The almond trees are flowering.

OK, life here is lovely today, the almond trees are in bloom, and let me tell you, somewhat cruelly for those of you in the throws of deepest winter, I like February here a whole lot more than February in Canada. Aside from my youngest daughter's birthday, which has brightened the month for me, it has always been my most loathed time of year. Dark, snowsuit hell has no end, cold, slushy and blah. Reading week helped, and it is short anyway, but oh my oh my it is nicer here; and in the Bahamas.

Where were we this time last year? Warderick Wells south anchorage visiting with other boaters, we watched the March of the Penguins, and X got a cold beer...a red letter day on a boat in the tropics with no fridge. Warderick Wells is a national park in the Exuma chain of islands in the Bahamas.

credit to Britt Bassett, s/v Windom for the aerial photo


One of the lovely things to do there is to hand feed the birds...


This is an edited version of one of our photos.

But now in Spanish land, one of my private lessons this morning baled because his Aunt died, and the other was shortened because they were hammering in the next room so loudly we could barely think.

I had to go into the school today to talk to the teacher about a child in the younger ones class who is kicking and punching the girls, also looking up their skirts and pulling down their pants. He seems to be the kids in the class who everyone knows because he is a pain. However, the younger one is getting rather worked up about it. I also had to set up a meeting with the elder child's teacher because she seems to have gotten a special help lady for my daughter for math. We aren't sure. Anyway, aside from her apparently disgusting cigarette breath, her teaching technique seems to involve yelling at my kid and making her feel stupid. Now math has never been her favorite thing, but as I have spent an entire year trying to teach her to at least not loathe it, and to maybe even think that she has some skills, this is not a step forward. She doesn't like it, and the problem we got into was that every time she was faced with a math program and sound track started in her head, "I hate math. I cannot do math." This was looped so that it filled her brain so completely that she never really engaged with the problem. Then she didn't learn, then she felt that she hated math and couldn't do math...on and on. Anyway, in no school is yelling at a child, making them feel stupid and then using the internet while they work viewed as a good teaching technique, so we are going in for a meeting tomorrow to find out what the plan is and what is going on.

Ho hum.

Teaching tonight again, three classes.

The man is still well *thank god*.

I love sunshine.