Warm.

Grey with heavy rain in the morning turning to sun in the afternoon.

It seems that stretching up to hook and unhook curtains is currently not good for my ribs as I had a poor night's sleep or rather lack of. Oh well I thought, I can ask Peter to do that for me but ....... this morning he went to the doctors to have a suspicious mole removed from his back. He'd emailed the doctor photos of three moles I was wondering about and they'd given him an appointment for their minor op/dermatology clinic. In the end only one mole needed to be removed which took 25 minutes and left him with 4 stitches and instructions not to twist, stretch or do any heavy lifting for three weeks. That means all our DIY projects have to be put on hold and worse for Peter he was told not to row for that time also. The rowing itself is fine so he can use his rowing machine but climbing in and out of the boat and heaving the boat down to the water and then back up the beach is a definite no. Perhaps we will get some walks in instead.

As I can't unhook the curtain or lift the sewing machine (Peter does that for me too) I turned to some gentle gardening. A bit of weeding, emptying out another planter and digging away more soil from the raised bed under the terrace. While I was out there the sky was filled with the noise of a large flock of jackdaws swirling about and then landing on a couple of roofs. Reminiscent of 'The Birds.'. 

At first I thought they were starlings, a large group of starlings visits a bird table in the garden next to our back garden and Aber is famous for its murmurations of starlings but these were jackdaws. At least they're not rooks which really annoy Peter. On the subject of flocks of birds the other day we noticed a mass of seagulls swirling over the cliff near the bottom of the garden. Unlike the rapcious seagulls living in seaside towns in Devon and Cornwall which will swoop down on any food being eaten outside even snatching food from people's hands, the seagulls here are fewer and don't approach people. We weren't sure why the gulls were over the cliff but the next day I saw our neighbour out there with a bag of bread which he was throwing to the gulls. That's one way to train them to divebomb people but I'm not sure how our neighbour who has lived here for many years would respond if we asked him to stop. I'm also not sure what will happen once we eat outside on a more regular basis.

I spent quite a lot of the afternoon sitting out on the terrace and reading. Speedy joined me and as the sun was very strong I managed to get sunscreen on the half of his ear which was white and is now pale blue.

It looks like I do have a purple hydrangea in the front garden. Yipee.