Gales.

An autumnal gale has been blowing all day long bringing with it extremely heavy showers. Not good news for Peter who had to be up early to organise taking one of the gigs up to the High Street for a publicity drive. The day had been allocated by the council and unfortunately coincides with a regatta that the fitter more committed members are attending (though they may have not been able to go out to sea in these conditions) so it had been difficult to find enough people to move the gig and be there during the day. Peter came home once the gig was put in place and I drove him back down earlier this afternoon. I provided transport because once the gig is safely put away all the helpers will be going for a drink or 2. Right now I'm listening to the wind and waiting for a call to go and collect Peter. 

One of my jobs today was to fit the new door handles. In theory, as we had chosen the same handles as had been there before it should have just been a matter of putting in some screws. The first hitch was that though the packaging said to fit a door 1 3/4" deep underneath it said that the spindle may need shortening using a hacksaw and sure enough it was too long. I tried a couple of our smaller hacksaws and then spent an hour working my way through the bar with a metal file. That done it took only a few minutes to put in the screws. Then I made the mistake of assuming the spindle of the second handle was the same length as the first one, carefully measured how much I needed to remove and spent 45 minutes sawing away with a bigger hacksaw. I was so relieved to be finished that I put everything away except the screwdriver only to find I needed to take off another 1/2 cm! More sawing, sitting at the kitchen table and watching tv and the spindle was now the right length. But then the screw holes wouldn't all match up and I had to take out the drill and make new holes. But at last it is done and the shiny handles look very nice. 

Before all this DIY I made 2 loaves of banana bread with some bananas I hadn't been able to resist yesterday, 16p for a kilo. I have had a slice and then cut the loaves in half and put 3 halves in the freezer.

It's mainly been too wet to take photos outside so here are some of my flowering orchids. This spotty one has been flowering since April and the white one has been flowering for a couple of weeks while the little pink one has just started to flower.