Two point one litre hat

If today was an emoticon, it would be one of those annoying yellow smiley faces. Setting aside some annoyingly repetitive dreams, the day started well with an unplanned lie-in and continued with a delightful tea and cookie breakfast while Mr B went to get bread for lunch. Conor then nagged me (not that I needed much nagging) out into the garden so he could "Oh you know, plant things". So I was persuaded to plant bulbs and rhizomes that will probably be frozen solid in the frosts forecast for early next week.

You have to catch Conor when he's eager to do things - and he was a real help, though despite a very long explanation he could not remember the word 'rhizome' even though Katherine, who was in her bedroom with the window open and listening to a talking book shouted out 'rhizome, Conor, it's a rhizome'. So someone learned something.

Mr B put our table back together and we had a delightful lunch outside - bread, cheese and rosé wine. Bliss. The thermometer was claiming it was 15 degrees in the shade, but with no wind it felt much warmer than that in the sun. The birds were a little disgruntled that we were so close to the bird table, but the blue tits lead the way and showed we were not in a bird eating mood. Later Katherine correctly identified a flock of big noisy birds flying over as not (as I thought) geese, but cranes, returning from the winter in Africa. Added to a red kite looping around the garden (I think he lives in a tree at the bottom of it) and Katherine stumbling over a deer, and it was quite a wildlife filled day. There was also a small plane doing incredible stunts over the house - spending most of his time upside down.

Mr B snoozed away the afternoon on the hammock, while I cleared another bed (discovering hundreds of irises, which is handy as they'll be symmetrical with the ones we planted today - sort of like I meant it). Lots of time today for sitting and watching the garden come back to life, with lizards sleepily crawling over the walls of the house and bees searching for early flowers. And, of course, time for a bonfire. Here's Katherine feeding the dying remnants. Later there were tears when it was haircut time for them both.

Rain tomorrow, then back to freezing temperatures for a week; but today will recharge our batteries for a while.