Grey.

Grey again today but the wind whipped up the waves into what I would describe as a magnificent sea. There were a few showers but also at least one patch of sun. Despite the talk of cold air due to arrive from the north this morning the radio was talking about a 'heatwave' in Europe. Poland which would normally have temperatures around 0C/32F recorded 19C/66F yesterday and down by the Mediterranean the temperatures were in the low twenties (72F) with people heading to the beaches rather than the ski slopes. I've had a look at today's figures and the warmest places are 15-18C/59-64F which is still pretty warm for January.

I woke early, stayed awake and got up by 6.30 which meant I could do the morning jobs, Duo Lingo and get some washing in the machine before breakfast time. I still didn't get to the zoo until 11.00 but managed to work for nearly two hours before my back and impending rain made it sensible to stop. I had planned to tidy up one of the moats where some of last year's growth had turned into a soggy mess that needed clearing and that's where I started. Any dried growth just got clipped back and it all looks a lot tidier now. Then, because I didn't feel like weeding gravel instead I removed any stinging nettles growing where visitors, children especially might be standing by the fences. Getting stung wouldn't be a nice experience. As I worked I could hear the constant bleating of a goat from one of the stables. On investigation it was one of the two mountain goat billies. I asked and it turns out that the other billy had a ripped ear and it was thought the first one was the culprit though the person I spoke to thought it might also have been caught on a nail or something.

Back home instead of doing some more house blitzing I drew up two sets of plans for the new bathroom as the plumber has promised to come round to discuss the proposed work. (Peter has been ringing round the various tradespeople we still need.) In an ideal world the builder would take over the whole thing and organise the plumber, tiler and flooring person but now it seems they want you to do that. I know our other builder would do the job but he rushes and his tiling was awful. An electrician came round today to quote for putting electricity in the garage/workshop, some outside lights and an outside socket. I won't get excited until he actually starts work.

And as promised here's the shelf we put up over my desk. I put some mugs of pens and stuff on the shelf but decided they looked too untidy and put them back in one of the boxes on the filing cabinet. The cards in front of my monitor are prompts for declensions for Welsh verbs, I need all the help I can get.