Getting Warmer.

When I see what is happening in Kyiv I realise how trivial my woes are.

Today began grey and gloomy with occasional light showers creating polka dot patterns on the terrace. Later it warmed up as the sky turned blue and I've heard on the radio that we can expect warm weather for the rest of the week. A good thing too as according to the local paper heating oil prices have risen from 'an already high 66p per litre to 148p per litre in just a fortnight'. 

Remember the old photo I posted back in February? Today I stopped at the same spot on my way back from my shopping trip to show how it looks today. Fewer trees but not a lot of difference.

The church is just beyond the cottage on the right.

It was built in 1840 so would have been a modern addition to the village at the time of the first photo. 

I had a walk around the churchyard looking at the gravestones. The inscriptions on the older ones were too weatherworn to make out .

There were some horses in a field behind the white cottage and this lovely cob who reminded me of my old horse, came over to say hello. She didn't mind that I had no treats and stood there gently licking my palm and letting me give her a rub behind her ear.

Most of my day was taken up with a trip to town. That was after I'd given the shower a thorough scrub and done the wahsing up.

I didn't have anything to take to the dump but I still went across town to begin my shopping at Morrison's. They've starting stocking their outside garden sales area again so I bought a couple of bags of compost and some seeds. I refrained from even looking at the cheap clematis as I think I still have enough survivors to finish off planting up the trellis in the back garden. After Morrison's I went over to B&M to look for a plastic container big enough to soak the oven trays in. They didn't have anything so I walked to Charlie's where I found this enormous storage box which will do the job. A flat tray would have been better but although I found something in the gardening section it was too shallow to soak more than one tray at a time.

Then I drove back into town parking by Matalan (3 hours free parking). I went into a lot of shops where there seemed to be a general shortage of plasters. I couldn't find my usual cheap ones but bought a box of a different make as my fingers split easily when I'm doing lots of gardening. I had a good look around the charity shops for something to use to sieve the front garden decorative pebbles before I bring them to the back garden. I had found the perfect thing in Charlie's, a barbecue pan but I wasn't going to spend £12 on it. Maybe I could persuade Peter that he needs it for his barbecue though I'm not sure what state it would be in after all my pebble sifting. Instead I got the metal cutlery tray for £1 and then in another charity shop even better was the metal salad shaker for £1.50. 

I had my camera with me with the photos of the wood in the submerged forest but when I got there the museum was shut. It seems to be open by appointment only.

After stopping to take photos on the way back it was too late to do any gardening so I sat out on the terrace drilling fine holes in a piece of driftwood with my pin drill. I have just enough sea glass to make another hanging thingy.