Melting Hot.

It was an even hotter day today. We were melting at school but it was still delicious to be so warm especially as there was a breeze blowing. I walked into town at lunchtime so that I could get some books from the library and buy some oat bran from the health food shop where it is half the price of the supermarket packets. With the good weather comes grass cutting time as the farmers cut and transport great loads of grass to be made into silage. There is not much haymaking here because the weather is too unpredictable but the air is sweet with the smell of cut grass, a nice change from muck spreading.
The roadside verges are filled with flowers, they make my journey to work so enjoyable. My favourite is the white froth of the cow parsley, such a prosaic name- Queen Anne's Lace sounds so much prettier.

The path from town from school runs along the top of a high bank by a loop of a tidal stream that skirts a small park. Sometimes, when the tide is low, you can see big sea fish in there with their fins breaking the water but today there were just some ducks including this mother and her ducklings.

After work I drove over to the other side of town to buy plants for my hanging baskets. I had to go to 2 places to get the right colours of surfinias and at B&Q there was a blackbird sitting on a nest on one of the outside plant racks. I did try to get a photo but she didn't show up in the pictures and there was a sign asking people not to disturb her. I remember the same thing happening at BJ's Garden Centre a couple of years ago. When I got home I sat outside for a while recovering from my shopping expedition and then I got all the hanging baskets planted up. Once again I have surfinias and trailing lobelia in pink, purple and white and I am trying some trailing verbena as well. I did grow some trailing lobelia from seed but the cost of the seed was the same as buying well established plants so unless I can get cheaper seeds I shan't bother again.