Warm.

Lovely warmth today blown in by the southerly wind.

This morning I tackled a job which I'd been putting off for a while which was to clear the last of the stuff from the sitting room bay window aka the sunroom. (I'm so fed up of looking at that grubby dilapidated space). Everything was covered in damp pink plaster dust. Luckily there wasn't too much but it still took a while to take stuff out to the terrace, brush the worst of the dust off and then assess the state of things. One almost sealed bag contained three sets of overalls, two were a bit musty and only needed to be hung out to air over the terrace railings before being put in the pile of 'things to wash'. The last set of overalls was covered in animal, cat? hair, Maybe one of the cats had been sleeping on it before I put it into storage. That set of overalls are now in the bin. Other things have been brushed down and put away until they can be aired and cleaned properly. I also moved some of the boxes from by the front door into the bedroom to clear the way for the kitchen installation.

Those jobs done I headed down into the front garden to begin cutting up the branches tossed into a giant heap in the middle of the 'lawn'. I'm thinking about getting one of those garden incinerators, like a metal dustbin with a lid that has a short chimney to try and burn the branches rather than paying for a skip. The problem is that there is an awful lot of fresh green branches compared to last year's dry twigs and I don't know if I can't get enough heat going to burn the green branches. My alternative plan is so load up my big garden bag with the cut up branches and then tip them directly into the skip once we get one. For now I'll keep on cutting up branches and making piles of fresh and dry twigs around the garden.

After I'd done enough gardening for my back I took myself for a stroll along the beach on the way to get some milk from the Co-Op. It was so balmy I ended up sitting on the stones listening to the sound of the waves. While working in the garden I'd been hearing a regular whooshing but closer to the water's edge the sound became more complex. The water was just up to the steep pebble covered slope so first of all there was a clattering sound as the water rolled the stones back down the slope, then a lighter tinkling as the wave slid over the gently sloping sand followed by a moment of calm as the wave regrouped. Then finally as the next wave rolled in, curled and then smashed down on the last remnants of the previous wave came a loud bang before the cycle began again.

With a fresh stretch of coastline comes different sea treasures from the new marine ecosystem. These common otter shells are ........ common here but new to me. 

This is the first mermaid's purse I've found here. Research tells me that it is egg case of the greater spotted dogfish aka catshark (I've not heard that name before).

The afternoon was too nice to stay indoors but I didn't dare risk doing any more gardening so I just sat up on the terrace to watch life in the bay and read with a cup of tea to hand. There's always something happening, a couple of kayakers and then a group of youngsters who'd been swimming and spent some time on the rock island. I was surprised at the way some of the sea birds stayed on the rocks with them. They weren't the only swimmers, I saw somebody in the water with his dog in a shortie wetsuit. A big motorboat appeared for a while and every now and again overhead a military jet roared over on its way to and from the mountains. Hard to spot as it was flying faster than the sound.