The one burst of sunshine...

Today was the first of three days recording vegetation quadrats on Portholme Meadow, the largest hay-meadow in England. Unfortunately the weather was far from summery, with mostly grey skies, a cool wind, and one heavy and prolonged rain shower, which blew at us horizontally and left Alex and I shivering. We also had to hang about for about an hour before we could start work, as the incredibly expensive GPS used by the Open University to mark out the quadrats was not behaving!

Still, we eventually managed to get all the urgent quadrats done (people have a habit of stealing marker canes that are visible from footpaths) and thanks to the help of my lads, I survived the day relatively intact.

My friend and her daughter came over to visit on the way to collect her eldest daughter from Peterborough station. It was lovely to see them, even though I was really a bit tired and dopy from the painkillers. Luckily Pete had cooked for us - a splendid low-fat version of cassoulet, which went down very well with salad.