Sunny.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain but when I opened the living room curtains there was a lovely double rainbow, or at least part of one. From then on it has been a sunny day, almost a Borthbados day.

Although the walk was local, from the Osprey Centre through the woods, up the hills and back down again it was one I have done before and I really wanted to get on with the garden so I stayed home to dig. 

Four hours of digging and another trench and a half done. I do wonder if I'm being too exacting with the root removal but the lawn was there for at least thirty years and it would be a real shame to do all the work and then end up with grass or other weeds growing up through the stones. I'm going down to a clay and stone layer which might be the subsoil or maybe just the waste from when the house was built. Above that is a layer of sand which I guess was put down to level the garden under a layer of top soil. That suits me as my trenching plan means I end up with the sand on top which will then be covered with gravel and finally stones. The plants I hope to grow in the shingle garden are all ones that do well in poorer soil. Plants such as grasses, cliff plants and Mediterranean plants. 

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I looked from the terrace and saw that there was still snow on some of the eastern peaks in Snowdonia but I don't think it will be there for long.