Floods

Just a brief post on the floods. You may be aware that our region is presently being hit very hard with floods - for most of the weekend we were pretty much stuck in the village as all the roads out were under water. Where we are is now fine - roads are mostly opened again.

Also just wanted to mention that the worst it got for us was a drippy conservatory, and a slightly hairy journey home for Robin on Friday.

Oxford though is under water - Botley and Osney seem particularly hard hit, and are totally flooded. Witney is drying up, though strewn with sandbags and spoilt carpets left outside. The car parks are mostly full of water and not cars which is a bit weird.

Our biggest problem now is that Robin's route to work remains either flooded, or closed whilst they clean up debris. Going out and doing lots of summer activities with the kids is pretty much a no-no as it's difficult to keep up with which roads are open, and which are closed.

Look who came for lunch today! Pretty amazing to see such a wonderful bird in the garden - not bothered at all by the rain!

A silver lining to the rain clouds

This morning I have dropped the kids in school for their last day before the summer break. They were so dismayed to wake up to rain, and even more annoyed when it got heavier and even more persistent.

So we trudged to school in waterproofs, wellies and clutching umbrellas - and even then arrived rather soggy around the edges.

School had a slightly empty feel with wall displays gone, no book bags - but a very damp sort of smell wafting through the classrooms once you got past abandoned wellies and little streams forming on the cloakroom floors from the dripping coats. Most kids looked a little glum, and nearly every parent seemed bedraggled and ever so slightly fed up.

So I kept the fact that I actually welcome the rain to myself. You see, every day for the past week - and for a few weeks to come (if it has not rained) I have been setting up the sprinkler to water our newly laid turf. We've waited the past year for a useable garden and finally got around to having it levelled out and laid. Most people will tell you that it's not good to lay turf in the Summer as it's prone to dry out and not establish itself particularly well. Not this year.

Looking outside the lawn is looking lush and green, it's soaking all this rain up and putting down it's roots. I can't really moan about the weather just now!

Summer school holidays

I came across this article on the BBC website today detailing how many weeks of school holidays the UK and continental countries have. I have to say that I was stunned that we have the shortest summer break - with Portugal for instance having 12 weeks break!

I did think it interesting that even though we have our kids in school so much more - we do not seem to match up to the educational standards of some countries with far longer breaks.

Are our kids too worn out, is what they actually need more time off? Ooh, slightly controversial maybe - I for one do not find the summer holidays all that easy, but have we geared our educational year all wrong? I have often though that longer breaks spaced more evenly through the year would be a far better idea to beat the summer burn out and then September scramble to catch up. Comments?