Wild.

This country is catching the tail end of Hurricane Ernesto with heavy rains due tonight on top of exceptionally high tides here. Today, although warm has been very windy with powerful waves booming against the cliffs. Of course the surfers love it, some have been out all day. Next comes Storm Lillian due to bring strong winds and heavy rain in the next few days. Not the best Bank Holiday weather.

The early morning rain had cleared up in time for Cake &Cultivate but I did drive rather than cycle to the community gardens. There we carried on weeding the other big vegetable plot before enjoying a very tasty cake made with ricotta cheese and blueberries. 

 

Afterwards I had a wander around the allotments. Seeing all the netting and other precautions people have to take to protect their crops made me rethink my idea of taking on an allotment to grow soft fruits and a few vegetables. A nice idea but too much work for my poor old back.

Driving home through the village I was alerted to an 'incident' by the sound of police sirens, something not often heard here. When I managed to inch my way onto the High st I was met with the sight of three police vans parked on the road and a number of police hanging around or talking to people. With my imagination going into overdrive a possible explanation began to emerge when I saw thick black smoke pouring from the chimney of one of the cottages that line the road. It looked like a chimney fire though why so many policemen? Could it have been a police raid and the smoke was from the evidence being disposed of? Not very likely, probably somebody panicking on the phone to the emergency services. I may find out more when Peter returns from his rowing club curry night. Got to keep abreast of village events.

As it was dry when I got home I did some work on the old back gate. The wood wasn't dry enough for me to use the wood hardener but I scraped away more of the dry wood from the hinge side and painted on even more woodworm killer. Then I cut a length of fence post to fill the gap on the other side. That was fiddly as I wanted to make the join at an angle so that the new wood fits more snugly to the remaining wood. That took a couple of attempts to get a decent fit. Next is to cut out a piece from the length of the wood to create the corner for the door to shut against. The wood is about 18 inches long and although I was able to use the chop saw for some of the cutting the rest has to be done by hand. I don't know if my saw is getting blunt or if the timber is hard to cut but it's a long job which I didn't finish today. One thing I did do was to stop the door from catching on the floor. Initially I thought I'd trim the door when I took it down to paint but there's no way the screws are coming out. Instead I carefully chipped away at the cement floor by the manhole cover and managed to take off just enough concrete so I don't have to kick at the door to get it fully open.