Stonewalling

This skilfully constructed wall appeared on the beach overnight. I think it's rather beautiful and charming.

I engaged in a bit of manual labour myself this evening, attempting to carry out repair work to the concrete channel that runs behind my garden and which is supposed to carry away excess water. Unfortunately its cracking up and I decided to attempt to transcend my inherently unpractical nature and mix some cement to fill the cracks. Mixing cement by hand is very satisfying and I can do that. Filling cracks with a trowel require some skill - skill I don't have (I discovered). Neither was the situation helped by the fact that the water was still running, although slowed to a trickle (at least that's what it looked like). I constructed a makeshift dam from bags of potting compost but a) it wasn't very watertight and b) despite that it still filled up every 5 minutes and I had to repeatedly bail it out with a bucket. Result - another ignominious failure.

And I've had a stinker of a cold all day, which doesn't feel right when the sun is shining.