with  hot water, lemon, honey and whisky to drink while taking part in #ELTchat on twitter. Unfortunately, I had to bow out half way through the session and take myself off to bed. It did the trick and I felt much better the next day.

Hot toddy

Thursday 1st March

 This year is galloping along. I can't believe it is already March. Spring is definitely round the corner now. The trees on the railway walk are covered in blossoms.I'm looking forward to seeing the colours in the hedgerows as the daffodils come up all over the island.

Friday 2nd March

Out in the garden

Not bad for February

You can see that the garden temperature is not looking too shabby. I decided to get out and do a little work in the garden. Next week my course starts and I really find that there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. 

 This is one of the silver birch trees in the garden. I love the fact that they shed their bark each winter and emerge so beautifully white against all the greenery.

 The picture below shows that I need to do some weeding! The old cat was buried here, with the statue marking her final resting place. You can hardly see it for all the vegetation.

Saturday 3rd March

Last pictures for the week!          I needed to do a bit of shopping in St Helier, so I organised a meeting with a girlfriend for coffee. We met in the Central Market, one of two in St Helier, the other being the Fish Market. 

It is a Victorian covered market, which sells fruit, flowers and vegetables. It is always a vibrant place to shop, although, with parking difficult in the centre, you have to think about carrying all your shopping!

This is the fountain in the centre of the market. It has goldfish in it, and people often throw in coins , which are cleared out each day and collected for charity. 

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