Sunny.

It's been lovely and sunny all day long. The beach has been packed with people enjoying the good weather and plenty of people out on the water too. This guy on the jet ski was obviously going a lot faster than the 8 knot limit on the inside of the marker buoy. Later in the day I saw another guy on a jet ski doing doughnuts on the far side of the buoys so at least he was following the rules but he wasn't being very considerate to the chap trying to fish from a kayak nearby. The noise from the engine must surely have frightened away any fish in the vicinity. 

My back was still sore this morning, either rowing isn't for me or more likely an hour at a time is too much for now, so I chickened out of cycling to the community gardens and drove instead. Oh for the days when cycling was as easy as walking, Now it's a real effort apart from the downhill bits. At the community gardens we were on a general tidy up for the open day next Sunday. I set to work on some brambles. Being a 'naturally wild' space there are a lot of brambles everywhere to encourage the wildlife but finding a poor hebe totally buried gave me the excuse to clear away the brambles from that spot. I also cleared any brambles growing in the herb garden which is set out in a spiral. I left all the other wild plants growing amongst the herbs even though my instinct would be to clear them all away. There was no cake today as Cat who bakes the cakes had a relative visiting but we had chocolate biscuits and strawberries instead. Very nice they were too.

 

Being completely sheltered it was too hot at the community gardens unlike at home where there has been enough breeze from the sea to keep things comfortable. 

On my way home I stopped on the road from the zoo to collect willow branches for the garden. My plan is to bend them into hoops and use them next year as plant supports. Step one was to cut and strip the branches which I did in this wonderfully cool shady spot. I even peeled off all the bark which saved having the mess at home. The trees are cut back every year so I wasn't worried about removing branches for my own use. (These aren't the best photos of the road as I didn't want to include any of the families walking to and from the zoo.) The peeled branches are now soaking in a bin of water, once they have softened I'll bend them into hoops and leave them to use next year.

After dealing with the branches at home I sorted and packed all the stuff we need for the carnival tomorrow. Thinking to take advantage of the good weather I put the sun lounger out on the terrace and then decided to do a bit of cutting back in the garden. An hour later I finally got to sit down and had an hour relaxing in the warmth of the late afternoon sun.