Sunny.

A bright and sunny day today with a chill wind. I woke early this morning and had to get up to do my exercises. I say 'had to' because unfortunately as often happens the twinging nerves in my leg could only be eased by stretching and general movement. Once the exercises were done I went downstairs, made myself a cup of tea and fed Speedy whom I then confined in the conservatory where his litter tray is. Unfortunately when Peter woke later and went down to make himself a cuppa he let Speedy back into the kitchen without noticing I had already put out the breakfast things on a tray. Cue very loud crash as a bone china bowl fell, cat assisted, onto the marble floor and exploded into smithereens. Not only were there shards across the kitchen floor but they had reached the far corners of the dinning room. After an initial clean up with a brush and pan I had to hoover every inch of both floors with the nozzle attachment. Not the best start to the day.

Since the £500 cost of sending this painting by Bryan Pierce to Sotheby's in London seemed ridiculous Peter got in touch with Bonham's (the other main fine art/antiques auctioneers). They have an office in Exeter and offered to send somebody to look at the painting and take it for their London sale. A nice chap came this morning and was very happy with the painting. I was able to provide him with suitable provenance ie my mother's gallery and friendship with Bryan and his parents. As I'm not that keen on this painting I'm quite happy for it to be sold. Unfortunately this is the only valuable painting I inherited from my mother apart from the earlier Bryan Pierce painting which we sold for much less in the Penzance auction. That's better than no paintings of any value.

My afternoon was spent sewing the sofa cover. I had hoped to complete the frame cover today but I still have to pin and sew two places where there is a great excess of fabric. Once that's done I'll need to cut away the spare fabric. When I realised I wasn't going to finish today I left the inside out cover on the frame and just put the cushions back on top for the evening. That way I'll be ready to pin and sew straight away tomorrow.

While sewing I saw that the seed bird feeder needed topping up so on a break out I went with my bag of seeds. Once again the rain had got in, some seeds had sprouted and the rest mushed into a nasty mess. It took a palette knife and knitting needle to clean it all out. To help drain any water in the feeder I used a hammer and long screwdriver to make some holes in the bottom of the rusty metal. The blackbirds were back again feeding on the ground while the sparrows and a robin ate from the feeders.