Soft and spiky

We made a decision early on that we would spend half the day doing indoor jobs (plastering and painting) and half doing outside jobs (more tree cutting, tidying and digging). And we just about managed. Our idea of splitting the day in half with the (cooler) morning in the garden didn't happen as Mr B was driven indoors by the flies and I followed soon, overcome by heat.

But plastering, painting, tree-felling and digging did happen and, in amongst all that, some lizard stalking. Mr B saw a 'huge' green lizard at the bottom of the garden and, though I didn't get a shot of it, I can confirm that it was 'about a foot long'. These violets have sprung up everywhere since we've cleared the garden a bit, providing a welcome patchwork of colour and something tasty for the bees to get stuck into. As you can see, there are still many fallen brambles to clear away.

I read somewhere that this is a good time to be looking at planets, and it being a lovely clear night, we had a quick look. Mars was super-red and very easy to spot, as were (I think) Jupiter and Venus, but we only saw three planets, not the advertised four (Saturn was still below the horizon when we were out - I think that was the other one we were supposed to see).