Warm.

Plenty of thunder and lightning in the night but no power cuts. Today has been warm and mainly overcast with showers and occasional spells of hot sun.

Having spent the night in a cardboard box in the bathroom the bat was still alive this morning. I got in touch with out local bat rescue lady and we arranged a meet in the car park of the Muddiford Inn. There were a couple of members of staff sitting outside the pub and they gave me some strange looks as I sat in my car. I handed over the bat but sadly we later got a phone call to say that it had not survived. It had puncture wounds, probably from a cat! but I had done all the right things and saved it from a lingering and painful end. The bat lady told me that last night she had been surveying a roost of over 400 Serotine Pipistrelle bats. She also said that she would be happy to come and do a survey of our bats though I don't think there are that many in our loft. More like 10 bats.

Having cut down the overhanging branches last autumn I thought it was time to try and revive the bit of lawn in that corner at the back of the house. Stage 1 was to remove weeds, sticks, leaves and as much of the moss as I could. I never realised that moss grew so long. I cleared buckets and buckets of moss from that corner. Stage 2 was to strim the long grass around the edges and finally I sprinkled grass seed liberally over the area. The warm wet weather should be perfect growing conditions. Speaking of which there is not a shoot of green in either of the vegetable plots from the latest plantings. I do have 6 pumpkin plants and 1 runner bean growing in pots but that's it so far.