The 'Subject Teacher'

For someone who went to university with the intention of becoming a secondary school teacher I chose a couple of dumb subjects to major on - Geology and Political Institutions.  I chose them because, when I had to make a decision at the end of the first year of a four year course, they interested me, and from that standpoint they were a huge success.

When it came to teaching I therefore had to chose other subjects from my chequered school and university careers, with the result that I mainly taught Maths, not because I was any good at it - I had hated it at A level - but because that was one subject where most schools were short of specialist teachers. In some ways, I think that teaching a subject which I too had not enjoyed made me empathise with, and adapt my teaching to the general dislike of the subject amongst pupils.

The experience enabled me to find the courage to risk teaching in a succession of subjects about which I knew less and less. Most timetablers thought geology was close enough to geography, so I taught that, and then I branched out into history, environmental studies, English, and religious education, information technology, physics and French, 

I had to work hard to keep myself ahead of my pupils as I worked my way into each new subject. In one or two instances my pupils overtook me. This was certainly true of computer studies, introduced in a hurry when computers became available in sufficient numbers to teach a whole class. I recall two students who were miles ahead of me, who later set up their own consultancy business.

My only worry is that my lack of detailed subject knowledge in so many subjects did my pupils harm.

Fungi in the Pinewoods

While there seem to be fewer fungi 'flowering' in the pinewoods at the moment, a sharp-eyed walk does still produce some interesting finds, like the....

....orange peel fungus which has survived since early October despite being on one of the busier paths.

Then there are the fungi which pretend to be a leaf, even though....

....some of these fungi are a very bright colour - if you can find them, there are chanterelles to be found in this picture.

Sadly, few of what we're finding are new to us, though looking back through my fungi photographs I have failed to identify ones like this.

This one appeared very quickly, in the space of 48 hours, beside a path which we walk almost daily. It's a....

....species of bolete: I have in a previous post identified it, rather tentatively, as a bay bolete. Whatever it is, it's rather impressive.

A Cold Littleferry

It's some time since we were last at Littleferry so we took advantage of today's low tide for a very brisk walk along the sands - and it needed to be brisk as we faced a piercing north wind and the occasional heavy shower, which probably explained why, with the exception of one man and his small dog, we were the only people on a mile of wide, sandy beach.

Other than a few oystercatchers taking advantage of the exposed sands, and as many gulls searching the strand lines of the falling tide, the only birds were those out in the channel where Loch Fleet drains into the sea, mostly eider, cormorants and....

....small groups of oystercatchers tucked up against the wind.

By the time we drove home the sea had virtually drained out of Loch Fleet leaving miles of mud flats for the birds, but there were precious few evident, those scattered few including....

....mallard and widgeon along with the usual accompaniment of crows and gulls, a few redshanks, and a curlew or two.

There's an information board overlooking the loch which speaks of hundreds of birds overwintering on the loch but, new as it is, the board's already out-of-date.

A Migration

We used to call this field, which is a couple of hundred metres from our home up an estate track, the Rabbit Field because, through the summer, it supported a large number of the rodents. Recently, we've witnessed an alarming fall in their population, to, as far as we can see, almost zero, for which we still can't find an explanation. However, we do now know that not all the rabbits have gone to the great warren in the sky as....

....some have migrated to a new home - in our back garden. It's an ideal spot, with water close at hand and a variety of exotic bird foods to sample as well as a large number of annuals and perennials.

There's another huge advantage, for the rabbits at least: the garden has recently been fenced so larger animals, such as dogs, can no longer get in.

Needless to say, we're watching developments carefully. The three new arrivals are welcome as long as they stick to eating the grass but we may feel differently if our winter vegetables suddenly begin to feature on their menu.

Royal Navy

A Royal Navy ship came into the Moray Firth this morning, turning back when she was approaching Portmahomack. She was at some distance from us but I think she may have been M31, the Hunt Class mine hunter HMS Cattistock.

The Small Things

These days it is the small things which often bring the greatest pleasure, like this morning's sunrise which splashed bold colours across the sky over the Moray Firth, or....

....the three red kites, two adults with a squawking juvenile in pursuit, which flew over the track I was following a few minutes before....

....a long skein of pink-footed geese passed noisily overhead, heading north to their daytime feeding grounds.

Then there was the deep pleasure of standing, listening to the silence against which a yellowhammer sang from his vantage point on top of a gorse bush - particularly good as I've not seen a yellowhammer in several weeks - and...

....the sight of several wild raspberry bushes bursting in to full flower, as confused by the seasons as the strawberries in our vegetable garden; and....

....it's always good to see a ship anchored out in the Firth, even if it is the Gaasborg, a Danish vessel which we saw here quite recently sheltering from a gale - though there's no gale here today to spoil the peace.

Another Sunrise

This was the view southeast from our house at 7.50 this morning, of the colours of another spectacular sunrise splashed across the Moray Firth's sky.

There is something very uplifting, very inspirational about a glorious sunrise. It marks the beginning of a new day, of new hope and opportunity, so....

....this view across Kilchoan Bay, taken in October 2009, led to the creation of A Kilchoan Diary, a blog I kept for some eight of the twenty-one years we lived in that small crofting community before we left Ardnamurchan.

Not that all notable sunrises have to be in gory reds, oranges and yellows. This picture, taken in Tanzania looking out across the Pemba Channel in the direction of Zanzibar, holds immense threat: yet, just visible on the horizon at its centre, the sail of a small, frail fishing boat, an ngalowa, is just visible, representing, perhaps, hope, courage and endurance under the sky's grim threat.

By contrast, this picture, again looking across Kilchoan Bay and taken in January 2013, offers an example of the calm that can be found in a sunrise. The view is almost frozen, yet two ducks can be seen at bottom right, paddling out across, and about to break the mirror stillness of the sea.
 
I feel so fortunate that four of the houses in which I have lived have faced southeast to east, and have been blessed with a view of the sunrise. Perhaps my love of sunrises comes from the fact that the Tanganyika hospital in which I was born was sited on the coast, facing east. Perhaps there was a glorious sunrise the day I was born.