Snow!

Wasn't expecting to see snow when I looked out of the kitchen window this morning but there it was. When we sat outside in the afternoon sun we saw the first swallow, hopefully it will stick around to eat all the midges I've been seeing in the garden.

The wind had quietened to a more normal level today though still quite cold bringing a few short sharp showers in the morning.

By late afternoon we were back to blue skies.

The council workers turned up to strim the grass at the edge of the road. Our neighbour wasn't happy with the way they'd cleaned up the road with a blower so he came out with his blower after they'd left and then went on to mow the grass as well.

I spent the morning at the zoo weeding some very wet gravel. The recent rain made it much easier to dig out the weeds though I ended up with muddy hands and knees. Luckily I was wearing Peter's waterproof over trousers and my kneeler pads which have plastic fronts. When I got home I found my left hand which had been pulling up the soggy weeds, had turned yellow from the dye in the leather gardening gloves. I had to shelter from the rain a couple of times then by the time I finished I'd taken off my jacket and fleece.

At one point I looked up to find myself being watched by four of the marmosets from their very large 'play' enclosure. They have lots of things to climb on etc and have a different enrichment activity each week to keep them stimulated. This week it's a tub of water filled with small floating pine cones. My work was also supervised by Keith? the kookaburra and every now and then the air would be filled with his laughing call which I'm discovering can be quite varied. 

When I'd finished my muddy weeding I had a session photographing the marmosets in the smaller of their pens, linked to the big pen by an overhead runway. There's another family group of marmosets in the zoo but this is a bachelor group of five or six (they kept appearing and disappearing so I'm not sure how many). I love the way the one below found himself a patch of sun to sleep in.

In the afternoon I attempted to make some cushion covers. I say attempted because although pocket style covers are the easiest thing in the world to make I went wrong not once but twice. And that was after pinning and turning the first cover out to check that it was right when in the end it wasn't. Then having unpicked and remade the first two covers I realised there was a basic design flaw as I'd made them like pillow cases with the overlap right at the end where it should have been in the middle. All this makes it seem like I'm either rubbish at sewing or loosing my faculties both of which are possible but then I've only made things like curtains and cushion covers when we moved house three or thirty years ago. No wonder I forgot the method and when I look at the few cushion covers I made for Broadgate they're the 'wrong' pattern too. Having finally worked out what I needed to do I began sewing the third cover only to have the bobbin thread run out. At that point I called it a day.

We sat out in the late afternoon enjoying the sun when our peace was disturbed by the buzzing of a drone. It flew over the front gardens then over our neighbour's house and back round to our front garden. It was only after this that I checked out the legal position and drones are not allowed to be within 50m of any uninvolved person at any height at all. If we see this drone again I'll take photos of the drone and if possible the operator before warning them off. It's not a nice feeling to have somebody checking you and your home out. All drone operators need to be registered which includes a theory test for both safety and privacy reasons.