Grey.

Grey and cold this morning with not too heavy rain arriving at mid-day.

While it was still dry we carried on working outside. Peter is working his way through the bushes below the terrace while avoiding getting caught by the luxuriant stinging nettles or the very nasty whippy rose with lethal thorns. I think it's a wild rose as there's quite a lot of it around the garden. I managed to fling a last few bags of clippings onto the skip before it was taken away. With the skip gone Peter tried to park the camper on the bit of drive in front of the garage. However although there is enough room for the camper to fit, getting it onto the drive is another thing. Not only is there a telegraph pole on the opposite pavement making manoeuvring difficult that pavement is very narrow backed by a high stone wall. Peter gave up in the end and although he insists it's possible I doubt it. Better to find somewhere else to keep the camper.

I stayed up on the terrace clearing all the weeds from the planters and between the paving slabs before moving on to the hedge. Once the bay window has been removed (after the French doors and windows to the sitting room are put in) it will be a decent sized terrace. We plan to have a glass balustrade so each time we walk down to the village we check out some of the different options that we can see; handrail or no handrail, gaps or no gaps. A handrail is good for leaning on and would give extra strength but it will cut across the view from inside the sitting room. Something yet to be decided.

It's out 44th wedding anniversary today but in view of all the upheavals we decided not to bother with cards etc. However we are having a nice supper of spare ribs with new potatoes and green beans. We are having to microwave the spare ribs, not the best way to cook them but last week after spending a long time scouring the top oven of the cooker we found that turning it on blew some of the fuses and shut down the central heating. Once we'd reset the heating, so nice to be toasty and warm, we realised that we'd have to make do with the hotplates which work fine and the microwave until the new kitchen is done.

Talking of microwaves we gave away our older spare microwave and kettle today. I left them outside for a covid safe pickup so I didn't meet the recipients but I'm just glad somebody could use them.

The lad from Magnet came to measure up for the new kitchen today. After choosing Magnet following the Which report I have to say I was pretty disappointed with the lack of choice of cupboard sizes. Having been unable to make sense of the Magnet brochure I'd drawn up my plans using the B&Q brochure thinking all the firms would be about the same. But no, the four drawer option only came in two sizes and the size I needed has three drawers all different depths. I've stayed with the four drawer option and hidden drawers behind the full-sized doors under the sink and along. Also they don't do one of the top units I wanted to match up with the integrated extraction hood nor the open fronted unit I want to have facing into the dining area. So not quite as smooth an appointment as I thought but on the positive side because we're not having any of their appliances delivery will be a lot quicker once we place the order. Now I just need to wait for the plans to arrive by email after which I'm sure I'll be making another visit to the showroom.

Even though it was raining gently Peter and I went for a walk down on the beach in the afternoon to clear our heads. The more tired I get the more I feel as if I'm going down with a cold but the next morning I'm fine again. Because of the rain I didn't take my camera with me which was a shame because with the tide out we realised that we were walking on the petrified forest. Today it was just fallen logs and amalgamated masses of pieces of wood full of round holes caused by shellfish. It was only as I walked over a large area that I realised the wood hadn't actually been turned to stone but was surprisingly yielding. Will take photos another time.