Sunny.

We've had sunshine today, proper blue sky with fluffy white clouds. That made a nice change. In the morning some work men came down to fix our septic tank system. As we thought, the air pump had to be replaced which they did. After pumping out the excess water from the outflow chamber, they said that the pump there was fine but the hose had split. The chap suggested that 'my husband' could get some new hose and it would simply be a matter of putting it on the pump and reconnecting to the out flow pipe. After last week's debacle I asked to have a closer look at this simple connection. As it was several feet down in a confined space and the pipe was pointing downwards I decided that it would be too much for Peter's arthritic hands and asked them to come back with the hose and fit it for us. And a good thing too as when they connected it all up water still wasn't going out. Apparently the non-return valve had jammed shut and they had to do more dismantling and banging before it was working again. The bend in the metal pipe had become filled up with gravel that had washed back from the stream. To stop it happening again we'll fix some nylon mesh over the outflow pipe where it lays in the stream.

In between all the coming and going of the  workmen I took advantage of the sun and finished weeding the grass bed. Next job will be weeding around the pond which at the moment is filled with tadpoles.

Wet.

The morning started with a light drizzle but I didn't mind as I planned to leave home early and go into town before work. My first stop in town was the dump where I threw away 3 bags of broken plastic sheeting which was once the shed roof. I thought I might be asking a bit much if I left those bags out with the general rubbish for the dustmen to collect. Then into B&Q to return a tin of paint I got last week. Although I had pretty much decided on the colour I wanted for the shelter ceiling when I got to B&Q I had a sudden moment of panic thinking that it would be too dark especially with black beams, and bought a much lighter shade. Back home I realised that I did indeed want the darker colour so bought some at Wilko's in town. Wilko's have left me a message to say that my next tin of paint is in. so as soon as I collect it I can finish that job. By the time I got to school the rain was hammering down, too wet for the children to stay outside at lunchtime. It carried on raining so I kept my year 2 class working right through their afternoon break, actually most had finished their work and were either on CBeebies or drawing and constructing using scrap paper. I stayed on at school to stick and mark work and then it was home along wet and muddy roads.

Spring-Like.

The radio said that Scotland and the SW would have rain today but we've had a most spring-like day. Early morning mist gave way to a warmish if grey day. I was getting on with a bit of weeding when Sarah brought Coral up to the little field. I wandered up and we had a chat about horses and life in general. Sarah was a bit concerned that Coral would race and skid around in the field damaging the ground which is still terribly wet. Coral did have a little canter and threw a few exuberant bucks but then she ran out of puff. Sarah said that Coral had stopped 4 times on the way up the hill but she does need some exercise and she doesn't like going in the horse walker. It will be at least 4 weeks until she has her foal and we can all go Aaah. 

I had to tear myself away from the gardening to go in to work, as I drove in there are more and more primroses flowering in the hedgerows and in the town gardens pink camellias are flowering. Not my favourite flower but it is good to see a bit of colour. I worked with the Reception children in the afternoon and then we had a staff meting looking at levelling literacy in the different year groups.  No sooner do we get our heads around one levelling scheme then it is abandoned and we have to wait for the next version.

Grey But Dry.

I spent most of this morning, once I had woken up, doing school work and other stuff on the pc. I also baked another batch of flapjacks for Peter. The smell of golden syrup and butter melted together is just yummy and I did indulge in a little scraping out of the saucepan before I washed it up. Flapjacks must be one of the simplest things to make: melt butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan, stir in oats and sultanas and then bake in a silicone cake tin for about 25 mins. 

At school my Year 2 class were making notes about themselves so that was not too hard for any of them. Afterwards I had 2 pieces of work to stick in each book as the children also completed the title page for this half term's work on People Of the World. I'm getting pretty fast at sorting, marking and sticking. 

After work I went into town to the usual places and to buy another tin of the fence paint to complete the painting of the shelter ceiling. Shock, Horror! they did not have that colour on the shelf. Worse still there was not even a ticket on the shelf for that colour. Hoping that they would still be stocking the colour I needed I went up to the customer services and luckily after a bit of looking on the computer the girl was able to order me the colour I wanted. Now all I have to do is wait for a phone call.

I saw this watch at the jewellers and had one of those must have moments. It was hard to chose from the selection of brightly coloured soft strap watches but a lot of my clothes are black (just like Queen Victoria as a child pointed out last week), so I picked this one. At £19 it wasn't too expensive either. I usually buy my watches at a little cheap shop but I haven't seen anything I really liked to replace my old pink £5 watch which is getting rather scruffy. 

Chilly.

There was a nip in the air when I opened up some windows to air the place this morning. Then the same old drizzle started up again. My morning was spent doing housework and then I loaded up the car with all the bags of rubbish and drove them up the hill ready for tomorrow morning's collection. I also made some more hummus.This time I added some smoked paprika which I thought went well. Two lots of hummus went in the freezer and one in the fridge which should keep us going for a while.

The sun did make an occasional appearance in the afternoon so I went out and broke up the old plastic sheeting so that I could get it into a rubbish bag. That involved some satisfying stomping on the plastic to break it and lots of not so enjoyable picking up of all the shards of plastic that resulted. 2 of the sheets were not badly damaged and I trimmed them with my heaviest sewing scissors in case they come in useful sometime. Nothing much else today except that the bill for the new pressure tank came today, over £400, ouch.

Wet.

Phew, finally made it back onto the internet. The latest thing to go wrong in this place has been Peter's pc, namely the power supply and the mother board. He's been trying to swap in parts from a spare pc but that has involved some large downloads which at our snail's paced internet has taken hours and stopped me from connecting to most of my usual sites. (Peter tells me the speed is less than 200 kb right now.)

It has rained all day long. it started with a light drizzle this morning and worked its way up to torrential downpours this afternoon and evening. When it was at its worst I went and checked the dam and all the run offs and it was satisfying to see that the water was being diverted across Paul's field, down over the corner of my woodland patch and back into the ditch at the side of Paul's lower field. We had a lazy morning catching up with several episodes of The Archers omnibus. Later I went back up to the shelter to continue painting only to run out of paint. I'll wait until I go to work on Tuesday to buy another tin so it will probably take until the end of the week to finish and maybe do a second coat.

We've been treating ourselves to a wood fire on Sunday evenings. The throws do keep us warm as we watch tv but it is nice to have the whole room warm and we should have enough wood to last for a few more weeks.

Sunny.

The weather has been quite nice today. At last the dark time of year is over and when the sun deigns to shine we have a sunny kitchen in the morning and in the afternoon and evening the sun floods into the sitting room and our bedroom. I've spent the afternoon working up in the shelter. I had thought I would be able to get all the painting of the panels between the beams done in one afternoon but it's quite fiddly and I have done just over half. I did start by having a good tidy up in there and filled up some black bags ready for the dustmen on Tuesday. 

The first of the wild primroses is flowering though it is in rather a perilous position close to the drive and could easily be squashed if a big vehicle comes down here.

 The winter heathers are starting to look good.

 and the hardy geraniums have put out their first shoots.