Warm.

A muggy grey day today with a few spots of rain. Strangely enough it was warmer outside than indoors.

Later in the morning I heard on the radio that there was a partial eclipse of the sun happening at that very moment. I shot outside and squinting at the sun (I know, very naughty) was able to see the shadow of the moon taking a chunk out of the sun's top left hand quadrant. I tried hard to get a photo but there were no more gaps in the clouds.

I was looking around the garden to see what else was worth photographing when I was shocked to find a bag of dog crap shoved through the wall into the garden. I was utterly furious as not only is that a disgusting thing to do there's a bin especially for the dog crap bags less than 100ft away. I then spent a good few hours working on the front wall to close it off. There was a plastic mesh screen inside the wall but it was no longer wired to the concrete blocks. Instead of re-wiring the screening which would be difficult with the hedge in the way I was able to stack concrete bricks (from the old bay window) inside the wall pushing the screening flush with the original wall. I then went round the garden pulling up any brambles and cutting dead sticks to jam into the gap between the top of the wall and and the hedge. This was hot scratchy work and my fury increased when I pulled out another four of the nasty black bags. We have a cunning plan to set up a wildlife camera in the back of the car which is just off-camera to the left. If we do catch anyone on film it will go straight onto the local FB page though I doubt we will.

The builders eventually arrived in the afternoon and now the membrane is stuck down. Next comes the replacement of the soffits and all the guttering around the whole house. The other builder also turned up to check on progress as he's waiting 'till the roof work is done before starting on the new terrace and the front garden raised beds.

Yesterday somebody I was chatting to at the zoo told me about seeing the body of a small /baby? dolphin on the rocks and when I looked over the cliff there it was. Such a shame. It may have perished in the storm the other week or it could be the result of too much human interference stopping them from feeding sufficiently. That's the reason for the 100m rule if you spot them when you're out on the water.

Everything is bursting into life in the garden. There are at least ten hydrangea bushes in the front garden and so far this blue one is my favourite.