Read First !

Photos from yesterday.

Today has been warm and windy but not that sunny.

In the morning we met up with our friends to practise our Welsh. Class starts again next week so in anticipation of a revision lesson (which is what our tutor usually does after the summer break) we went back over some earlier units.

 

A small yellow darter.

When I got home, after dropping Pete off to play pool, I thought I would take advantage of the good weather. First I went round to the neighbours' front garden so that I could cut back the corner of the hedge that I hadn't been able to reach from the street. Luckily I only needed to carry round the stepladder and hand tools.

Then as it was such good drying weather I decided to do some painting. The uprights at the sides of the garage door needed a final coat of white and then I thought I'd give the gate at the bottom of the front garden another coat of brown varnish. 

I found the tin that I'd used before and soon the gate was a smart brown once more. It was only as I peered at the tiny print on the tin to see how best to clean the brush that I found out it was a water based varnish and not the best for outdoors. Who knew that such a thing even existed?

No problem, I could give the gate another coat from a different tin of oil based varnish for durability. Hmm, I wonder what the forecast is for tomorrow? Oh good, dry all day with less than 5% probability of rain. Ah! better check the overnight forecast. Yikes, 90% probability of rain. Today's varnish is already dry but to prevent rain damage I've covered the gate with a big dumpy bag.

Today's lesson - read the information first.

My final garden job was to cut back some of the lavender that's overhanging the path. Call me soft but I couldn't bring myself to simply cut it all back and deprive the bees and butterflies of a last remaining source of nectar. Instead I carefully cut only those stems where all the flowers had finished. There are still stems across the path but it should be easier to step over those and after any rain there'll be less chance of getting soaked as we walk along the path.