Stone the ... Seagulls

A great cloud of birds took to the air behind my garden this morning. It was like a confrontation out of West Side Story. On my left, a huge flock of seagulls, and on my right, a huge flock of crows, rooks, what you will. They screamed at each other, flew past each other, flew into each other, and then they were just one glorious crowd of birds, black and white, flying together and then settling on the field to feed. It was really amazing to see them en masse in the air and then peacefully eating together.

Today I went to see the ride-on lawnmower that a local dealer said I could have for £150 plus the price of a new battery. It had been his mother's, and when he took it out of it's shroud of dust and cobwebs and tried it out he said it started first time and cut the lawn very well. But what I saw was a heap of rust. What did I expect for that price? Well, something old, yes, but something cared for too, and it was only the former. I tried out a few new petrol mowers while I was there, but they were unwieldy to turn, and frankly I'm done with pushing and pulling heavy things that I don't need to manhandle. Regretfully I left empty handed. There's still Did and his old one once he finds a replacement, but after the mess he made of my lawn, is that a bit of pie in the sky?

Nothing daunted, I went shopping. Not for clothes, like my friend Helen would, but hardware. I needed a rubber gasket for the water butt in my front garden which has been leaking. The gasket fitted around the tap which I had to take off. But it wasn't that easy. Inside was the other half of the tap fixture holding it in place, and I had to unscrew it to get the tap off. Hanging inside the butt, my arms were just not long enough to both hold the tap on the outside and undo the back inside. It's a big butt. Turning the tap on its own just turned the back too. I stretched, I flicked my right boob inside to get closer, and slowly, slowly, I inched it off. God, it was hard. At the hardware shop I bought other lovely things too: some more fabric to lay on my path to stop weeds growing through; four shelves cut to measure for the garage where I plan to put everythging currently on the ground; 30 metres of hose to be divided between all three butts the better to drain them when they get too full in the winter. Two will fill the pond, and the third, the one with the lovely new gasket, will drain into the field; and a smart length of very nice wood which will straddle the two elder trees behind the pond to make a seat. The trees have to be chopped down to size first, but that won't happen for a few weeks. I was very chuffed with my purchases. Helen would have been appalled.