Sunny.

A real scorcher of a day. So hot that the washing on the line dried in a couple of hours.

This may only look like a newly plastered wall but to me it is a thing of beauty. Not only do we no longer have to look at the lumpy mess that we were left with but I can now begin painting the hall walls and ceilings, both upstairs and down. How I have longed for a bright white space instead of gloomy light and dark grey.

But while the weather is so good I'm sure I can find plenty to do outside. This morning, after scraping off the last specks of paint from the glass of the new doors, I had a tidy up of the paved outside space under the kitchen window. Among the things I had stacked there was half a bucket of river pebbles which I carefully put around the grass seedlings. Only a few inches high at the moment the grass should grow to about a foot with feathery plumes.

While I worked outside the cats kept me company snoozing in the shade. I sorted out the wood I need for the last planter which will go under the trellis. The paving slabs slope but I shall make the top of the planter level so the internal supports have to be cut at an angle and I will have to cut the lowest plank at an angle too. It took me all afternoon to decide on how deep to make the deepest end, either 2 or 3 planks deep. I finally settled on 2 deep which makes the other end quite shallow but I have some rockery type plants which could go there.

The wet socks and boots drying on the deck are Peter's. They had a taster morning for the gig club and then he went out with one of the race crews. That reminded him how much fun it is to row when everyone is rowing in time something that is a little lacking with the social rowers. Our next door neighbours' daughter who is very sporty went along and enjoyed the rowing so maybe she'll join up.

Sunny.

After a hazy start the day has been lovely and sunny with tonight's pink sky indicating another good day tomorrow.

This morning when I looked at the porch door I painted yesterday I could see that each door would need at least two coats of the satin finish paint. So after all the usual household jobs I painted all three of the doors. Being water based paint it only needed 6 hours to dry and as it was so warm today I took a chance on 5 hours and gave the remaining two doors another coat in the evening. Hopefully that should be it.

While waiting for the paint to dry I did the mowing. I had only just started on the central grass when I came upon this toad. At first I simply guided it to the long grass (the bits people leave for the council to cut once in a while) but then I began to worry about the toad's prospects. Apart from the front gardens all being somewhat devoid of places for wildlife there is also the prolific use of slug pellets. Should the toad or a hedgehog, eat slugs poisoned by the pellets it would suffer a painful and slow death. Once I'd done my section of mowing I got a bucket and found the toad after some searching in the long grass. Into the bucket went the toad and off I went to find somewhere more suitable. I hadn't been to the dead end of the next road before having been told that the farmer had closed the gate to people going down to Manning's Pit. However I thought I would release the toad into the field anyway. When I got there the gate was padlocked and had barbed wire wrapped around it to stop people opening or climbing over the gate but there was a bit of space between the gate and the hedge. A well trodden footpath and a couple of dogwalkers coming towards me made me feel confident about shimmying around the gate into the field where I let the toad go in some long grass.

This is the field only five minutes from the house. The dog walkers confirmed that this was the way down to Manning's Pit and I can't wait to find some time to take a walk down that way. 

Sunny.

A bright hazy morning heralded a hot and mainly sunny day. Peter went out promising to return with some decent paint brushes. I kept myself busy planting out all the grasses and most of tomatoes all guarded by sprigs of holly. The ones below are by the kitchen window and there are more in a tub by the front door.

Armed with brushes guaranteed not to shed bristles and the much less sticky satin finish paint the door painting was a lot easier. However I decided not to overdo things and just did one door leaving the other two for tomorrow.

That left time to simply sit out in the sun and relax. The cats joined us as well though after a short time in the sun they moved to the shade of the chairs. 

Looks like it will be a cold night followed by more good weather tomorrow.

Cold.

It's been cold and wet for most of the day which made it a good day to paint doors. I began by preparing the doors in the correct manner; sanding the plastic moulding around the glass, wiping down everything and protecting the handles. I'm sure other people have thought of this as well but I thought I'd try tucking cling film under the plates once they had been loosened. I even put masking tape over all the hinges and latches. The cling film worked quite well but in some places didn't leave a smooth finish to the paint. I didn't use masking tape on the glass because I've not had good results with it in the past. (16 panes of glass in each of the 3 stable doors at Dingles.) Instead I cleaned as I went along.

The undercoat paint was really hard to paint with as it was very thick and needed white spirits for cleaning. Not only that but my main paintbrush was a cheap one and eventually every stroke left a couple of bristles behind. That brush is now in the bin.  It took a long time to paint all three doors and by 6.30 I had had enough. Before coming upstairs just now I put builder's caulk in each of the tiny holes left by the pins fixing the mouldings to the door.

I was almost past noticing anything this evening but from my spot on the sofa I could see a pretty evening sky. 

Sunny Spells.

The day began with low lying clouds in the distance. During the day the weather kept switching between hot sun and chilly clouds.

 After yet more adjusting I got the plant box more or less lined up and fixed securely. One final coat of stain and I was able to put back the trailing geraniums. There was enough space in the trays to add in some more pots. As the trailing geraniums are a salmon colour (all I could get at the time) they don't really go with the other geraniums which are white/pink/purple so there might be a few colour clashes. I also replaced a decking plank , nearest the wall, as it was in a pretty bad state. My new saw worked beautifully, a good thing as I had to saw down the length of the plank as well as across.

While I was outside I could hear a commotion in the sky above. Looking up there were five seagulls mobbing a buzzard. That's the first one I've seen since we moved here. 

My final task was to stain the replacement plank and then to go over some of the darker planks with the golden cedar stain in an attempt to reduce the contrast between the old and new decking. Before I did that I brought out the vax and hoovered up all the sawdust on the decking. Easier than sweeping though I may have given the neighbours more reason to think I'm a daft old lady. 

Pilates with Tony wasn't quite as gentle as the last time he taught us but it seem more relaxed than our usual sessions. I'm already feeling the muscle ache at the top of my legs so I must have been putting some effort in. And I managed sit-ups from lying completely flat, at least the second and third times we did them. 

Sunny.

The morning was so hot that the cows and calves on the hill were crammed into the shade of some big trees. The cool north wind didn't get going until the afternoon but on the whole it has been a lovely day.

It took a lot of measuring and sawing but at last the planter on the lower deck is almost complete. All that needs doing is to screw the inner side to the deck. (Peter came home with a new sharp saw as well as the metal brackets I needed.) Apart from the angled cuts the piece that I'm most proud of is the oddly shaped end bit. I reused the old bull-nosed handrail to add height to the off-cuts of the new decking planks. There wasn't enough to go all the way along under the inner planks so I made 'feet' for the planks to sit on. It took several attempts even after making a card template but eventually I got a reasonable fit. The edge by the blue pot went down vertically so I sawed and sanded to make a fairly good matching bull-nosed edge. In between all the cutting, sanding and staining I painted the edges of the new doors. Two coats of the varnish-like 'knotting' over all the knots and then one coat of primer.

Windy.

We've had plenty of sun today. The wind is now blowing from the north making it quite cold which is probably why the cows were lying down in their field on the hill.

This afternoon I thought it would be easy to make the planter on the terrace. How wrong I was. Although there weren't too many pieces of wood to cut each one needed an angled cut to make them fit neatly. As both of our old workmate benches are in the garage supporting a wooden shelf on which are stored a number of boxes, I do all my sawing leaning on anything handy. Peter was shocked when he came out and found out that the saw I was using was completely blunt which might explain some of the problems I was having. Even using another saw I seemed completely incapable of sawing vertically and I didn't get on very well with the guide gadget. One cut worked perfectly but the others not so much. Most of the wood had been cut now and it's just a matter of working out how to fit them together efficiently.  Despite the wind we ended the afternoon sitting out in the sun with the cats trying hard to remind us that it was well past feeding time.

It wasn't a spectacular sunset yesterday evening but the sun broke through the clouds like a spotlight from above.