• [slideshow]Lots of spring flowers bursting out before they are swamped by bluebells and ferns. Violets, strawberries, oxalis and even the bilberries are setting already. I was surprised. The woods are full of birdsong and there’s a feeling of making up for lost time after a long, cold winter.

  • High above Treherbert, at the top of the Rhondda Valley, is a car park that I’ve driven past quite often. Today I pulled in to investigate the object that looks over the Valley.

    It is a concrete monolith that looks as though it could be a Rachel Whiteread casting of the inside of something. I can’t work out what it is. Any ideas?

  • [slideshow]
    I took the high mountain road to Treherbert at the top of the Rhondda Valley this morning and fouind myself drivbing alongside a paraglider, so I had to stop and take a picture. What a beautiful morning. A clear blue sky, a tang in the air but not too cold and this person just floating around, having a great time. High above, the airlines were grinding their way back into business after the Volcanic ash scare that has closed the airports for days.

    I arrived at Penyrenglyn Primary at the same time as one of the teachers who had not had such a wonderful journey to work. She’d come over another mountain road. A rock had rolled down the mountain and bounced onto her car bonnet – see the picture – it punched a hole right through the metal! A slit second earlier and it would have come through the windscreen and caused heaven knows what damage. I think she had a very lucky escape!

    I’d been to the School before, two or three years ago. Years five and six were incredibly shy or quiet or something – apparently they are like that!

    I had a lovely day there and thought I had a brilliant idea for getting years five and six to use social networking software to make them write, but I can’t remember how I though it would work now! maybe it will come back to me.