Dry.

Despite the grey skies today stayed dry, right up until the evening when eventually the rain fell. It has also been incredibly warm again. Walking on the beach I saw children and some adults in shorts and t-shirts and our neighbours and their children were in the water without wetsuits.

I chose not to go on the walk today. Yesterday, when the details came through I saw that though not far away the way there was quite complicated with many turns down small lanes. I coudn't spot the meeting point on Google maps and unfortunately street view didn't cover the area so I couldn't have a virtual recce. Added to that was that it was only a woodland walk. I say only because my true passion is for being high up in rocky landscapes. Instead I went out for a stroll along the beach.

It was so warm down on the beach that although I was wearing a jacket in case it rained, I ended up having to carry my jacket before I melted.

I began my walk by checking out the rock pools as was a toddler and his mum. Having enthusiastically waved his net at a shoal of tiny fish and then fallen over as he stepped into a deeper pool I distracted away the tears by showing him some sea anemones. It's at times like those that I think how nice it would be to have grandchildren to introduce to the wonders of the natural world. 

Lots of families with children and dogs out on the beach today, next week is half-term so I expect the village to be relatively busy all week.

When I got home I removed the brown guttering and brackets but unfortunately the wall is too lumpy to move the brackets right up to the top so white guttering it will have to be. At least I tried. That done I did a bit of hedge trimming and then some weeding of the planted up beds. One plant that got the chop was the phytostegia I'd bought in Morrisons as a 'cottage garden' flower. I wasn't impressed with the flowers which turned out to be quite small and was thinking about taking it out anyway. When I poked around it what I at first thought were self-sown seedlings turned out to be new shoots growing from underground stems. No surprise when it turns out to be a member of the mint family (the shape of the flowers should have been a clue). So I removed the parent plant, dug out all the rhizomes and will weed out anything that grows back. Now I'm wondering if I should rescue it and take it to fill up one of the flower beds at the zoo.

The sun was shining on the terrace late in the afternoon which tempted me to do some felting sitting outside. During last week's walk I'd quickly collected some acorns in their cups thinking I might paint the acorns, something I'd seen on FB. However by the time I got home the acorns had fallen out of their cups and although I could glue tham back in some of them were a bit rotten. Instead I thought I could make felted acorns. (I probably got the idea from FB as well.) I haven't stuck them in yet but I quite like the red acorns and will do some in other colours too. Just for fun.