Sun.

I woke to a crisp and frosty morning. The sun always energises me however cold it is. I had arranged for a builder  to come over today to give a price for boxing in all exposed wiring running along the top of stairway walls. It's too big a job for me to attempt. I know my limitations. Whenever somebody is coming here for the first time I stay within earshot of the house phone as people are so unused to following directions which I have to give them as good old Sat Nav leads them to a cart track a mile away. Sure enough the phone rang at 9.00 and I was able to give directions for the last bit of the way here. Sometimes I end up spending the whole day waiting for people to call so I was happy that I had the rest of the day free.

Once the builder had taken his measurements and left I put a first coat of stain-stop on the study ceiling. It's going to quite a few coats to cover some of the stains. That done I wrapped up against the cold, 2 pairs of trousers and 2 pairs of gloves and stepped outside to discover that it was raining. Fortunately the rain didn't last long and I was soon on my knees weeding the path around the little pond. I did about two- thirds before I was driven inside by rain and hail. At that point my back and head told me that was enough gardening for the day. To stop myself being tempted to go back outside again I put my gardening trousers in the washing machine.

Sure enough an hour later the sun was back and the pain killers had kicked in so I would have been tempted. Instead I had to be content with a walk around the garden. Then I got out my lap-top and wrote up a document which had been  hanging over me for a few days. At least it's out of the way now. 

My last job of the day was to fill in a few more cracks in the study ceiling that I had missed yesterday. Then I squirted the last of a tube of decorator's caulk into the gaps between the stone wall and the ceiling.