Grey.

Quite grey this morning with light rain that eased off to give a warm afternoon and now we're back to rain. 

I chose to be cautious and drove to the zoo instead of cycling though in the end it would have been fine on the bike. My work at the zoo today was to weed a whole section of the area with the picnic tables. The gloomy weather meant that there were quite a few visitors to the zoo. It was interesting listening to the conversations around me. One set of children looking at the large model of a gorilla were an absolute delight.  An older boy, about 9 years old was explaining to the younger (4 or 5 years old) girl all about how the money collected was being used to help conserve the gorillas' trees. He chatted knowledgably about gorillas, red pandas and polar bears and then asked if the younger child knew what pollution was and went on to talk about not putting plastic in the sea. The girl understood quite well and had decided that bad people who didn't put rubbish in the right place should go to prison though at times she veered off the subject and talked about a boy in her class who hit her finger with a hammer? and made it bleed who should also be sent to prison.

It's my birthday. Now that I'm 66 I finally get my pension from the government. I spent my life expecting to get my pension at 60 but some years ago to save money women's pension age was moved to 66. Goodness knows what it will  be for the next generation.

Peter surprised me wit lots of healthy fruit as well as cake, chocolate and other treats. Barbecue spare ribs for supper tonight too. He's planned a trip to Snowdonia but it looked too wet to go there today. He's also got me (well us really as it's for two) RSPB membership as we have the osprey centre and another bird reserve nearby. 

As I was in the car I stopped on the way home from the zoo and cut myself some branches from the willow trees along the river there. I had hoped to make some plant supports for next year but my attempts to reinvent willow weaving did not go too well. (Hence no photos.) On the plus side I've found out how to keep on doing practice exercises in Duo and did three sets without a mistake or having to keep looking at my notes.