Cold.

Vinok, a Ukrainian flower crown worn by girls and young women on festive occasions to symbolise purity and fertility.

And here are my flowers. A beautiful bouquet from Vytas and Sally was waiting for me when I got home from the zoo. Vytas likes to buy from local businesses but they  had a supply problem and weren't able to deliver on Sunday (Mothers' Day). When I looked at the 'care' card I realised that it was from the same florists where I had bought the air plants and white jasmine.

This morning there was a severe drop in temperature and the world had turned grey. Apart from the occasional rain drop it stayed dry all day. Listening to the forecast as I write there is much talk of snow, ice and frost overnight.

The drain man eventually turned up last night. I stayed well away but there was much talk between him and Peter as they investigated the drains. We ended up not getting the drain cleared due to there being a man hole with a right angled bend in the drain around which the cleaning tool wouldn't go which had been covered over by paving slabs. It was 7.00 by this time and too late to start removing the slabs. So that was a £90 call out fee to pay and nothing sorted. This morning Peter phoned the builder and asked him to bring a grinder so that he could cut out the slabs as Peter felt it would be too much to do himself. But before I left for the zoo I suggested seeing if it would be possible to prise up the paving slabs as they went down 30 years ago. Lo and behold, after all our dark mutterings about the foolishness of paving over the top of an manhole cover it turned out that the four slabs had been laid over sand and it was a simple job to hook them out and remove the sand. While I was out Peter got the cover up and used the drain rods to clear the blocked drain. Hooray. Our builder will be fitting new covers, eventually.

At the zoo I finished off weeding this gravel path to one of the enclosures which now houses a friendly white rabbit. I carried on around the corner and dug out the brambles growing there.

That done I moved to an enclosure currently housing the guinea pigs. There I cut back some buddelias that had not been touched for a few years. Those branches were given to the pygmy goats who lost no time in eating the leaves and stripping off the bark. You can see why these goats have been a major factor in the spread of the Sahara desert.

The cold seems to sap my energy so when I got home I sat and watched tv for an hour before pedalling on the exercise bike and doing some DuoLingo.

Later there was the merest hint of sun which changed the colour of the sea to duck-egg blue with a hint of green.