So, school? Yeah, I'm not there. I'll tell you why in a bit.

After the autumn break we all returned to school, now with our masks on our faces at all times (except for when we're eating and yes, colleagues, I'm not happy about that, in our tiny staffroom for the ten or so people on our team). How are we making school safer? We open the windows. We close the windows. Every twenty minutes. For five minutes. Preferably all the windows - provided they work and they're unlocked. I've managed to acquire keys for the windows in both our buildings, so I'm a professional opener of windows now.

If you want to know about Germans and their "Lüften" obsession, there's a Guardian article about our "sophisticated hinge technology.

Numbers went up. A city near me wanted the schools to go hybrid - half the school at home, the other half in the classroom, so that we get a little more distance between pupils halving the risk of infection. No, not allowed the higher ups said. Meanwhile, the number of students with infections or quarantining was rising. The first students who had caught Corona in the holidays returned. (Oh and there were the kids who missed the first week after the break because their parents had taken them abroad on a holiday and the kids were in quarantine and we have to count that as an excused absence.) When a student tests positive, the kids sitting next to them are sent home and wait for a phone call from the local health authority. Front row kids get the chance of sending a teacher home.

Anyway, we're wearing our face coverings, opening the windows, providing those in quarantine with things to do online and doing our usual job, teaching, preparing, marking. Parent-teacher-conferences we do by phone this year, and most conferences were cancelled. I went to only one and guess what? One of the teachers there had caught it. We had met in the assembly hall, with covered faces and lots of space between chairs.

So, this was fine. Except some of us were using our Track-and-trace-app and so I got the red card on Monday morning. At least I assume, that it was the conference. Managed to get a test Monday night and now I'm sitting at home and waiting for the result, so I can go back to school. I feel bad, not because I have symptoms or because I'm worried that I caught it, but because the situation at school is mad. We had 27 teachers absent yesterday, including me.

If more had downloaded the app, things would be worse and we would have had to close half the school, I think. Or maybe we shouldn't have had that conference at all.

And then, all day yesterday, the system we use for distance teaching was inaccessible. It's back up, so I can check on my students' work and then later get on top of my marking.

First things first: the kid's Corona test was negative. The wait took longer than for the voluntary teacher tests. For those there is an online platform & you get your results within 24 hours or less. The kid's doctor gets the test results when the lab guy comes in once a day (or he gets a fax). Germany is a digital wonderland!

I'm sure this wasn't his last test though because our Ministerpräsident has decided that masks in classrooms won't be necessary anymore although they are still to be worn in the corridors and in the playground ("where you can't keep your distance"). There is no space in classrooms! Two kids share a desk and there's less than half a metre between desks. Masks aren't perfect but they gave me a little bit of confidence to interact with the students.
We'll see how that goes. There are already individual classes and whole schools in quarantine with cases among staff and students. I'm sure the number won't decrease now.

OK, now that the pictures have gone - I had them all on photobucket and they wanted me to pay for their not-so-great site - I need to do something with this.

Pictures will go on instagram and/or twitter.

So, this is going to be my school journal (again) - writing down how we're coping with COVID with all the rules and regulations and so on.

Here's the basics:

We're back at school with full classrooms and rising numbers of infections.

Thus the powers that be decided on mandatory masks in all secondary schools outside and inside (so far only until the end of month, but I expect this to be extended).
Teachers can forego the mask if they're at least 1.5 m away from the students.
We're meant to open the windows a lot to get rid of any contaminated aerosols.

Teachers can get a free test every two weeks - I had my first one on Friday. Results are posted online and it was surprisingly quick - got a "negative" yesterday afternoon.

That's it for now.
Any questions?

The other day I saw a pigeon drown. At first, I didn't know what it was - was that a duck bobbing up and then down again in the pond? No, this bird was smaller and grey. It must have misjudged the thickness of the layer of ice on the pond, mistaking it for solid ground. The ice had turned out to be much too thin to take the pigeon's weight and it had plunged into the water, close to the small island in the pond's middle but much too far to reach for a bird unused to swimming. It came up again but couldn't stay upright, its head landing in the water again. And then it stopped moving.

We decided to find a new destination for our traditional Boxing Day Walk, but we didn't want to drive too far. We usually end up somewhere in the Naturpark Schwalm-Nette and this time we started our walk in a tiny little village called Schwaam.

( Walking )

Sunday morning started with snow.

( German and pictures )

The Alster looks pretty on a snowy soggy day. The kid gets wet feet, so we return to the hotel by bus.

German calls them Libellen.

English has two words for them - dragonflies for the suborder Anisoptera and damselflies for the suborder Zygoptera.

( Pictures )

Have some pictures from last week when the th flowers were still very new - now there is much more but I'm at home nursing a cold.

In German Iris pseudacorus is called Sumpf-Schwertlilie or Gelbe Schwertlilie or Wasser-Schwertlilie (swamp, yellow or water sword lily). For some reason even though they are not closely related to lilies, the whole genus of Iris (a word which is in use in German, too) = Schwertlilie. I can see where the sword comes from - the leaves.

Well, the yellow iris or yellow flag is quite common around here - and it is an invasive species in other parts of the world.

( Pictures )

I am starting this with a map of the three maars in Daun:



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