Sunny.

My thoughts are with the people of Kyiv and Mariupol as they wait in fear to see what the Russian troops surrounding them will do. We can only hope that the request to China for assistance means that the Russians are finding it difficult to continue their despicable invason.

Here it has been a gloriously sunny day though as I discovered when I went into town it was still cold in the shade. The trip to town cast a shadow over my day as it was for a visit to the dentist to replace a filling. (More in a minute.)

As both of us were fairly fit for work, after breakfast we tackled the loose fence post in the back garden. After the recent storms it had become apparent that one of the bolts securing a post to the old brick wall hadn't held making for a wobbly bit of trellis. I'd secured it by wedging a scaffolding plank against the trellis but that was only a temporary measure. Today we unscrewed one of the trellis panels, which wasn't too difficult until we got to the last screw which held two trellis panels together. That was in an awkward position but eventually I got it out using a screwdriver rather than the electric drill. After that it was easy to fix a right-angled plate to the post and a stronger bit of the wall and then screw the trellis back up. Job done! I had a bit of time before I needed to go to town so I pulled up all the weed seedlings that had popped up in the back garden. I also planted up a tray of aquilegia seedlings to take to the zoo for the new flowerbed.

All too soon it was time for my visit to the dentist. While I have no problem with injections or even having teeth out I really do not like the drill. That awful fear that at any moment it's going to go too far and hit a nerve. Though I have to say it wasn't too bad today. The dentist was very generous with the injections, of which there seemed to be many and it's only now 4 hours later that sensation and normal movement have been restored. He took out the old NHS amalgam filling and replaced it with a fancy white one not that anyone can see that far back in my mouth. On the plus side he found and dealt with some decay under the old filling. Hopefully that tooth with be fine for a few years yet. Possibly the most painful part of the visit was paying £170 for a filling.

On the way back to the car park I did my usual sweep around some of the charity shops and found this large serving bowl for £2 to add to our 'Chinese fish' collection. I had another stroke of luck at an expensive china and glassware shop. Something I'd seen ages ago as ideal for a Christmas present for someone (who may read this blog) but not bought because it was so pricey was reduced to half price. That's another Christmas present sorted. There were also some chunks of crystals and an amethyst geode which was very tempting but far too much for an impulse buy. My last stop was at Lidl to buy a few things including some ice cream to make up for the trauma of going to the dentist. It was noticeable just how many empty shelves there were. The fresh baked goods shelves were completely bare though that might be normal for the end of the day but there were also plenty of spaces on the other shelves and Peter tells me it was much the same at Morrison's. 

The sun was still shining when I got home and for the first time this year we ate our supper without drawing the curtain so that we could watch the evening light over the sea.