Sun ..... Then Hail.

Contrary to the forecast we had a rather nice day if a little chilly at times. We had planned to make a start on changing over the sitting room wall lights as I we will be taking the current ones with us and you can't get them any more. I had bought 6 lights on eBay last autumn but when I unwrapped one I noticed that it didn't have a standard light fitting. Instead it looked to need one of those halogen push in bulbs but a bigger size than the ones I keep for our bedside lights. I couldn't bring up the details of the original eBay description so I messaged the seller who sent me a photo of the bulbs I needed. I was very surprised to see it was an ordinary bulb but with a small screw fitting. Duh! Luckily, when Brian Ford's closed down some years ago I bought 5 boxes of small screw fitting bulbs for the lights in our back room at the ridiculous price of 10p per box of 4 bulbs. Justification for my future planning. 

As it was so nice out I thought I would tidy up the golden marjoram bed. It just needed the dry flower stalks to be taken off and a little weeding and that should be it for the rest of the year. 

(Wow! hailstones are falling as I type at 6.00.) Having done a bit more than the 20 mins  of gardening advised by the physiotherapist my back began to protest but before I called a halt I cleared the rill that leads into the small pond.

Then I did stop and tucked myself into a sunny sheltered corner to have a blissful few hours reading in the sun.  

The first beech leaves usually appeared around the 1st of May but a quick hunt along the hedge at the bottom of the garden revealed a few buds inside the hedge already unfurling their fresh green leaves.