Cooler.

When I opened my eyes at 6.30 this morning it was wet, windy and cold so I drank my tea and went back to sleep for a couple of hours. The rain dried up some time mid-morning and this afternoon there have even been some sunny spells. 

My first garden job was to spray weed killer around the rest of the paving around the scree garden. Hopefully that will take care of the weeds for a while. Then to rest my back I carried on with mending the sheet after which I went back into the garden picking moss and leaves off the stones in the scree garden. The poor flag irises which like to have their rhizomes baking in the sun were sitting in a bed of spongy moss which I have carefully removed. To add insult to injury the moss created a perfect damp habitat for the snails which attack the irises. 

Now for the saga of the water glasses- When we were first married I bought some Dartington Crystal wine glasses from their sharon collection. (I've always loved good glass and ceramics.) We may even have used them once or twice but with a houseful of rowdy boys they have spent the last 20 years safely behind glass doors. Scroll forward to now and Peter's retirement. On retirement his firm lets the employee chose a retirement gift from Dartington Crystal. I spent a happy evening looking through the catalogue and settled on 4 sharon water glasses. They are similar to the wine glasses but have a shorter stem which I thought would make them stable enough for us to use on a more regular basis. Imagine my disappointment when Peter came home with the up to date catalogue and the news that they no longer make the water glasses. Instead I chose 4 tumblers which I thought would be useful. However I couldn't get the idea of the water glasses out of my mind even though they are very expensive, to my mind at least. I decided that if I could find them I would use the money I had made selling some of my mother's bits and pieces on eBay. That way I would have something to show rather than spending the money on every day things. I found a shop that was selling the water glasses, put in my order and waited for them to be delivered. But oh no, yesterday I got an email from them saying they didn't have them in stock. I contacted Dartington Crystal who confirmed they no longer made them so I cancelled my order. I had another look on the internet and found another shop that claimed to have them. This time I was taking no chances and rang the shop to check they still had them. I spoke to a very helpful lady who went trotting up some metal steps to the store room still chatting to me on the phone and she confirmed they had 6 of the glasses left. She put 4 aside for me and I made the purchase over the phone. As they were a little cheaper and had free post and packaging they were nearly £10 than my previous order so I'm feeling quite pleased.