Travels with my camera

It's been a fabulous day here today, right back in the high temperatures, just how I like it. Couldn't decide what to do but ended up spending most of the day in the garden, just taking a brief trip later this afternoon down to the river again, where we had an unexpected meet with Pat, David and Ben. She had come over for a bowls club meeting, so Emma got to paddle with ber friend today. We also had donuts in the car park, sssshhh, don't tell anyone, bang goes the diet today!

Before that, I made a new pen for the guinea pigs. Well, I say made, all it took was to get my roll of wire netting from behing the top shed and unravel it a few feet across the garden, and voila, a new, super douper large pen. The guineas as such easy pets to cater for, not having to worry about them digging their way out like you would a rabbit or flying away, like you would birds! They couldn't escape, the only problem with the open top is something could get in, eg cat or even a hawk I suppose may be interested in them, so I wouldn't leave them unattended, its just for when I am sitting out there. They had such a great time, I did a short video too, which can be viewe here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuUhH92SW1E, and also took some piccies of them playing. It was lovely to let them have a big run around like that, although they spent most of the time under the blackcurrent bush, eating my ornamental grass!

The Gravestones bit of this post is that I finally got around to doing a couple to mark the graves of two of my very special pets, my two cockatiels Ghosty and Sumo, both of which died prematurely, both of which meant the world to me. They have little graves in my front garden, with pretty stones that I collected over time from the beach, and each has a plant especially bought for them on top of the grave, but I thought it would be nice to have a proper marker too. I did one for my Maisie who died a couple of weeks back, painting onto a nice stone with oil paints, so did the same for these. Quite pleased with the results, but managed to get more paint on me than on the stones I think. And doesn't it take forever to dry? They are still wet now, and managed to muck up the Y of Ghosty putting them in place, will have to touch it up next time I do one. I have several more to do when I can find some nice stones. The one I used for Sumo's was a huge ovoid one that I got from the beach, which I thought looked like it could be a dinosaur's egg! I wanted to paint a bird on each one, but I am useless at art, so just did a flower instead.

I can't seem to get motivated to do anything much during the daytime, but after tea, I was raring to go, and cut the front grass again with the pushmower, when the lawn is reasonably short, it's easier to use this, and good exercise too, but I won't use it once the grass has got long because the collection box on it is useless, and it leaves the grass all over the place, then Emma goes out on it, and with the dew or damp, brings half of it indoors. (and no, I won't rake it up, that is in the top 5 of my most hated jobs, I do not rake .. )

After that, I got the ladder out and a bucket and my clothes prop, and climbed up and cleared the gully and gutter out - it was choc-a-bloc with moss. I couldn't reach all the way up to the top of the roof, but got the majority of it down. Completely filled a big black bucket. It will be as bad again though in a few weeks, my roof is covered in moss, and as soon as it rains, it falls off, blocks the gutter, and I get water pouring off into the porch like Niagara falls.

Lastly I did something which I hoped nobody would see, well I am sure they couldn't anyway, but you never know. I cut the edges of my lawn with a pair of scissors! Now if I had seen someone doing that, I would have definitely think they had lost the plot so I'm sure anyone who had spotted me would have had their suspicions about me confirmed. I'm pretty sure round here they think I am a weirdo, being English is enough, but with all the pets and bird feeding, and not be very sociable, I guess I ain't Miss Popularity. :) It is just so much easier to snip the overhanging bits of lawn with some nice big scissors than use shears which hurt my wrists like hell. Once I got into it, it only took about 10 minutes to go all the way round all the four borders......

Finally, I swept up both my bird feeding areas at around 8.45, killing time before the chickens went in. The new paved area that I did up by my aviary was beginning to look a right mess - waste of time putting the weed block under the slabs, because all the spilled bird seed had sprouted in all the cracks between, and I had a small field springing up. So I pulled all that out, helped by my two pests, I mean chickens, then swept all the spillage, and chucked it all in the bank for the rats to feast on! Whilst I was doing this, I was aware of many sets of beady eyes watching me from the trees above. As soon as I came indoors to wash up, there were greenfinches, chaffinches and collared doves straight down to feed again. They are certainly staying late at the moment, this was almost half past nine by then.

Well, that's about my exciting day again, will now post the piccies and see if anyone is still on chat. Don't know what to do tomorrow, I hate going places at weekends now, too crowded, but I think I will need to grab a bit more salad stuff - back on that again tonight, having had a proper meal last night for a change! I sat in the porch again to eat as well tonight, sheer bliss. I took my digital thermometer out there to check and at 8 oclock, it was 36c in the sun in my porch - fantastic! Bring it on, that's what I call summer. Mind, it soon chilled off once the sun went down behind the hill, down to 10c very quickly, but it's still nice to be able to sit indoors in just a t-shirt and shorts again tonight, having spent a few nights of late wrapped up wearing the same stuff as I do in the winter. Not sure whether to risk turning off the storage heater tonight or not, it worked a treat putting it back on, the weather got hotter!