2.07.2026

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  Thursday 2nd 61F/16C [7.30] Overcast with showers and wind. 22C/71F in the room. 16C/62F in the greenhouse. 

 Up at 6am after a fairly quiet night. 

 I have an appointment for an assessment chat with a physiotherapist in Assens. This is after numerous cancellations due to my own ill health. I attended the free exercise sessions the first time I had a heart operation. The staff were delightful, young people. Very attentive, empathetic and well trained. 

 Unfortunately there is a time limit on the number of sessions per heart patient. So after that I went onto fairly inexpensive sessions for elderly heart patients at a sports center. Which was a much larger group performing in a vast gymnasium. Which I didn't really mind. 

 It was the coffee and group chats afterwards. I simply could not hear the conversations against the high background, noise levels in a highly reverberant acoustic. Low ceilings, huge overhead beams, long tables. People would ask me direct questions and I could not hear a single word they said! Which made me feel like a fool. So I stopped going.  

 13.00 Back from town.  I chatted for an hour with the delightful young physiotherapist. I now have an exercise App on my phone and will probably start group physio sessions in August. Then I moved onto a Zeiss optician for a free eye test. He was incredibly thorough. 

 I bought a 30m network cable from a big shed store. To be able to mount one of my West Lawn security cams to face the house. The present car park cam looks towards the carport. It takes in a large area but I'd like a view to monitor the house itself. 

 I detoured to examine progress on the new cycle path. Running from Assens, through Ebberup to Glamsbjerg. The contractors on the section from Ebberup onward have already covered a lot of ground. With the rails and sleepers lifted. Leaving a long, earthen trough in a pretty tunnel of overhanging trees. The route will be absolutely gorgeous once completed. Hopefully some time around December. There is a very special atmosphere about abandoned railways. Not the conditions today to be taking pictures.

 It has been raining hard and blowing all morning. With larger puddles in the lanes than I have ever seen. One puddle near home was 3/4 of the way across the road and very deep. I waved down an approaching, touring motorcyclist and saw him apply his brakes in my rear view mirror. Just before he got there. I had used the wrong side of the road to pass the puddle and was still in very deep water. 

 Even at 13.45 it is still raining hard. I can see bright stripes of rainwater reflecting the grey sky. Working their way down the drive.

 It eventually brightened up and the rain stopped. Though remaining very cloudy and windy. I felt tired, head-achy and fuzzy. So I went to bed for a nap. 

 

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1st July 2026 Deliverance.

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  Wednesday 1st 61F/16C [7.15] Bright overcast. Dry morning but increasingly cloudy. With showers this afternoon. Possibly thundery. 73F/23C in the room. 62F/17C in the greenhouse. Pond water at 71F/22C.

 Up at 5.30 after an occasionally sweaty night. 

 I have to be here around lunchtime for a delivery. I'd like a ride. Not far. I need to shop at another supermarket chain. There isn't a local branch. 

 8.45 It's getting darker. I have watered the plants. Indoors and out. Then stacked the massive paving slabs to make a step outside the new glazed door. Just to get  a feel for scale, width, etc. They need to be properly leveled. Preferably without scraping my shin! Silly old whatsit!

 I have spent the morning working on a solar telescope. I was dizzy mid-morning. So I sat in an armchair and rocked quickly back and forth. From head between my knees, To staring upwards at the ceiling.  Holding each position for over half a minute. Eventually I felt a bit better. 

 13.30 The Abigail's British foods chap has just left in his van. Two bottles of salad cream have gone in the fridge. We always have a good chat. I'll go shopping this afternoon. 

 16.45 Back from the village supermarkets. I drove there. 

 Dinner was a salmon pasty with chips and peas.

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30.06.2026 West Lawn Prep.

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 Tuesday 30th 61F/16C [7.30] Bright sunshine behind the overcast. A return to more normal temperatures. 73F/23C in the room. 61F/16C in the greenhouse. The greenhouse pond water us at 71F/22C after climbing much higher. It was 78F/26C at one point. Not ideal for goldfish but they seemed active, hungry and healthy.

 Up at 6.40 after a failure to lift off at 6am.  In the absence of my morning walks I did 2000 steps yesterday. Just walking up and down the drive. To do "gardening" or to follow the robot mower.

 No visit to my friend today. He's busy and I ought to be.. That West Lawn won't prepare itself! 

 9.45 69F/21C. Sunshine. I have given the West Lawn an initial blast over at maximum cutting height. The Makita mower didn't like it at all. It kept being bogged down in hollows between mole hills. Or by the mole hills themselves. I am hot and tired. Morning coffee beckons. Watching myself struggling with the  mower on the security cameras. Only reinforces the battle to tame the uneven grass. Now I need to rake out the exposed earth of the molehills. There is plenty of bag compost lying around to fill in the hollows.

 Of course the Makita batteries are already flat. Makita R&D never tried to cut anything but a carefully prepared bowling green. Otherwise they would never have released this piece of crap onto a gullible public. 

  They wouldn't want to tell the public how the grass is constantly blocked from reaching the collection bag. How difficult it is to remove the grass basket/bag [every single time] due to the the IMperfectly placed crossbar.

 The image [top right] shows only about a third of the extent of the West Lawn. The posh title is fully intended to be ironic. Delusions of grandeur. White House ballroom with cheap, gold painted stickers. That sort of thing. 

 The image [left above] shows the hideous reality. The brambles I cleared are back. The vast wood pile of chestnut logs, to the right, is no less ugly. Bags of compost are lost in the even longer grass.

 While I was tipping the wheelbarrow full of grass cuttings over the back. I pulled out a lot of weeds from the gravel parking space. They came out quite easily if one doesn't tug or pull too hard. Grippy rubber gloves always help.

 After lunch I raked the molehills out. Using the back of the rake worked best for leveling. after breaking up the hill with the normal teeth/tines/whatever. 

 Dinner was the worst poached eggs on the planet on toast. Both yolks broke as they hot the boiling water.

 

  

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