Thunder.

Look what the postman brought me from Romas. By the time the postman arrived I was ready to relax after 4 hours sawing away at that tree. I'm at least halfway through so I'll save the final bit for Friday. It was very warm so I was working in a t-shirt and now my arm is bruised from leaning on one tree and my hands are sore too. I found a big branch to stand on to raise me up a bit but it was balanced on a trunk that leans out over a 6ft drop to the stream below and I was still cutting above me. Not a safe place to put a ladder especially as the tree will probably twist as it goes down so I need to be able to make a swift exit as soon as I hear it cracking. I worked slowly, sawing and resting thinking that each cut brought me a fraction of a millimetre closer to completion. All around the birds were singing and I watched a big bumble bee buzzing away and looking for nest sites. Eventually it found a soft spot under the leaves and with a wriggle its fat bottom disappeared into the ground. I watched for a while but didn't see it emerge but there it was again buzzing around. Or maybe that was another bumble bee?

The primroses are looking good right now. All from a couple of plants that I liberated from a hedgerow a mile away. 

Once I had decided to stop sawing I cleared a few more bags of rubbish from the outbuildings and took all the bags and the recycling box up to the road ready to be collected tomorrow morning. That's where I met the postman. Back home I had just started washing my hair when I heard a rumble of thunder from the black cloud overhead. Quickly wrapping my hair in a towel I turned off all the delicate items in the house and unscrewed the phone line. There were a few more rumbles and some heavy rain but hopefully we are all clear now.