A Mixed Day.

The blue skies were back again this morning, but only for the early birds because clouds soon rolled in leaving us with an overcast day. It was still very warm and there was a bit of a breeze so I hoped my washing would dry. I also hung out all of Peter's t-shirts to air. It stayed warm but the breeze died down and everything felt quite humid so the t-shirts will have to wait for better conditions to get aired properly. The rain began at 4.00 as I was bringing in the slightly damp washing which is now hanging over the rayburn.

My gardening job for the day was to cut down all the Rubus which had spread all over the old steps. Maybe one day I'll reinstate the steps to nowhere which we took down to allow the tractor in when the pool was being filled in.

Peter had lots of things to do today starting with an appointment to have his hand scanned at the hospital before they decide if he needs an operation or not. Then he went to his old firm as they'd rung saying his leaving present had arrived. He also took the door handles and the lock with him to get replacements at B&Q. However things did not turn out according to plan. First the door handles- I had asked him to get 2 sets of handles as along with the 10% off for the over 60's on Wednesdays they had a deal if you bought 2 sets of handles and it would look good to have new handles on both the doors. I get ready to fit the handles and locks to find he only bought 1 set as you get 2 handles in a pack - um that's for 1 door and we have 2 doors! As I didn't want to wait another week I thought I'd fit the handles we did have, cut open the packaging only to discover Peter had bought the handles without the keyhole. We resolved our slight disagreement and he will go and get 2 sets of handles tomorrow. Then I opened the boxes with the retirement glasses from his work. Not only were there 2 glasses instead of 4 but they were the slightly smaller ones and the vase which I had carefully chosen to make up the amount he had been allocated was a slightly bigger one. This was entirely the fault of the office as I had gone on line, checked the current Dartington catalogue and written down the exact names and prices of the glasses and the vase on a piece of paper which Peter had given to the office. So more delays until we get the right ones. This time I've even written down the codes for the glasses and vase.

On a much better note the water pump people came today to check out the system. I haven't been able to run the water for any length of time before it stops so we decided we'd better get it sorted before selling the house. We thought the main pump might need replacing which would be a lot of money but it turned out to be a blown (up) capacitor which is quite a minor thing to replace.