Bit of a mixture

Well a few days to catch up on I guess, nothing very exciting though, but have taken a few photos so best put some stuff.

Erm Sunday went to Irene's (for a change...!) boiling hot day, so took the dogs to the woods in Lampeter where it would be cooler.

Yesterday, spent a day at home doing some jobs. Nothing getting done here lately and although I enjoy, and prefer to be out and about, I still feel terribly anxious and irritated if things get on top of me here. So I cleaned out all the pets, cut the grass, and strimmed, all of which took around 4 hours. Dripped with sweat, it was very, very close and sticky, but not complaining. I also decided I needed to re-fill my water butt (which is in fact an old plastic dustbin) It hasn't rained substantially for a while and was down to the last few inches of sludge in the bottom. So I rinsed it out, and left the hosepipe slowly filling it up whilst I cut the grass. Kept checking the level, and after about an hour, it was near enough full. Then I looked down, and the bloody thing had sprung a leak, a one inch slit right at the bottom, and the water was spraying out like a soda syphon! Typical of my luck. It waited till it was full! Luckily, I have another dustbin which I wasn't using, so had to bail the water out into this, move the half full one out of the way, and then the new half full one back under the drain. What a palaver!

Anyhow, decided I'd best go down the village and walk Emma round the park, and pop into the pet shop for some bits and bobs. I wanted some more runner beans too (she does garden centre stuff as well) Got nearly there (it's only 4 miles away) and couldn't believe it started raining. And boy, did it rain, it torrented down! I got drowned running from the car to the pet shop, about 50 yards, and back again. Decided pointless waiting for it to stop and I'd left the guinea pigs out in the garden, so drove all the way home again, and found it dry as a bone! In fact it was from about a mile out of Llandysul. Sun still out, I couldn't believe it. It did eventually rain here about two hours later, but only for about half an hour, and only light rain, not enough to wet the grass hardly. There were flash floods in Llandysul, and in Lampeter, they had to shut a school today, because it got flooded, along with someone's house! How amazing is that? And we didn't get any to speak of. What strange weather.

Okay now to today. Went to Irene's and it was a lot cooler and greyer today, but still pleasant enough. Had some lunch and then decided to take the dogs to the forestry. Drove our normal route and I noticed that there were two blokes in a car behind us all the way there. Hoping they would be carrying straight on the main road, but they didn't - they followed us into the forestry car park. I didn't like it much, and neither did Irene. We sat in the car and waited, and they got out, looking in our direction but walked off down the track. Sorry, but I am suspicious of men who walk in out of the way places without a dog, or they don't look like hikers, carrying no equipment of any kind. So we drove out again, and went to another bit of the forestry that we haven't been to before, and it was a good decision. Had a lovely peaceful walk. Lots of beautiful trees, good views, although it was a shame it was a bit hazy in the distance, but we were high up and it was like looking down from an aircraft in some places. The trees had lots of rain drops hanging on them from the showers we had yesterday. We saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a baby Song Thrush which looked like it was on it's maiden flight, and lots of lbj's! (Little brown jobs for the uninitiated!)

Had to take a photo of my beautiful lily again outside in the tub, there are 35 blooms either already open or about to open, fantastic plant, it's the fifth year I've had it in that pot, and have never done a thing to it, what a bargain.

There was a baby blue tit hanging on the peanut feeder outside the kitchen window too, very cute.

So a bit of a marathon post I'm afraid, but I seem to be so busy lately, what with helping Irene, trying to get things done here, the windfarm meetings and complaint letter writing, and good stuff on the telly (there have been some amazing acts on Britain's Got Talent,) have to get this done when I can!