Longer days means more time?

Something tells me I’m not getting enough discretionary time, my last post was the other end of the month for goodness’ sake. Now I never intended to do a daily post, but twice a month is not a great frequency. However with the longer days there are so many more opportunities to fix things, cut things, and much to my aching backs disgust, dig up small shrubs. Well you know how it goes, a moment of madness in a garden centre two years ago leads to a couple of hours hard labour. You don’t? Well then you’re either not a gardener or not married to one. Still at least we get to see the Californian poppies from the kitchen window now.

And speaking of fixing things, it will come as no surprise to hear that the builders attempt to fix the long-standing leak in the sun room roof has met with precisely zero success. As proven by the rather violent and prolonged rain storm a few nights ago. In fact, and you’ll excuse the possibly inappropriate use of words, he has all but washed his hands of it. So I am going to have to find some (dry) discretionary time to fix the leak myself as roofing contractors in and around Lymington seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur but in a somewhat shorter time span. I am really looking forward to it.

I realise that even with a computer the size of London it must be difficult to predict the weather in the UK, but fortunately the forecast was completely wrong for last Sunday. Rather than the promised deluge, we had glorious sun. Now I’m not complaining, not really, but we were invited to lunch just around the corner, actually most of Lymington is pretty much just around the corner, so we decided to walk the short distance. It was going to rain so we donned raincoats. Which on our return home I got to carry along with the wife’s Backfriend in what felt like sub-tropical heat. Still at least I took a few shades of grey off my skin colour by sitting out in the garden. Not really a tan, but at least a viable shade of alive.

The Bank Holiday Monday forecast was pretty much spot on. Enough sun in the afternoon to make us think a visit to the seawall was a good plan, too many clouds and a keen wind to make it a group activity if you don’t include joggers and dog owners who apparently had to be there. Didn’t matter, it’s a great place to be whatever the weather, and with the recent onset of a number of cygnets and a whole nursery of Canadian goslings, there was a high Aahhh factor which made the whole thing very rewarding.

Incidentally, if you have back pain and dread going out to places where you cannot be sure of a suitable chair, the Backfriend is a most marvellous aid. It is a tad bulky to carry around, but has made the difference between an early exit and agreeable social intercourse on numerous occasions for my wife. As the advert (kinda) goes, we don’t leave home without one.