Windy.

Our offer, slightly below the asking price was accepted so it's all systems go with fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly. Most house sales, apart from auctions, involve a chain of buyers and sellers with the exchange of contracts having to be co-ordinated so that everyone signs at the same moment.

It's been a day of strong winds, occasional showers and longer sunny spells. In the morning a friend dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat. We don't see him that often so there was lots to catch up on. He showed us a modern push mower that he had just bought and was taking to show his Dad. Peter tried it out and found it very easy to use. Apart from the advantage of not being restricted by an electric cable it also did a good job of cutting the wet grass something our electric rotary mower struggles with. As the front lawn at the new house is small it would probably take longer to get the electric mower from the garage block (a few minutes away) and up the steps than to actually cut the grass. Peter was so impressed with it that he says it would be easier to use the push mower on some of the sloping areas here so I think he will be buying one sooner rather than later.
During the afternoon I began the task of bringing down my mother's artwork form the loft. I brought down a number of pictures and gave the frames a clean. I'm going to try and be organised by taking photos of each picture and keeping a written record before each framed picture is carefully packaged in bubble wrap. Just need the postman to deliver the 100m roll I ordered.

The recent rain and strong winds haven't been kind to the butterflies though I suspect that the red admiral (above) and the meadow brown (below) have made narrow escapes from the many dragonflies and darters (below). 

We've just returned from a wedding celebration in Pilton. We didn't stay too long as both of us were finding it hard to be standing as we chatted to people. However it was nice to be making contact with people from our new neighbourhood (hopefully). Fortuitously at the start of the evening we met the surveyor whom we had already asked to do the survey on the new house. He knows the area and those houses and we know him because our children went to the same village school and also he and his wife are fellow gig club members. We also talked to another of Peter's friends who will be happy to take down and clear away a dilapidated shed in the garden of the new house. I had visions of making many trips to the dump with bags of stuff to be disposed of but this sounds like a much better idea.