Sunshine! – 12 July 2024

Today we had sunshine from first thing in the morning until early evening.

It was a bit of a surprise. We hadn’t expected such a warm, bright day. If past experience is anything to go by, it will all turn to rain tomorrow. However, we made the best of today.

While I was making breakfast, I watched a young blackbird having a bath in the bird bath tucked away among the vegetation at the back fence. It seemed to be really enjoying itself. Despite the rain, it’s been pretty dry so far this month. I think the rainwater has been sucked away into the grass.

Later in the morning we drove to Tesco where Scamp pointed at the bags of compost and I lifted one down from the top of the pile. How good it was that Tesco piled these bags in the foyer of the store, where they don’t get wet and don’t weigh twice or three times their dry weight. Such a simple thing you’d think, but hardly any of the garden centres think of it and we’re left to manhandle sodden bags of compost. We also got two pots. One to keep as a spare and one to transplant the Berberis plant into. It seems to be struggling where it is in an impractical pot with a wide opening at the top and a narrow base, leading the plant to be blown over in the gusty weather we’ve been having. After the gardening essentials were in the trolley, the rest was just shopping!

After lunch I drove to Fannyside and took a few photos of the sheep and cattle, but the PoD went to a fence post with Cladonia lichen covering the top and with a layer of spider webs over that. I saw a wee bird that might have been a Stonechat, but the new lens was just to short to get a decent shot of it, but a longer lens would cost more and weigh twice as much as the Tamron. So the Stonechat will have to come to me next time if it wants its photo taken.

Back home Scamp was enjoying the sunshine in the back garden and I joined her for a while, almost, but not quite finishing my book from Fred. I’m spinning it out, because it’s difficult to keep track of all the people in the story and they keep changing their names. I also don’t really want to get to the end, because I’m enjoying it so much.

Later we thought we should water the garden. Scamp did it, front and back while I made the dinner. I say “I made the dinner”, but to be honest, the oven made it. There was very little prep and very little skill in the Chicken and Pea Tray Bake. It was a bit salty, but definitely delicious.

We’re hoping to go dance class in Brookfield tomorrow, but don’t have any more plans.

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