Armor and sword

Well here goes my second attempt to write today's blip, after accidentally opening another webpage directly instead of in a new window.  I'm always telling Mum to write it in a text editor and then paste into here, and now I've made the same mistake. :-(

I painted the fascia boards of the garage this morning while it was sunny and warm, given that rain was forecast this afternoon.  Then I had a lovely long phone call with BikerBabe and we caught up on each other's news.

I took myself off to the big pond again after lunch, and was pleased to see that the swans have hatched five cygnets.  The moorhens have also hatched five babies, who make plaintive, throaty, screeching sounds as they paddle around in hot pursuit of their parents.  The mallards were also around today, and I heard chiffchaffs, willow warblers and the song thrush again.  After doing a little food shop, while cycling home I saw my brother in passing, so he stopped by at mine for a cup of tea on his way home.  I'd not seen him since lunch on New Year's Day.

And this evening I attended to my poorly cactus.  I'm quite sad about it, because I bought it as a baby in 2017 on my way home from Stockport, to cheer myself up after all the speedbike training.  It'd been doing pretty well and had grown a new shoot only a year ago and was all of eight inches tall.  But the top turned grey a few weeks ago and I don't know why.  Whether fungus or rot, it was spreading downwards, so it needed cutting off.  Even with my biggest and newly sharpened and isopropyl alcoholled kitchen knife it was hard work.  I hadn't expected a wee thing like this to be quite so tough and leathery.

So now I have to watch and wait and see how long it takes for the cactus to form the callus over the exposed flesh, which I protected with beeswax.  Fingers crossed that it recovers in time.