Warmer.

A lot of cloud again with the sun starting to break through later in the afternoon. Overall it has felt a lot warmer.

The builder came in the morning and put up a hand rail by the side of the steps down to the garden. That will make it a lot safer for us as we get older and our knees less stable. 

My first job of the day was to fill the cracks in the wall with mortar. Contrary to what I thought the tub I bought contained just the dry ingredients. Stands to reason really, how would they prevent the mortar from setting if it had water mixed into it? That's done now and the builder brought me a container of the stabilising solution which I shall paint on tomorrow.

And then it was back to filling the raised beds. I finished the end bed so was able to start planting it up. So far I've planted 3 varieties of crocosmia, the honeysuckle I bought yesterday and 2 tubs of bluebells that I'd rescued from around the garden over a year ago. No room for a ceonothus. The daffodils and one more variety of crosmia will have to go in the next bed. 

Once that was done I shifted more soil from the spoil heap into the next raised bed. I still can't quite work out if I will end up with left-over soil or if I'll need to buy in a dumpy bag of top soil.

It started to warm up later and I gave in to the temptation to simply sit on the terrace instead of going for a test ride on my bike which is now fully ready with the wheel straightened and new inner tubes thanks to Peter's hard work.