Breezy.

Although it was colder today it was a lot brighter.  I did some gardening in the afternoon. The over 10 ft. high Buddleia bush in the garden makes a good screen and is still full of flowers which attract the bees and a few butterflies. It will need cutting back eventually and to make a start I cut back the branches overhanging our neighbour's front door.

This week Peter put up some shelves in his study freeing up this revolving book case. He took it to two charity shops but neither wanted it. Before taking it to the dump I put it up on our local freecycle FB group. Several people showed an interest and a lady came for it this evening. Much better than just throwing it away. 

I had a letter to put in the post box this afternoon and took some photos of the older buildings on the way. 

Turning towards our more modern estate I always enjoy seeing the fields up on the hill. The caravan is outside the first house we looked at on the estate but I much prefer being completely off the road. Also we have a better view across the estuary.

Wet.

All change with the weather today, a truly autumnal wet day. It was bright and sunny to begin with but all too soon a weather front dark with rain clouds moved in. I woke very early and had my exercises done by 7.30. The aches and pains after Tuesday's Pilates kicked in today which was not unexpected but a bit disappointing as I had hoped my daily exercises would have kept me a bit more flexible. Maybe it was just because I pushed myself to my limits at Pilates.  

Peter went out rowing this afternoon and as they were the only crew going out they had to prepare the gig, push it round town to the slipway and then after their row reverse the process. 

I thought I'd spend the day researching into the locations of all the houses I've found that look promising. My top two houses which were right next to west facing beaches have now been ruled out because they are too close to the coast. One house was on a two mile long sandy beach with mountains behind. Unfortunately a look on line revealed that the shingle ridge/path/sand dune man made defence will stop being maintained in 40 years time so that eventually the sea will break through and flood most of the village. We won't be around then but if at any time we needed to sell the property it would be almost worthless. The other house has a grassy field between it and the beach but the edge of the field is a low clay drop to the beach which is being gradually eroded away, who knows at what rate? Back to my searches.

One of the songs we began learning last night was Crossing the Bar, words by Tennyson. This version is a little slower and more melancholic than we are doing but very beautiful.

Sunny.

The hot weather returned today. Unfortunately Peter wants to get some preventive work done on the camper and the earliest it can be done is next Tuesday so no nipping off for a few days yet. No doubt the wet weather will have returned by the time the camper is ready.

When I came downstairs this morning I found Patch fast asleep in the fruit basket. Luckily the only thing in there was a lemon. The cats must have been up to something last night because neither of them could finish their breakfast which is highly unusual.

Once my exercises were done I decided that I might as well go and do some shopping as I had several bags of garden waste to take to the dump.

The weather was too nice to waste so I spent the afternoon out on the sun lounger and read the whole of a book. Now we're both off to choir. I'm hoping that Peter will enjoy it though I've warned him that it's a bit confusing at first. I'll give him my folder of the lyrics which I tended to use as a comfort blanket but I do also have a small notebook with the lyrics of most of the songs we sang at the last few functions. No doubt a lot of tonight will be taken up with chatter as we all catch up after a summer off.

We're back home and I am pretty sure Peter enjoyed himself. There's always some chatting before we start and then socialising time afterwards and apart from the people he met when we went on the murder mystery walk he also met several people he knew from East Down and Shirwell. There were a number of newbies and we spent most of the time learning some songs that were new to all of us. I think it will be a cold night tonight as the sky was studded with stars as we walked back from the car. Even though we're in town the light pollution is quite low and after 2.00 a lot of the street lights turn off as well.
PS. The tolling church bell was most probably a newcomer being shown the ropes (haha) as they have been recruiting new ringers.

Warm.

A cooler, overcast morning followed by a warmer and sunnier afternoon. Once again I did little more than the usual round of exercises and housework. I did spend time on the search for a home by the sea but found nothing worth putting into the 'possible houses' folder. Glancing out of the window I could see a plume of smoke coming from somewhere around Fremington Quay. Probably someone burning old wood or other rubbish. There has been a large crane there for the last few days, either on the land or on a boat. 

Peter took the car to the garage today as I was fretting about a new 'noise' I could hear the last time I drove the car with as usual the windows down. Apparently it was just something rattling a bit and our lovely garage man fixed it for no charge.

With the start of the new school term this week tonight I went off for my Pilates class. Some new faces and not all of the old returning but I find that for most of the time my attention is on our teacher or I may even have my eyes closed. Our teacher promised us a gentle session, hah! Still after an hour of pretzeling (as Peter calls it) and much sweating I came away with a feeling of achieving more than I thought I was capable of. Right near the end my back twinged a bit so I eased up a bit so as not to cause any damage. 

After returning home I was watering the garden to the sound of church bells. Unusually it was a single bell tolling which went on for a long time instead of the usual bell ringing practice. That had me rushing to check if somebody prominent had died but there was nothing on line. Maybe I'll hear something tomorrow at choir.

Warm.

It's official, It's been England's hottest summer since records began. Mind you that's only since 1910. While not so hot as yesterday today was mild with plenty of blue skies and by the end of the day the sky was bathed in shades of purple, pink and orange. That makes me even more determined to make sure we get the sun setting over the sea when we move to our next home. 

My day began with a phone call from the hospital postponing today's physiotherapy session until the end of next week.

Following my success with the round table I did the same with the small coffee table we are using at the moment. With the top sanded and waxed it looks much smarter. I didn't bother with the legs as they have a dark stain giving an authentic 'distressed' look. 

I had been saving a large framed poster to go up on the sitting room wall but once I'd slid it out of its protective  wrapping I changed my mind. Back in its bubble wrap the poster is now up in the loft.

I found this speckled bush cricket on the outside of the conservatory. I don't think I've ever seen one before. 

Spot the odd one out. It's the middle one which I bought the other day assuming it was a body spray/ deodorant. It was only today that I saw it is in fact dry shampoo! It does have a nice smell though.

A very muted version of tonight's magnificent sunset.

Hot Again.

Still strangely hot weather today this time with more blue skies. Not knowing when this weather will break I got out the lawnmower and cut the lawn and the communal grass. Also did some tidying up of the trailing geraniums and very nearly got out the vax to hoover up the rose petals on the decking but decided to sit out and enjoy the warmth instead. 

Being somewhat outnumbered by desks ( 4 for 2 of us) the larger of the two wooden desks has been on Gumtree and a couple of local FB groups for quite sometime. After many futile enquires and a couple of price drops it finally went today. In its place has gone the smaller desk which has been in the family since I was a young child. Now the sitting room looks less cluttered and I may even put a picture or two up on the wall. 

Hot.

The day has been oddly hot today. Despite continuous cloud cover the outside temperature was 26C/ 80F. After hanging up some washing outside and giving the round table another good coating of wax I made time to sit and read outside. It felt very strange as the air temperature wasn't registering on my skin and when the wind blew it was like a gentle caress.

A couple of Painted Lady butterflies came to feed on a pink sedum. I took photos of both of them but the camera focused on the decking behind!

Another job done was to clean this gadget for turning photographic negatives into digital files. Peter bought it for me a long time ago though I found that many of my negatives were not that sharp. When I was sorting out my study the other day I found this thing? but it was strangely sticky on all its surfaces. I tried all the solvents we had in the house; detergent, white spirit, acetone and WD40 to no avail and had given up simply sticking thing in a plastic bag. Later I thought that I can't be the only person in the world to have this problem and sure enough an on-line search confirmed this. One person thought that the stickiness was due to a coating breaking down. Their recommendation was to make a paste of baking bicarbonate of soda and rub the paste onto the affected surfaces. It worked, the stickiness adhered to the baking soda and could then be wiped off with paper towels.

Despite almost falling asleep outside I drove down to the Co-Op as once again we were out of milk and I needed a bag of cat litter. I tried to time my visit with their reductions and got a few good bargains including some fresh falafel for Peter.