Dry.

A dry, wind-free day.

Morning colours across the bay.

After his success with the curtain rail brackets today Peter put up a row of hooks for our dressing gowns, or at least some of them. I'd bought the coat pegs from eBay and they were so badly made (a cheap knock-off I expect) that Peter had to re-cut the ends of some of the fittings to get them to fit properly. All the other hook rails I found had the hooks much closer together which wouldn't have been right for the bulky dressing gowns. With the new hooks up the over-the-door wire thingy could be taken down but the door still won't close. Peter can see where the door jamb is swollen but of course we don't have a small plane, or any plane for that matter. This means that unless we place a stone to keep the door shut at night Speedy will still have access to our bed and can continue to walk over us and purr loudly in the early hours of the morning.

Later we took ourselves off for a walk along the beach. It's much easier to walk along the sand than up on the shingle especially for Peter whose ankles aren't the best so with the tide not that far out we turned back once we were forced up on to the stones.

We got the estimate from the kitchen fitter, over £1,000 and he doesn't do any plumbing or electrics. Peter checked with our friendly builder to check we weren't being taken advantage of but apparently that's the going rate, yikes. So we've booked the fitter and he's coming on the 5th of December. I had more splashback samples arrive today but the aluminium based one which seemed the best option is too grey for my liking. 

I finished off my afternoon with more clipping in the front garden. Earlier I'd trimmed the height of the elaeagnus so people couldn't look into the garden but it was covering over a couple of shrubs in front of it, an escallonia and something variegated and had powdery mildew (a fungal infection). Not as severe as the one in the side hedge but one of the treatments is to thin out the branches to allow more air circulation. So I've started reducing the depth of the elaeagnus which allowed me to get to the last stand of brambles. Another few sessions and the front corner of the garden will look a lot better. As I worked I occasionally trod on the mint growing underfoot releasing wafts of minty scent- nice.