Oops.

The day began grey and hazy then as we sat eating our breakfast it began to get sunny with a good drying wind. But by the time I got home from town (photo below) we were back to a damp haze.

I was wishing that I should have put some washing in the machine when Peter offered to deal with the washing (or words to that effect.) Before I set off for town I made sure that he knew about running a rinse cycle after the wash was supposedly finished and off I went. Since I wasn't riding and yes I was a bit creaky this morning but not too bad, I reversed the order of my shopping route going straight to Lidl, then over to park by Matalan so that I could visit a few shops. That included leaving another bag at a charity shop, I do like getting rid of stuff. Then down to Morrison's followed by Charlie's where I checked out their plants, bought a picture frame and a tap for the water butt I plan to set up in the front garden. I saved the best till last which was a visit to Newman's garden centre to check out their new stock. I found one plant for by the pond and some rockery plants to fill in the gaps left by the phlox none of which survived the winter. 

Arriving home I spotted Peter by the washing line, "Oh good" I thought, " He's fetching in the washing now that it's getting damp. But no, he was just hanging out the washing !! I'm not sure how he thought it was going to dry in those conditions but apparently I hadn't actually asked him to hang up the washing which was why he went out leaving it in the machine. Mmm. I have to say I was extremely grumpy at having to fetch it all in, hang most of it up in the utility room and then stand there ironing the bedsheet for double the usual time with an aching back instead of having a coffee and a rest before ironing. Now I know that I could have simply got out another sheet from the cupboard but to break my rigid routine of washing and ironing straight away would have me feeling quite uncomfortable. Worse than my aching back and I was just so cross since it was unnecessary. Rant over, the job's done, I had my coffee and painkillers and I can look forward to putting in the new plants tomorrow.

Bird Tales - I went in the kitchen a little while ago and was concerned when I saw a male blackbird sitting on the terrace. Something wasn't right with it as it was almost laying right down and looking a bit bedraggled. We kept our movements to a minimum so as not to disturb it and after a while it sat up properly and then stood up. It's gone now so presumably has recovered from whatever had happened. An attack by a rook or a seagull perhaps?

While in town I heard the familiar insistent piping of a young seagull begging for food. I looked around and sure enough there on the pavement was an adult bird with a sizeable chip in its beak. The begging noises were coming from a large fledgling hopping round and round the adult. The next sound was an indignant squawk and when I looked again the fledgling was in possession of the chip. Persistence pays.