Windy.

Peering sleepily out of the bedroom windows this morning I couldn't make up my mind if I was looking at overcast or blue skies. That might have been because a lot of thin cloud was being blown across the sky. During the day we had moments that were almost sunny and others when it was almost raining. It was during one of those moments that I went up and took down the washing from the line, needless to say by the time I had hung it over the rayburn the sun was out again.

One of my morning jobs is to deadhead the surfinias in the hanging baskets. The blooms are getting fewer each day but it's not quite time to empty the hanging baskets. This morning I made use of one of our natural resources ie the stream, to scrub a kitchen mat and clean out some plastic trays from the shed. At about an inch deep the stream is perfect for such jobs and I'm sure the bit of washing up liquid I used was soon dispersed as the water flowed downstream to the lake.

The next task was to mix up some filler to repair the wall where the wardrobe had been. There were a couple of cracks where the wall had moved a little. Not that they are anything to worry about, the house has stood for hundreds of years and stone walls built onto clay will move slightly as the clay expands and contracts. However it didn't look very nice. Also that corner had been missed out the last time the room had been painted a slightly lighter shade of pink. As I still have that paint I may as well go over that corner.

Then I tackled a job I've been putting off - a large framed picture with broken glass. The frame itself was a good quality aluminium frame which will do nicely for one of my many posters. Having eventually worked out how to dismantle the frame I carefully broke the glass even more on an old sheet, packaged up the broken glass in cardboard and then put that and the sheet in in a bag for disposal. Finally in the spirit of using up food from the freezer, and spurred on by much watching of old episodes of Next Great Baker (not sure yet about the new series, swapping 3 of the 4 hosts/judges is quite a change) I used some frozen pastry and apples from the garden to make an apple tart. I'll post a photo if it tastes good because I sort of made the recipe up.

My nature pictures today were all found on a small Cornus bush. I don't recall having seen this type of caterpillar (of a Pale Tussock moth) before. It was busy climbing up a stem and I wish I had carried on watching it after I took the photo because by the time I had taken some of the other photos it had disappeared. I wonder if it went to the top of the stem and then let itself be blown away in the strong winds?

I've often found shield bugs on this bush but not anywhere else in the garden and I can't say I've taken much notice of the common garden spiders one of which was resting on the same plant.

 The developing berries look almost artificial.