Lucky girl!

 It's my birthday today and I'm having fun with a new toy - a GPS gadget which works with my camera so I don't need to remember where I took the photograph.

By the time I'd got the software loaded and felt ready to try it out, it was too late to do a great deal so I just stepped outside and photographed my Argos catalogue.  Fellow Catalogue Killers will understand!

When I came back inside, I uploaded the photograph and there it is - very nifty!

 Apologies for the poor photograph quality - I took a photo of the screen. 

No, I didn't log the location of that photo!

How can this be late October?

I could hardly believe the weather this morning as I drove through the Cotswolds to meet a friend at Compton Verney  I've been meaning to go there for some time and can't believe what a treat I've been missing.

Imagine a wonderful gallery in this beautiful setting, with immaculately presented artworks, helpful, knowledgeable and friendly custodians who welcomed us personally as we entered each room.  Add to that a great cafe with home cooked, locally sourced food served by delightful staff and I'm sure that, like me, you'll wonder how it could have taken me so long to get there.

And I haven't even mentioned the art!

Intriguing puzzle solved

Have you come across one of these?

We first encountered one in Basel, earlier in the year whilst standing outside the cathedral.

At the time, we weren't sure what it was/what to do/how it worked.  Until this evening, I still wasn't really sure, but a recent post on the Moo blog piqued my interest and curiosity again and finding that we have barcode scanners on our Nokia N95 phones, of course, I just had to find out more.

So there we are.  Another mystery solved.

See if you can decipher this green one - a small prize for the first person to find the link and leave me the answer in the comments! (Nokia N95 phones aren't essential!)

Time to relax

Well, after all the fun of last week, it was a huge relief to enjoy the company of friends from the Netherlands and get out into the fresh air and relax.  Hopefully, Ofsted are satisfied with what they saw so we can get on with our real work for a while and await the nit picky bits in some weeks time.

The glorious Autumn weather has proved a great source of material for my photo blog and the obvious place for a Sunday morning walk was the National Arboretum, at Westonbirt, just up the road from us.

 

I think we chose the perfect time to enjoy this wonderful place.  The maple trees in the Acer Glade were a stunning variety of colour and the fire-reds and oranges were contrasted beautifully with those which were still green.  Not only that, but by arriving early, we had the place to ourselves* as you can see from the photographs!

The old trees stood majestically with their own character steadfast alongside the more showy individuals, their wonderful shapes and contortions of the trunks quietly inviting a closer look. 

A beautiful Hydrangea bush was at my favourite stage with the most wonderful palette of colours in every petal.

Along the way, we enjoyed interesting conversation, linguistic trivia and the company of friends.  What better way to spend a weekend?

* not really, but we missed the huge influx of people who were streaming into the car park as we were leaving. I think this could have been the busiest day of the year!

The full set of photos can be found on my Flickr page,

Silk purse?

Oh boy.  Yesterday was a definitie "hide behind the sofa" day.  Not only did I have a double slug of Ofsted to keep my mind on overdrive, I also got to see the results of this for the first time.

As you might recall, I found the day most uncomfortable and quickly realised I'm not a natural performer.  Show off perhaps, but ask me to put my money where my mouth is and I find myself having to dig very deep indeed to achieve anything near the standard I set myself.

And there's the problem. See, I think I can do anything.  Sadly, it's not quite true.  And that bit in my profile about wanting to do it perfectly in the next five minutes is absolutely correct. So when I received a frosty response from Mr Ofsted yesterday, in spite of trying so very hard to do the professional job I'd been trained to do, I went into a swift and precipitous decline. My second encounter was a little more successful - ok, I shared the pain with a colleague, since we were working together on a training session - but nevertheless, I feel so very responsible if the outcome is anything less than perfect.

Fortunately, as far as Ofsted are concerned, I have talented colleagues who cover my tracks and keep the show on the road.  In the case of the film project above, once again, it was the real professionals who saved my bacon.

The proof of the "sow's ear" proverb perhaps?  The evidence is to be found here .  The rest is on the cutting room floor. 

And oh my goodness, they must be knee deep in it....