Wednesday 1st July

Six thirty start but I didn't do much about it.  No coffee, half asleep and half awake until eight and then firstly washed and dressed and then coffee.  I'd missed the bread van and when I checked out the bread in the kitchen it had green spots so it got slung to the dogs and I settled for a bacon omelette for breakfast with cheese slices added.  It was a bit of a dull morning, cloudy sky so swimming was off the cards so I thought I'd do a little more on ancestry and I'm still trying to find my elusive five times great grandfather, without this information I can't go beyond and delve further back.  I thought I'd found his birth record, everything pointed to his father being Thomas which was the norm in those days and I'd found a Thomas with more or less the correct dates.  I'd found a birth record of JnO Jones (surname of his wife) so maybe conceived out of wedlock but made legal before the birth.  I went down this track for about two hours, checking as I went and got back another sixty years and then hit a snag...so back to the drawing board Cecil.  The elusive five times great....

I moved to the bedroom from the computer and had a few games of Soda Crush and again I have an elusive super hard game and that cheesed me off as well so I headed for the bonfire and got that going, put the hose on the new bottom garden to keep the plants well watered and moved up to the vegetable garden to see what I could salvage.  I gave the tomatoes a haircut...all the heavy side growth that only grows and does little else and weeded the cucumber plants.  The butternut squash have gone mad, the beetroot have disappeared altogether but I know they're hiding somewhere, I've made a start but think I shall have to fill the gaps with more seeds. I think I've seen a few carrots which the ants obviously didn't get and what I thought were very special weeds have turned out to be very pretty flowers.  I did a little bit of construction and now the cucumbers are climbing up string and the tomatoes are strung up making the watering much easier.

I came in half seven after putting my tools away and tomorrow is going to be more of the same, I need to finish the weeding and get some more seeds in if only to feed the ants.  Bread needed tomorrow so better set the alarm....not really but get dressed in time to leg it down the road to meet up with the ladies.  LN....Not a good morning but a successful afternoon.....LN  

Thursday 2nd July

A hot balmy night but managed a good night's sleep despite.  Seven thirty start. decided to walk the garden with the first coffee of the morning and suddenly realised that it was heading up to 'bread van' time so had to get into gear and get dressed for my trip down the village.  I left the house at eight thirty and Avatar was sitting in her garden so I joined her.  Her grand-daughter and the boy were still asleep and she was enjoying her solitude and it was over.....I'd arrived.  I noticed that she had had a fly screen fitted to the entry door and she complained that it had cost sixty leva....and I convinced her that it was reasonable and that for that amount of money it was worth it's weight in gold.  I think it will take her a couple of days to remember to close it every time that she goes through it otherwise, why have it fitted....I don't give the flies the opportunity.

The van came so we set off together and when we got there it hadn't parked up but had gone down the back lane for its first call.  I think it's so that the oldies can manage to get there ready for when he arrives.  I also noticed that there was a big yellow machine parked up in the square and I'm reliably informed that they've put asphalt down the back lane for the residents.  I'd heard a machine yesterday but thought it was a digger or some one digging a cesspit and I was amazed that we're still putting down asphalt.  I bought bread and went back into Avatar's garden and we ate a couple of rubbish marmalade sweet bread buns and drank coco-cola despite my protest that I would go back for breakfast.  I was home for just after ten, watered the terrace pots and realised that it was going to be just too hot to be a slave to the garden, the temperature was rising rapidly and so I settled in to my ancestry trail going over what I'd covered yesterday but still no break though.  

By this time the hunger pangs were getting through so I went down to the kitchen and realised that the huge blanket that I'd washed that morning had no chance of drying in the washing machine so I removed it from the machine, put the second one in and then time and motion came into action as I realised that peeling potatoes and putting them on to boil would mean that I would save time while I pegged out the blanket.  My old 'in-box' brain coming into play.  Potatoes boiling, onion peeled and chopped, carrots shredded in the machine, pickled beetroot chopped and tuna opened.  These mixed with mayo was going to be lunch and there was plenty of it and I shan't need supper.  I went out at five and got the blankets in, watered the vegetable garden and I really must put out the hose with the holes in it so that all I have to do is connect it up.  I reconnected the hose to the sprinkler at the bottom of the garden and made sure the plants have enough to last them overnight...my new plants look good and seem to be taking already.  Hose off....I've left it turned on, on occasions and my water bill got pretty high ...so now I remember.

Relax time......not sure about tomorrow yet.  If I get up early I can get the gardening done before it racks up the temperature...I'll see how I feel in the morning....I might even go into Kardjali...that swimming pool is still calling me.  LN....Almost time for bed said Zebedee.....LN

Friday 3rd July

Early to bed, early to rise...but only when you hear the 'tzzzzz' of a mosquito at three thirty.....and I was out of bed like a shot.  I couldn't find it so put the mosquito machine on and sprayed the bed and surrounding area and did the rest of the night with the light on.  Fortunately it was light at about six so I wasn't too bothered by the light of the lamp.  Up by seven and went out to the terrace with my coffee and what a beautiful morning it was.  I look at my garden and it's amazing how beautiful it looks as long as you don't look too closely at the bits that really need weeding.  It's a lot for one but I manage but mainly in fits and starts.  This mornings was a 'fit'.

I'd looked at the trug that stands on the terrace between the two sets of steps and for some reason this year the self sets haven't really done their stuff without any intervention and today I was going to intervene.  I watered it well and started to weed it and took out the petunias that were struggling.  I'd started in the middle working my way to the one end  and as I added more compost, I replanted the ones that I'd already dug out.  I'd found the technique and had finished it, with new baby petunias added by around eleven.  I removed the table cloth from the outside table and put it in the machine and put another layer of wood preservative on the table which really upset the wasps that were scraping off the surface to add to their homes...sorry boys and girls....carry on like that and there'll be nothing left.  

I took to the terrace again and watched some morning television, got fed up with that and played Soda Crush and guess what....I completed the one that's been very difficult to solve and it has taken me almost ten days working on it.  Not exactly working on it, playing the game, not getting too stressed about it and leaving it for the next day.    I pegged out the table cloth and moved inside, the temperature was climbing rapidly so I decided to go upstairs and put the computer on....I hadn't done my admin for the day.  Suddenly I heard a clatter, the wind had got up so I went outside to investigate and noticed nothing and as I walked back into the house I realised that it was coming from inside the house and from the kitchen and guessed that a bird had fallen down the chimney and made its way to the little wood burner in the kitchen.  I cleared the top of it so that I could get to the hot plates on the top, cleared the window sill so that I could get the kitchen window open giving it a clear run and opened the fly screen.  The plan was to let it escape, it would head for the window, onto the conservatory and out of the conservatory door...well that was the plan.  I looked over to see if Avatar was in her garden, she's good at holding birds ...I'm not good with anything that flaps and we've worked together before...but she was obviously having her afternoon rest so I went back to the computer.

I did a little more on my ancestry and again, no major breakthroughs and remembered the bird so I looked out and saw that Avatar was in her garden so I went over and we walked back to the house.  I'd done all the preparation and I explained the plan of attack to Avatar and we went into the kitchen together.  I removed the first flue cover and nothing doing so moved on to the two hot plates and still nothing and I was thinking that it had made its escape.  I completely opened up the top and off it flew towards the window and the conservatory but unfortunately I hadn't had time to open the conservatory door.  I flew into the conservatory, it flew back towards the main house door and it ended up on the top of the shelving unit obviously scared out of its feathers almost.  I opened the conservatory door propping it open with the broom and handed Avatar her walking stick and she poked it and the next thing she'd picked it up and we were outside by the newly painted table.  She said that she thought it had died, she prized its beak open and I was dropping water into it and she was even puffing air into it...a kiss of life for a sparrow.  It fluttered, we gave it some more water and then we put it on the concrete by the frog garden and five minutes later it flew away.  I spent the next thirty minutes putting the kitchen back together again, cleaning windows and polishing the wooden window sill....an area that does get neglected.

Lovely sunset tonight and we have a full moon on its way.  The mosquito machine has been going all day and he's hoping for an undisturbed night.....fingers crossed.  LN....Shower time.....LN

Saturday 4th July

Nice cool bath last night and for a while it felt comfortable but it was another balmy night.  Ten minutes later and your dripping again, hot and very humid.  No visitors last night but I didn't have a deep sleep...I was waiting for the call of the 'wild; which fortunately never came.  I was awake at six and you could hardly see the bottom of the garden, we were waiting for the sun to burn it off and once it was up it didn't take long for it to clear.  I put a cushion on the bench and settled down with my coffee listening to the birds and there are so many of them,  The cuckoos seem to have disappeared but there are still a couple of hoepoo around with one starts off as being a very sweet sound but then gets quickly boring...I love the nightingales there song changes so much.  I made another coffee and took it out with me and by quarter to seven I though it was time I got started.

I opened up the conservatory and realised that there was a rubbish bag that needed burning.  I took it down to the bottom of the garden along with the garden fork, spade, gardening gloves and a fire lighter...I've realised that matches don'r really do it and the others are fine providing they have gas in them.  The burning bin has got surprisingly full so I tried to dig it out with the spade but nothing doing.  I had to tilt it over so that I'd got it at an angle and eventually I was down to the bottom and all the food cans were sorted to put into the container.  Another job done and fairly easy to start the bonfire now that the draft can get through the holes in the bottom of the bin.  I finished weeding the buddlieh bed adding to the fire, thought about getting the strimmer out but the temperature was rising  already so I looked for other things and found them.

My yellow sailing jacket that's used in the winter for bonfire duties needed washing and that was the first of many.  I changed the sheet on my bed for a bigger one so that there's more overhang and that got washed along with the clothes to date for this week and then it started.  Hoover cleaned out, bedrooms all done, all mats from the bedrooms and bathroom washed and pegged out and tiled floors washed over.  I cleaned the stairs and washed them over, moved down to the conservatory and removed the mat, cleaned the window sill off and mopped the floor.  At this point Avatar arrived in the garden and we sat on the terrace.  I knew she wanted to ask me something but I had to squeeze it out of her.  Her gas bottle had run out, she'd asked one of the lads in the village who said he was too busy.  I knew that there was no longer a gas station in in Djebel, I knew there was one in Momchilgrad but I told her that I'd go into Kardjali, I had shopping I could tie it in with and that I would be ready at three thirty....and I was.  

I went down the back lane and first port of call Lidl, picked up mainly water in large, medium and small bottles, cherries and more peanuts.  I saw that the box was empty so I wend delving under the bottom shelf and found more boxes and those boxes had lids so I now have two supersized boxes that I have to do something with...it's for another day.  Cheese, barbecued ribs, ham, chicken schnitzels and ice-cream so I was on a mission to get back before it melted.  I went into my usual garage and was told they didn't fill bottles and directed me to another very deserted garage and after I found the owner who asked me what I wanted, he put fifteen leva's worth into the gas bottle and I set off via the back lane.  I delivered the bottle, had ten minutes with her great grandson, mother was 'resting' and as I left she handed me folded notes and I knew there was more than fifteen in the bundle.  She put it in my back pocket, I removed it and saw that she'd given me an extra twenty for going so I peeled it off and dropped it down her blouse.  She got angry and so did I and I told her that I'd done my shopping so had made use of the journey and after all....friends do that for each other.  I told her I wanted a hundred leva or nothing.....so we settled on nothing.

Car away, shopping away, barbecued ribs eaten, washing in and only two rugs remaining that can stay overnight.  It's threatened thunder and rain for most of the afternoon but it seems to have gone over fortunately and it's not so humid.  Fingers crossed for another good night but without the impending thought of invading mozzies.  LN...I've had a good day.....LN

Sunday 5th July

I woke at four forty according to my Fitbit but the clock on the landing was showing six...Confused.com so I went down to the waterproof one that was sitting on the charger.  As I put the overnight one on to charge and saw that it still had charge so now I was really confused.  I decided to sync it with the Lenovo and I realised why it was playing up.  At some point in the week I'd been trying to download an application when my friend was over and he suggested that I turned off the location finder and that was the answer....the Fitbit was obviously full of data and didn't know where to dump it.  I switched it to 'on', the data was downloaded and everything was back to normal.  You live and learn.

I went out to the garden and wanted to put the hose on the bottom garden and couldn't find the device to connect the two hoses.  I know where I usually put it down and it wasn't there so headed for the little house to check to see if I had another one and I didn't so ended up weeding the veg garden, finding more beetroots among the weeds so I pulled them out and put them into water and will plant them up tomorrow.  I had another search and still couldn't find it then had a brainwave and managed to make one out of another device...result...so I gave the little planted garden a good soak.  I got washed and dressed, breakfasted on poached egg and ham on toast but I made the mistake of using a large spoon not a spatula to remove the egg from the saucepan and the toast was soggy...yuk.  More coffee on the terrace and washed cherries and that made up for the soggy toast.

It was a funny old day, I was thinking of tackling the grass but the temperature was climbing.  I ended up in the bedroom sorting and refolding t-shirts, a couple of phone calls, one to Penny my ancestry guru to see if she cold help with my dilemma and the second one to my daughter who apparently was on the treadmill and wouldn't stop until she'd completed five miles....what a challenge and she did it.  She phoned me back for a catch-up which we did and it was one of those mornings when we both needed a hug so it was a virtual one.  I found myself yet again on this ancestry lark but this time sorting out the documentation and putting it in a ring binder and now it just has to be sorted into date order.  A task for another day.

I finished the rest of the cherries after I'd finished the spare ribs left over from last night.  A dish of ice-cream settled it off and I should do until supper time...whenever that is.  The sky's clouded over and so far we don't have the super moon that we had last night.....it was magnificent.  I posted it on FB and got lots of likes for it.  Kitchen bound...I have a chicken schnitzel that's thawed out ready to take its place in a big fat bun.  Nothing on the agenda for tomorrow so far.  LN...Let's see how it pans out.....LN

Monday 6th July

Six thirty start, it was quite cloudy and a fair wind was blowing and it took quite a while to turn into a hot scorching day.  Washed, dressed, flower and vegetable garden watering and settled down on the terrace with a coffee and enjoyed the morning.  I came in for breakfast, the bread was green tinged again so I threw it over the wall for the animals and had to revive Saturday's French stick in the absence of anything else.  I sprinkled it with water and put it into the microwave for a minute, took it out and it was very hot but softer that when it went in.  I buttered it and added ham and that was breakfast. and it was still only nine fifteen.  I was on a roll.  

I washed the mat that sits in the conservatory, finished it off with the hosepipe, hung it over the table on the terrace to drain the water from it.  When it had stopped dripping I struggled with it down to the washing line and eventually managed to heave it up there and it's still there now and should be ready to go down tomorrow.  I reconnected the hose and watered both of the bottom gardens intending to plant up yet more seedlings but I never got round to it.  I think I was actually delaying starting the grass...and at one thirty I went out and fired up the machine. Big lawn done, I came in for water and ten minutes with the Kindle, out again, another short break for more water and an energy bar and then out again until I'd finished it.  It had taken me around three hours not including breaks...I've got a lot of grass.  I put the mower away, pulled out some poppies that have finished and tomorrow I shall continue with the tidying and strimming and it will be an early start.  it's been a hard slog but I did manage to achieve fifteen thousand steps on the Fitbit.

I came in and settled down on the sofa to peanuts to replace the salt that had escaped and yet more water, moved up to the landing and fired up the computer and ran a bath.  I did emails and checked FB and then headed for the bathroom and removed grass and dust that seemed to have found places that I could never have imagined. I eventually got out of the bath at eight thirty and feel so much better and chilled for the evening.  LN....A good days work.....LN

Tuesday 7th July

Seven start today and what a mixture of weather we've had.  Cloudy this morning, spotting with rain and so much so that I had to go and get the mat from the conservatory that had spent the night on the line, into the dry.  The was wind gusting around, things flying and then it all calmed down, the sun came out and then full circle for this afternoon.

I needed bread so washed and dressed and was just putting on a decent pair of trousers when I heard the horn announcing his arrival.  I grabbed coins from my pot and was the last to arrive and last to be served.  Avatar was down there and we walked back together and she related her story of woe.  Her sister's daughter had arrived last evening with her grandson and he'd managed to put a hole in the new super swimming pool that was only replaced yesterday two weeks ago.  Now the cost of it was one hundred and fifty leva and she's got the same mentality as I have...we care for our money.  As for the youth of today, the locals are working in the rest of Europe on money that they've only dreamed about and it's easy come and easy go....I bet he's got another one before the week is out.  If's a fairly big pool and I did ask her if she was needing to water her flowers today and her eyes went skywards....I think the poor things were almost washed away.

Beans on toast for breakfast and I was tempted to go out with the strimmer but the grass was wet so I've left it for another day.  I somehow got tied up again with trying to find my great.... great and as you can guess I've accumulated lots of documents and I did say that the sorting was for another day....and it still is.  Instead I've drawn the chart on the computer in the presentation program in Windows 10 and it's my first time using it. I knew Powerpoint inside out but I'm having to find out where they've put certain features...like 'group', 'ungroup' and 'regroup'.  When you're drawing boxes attached to boxes with names and dates in them, you really don't want things to move very far, if at all.

As I said, the rain came and it threw it down.  One minute it was fine with a few building clouds, the rain came down in sheets, the thunder started, the wind came in very strong gusts.  I went out to get the money plant in that I'd put out for a little fresh air and that rain was cold, it came as a surprise.  That had put paid to my outside endeavours but it didn't matter...I went back to my family chart and then realised that I was hungry so back down to the kitchen and I made tuna mayo sandwiches and that should do me until tomorrow morning.  I've printed the chart out and it's made checking the documents so much easier.  I can check the dates for each person listed to the original records and made adjustments.  I've only followed my father's line back to the seventeen hundreds and am still waiting for the next breakthrough....it should come.  Of course doing it in this program means that I can hyperlink in the other family charts from the other brothers and sisters that I've found and am speaking to.  

It's another balmy evening so I've just opened up the door to the bedroom terrace to get some air through.  I closed up shop earlier when the heavens opened not wanting to get washed out.  LN....Time for a quick bath to cool down for bedtime.....LN

Wednesday 8th July

So my Fitbit yet again confused me.  It was showing nine fifteen and ten thousand steps and I hadn't even got out of bed.  The clock on the landing was showing seven so I was having a reasonable morning, down to make coffee, plugged my Fitbit into the charger and for some reason the notifications had stopped and the all day updates was switched off.  It soon came back to like again, I synced both Fitbit with my Lenovo and  it was pushing me to apply updates that were waiting.  I went with it, it took five minutes and it's not been a bit of trouble all day.  

Washed and dressed, it was a pretty cool morning so I put on a thicker t-shirt and pottered in the garden for an hour or so.  I swept off the terrace where yesterday's wind had blown potting compost around and deadheaded geraniums, sun flowers and petunias and generally tidied the place up.  I re-panted the beetroot that had sat in water for a day and gave them another watering  and fingers crossed, they will take.  Most of the ones that I left in are looking pretty healthy.  My one tomato is doing quite well and I've got a couple of cucumbers that have set and starting out.  There are lots of small lemons on the tree on the terrace, I took last years off since Monty Don said that they really take the substance out of the tree and constricts this years growth.  Thanks Monty.

Bacon and egg for breakfast, kitchen tidied, a load of washing doing its own thing and then my attention was drawn to the family tree.....and it kept me occupied for most of the day.  I appeared to have a breakthrough but I feel I need to go back to the Shropshire Archive but it's closed because of the virus......bummer.  Settled for Gouda and biscuits mid afternoon and that's filled me up.  I've just fetched the washing in and it was a little damp so on to the airer and no iron necessary...I just love ironing...not.

Nine thirty and I'm late tonight.  Going back to my chart.....I've found three more children to attach to my four times great and found a census record with Maria's surname spelled wrongly but it proves that her husband stayed with her until he died in 1841, he missed the 1841 census but was there for the daughter's weddings.  It's just fascinating and I suppose I'm still regarding it as glamorous and it was probably anything but.  I think I almost found his parents but then lost the entry so have to do the research again.  I think the birth date on his baptism record is correct but the wrong date of birth on his marriage record has followed through on everything else.  Until I find his birth record, I can't go backwards...I'm stumped.  Lots of clouds gathering tonight and the temperature has dropped so I should get a good nights sleep.  LN...Fingers crossed.....LN

Thursday 9th July

Another lovely day in Narnia except that it went down hill when I checked the time on my Fitbit this morning.  Nine twenty... and it was only just before seven with a real clock...bah humbug and yet again.  I went down and made coffee, washed a dressed quickly, put the washing away  and went to get to work on the Fitbit.  I tried the usual way to start it and get the Fitbit logo to display, putting it on charge, taking it off with the charger still connected and pressing the button at the side...and nothing.  I suppose it's two years old, you're not able to get inside it to change a battery so I left it for a while, had toast and jam for breakfast and decided to tackle it later.  You know what it's like...it's like picking a scab when you know you shouldn't...I went back to the Fitbit and still no joy so signed on to the website and went through the problems that others have experience and still couldn't come up with a better process than I was trying.  Eventually I went for on-line help and I was seventeenth in the queue waiting for an operator who I knew would be reading from a script and would tell me at the end that it was out of warranty and would be offering me a discount off a new device.  Maybe I could apply for a job with them...read the script that I told him I'd been trying all morning and 'Could you try it one more time?' so you do.  'Do you see the Fitbit logo?' and me 'No and I didn't the last three times I've tried it'.  So the next step for him was to check the warranty which I knew wouldn't be valid, I've had it two years so here it came, an offer of a twenty five percent discount on a new device.  I'm not exactly sure how or where the discount may be applied and if I have to purchase from the Fitbit store...I was told that it would be applied at the checkout and I assumed that I could try Argos who were already selling the device twenty five percent cheaper.  I really have to investigate.  My only question to the help desk support was did they have a second level of support that could help me further and the response was that they get all of the procedures from the technical department so...'No'.  My survey responses were to the point, very constructive from my point of view suggesting that they read the Community comments and that sales aren't the things they should be chasing.  I reckon that two years for a device of this type should last longer than two years or at least be able to swap out a battery if that's causing the problem.  This whole exercise had taken me up to two thirty this afternoon

I went out and watered the garden, the zinnias were looking very crispy so I moved some of them into the shade and gave them a good drenching. I did the rest of the pots and attached the sprinkler and put it on to the bottom garden and got soaked when I moved it after about an hour to the side garden on the long wall.  I came in and played around with my four greats details again and somehow managed to get into the original birth records as written and worked my through one of the areas of the area where they lived but it could be anywhere but it was fascinating.  Then down to move the hose again and I stayed in the long wall garden and started weeding and it's a slow process....there's loads of them.  I moved it on to the bottom long wall garden and now it's turned off for the night.  It will probably rain tomorrow...sod's law.

I am going to get the strimmer out tomorrow, I've been putting it off and finding other things to do but it needs to be done to leave my weekend clear.  I intend finding some sun and maybe some water or might even head out to one of the other towns...I've seen a few things that I'd like to buy.  Kitchen time....I need to find something for supper and then bedtime.  LN....Frustrating but as expected.....LN

Friday 10th July

So I left the door to the balcony open last night but at three this morning I was cold with only a sheet over me so I got up and found the lightweight quilt that I'd only removed a couple of days ago.  I needed it and snuggled down again and it was seven when I surfaced.  I went out to sit on the terrace with my coffee but I noticed that some of the flowers looked a little 'crispy' despite having dew settle over night so I gave them a good watering....it was going to be a scorcher and not a cloud in the sky.  I moved round the garden with the hose and went back and to the rubbish that needed burning and had a burn up.  I sat down on the wall and took stock of the garden...it's looking good and still quite colouful.   That hose ended up on the buddlieh....the leaves were looking a little sad but the flowers are just coming out.

Back to the house, washed and dressed, more coffee and Marmite on toast for breakfast...I needed the salt.  I hadn't decided what I was going to do today..it was still a mystery to me but I let it play out.  I somehow found myself playing with the Fitbit after breakfast and willing it to kick start itself into existence but still no joy.  I did manage to leave the family chart alone, a few games of Soda Crush and at twelve I found the electric lawnmower in the wood store and that was the start of my day.  I cut the grass between the house and the front wall and was surprised by a medium sided tortoise munching the grass under the bathroom window.  The sound of the mower sent it into a bit of a spin and it burrowed down in the grass at the base of the wall and I still don't know how the beauties get in.  They must come under the wall.  I finished the area, went in to get the camera and it had gone....now name Houdini.  I moved on to the yard and there was dust and stones flying everywhere but it did look better when I'd finished it.  Outside the gate, I did the banks of the now dried up stream and enough on the other side where I park the car occasionally.  It's really slowed down now that we have some sun and not so much rain.  I moved the mower to the back terrace and set it up.  I'd earmarked working on the area near the old outside toilet. I'd meant to do something with it but never got round to it.  I'm not sure if I want something build on a concrete base but clearing it would be a start. I did a l little bit of weeding and that's when I saw my second tortoise.  If it was the first one, it must have moved area at one hell of a lick and this time I managed a camera shoot.  

I removed the wooden covers from the two holes in the concrete and the ant's nests underneath them.  I came in at two and took on water, sat down for a break and went out at three and carried on clearing.  I put the soil into the holes in the concrete, dug out a couple of bushes and cleared the weeds...it was looking better.  I started the bonfire, used the sweeping brush to tidy up the concrete, washed it all down, put some of the old wood on to the bonfire, there wasn't any life left in it.  I came in seven fifteen and was amazed...where had the day gone.  It's been good today...I've now got to think what I want to do with the area but I've made a start.  Now to think of something for supper...potentially hamburgers from the freezer with fried onions...I'm warming to the idea.  I really need a shower or bath tonight but no need to put the boiler on...the water is warm enough.  LN....I've sweated buckets today.....LN