Interloper!

I opened the curtains and found Smudge having a drink from the pond.
He was in no hurry to leave. But at least he hasn't tried to get into the house since Jay came to live with us.

I have no idea where the wheelchair came from, but I bet it will have moved by tomorrow morning's walk.

I have started doing a wee project on 'Green' and I thought the new needles fitted the bill quite well.
PD didn't want to do his usual full walk which meant I got to see some of the woods in a different light from usual …. so I did some blurred tree shots - and a couple of dramatic light shots.

After lunch PD felt he should go on a longer walk, but he didn't half doddle - which meant I was able to take my time occasionally to try and get shots of things like the tiny damsel flies and the flying flies ….. and boy! - did I need time! The autofocus on the long lens for the wee camera is not nearly as accurate or fast as the lenses for the big camera. But at least the bear stayed still.
There was more dramatic light …...on green (bonus!) and a mix of growths on a tree got my attention.

Camera club AGM this evening and I managed to avoid any serious attempt to get me on the committee.


Oh ………… before I forget  ---  Last night (after posting here) I got a phone call from my daughter-in-law. She was desperate to speak to somebody who would appreciate her news (No - she isn't pregnant).
Last week her school had a visit from Ofsted (she teaches in Rotherham) and she had just got a copy of the report sent to her.
When she started at this school two years ago it was classed as 'Poor' bordering on 'failing'. This one has classed it as 'Good' and heading towards 'excellent' in a hurry...…….and it has identified our ray of sunshine as being the reason for this!
How good is that?
Her headmaster had to phone the person who did the visit because he wanted to say that he was so impressed with our ray of sunshine that he wants to bring some board of director members from other schools to chat with her.
She read the relevant bits of the report to me and even I was able to pick up on the fact that the levels of teaching in the school at The Cygnet's level is way above what he gets ….. and that is the basic teaching, before the level she has got her school to.
She was asking about the Scottish equivalent of the Ofsted inspections and what grading the monster's school had. SWMBO and I had no idea, so we started doing some research on-line while we were talking to her ….. she did the same from her end.
The frightening thing is that all the information which is meant to be available to the public about the standards of schools, previous inspection results etc for all the schools within the region are missing.
That has to be under direction from Holyrood (the education authority wont do anything without direction from them).
Call me cynical, but I think that tends to point towards the fact that they know education standards in Scotland are falling and failing to keep abreast to other countries.