Sunny.

It's been another day of bright blue skies, icy winds and golden sunshine. While Peter went out rowing I was busy at home. I got two coats painted on the kitchen walls. The colour is standard magnolia but to me it looked like melted Cornish ice cream. Peter thinks it's a bit bland but I feel it brightens up the kitchen and blends better with the cream tiles. If I was being really picky I'd try and get a closer match with the tiles but it will do.

While waiting for the paint (and the washing) to dry  I got on with a job that I had been saving for a rainy day but could also do sitting outside in the sun. A while back I'd noticed that one of the chair cushions was so old that the fabric was splitting allowing the feathers to escape. I used a piece of striped upholstery fabric to make a new cushion pad first with the sewing machine and then hand sewing the last seam. This I did sitting outside on the pallet in the suntrap at the top of the garden. As usual there was the faint hum of the town traffic but just a few gardens down a woodpigeon was cooing and being answered by another woodpigeon further away. While there are less birds around than at Dingles I usually hear one or two species nearby. Only the occasional rook but on several occasions I've seen a flock of around 100 jackdaws and there's even been the hooting of owls in the evening.

Once again the golden late afternoon ended in a blaze of orange and red. The forecasters are still warning of much colder temperatures and the arrival of a snow storm luridly called the Beast from the East but it looks like we shall miss the worst of it here in the south-west. Back at Dingles we would be checking the oil level and our food stores and worrying about work and appointments but here the Co-Op is in walking distance and so too is the hospital where I do have two appointments this week.