Rain.

Woke this morning to proper rain. Just what my garden needed. It was still very warm and though black clouds remained in the sky the rain died away quite quickly with only the occasional shower. I had to go into town, first to take my flat tyre to the cheap repair place. It turned out that they couldn't repair it and I had to buy a replacement tyre. Who knows if they are telling the truth or not but they have repaired some of my tyres before so perhaps I am too cynical. Then I went and had my tattoo touched up. This time I didn't take any painkillers beforehand and there wasn't much difference. Today's session was less than an hour while the original tattoos took nearly 2 hours each. I enjoyed chatting to Tom as he worked especially as he is a skateboarder too and knew Linas. Even though Barnstaple is a big town there is still a strong community feel and when you get chatting to anyone who has lived here for a while you soon find a lot of connections.

My afternoon has been spent washing the sitting room carpet as the forecast is for the hot weather to return which will help it dry out. Usually I wash every bit of it and that takes forever especially as you get to a point where the vax is dragging up dust from the concrete underneath. I wouldn't mind spending all that time and effort washing the carpet if it looked fantastic afterwards but once the wool dries it doesn't look a lot different to before. So this time I allocated one afternoon to wash the parts that needed cleaning and that will have to do. I am so not having carpet when we eventually move because you can never get a carpet really clean. I'd like floor surfaces that can be washed apart from maybe the bedroom. Just can't make up my mind what surface would be ideal. I love the cork tiles in our kitchen but even if you hire a sander and re-varnish them you can't get them looking like new. Sometimes I think I'd like limestone tiles (with underfloor heating) but that would be a hard surface to fall on, you know when we get old and doddery. It's fun to dream.