The Great Outdoors

I had a week off and spent it mostly making pavers for the seating area in the garden. I've made it harder for myself by having a grand idea, but oh boy is it hard work. It's really good exercise though, I am already a lot fitter than I was, and I've been doing nearly an hour of exercise every day since the start of April anyway. I've been mixing the concrete literally by hand (with gloves, of course) and with all of that and the lifting and carrying I've been more sore than I have for years, and in places I don't think I've ever been sore in. No sniggering at the back, you.

I've also been doing some painting. I've had a canvas sitting around for (turns out) over a year waiting for me to get started. I've started now, at last. I have to remind myself that things like this rarely 'read' until you've put a lot of work in, so even though you think it looks crap you just have to keep going. It's started to come together now though.

It's been windy. I hate it when it's windy. Noisy and all over the place, grabbing at everything, shoving things around and breaking things, like some irritating child.

It's also been very wet. I quite like rain. I discovered a monster slug in the garden which I was amazed by and then made the mistake of looking it up. Oh hey, invasive species, not nice to meet you. We need to make some changes in the garden to get hedgehogs in. The garden itself should be a haven, but it's a problem of access: we're on a hill so we'd need ramps to connect to the gardens each side. There's an alley at the back so I should be able to make a hole in the gate they can use, but the alley isn't itself very hospitable. Are there any hedgehogs even there to invite in?

I discovered a top tip: baseball caps make great sweatbands. Get ones that are washable though. Yes.