Is It Summer?

Hot and sunny today and with a wind that was also warm it felt just like a summer's day.

I didn't feel like going on the walk today. I checked it out last night and most of the way there was on very narrow lanes, sometimes even with grass growing in the middle of the road. Not only that but I couldn't identify the meeting place and as it was only going to be a gentle walk around a lake and village I thought I'd pass this time. 

Instead I carried on working in the garden. As my neighbours, who were down for the weekend, had gone out I began by removing some of the blocks from the wall. The coping stones came off easily but the big blocks had been stuck together with cement rather than mortar so it's not an easy job to hack them off. Once the neighbours returned rather than carry on making a racket I cleared all the soil from inside the first section of the wall. I say soil but really it was bone dry compost filled with matted roots which had to be prised out. Now I'm all ready to carry on breaking up the wall and cleaning off the blocks. Exciting times.

For a change of activity when I'd had enough manual labour I sat on the terrace and finished unpicking the fleece from our underblanket. The underblanket makes for a cosy bed in the winter but the bits that tuck under the mattress were made of nasty slippery nylon which meant the sheet above was forever coming untucked. It has taken me a while to work out that I could sew the fleece on to one of the spare fitted sheets I have in my stash (I bought a few when they were on sale), which are not made of slippery fabric. No more constant remaking of the bed.

The evening was so lovely that when Peter came home from rowing I persauded him that we could eat our supper sitting outside. I'd eat all my meals outside in most weathers but Peter isn't keen unless it's warm. He did agree it was a good choice as we sat there enjoying the birdsong and the sound of the lapping waves. To keep Speedy away from the food I shut him indoors where he parked himself on the doormat staring out at us. (Peter always saves Speedy some meat from his meal so he was waiting for that.)

Aquilegias of many different colours keep appearing in the garden much to my delight. On a sadder note as well as the two fuschias and the echium pininana in the front garden it looks as if both clumps of agapanthus didn't make it though the winter. I shan't dig them up yet just in case they decide to regenerate. I thought I'd lost one of the clumps of blue grass but now I see a single strand of blue appearing from the dry dead tufts so it's worth not digging things up straight away.