Bird Watching.

Still Hot, (and yes, my tooth is still aching.)

I thought that after two very early mornings I would probably sleep for longer today. But then I was woken at 5.00 by Peter's radio. which had mysteriously turned itself on. Later I found out that we had had a power reduction and then no power at all early this morning. Not only were we woken early but then the radio started to do weird things like suddenly switch stations but the good old method of unplug, wait and plug back in worked.

So once more I ended up on the terrace watching the birds. While most of the birds I watch are not especially rare (though herring gulls are now on the red list due to declining numbers) they are still interesting. On closer inspection those were black-headed gulls bobbing about this morning. The other day checking on a swirling mass of gulls far out in the bay revealed that a flock of shearwaters had joined the gulls hunting a shoal of fish. And of course if there are fish about we are more likely to see dolphins. 

As we'd been busy on the last two Sundays we had our croissants this morning and listened to two episodes of The Archers omnibus . I got another Bara Brith in the oven at the same time since I'd made the effort to get the fruit and nuts yesterday.

Before breakfast I'd done some more work on the hedge which included sawing a thick stem which would have caused problems for the electric hedge trimmer. Bit by bit I'm getting there.

I added some details to the carnival dolphins and also carried on with the panel for the stern of the boat.

Then while we still have the good weather I thought I would make a start on my main summer 'house' job which is to paint the garden wall between us and the neighbours. Initially, to me at least, painting a wall is just putting down dustsheets and then painting. But of course there's the dreaded and messy 'prepare your surfaces' to be done first. No point in doing a rushed job and then having to do the same again in a few years time.

I knew there would be a certain amount of loose paint to scrape off which was a major under estimation. As I set to with  large screwdriver and wire brush thingy for cleaning barbecues I found more and more loose areas of paint. And discovered you can hear where the paint is detached which was interesting. More worrying was hearing even deeper echoes where the stony render under the paint must be coming away from the wall. But as there were no breaks in the surface I just went carefully and it was only in a couple of spots. After all it is only a garden wall.

There's some mortar under the coping stones to replace and then I can start the fun part, painting.