Damp.

Not too cold but distinctly grey and damp today.

I'm still waiting for some mortar mix to finish off the wall so this morning I got on with filling the raised bed. I had two bags of compost in the back garden but then I had to bring up soil from the front garden. Ten half-full buckets later I had enough soil to make it possible to plant a white passionflower, a double pink clematis, blue agapanthus, blue salvia and a big ornamental grass (Panicum Northwind). Just for fun I've also planted some foxglove seedlings to fill up the space next year. It will be interesting to see what colour they turn out to be.

In the afternoon I took myself off for a beach walk.

Only a few hardy families in the water. Not visible in the photo but there were at least six kites being flown on the beach in front of the lifeboat station. I've always fancied one of those dragon or pterodactyl kites. 

Further down the beach I came across this bird kite. It took me a while to spot who was flying this kite which I wanted to do to make sure I didn't walk in the way of the line. It must be a very stable design because it hardly moved position and the line was almost vertical. 

My walk took me along the strand line and I collected some long bits of driftwood towards a full-sized driftwood Christmas tree and I also picked up some different coloured lengths of ropes which might also go on the tree. There were a lot of clumps of what I call bootlace seaweed which reminded me of piles of spaghetti (if spaghetti was brown) which in turn reminded me of the meatball song. I sang a lot with the children I taught and the meatball song was always a favourite.