Rain.

After nearly 2 weeks of hot sun today it rained. It was still very warm with the rain coming and going. Today was recycling day, a day late after the Bank Holiday and later than usual as I think there are fewer men with the lorry. After the mystery 'brown bag thief' left me with no bag for our cardboard recycling I put out our small amount of cardboard tucked into a small cardboard box on the top of our black recycling bin. That was last night as I don't want to go rushing out after a bad night, but when I went to add a couple of items to our box this morning the box of card items had gone. ? Maybe somebody's dog had picked it up as there might just have been some chocolate packaging? Strange. I gave my boxes a good wash with soapy water before putting them back in the bin store.

Today I've mainly being getting on with some admin. One job that has taken up a lot of time was looking for a kitchen sink for Borth. The first step towards our new kitchen. When I'm choosing things for our new home I start by looking at every option beginning with the most expensive designer versions to see if there's something I aspire to. In terms of a kitchen sink I've returned to stainless steel. White china looks nice but we'd be bound to drop and break things in it. Moulded quartz/granite in resin look fancy but from some that I've seen in use white or light colours end up stained especially by tea and I'm not sure about dark. I read a number of reviews and they can be damaged by hot saucepans etc. Also you'd need to have matching taps of which there is not so much choice. So I'm back to stainless steel. The original double drainer sink was very handy but I've decided on a drainer on just one side. What I have been looking for is the largest bowl size similar to the old one. Plenty of room for a washing up bowl with usable space on the side. We've had both a double sink and a one and a half sink but the extra big single suits best. I know everybody is on the internet but I couldn't believe it when I got to the Wickes page. I was put in a queue to get to their website with a waiting time of 40 minutes. What on earth was that about? I spent a very long time on the Screwfix site, writing down bowl sizes, looking at reviews and prices and trying to work my way around quite a cumbersome web site. One sink I was interested in then turned out to be unavailable in store, unavailable for delivery and unavailable for click and collect. That was a big waste of time. Will have to spend more time on that hunt.

Yesterday evening we joined in again with the 'Clap for Carers' clapping at 8.00. A few children were banging saucepans and somewhere down the road there were some enthusiastic whistle blowers. I still have my school whistles but I think I'll stick to loud clapping. I've heard a number of health workers on the radio say how much they've appreciated the weekly clapping so it's the least we can do. There's a lot of talk about the use of face masks by the general public. The government isn't recommending it but other experts say it helps in preventing us spreading our germs. For the moment it'll be mask and goggle type sunglasses for me.

Finally, for anyone who hasn't seen -this is the story of a 99 year old war veteran who has raised millions of pounds for NHS charities by walking 100 laps of his garden, using a walker!

After more updates last night I was finally able to extract Wednesday's photos from my phone. It's only Lidl's car park but I thought the blossoming trees looked lovely.