Mild.

It was a bit of a shock to the system to be woken by the alarm this morning. It wasn't that early but I'm not used to going to bed at half-past one in the morning. Our friends planned to leave mid-morning so I thought it would be nice to have a proper cooked breakfast including sausages. Sausages are so dear to Alex's heart that she can woefully detail every scene in LOTR and The Hobbit where a pan of sausages ends up being thrown into the bushes.  Breakfast was eaten, the car packed, Speedy retrieved from inside the car where he was attempting to steal Milo's dog biscuits and then suddenly all was quiet as Kate, Sam & Alex drove up the hill on their way back to Tewkesbury. It didn't take long to move the second table out of the kitchen. (Everyone tends to gravitate to the kitchen and we need plenty of table space for lap-tops, painting, reading and cups of tea as well as meals.) Because none of the boys had been  home this time I was spared the heartbreak of saying goodbye to them. 

No rain in sight so I did a little work on the bog garden path and shifted some of the silt that had been left there by the last floods. I couldn't do too much because my knee is still sore from yesterday.

It continues to be remarkably mild which seems to be confusing the natural world. The other evening it felt as if we lived in the middle of the rain forest. Not as warm but the air was filled with the sound of bird song and in the background was the sound of the stream rushing over rocks in the field next to the garden. Today, although I didn't see any frogs there was a lot of sudden movement when I walked around the pond. The winter jasmine is covered with yellow flowers and the winter flowering heathers are almost ready to flower but primroses in the first week of January?

Later I had another appointment at the dentists' as the first lot of antibiotics had failed to clear up the infection I picked up after my tooth was pulled out. It was a different dentist and he was very thorough taking an x-ray before prescribing a stronger antibiotic which I will have to take for 5 days. Hopefully that will do the trick. The dentists' is next to Tesco so I went in to buy some fruit and check for any bargains. Surprisingly I got figs and peaches for 75% off and platters of Spanish ham & salami, cream and Wensleydale cheese with cranberries for 88% off. Not bad at all. As I came out of the store the sky behind me was the most intense deep royal blue colour while in front it was shading through to turquoise. It was still so warm that although I wasn't wearing a jacket I had the car window open for most of the journey home.