Nothing particularly cerebral today, although I was reading the Henry Williams biography this morning in the car, and am now on page 50 and find it hard to put down. He is beginning to sound like a man who wasn't very confident (and indeed that is just how he looks in the frontispiece photograph of the book, when he was 19 and just going off to war) and so talked himself up a lot to compensate. So much in fact that he believed his own rhetoric in the end. It mattered so desperately to him to make it as an author, and to gain the approval of other - famous - writers. I will see how right I am as I progress through the book.
I took myself out for a walk at around 8 a.m. this morning - not far, just up to the junction and back, but I am pretty unfit as I haven't walked regularly for months. I am going to walk daily again now and hope to get my fitness levels back to what they were a year or so ago.
I spent two hours this afternoon painting the front of the former chicken shed, and the bottom half of the cart shed. OH then climbed the ladder and did the top half, but Sod's Law being what it is, ran out of paint when there was just a section about 6 feet x 4 feet to do . . . As he worked, I then dead headed/cut right back all my Alchemilla mollis which had been totally over the top with the sun and then rain. It will make fresh growth and hopefully soon it won't look quite so bare out there.
Whilst we were in town buying paint, I also bought a Verbena bonariensis which came about £1 cheaper than its marked price as there was a 20% discount. It has filled a very obvious gap where I had cut back a flopped Californian poppy and the purple of the flowers absolutely glows and looks even better because it is planted beside a Heuchera with deep red- purple leaves.
Tea has been made and eaten - a spicy risotto with turkey breast, frozen mixed veg. and curry paste, and now I am yawning . . .
I hope it will stay fine tomorrow morning as there is a Fleamarket on down on the showground, and that is always so much better than the actual Antiques Fairs they have. I am hoping to find some Henry Williamson books of course . . .
