Home sweet home

In the interests of not posting cute bird pictures every day, here's the back steps. They are looking a little tidier now they have been mostly cleared of the inch thick covering of moss and broken bits that made them treacherous to use, but obviously the garden still needs some work... I'm not convinced the bottle brush plant (straggly looking dead thing in a pot on the top step) will recover from its brush with snow, but we'll see if the sunshine can bring it round. I know our houseplants haven't survived... As you can see, I am belatedly covering tender plantings to try and help them through the (fingers crossed) last few remaining frosts.

Mr B (in Scotland) had some good news on our car's state of health today and is busy gathering things that might be useful for us to have down here to bring back down with him. The weather is getting warmer and though it is still warmer outside than in the house - no matter how much I open all the doors and windows - it is I think warm enough to resume DIY. The house feels a bit stuck in a rut now - we need to move on and get some rooms properly finished. Still, the glorious sunshine encouraged me out today to get the ground floor windows cleaned - most of which haven't been done for about 15 years I think. I had cleaned the first few panes - up to as high as I could reach standing on the ground - so we could see out, but it is amazing how much brighter everything looks with the whole lot done. So that, along with trying to explain Thatcherism in a non-biased* way to my daughter (she asked) was my day.

*Obviously I failed. But at least I didn't cry this time.