• Another milestone day for my online Drawing School. I hit 50,000 videos served yesterday, While nowhere near the incredible hits of Mark Crillee, the anime illustrator, I’m thrilled that my videos are still being watched and in ever increasing numbers.

    My own Drawing School site is coming on. When I have all the Youtube videos up on mysite and, hopefully, available to view on whiteboards in school, then I’ll get on a start producing new videos.

    Meanwhile, I’m putting the videos I’ve done up on Teachertube


  • Of course I stopped to get out and take the pictures – I wouldn’t drive and shoot!

    On my way home from Garway School, I popped into the Premier Plant Centre for a sandwich and bought myself a nice new Day Lilly too. The Coffee Shop was laid out in a Greek Taverna style,With the doors open and the sun shining in you could almost believe… almost! For the entrance was guarded by the most extraordinary creature. Apparently he used to be in a display in a castle as a marauding Viking or something. He’s now masquerading as a ship’s cook, I think! Fun anyway.

    I came back Via Symonds Yat, which involves crossing the river Wye at what everyone calls the Bailey Bridge. I’m not sure if it really is a Bailey Bridge. It’s only one lane and often two cars meet in the middle and one has to back up. As I stopped to photograph it, I was aware of a stone with a plaque on it in a filed nearby. I have no idea what it is for, but there are Five trees planted in the enclosure. I feel it maybe a memorial for someone who may have drowned in the river or something like that. It is a popular place for canoeists to start their journeys downstream.

  • I’ve had a lovely morning today, at Garway Primary School in Herefordshire, where I was honoured to be asked to officially open their lovely new library.

    It was a beautiful morning. The rape fields are starting to flower, so the countryside is turning dazzling yellow.

    Garway is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and very lovely for it. Theirs must be some of the luckiest children in the country, if not the world! There are not many in the school, so the teachers have quite a lot of time for the children and it shows, all of them bright and perky, well-prepared and full of questions. It’s the kind of school that I’m sure everyone wishes they went to or that they could get their children into.

    When you have a small number of children in a school, they all know each other really well. I suppose that has its drawbacks – like there’s no place to hide – but in the long run I’m sure it pays to have smaller class sizes and a certain distance from all the pressures of modern life.

    After my sessions I was grilled by the school journalists, who kept coming up with supplemental questions. One of them, I’m sure, is going to be a writer when she grows up!

    Good luck to you all and enjoy your lovely new library!