Wet.

Heavy rain through the night, lighter rain today which is finally easing off. It has felt warm and during the brief moments of sun the temperature shot up dramatically. All that rain kept me indoors for most of the day apart from a brief foray into the garden trying not to brush up against the wet plants hanging over the steps and paths.

While Peter went into town, I'm guessing for some birthday treats, I tackled yet another job that has been on my to-do list for a long time - sorting out a couple of trolleys in the utility room.

These trolleys fit nicely into the space beside the washing machine and contain household cleaning and gardening items all sorted into those square plastic lidded boxes that catering foods come in. I got those boxes many years ago since when they have been great for storage. A few things were ready for the bin but while I don't need saddle soap or horse brushes right now you never know. Everything was quite dusty/grubby but there's not enough room to empty it all out to clean the boxes. Instead I washed one trolley and some of the tubs. When they are dry I'll do some more and hopefully relegate one trolley to the garage.

My other job of the day was writing up my notes into my Hobbit Journal. I like to start by rereading the current journal, partly to get back into the style of writing but also just for fun. I write in a sort of note and list form and I see that we swapped builders in January. At the time I was assured this would mean all the work would be done in weeks, hah! that went well.

 

Damp.

Warmer today but still damp and very muggy. Rain began in the afternoon.

I combined collecting a prescription for Peter and buying a couple of cards with another beach walk. 

The tide was on its way out and there was a long stretch of sand to walk along. There were a lot of barrel jellyfish on the sand, some bluer than others.

When I got home I used the electric hedge trimmer to tidy up the top of the hedge and the street side. Now that the thick stems have been chopped back it's much easier to work on the hedge. After the first of the afternoon's showers I moved to the back garden. There I finished filling up the raised bed with a combination of compost and soil from the front garden. To finish off I carried on with digging out the ivy roots by the long wall as we can't put up the trellis until they're gone.

The lobsters are multiplying.

 

Damp.

A damp day with some showers and a little sunshine.

While Peter went off to the doctors' for a BP check and then on to do some shopping I went for a beach walk. (It turned out there was some kind of loose connection in the car hence the battery problems. He bought the new battery anyway and put it aside for when we do need it.) It was fairly warm as I set off for my walk so I only wore a light bodywarmer. Not enough to protect me when the rain began but it stayed warm so it wasn't too bad. I tucked my camera inside my bodywarmer so that stayed dry but I didn't, especially when I turned for home into the wind. By the time I got home the front of my leggings were soaked. Naturally the rain had stopped by the time I got home.

While Peter was out another delivery arrived for him, a pillar drill. What is it with men and tools? It's not as if he has any big projects planned apart from putting up shelves in the garage and maybe a few in the house. I wouldn't be surprised to see a chop saw or a nail gun arrive one of these days. When he came home he brought another bag of mortar mix so I was able to finish off the brick wall for the raised bed. I also made two cement pads for the first two posts on the long side of the garden. We couldn't dig holes to set the posts in because the footings for our neighbour's garage intrude into our garden by over a foot. I suppose it didn't matter as he was a good friend to the chap who lived here and then the shed was built there. We're just going to fix the posts to the brick wall (and replace the rotten posts that had been fixed to the rest of the length of the garden wall).

 

Zoo Day.

A day of frequent showers.

We've been having problems with the car's battery not helped by being completely drained twice when Peter didn't close the car door and boot properly. This morning even after 24 hrs on charge it was flat. I left Peter to sort that out and walked to the zoo which took me 20 minutes at my slow pace with a bucket full of tools in my hand. 

At the zoo I settled down to carry on weeding the patch of gravel I started last week. I worked steadily and being determined to finish the whole thing ended up working for four hours. I stuck it out through the showers apart from one heavier shower when I went and did some weeding in the covered section of the outdoor eating area. Later I forgot to take a photo to show the result of my hard work. I talked to a few families mostly about the peahen and her chicks. They may have been unplanned but from the reactions of the visitors they are a real asset. I think baby anything excites a lot of children and adults. We may be missing the zoo animals but I heard a number of children almost burst with excitement when they saw the ducks. Ducks?

The pigs are capable of destroying any form of feed bucket so it's better to put their feed in banana boxes which can then go in the recycling.

I took some photos as I walked back from the zoo to the village. The green fence is the zoo's boundary fence with one corner on the far right and the opposite corner just out of the picture on the far left. So not very big at all.

Standing in the same spot spun around I had a good view of the River Leri.

There's a high bank along one side of the river, I'm guessing it's to help prevent flooding in the village. Must explore along here as it looks like it would be an easy walk.

The railway crossing.

Looking southwards along the line.

And northwards.

The local fire station.

Once I got home it was nearly 4.00. Just time for a coffee and a rest before preparing some vegetables for supper and blogging.

 

Damp.

Not too cold but distinctly grey and damp today.

I'm still waiting for some mortar mix to finish off the wall so this morning I got on with filling the raised bed. I had two bags of compost in the back garden but then I had to bring up soil from the front garden. Ten half-full buckets later I had enough soil to make it possible to plant a white passionflower, a double pink clematis, blue agapanthus, blue salvia and a big ornamental grass (Panicum Northwind). Just for fun I've also planted some foxglove seedlings to fill up the space next year. It will be interesting to see what colour they turn out to be.

In the afternoon I took myself off for a beach walk.

Only a few hardy families in the water. Not visible in the photo but there were at least six kites being flown on the beach in front of the lifeboat station. I've always fancied one of those dragon or pterodactyl kites. 

Further down the beach I came across this bird kite. It took me a while to spot who was flying this kite which I wanted to do to make sure I didn't walk in the way of the line. It must be a very stable design because it hardly moved position and the line was almost vertical. 

My walk took me along the strand line and I collected some long bits of driftwood towards a full-sized driftwood Christmas tree and I also picked up some different coloured lengths of ropes which might also go on the tree. There were a lot of clumps of what I call bootlace seaweed which reminded me of piles of spaghetti (if spaghetti was brown) which in turn reminded me of the meatball song. I sang a lot with the children I taught and the meatball song was always a favourite.

 

Windy.

Very windy today. This morning we watched three kite surfers whizzing across the waves. Whatever the conditions they are always right for one watersport or another.

My back was a sore last night so I thought it would be better not to do any gardening today. To make sure I wasn't lured outside I threw my gardening trousers in the wash. That way all I could do was a little sweeping and some sitting and planning. Instead I spent the morning writing up my notes for last winter and spring ready to enter them into my Hobbit Journal.

Then in the afternoon I got on with another overdue job, cleaning all my orchids with pesticide to remove the woolly aphids. As well as wiping down every leaf and stem I cleaned all the boxes they sit in and the utility room window sill. I find it quite stressful to have jobs waiting to be done but sometimes it's hard to get round to doing those jobs. A case of self inflicted stress. At least that job is out of the way.

I went into the kitchen late last night and there on the floor was an enormous spider. I put the cup there to show the size but because the spider is further away it looks smaller than it really was. I know it was harmless but it was too big for comfort so I trapped it in a plastic mug which it only just fitted into and threw it into the garden.

Sunset last night.

 

Damp.

For most of the day it was a grey view with low cloud blocking out the distant hills and light to heavy drizzle. By late afternoon there were occasional patches of blue and the wind had picked up bringing some good surfing waves.

After breakfast I finished off filling the right hand side of the raised bed with soil and compost. Then came the fun job of planting; a pink passionflower and a white clematis for the trellis, crocosmia Lucifer in the corner and the blue and white agapanthus with a trailing rosemary in front of the big pot.

After a break my next job was something I've been meaning to do for a while, potting up the little pots of clematis. I feel guilty about the way I've neglected them, one minute everything was getting too dry and the next the pots were standing in water. Sadly a few of them have had to go in the intensive care section and are probably a lost cause but I'm hoping the others will perk up now that they've been potted up and are out of the water. I finished my working day by bringing up some more buckets of soil for the other side.