I spent a large part of the day relaxing in the sunshine.  This isn’t something that I do very often and, whilst I enjoyed it at the time, I’ve felt unsettled since.  Still, I take the good moments and ride with them for preference.

Eloise has been going indoors and out as she wishes all day and it’s fine.  She has lost interest in the chickens, having presumably twigged that she hasn’t any chance at all of overcoming one.  My friend Richard, who has done work here with his digger in the past (and probably will do so again) called round and we sat outside and chatted.  Later, I went out for some food for tomorrow, when Roses, her Boy and my Ro are coming for dinner.

I’ve been doing a lot of online shopping recently.  I’ve never been that fond of shops, so just clicking suits me nicely.  Today, I’ve bought a cat flap, cat food, a doormat and more salty liquorice.  I’ll give Ro the rest of the box I bought a couple of weeks ago, he enthused about it.  Oh, and I also bought a new parasol, having had a bit of trouble with the one I have.  I need shade from the sun – I like heat but I can’t sunbathe – Russell put the two parts of the parasol away in different places without realising, a couple of years ago, and we never did find the pole, so he bought one that makes it usable but isn’t quite right, so it fell over a few times and now it’s all a bit knackered.  So another one is on its way.

We’re getting on with things here.  Unfortunately, a chicken is sitting on eggs in the pile of scrap metal, so I can’t get rid of that for another three weeks (I should take her off but I’m too soft) but one gate to the front field is hung and the other one, at the road, will be done in the next few days.  My new workman, Geoff, is going to crack on with mending barns and doors.  I’ll also ask him to fit the cat flap when it arrives. Stevo has been creosoting outbuildings – it’s creosote substitute nowadays, of course, the real thing isn’t sold any longer but it’s banned on health grounds.  I was able to buy a 25 litre tub for £43-ish a few weeks ago but now I want another, I can’t find one, not in black.  It’s a lot more expensive to buy little 4 litre containers, though I’ve found 16 litres for £44.50.  There’s still a fair bit left of the first lot, I’ll look again in a day or two.  We’ve also got on with more clearing and tidying, though some things have been taken out and left for consideration – there’s still a lot to do.  It’s very hard, I’m not really in a good emotional state for all this, but it’s better got on with.  It’ll be good when it’s all done.