Dry.

The day has been a mixture of sunny & warm, muggy or grey and chilly.

The two builder's lads turned up mid-morning and finished all the work they're supposed to do. The job itself won't be finished and I won't be paying any bills until the kitchen ceiling is repaired and the rendering done on the front. 

Vytas rang yesterday and I got very excited at the news that he and Sally will be coming to spend a weekend with us soon. He asked which wet suits we still have so I sent him a photo of the current collection. I've never had a wetsuit preferring to wear a rash vest over my swimming costume when I do go in. I keep thinking I'll go for a swim but haven't managed it yet.

I planned to have an easy day today which I'm not sure I did. The first thing I did in the back garden was to repot one of the tall acers into a scruffy but much bigger tub that fitted into the space between the oil tank and the raised bed. Pretty as they are the acers don't like being exposed to full sun or the strong winds so I need to find more sheltered spots for them. The new bed is now mostly filled with hardy geraniums and crocosmia which I've split. Hopefully by autumn I'll have plenty of plants to put in the new raised beds in the front garden.

I had decided to stop for the day and was noting the good job the lads had made of sweeping up around the paved areas when I spotted the glint of glass. Had a closer look and the more I looked the more glass splinters I could see. This was nothing to do with the current work but must be from when the lean-to's and utility windows had to come down and the glass had become trapped in the deep grooves of the slabs and the spaces between them which have lost all their mortar. Being worried that Speedy could cut his paws or that we might bring glass splinters into the house on the soles of our shoes there was nothing to do but get back into my work clothes, go down on my knees and scrape and brush up all the glass, everything from tiny splinters to chunks and shards and the accumulated dirt. Now we have lovley clean safe slabs, in this section at least and I have an aching back.