Busy.

Grey again today with no interesting extra low clouds but an occasional patch of blue in the middle of the day. Definitely more wind possibly heralding some stormy weather. I had a very early start to my day after walking at 4.00 and getting up at 6.30. My first cup of tea was drunk while I caught up on blogs but I savoured my next hot drink, my only non-decaff coffee of the day standing out on the terrace watching the breakers rolling in and the occasional seagull looking for worms on the cliff (sometimes they do that foot stomping to bring the worms to the surface). The gang of sparrows swooped in and out of the garden and the blackbirds sat on top of a bush. 

It has been a busy, busy day. Lots of deliveries; a litter picker for me, two venetian blinds for our bedroom, taps for the utility and toilet, beer for Peter and the sheet music for Farewell to Stromness for me (I've only had the first page to try). The builders have been here too. The team boss and two workers came early and boarded out the toilet and hall and put the self-levelling stuff on the floors of the utility and my study. The team boss brought me two 12" square tiles to see if either would do, one grey and one a sand colour. The sand coloured one had actually been my second choice from Wickes and as he can get them straight away those are what we're having. After Wickes' epic fail I tried buying the cupboards  and worktop from B&Q and hey presto got a delivery date of 16th Feb which the builder says fits with his schedule. Then we had a visit from the boss boss (I don't know exactly how they would refer to themselves) who is bringing a team tomorrow to start on the outside work. How exciting. Peter took him outside to show him the falling down fence and the builders are going to deal with that too using the materials Peter bought. Not only does it mean that the old fence and vast amounts of ivy will be disposed of but despite our good intentions I feel that it might be too heavy for us to deal with or at least would be a long job. Just one blip today, the builders asked if we could move the car from the drive so they could get their truck in tomorrow but when I went out to do so the battery had gone flat again. I understand this is a common problem these days. It's been 16 days since I drove the car and that was only to the launderette. Peter has got the battery on charge and we'll move the car in the morning.

I did go for a walk along the beach today but decided to show my 'reflection' photos from yesterday.

I must have looked rather odd as I shifted about crouching down every now and again to position myself to catch the reflections of the houses up on the cliff.

Naturally I had to find the reflection of our little home (below).

Even funnier was the result when I turned the photos upside down but strangely, or not if I could remember optical rules, the reflections are a mirror image but the slope of the road is also reversed. So in the photo above in reality the small white houses are higher up the hill and on the right of the three storey houses.

These two photos show the red roof our our home sitting between our elderly neighbour's blue house and the grass cutting neighbour's white house.