Uprooted

Again mostly overcast with sunny breaks but somewhat warmer today. I spent the morning after breakfast writing a reflection for next Wednesday's Morning Prayer then recording and editing it and the Office while Clare made lunch. After we'd eaten, I made the video slideshow and uploaded it to YouTube. Four hours from start to finish, although for some reason it felt as if it took longer.

Keith from church arrived in response to my request for help digging out the Virginia Creeper root I've been unable to shift as I didn't have suitable tools for the job. Keith does a lot of garden tidying work for people. His tools are suitable for jobs he does. He has a bike with a bin shaped trailer attached to carry his tools to and from his allotment if not to work. A few of them, he said, had been retrieved from builders skips. On one occasion he recovered a working electric chainsaw that had been dumped. Among his equipment was a robust looking spade with a point shaped blade. It turned out to be the very thing for penetrating and splitting the tap root, so the job was done within minutes. 

We had tea and biscuits in the garden, and while we were sitting there I noticed the wind had lifted a tile on the lean-to extension roof, sufficiently for it to lodge on the edge of the Velux window frame without damage. It had slipped far enough to raise a couple of the tiles above it. Clare rang a roofer we've used in the past, but he couldn't come until next Wednesday. I found that by leaning out of the study window I was able to reach the slipped tile and push it back into place. It needs securing however, as do several more of the replaced files on the same stretch of roof. Not a job I can do anything about.

It was five by the time I went out and walked for two hours. During the walk, cousin Dianne called and we chatted for two hours. She's read my revised version of grandpa's story incorporating her recollections, and approves of it. That means it's now ready to circulate to family members. I returned home listening to The Archers on my phone. We had supper and then I read 'Sangre Nueva' for a while and another episode of You Shall Not Lie. And then it was time for bed.