A Waterspout.

The day began with heavy rain followed by a sunny afternoon.

If only I had looked to the right when I took the above photo I might have seen the waterspout churning up the sea. (photo taken by Gary Hawkins). Trust me to miss these things.

Because it was raining I drove rather than cycled to the community gardens though once I got there the rain stopped and very soon it was hot and sunny. The rain had made walking along the paths there hazardous since unless you were less than five feet tall walking under the low growing willow resulted in an unwelcome shower and if you managed to duck under the overhanging branches then further along branches from the side would get you. Now that I know the code to get into the tool shed I was able to find some secateurs to chop back all the offending branches. Not that going into the tool shed was without danger, the wasps whose nest had been removed two weeks ago, when I got stung, have returned and built a new nest just inside the door. I moved very carefully going in and out of that shed. Not so many people came today for the cake which was a delicious date cake with banoffee topping but we still had plenty of interesting conversations.

Back home I decided to start replacing paving slabs. I really haven't got the hang of this particular skill and each of the slabs had to be picked up and redone many times before they settled in correctly without wobbling. It was as I stood back to admire my work that I noticed I had put in a grey rather than a red paving slab (second from the top on the right). It is hard to tell while the slabs are covered in dirt and sand and when I checked the edge it looked to be red but no it's grey. There's another slab in place to the right of it so whichever way I go I'm going to have to pick up and re-do two slabs. I stopped at that point because the paving slabs are heavy and I was getting worn out.

Instead I sat and contemplated my error from the safety of the terrace before getting ready to head off for an hour of leaping about to disco music.