I have been awake since 5.30. It is now nearly 8.30 and I have wanted to get out of bed for quite a while. My legs are dog-pinned and I haven’t got the heart to move them. 🤷‍♀️

The car has failed its MOT. It is terminal. 😭

Morning dog walk. Steel grey clouds roll in as we walk, displacing the clear, bright sky above us. A late flowering buddleia in a front garden tempts me to pause and catch its fading scent. Starlings gather along the wires high on the telegraph pole as if formulating a joint plan for the day.

Look at this bad boy! We have heat and hot water and feel as if we have rejoined the 21st century.

We debated about fitting a multi-fuel stove in this house then decided against for various reasons. But I still wanted some kind of fireplace so I have fitted this and I think it fits the bill. NB I have also discovered that I do not like tiling and am probably the messiest tiler alive 😂

Last night’s sunset behind our house.

I’ve just been told that the pond in the fields behind our house is home to rare great crested newts. How amazing is that! We had a really small one in the garden that I rescued out of the dog’s water bowl. 😧

Well who knew Mother-in-laws-tongues did this?!?!

Morning dog walk. The dark sky suggests the day will be damp and somber. In a front garden a robin sings from a high branch of a young fir tree. Beneath him pass a stream of school pupils seemingly oblivious to his beauty. Unexpectedly the clouds part to reveal the brightness they’d been hiding.

It is 14 degrees in our house. We do have radiators but unfortunately they are not attached to anything yet. Men are coming to fit the boiler and the pipework on 1st and 2nd October. 🥶🥶🥶

Morning dog walk. The peaceful morning has dawned bright, the vivid blue sky cloudless. A single magpie chatters from a hidden location above us and I wonder if it still counts as ‘One for sorrow’ if it isn’t seen. In the sad garden of the empty house the berries of a Pyracantha gleam defiantly.

The hedge is half its height and we have a view!

This plant threw up these flower shoots weeks ago then stubbornly refused to do anything with them. Now, all of a sudden, it looks as if it’s starting to flower!

Kath Buckley@buckers2023.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Look what’s happening to my Mother-in-laws-tongue. This is something I’ve never seen in my life before.

@soberalmu.bsky.social When is your exam? I seem to remember you saying it was September?

I can’t help wondering what percentage of the people who are anti the Assisted Dying Bill have actually watched someone they love die a slow painful death. 🤔

Morning dog walk. As we leave the house a robin serenades us with his autumn song. A pair of removal vans pull up outside a bungalow and I wonder at the story behind and ahead of the move. The huge willow looks magnificent as it towers protectively above the weir and shelters a group of mallards.

I have stuck stripey wallpaper up on a wonky wall and it looks straight as a die. I am a genius.

Well the living-room is still full of wet plaster and mess but today we have a bedroom. With furniture! I left the wardrobe door open while I was sorting out clothes and this happened…

Morning dog walk. Clouds briefly allow the sun its glorious freedom before cruelly confining it again. A silent lone wood pigeon sits peacefully in a young beech tree while a large, fat bodied spider scuttles across our path. Doves gather on the roof of the old mill beneath the towering chimney

Thanks BBC for giving no warning at all before TWICE showing footage of a donkey being tortured in tonight’s 10 o’clock news. Twats.

One of the dogs accidentally knocked my gin and tonic over last night and it went all over my new book. I’m still not sure which I was most upset about. 😂

We have all been to the vet’s and survived the trauma unscathed. It’s the same vet we had before but he’s opened his own independent practice. Look how lovely it is.

The Woodster has been sedated for a vet’s appointment at 9.15 😔

We have French doors! The men arrived at 8am and were finished by 12 noon. They’ve tidied up, stacked all the bricks and arranged for the plasterer to come tomorrow. I haven’t seen such efficiency for a long time.

There are three men putting French doors in the new living-room. This is a small house. They seem very big. Everywhere I go I’m in the way 🫤

Look what’s happening to my Mother-in-laws-tongue. This is something I’ve never seen in my life before.

Morning dog walk. We pause to chat to a neighbour and the lavender she is trimming fills the air around us with its scent. On a patch of parched straw-coloured grass, damp from yesterday’s rain, a pair of magpies search for nourishment. A small concrete bear sits proudly atop a garden wall.

We have bedroom wallpaper. All we need now is a carpet in there and it will be a functioning room. I can’t wait to get our bedroom furniture out of storage and have a proper bed to sleep in.

It’s raining! Proper stair rods, bouncing of the road type raining 😃😃😃

Been to a 1940’s weekend thingy. Saw a Hurricane from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.