Another tyring afternoon

Today started with the usual Saturday routine of the supermarket shop - except that this week, we were going about our shopping in Lidl when who should appear behind us but Sue, pushing her own trolley around the shop. We had a chat and hatched a plan to finish our shopping, do a dash around Esselunga, and then decamp for coffee in the café opposite Esselunga. The plan worked brilliantly, and before long we were sitting in the café sipping cappucini while talking electric fences, cess pits and rugby.

All too soon it was time to go our separate ways - Reggie was awaiting his weekend walk and Sue had her own schedule to keep, so we waved goodbye and headed home.

After unloading the car, we headed to the refuge track, hoping that it would be a little more accessible this week than it was last week, when it was still blocked by fallen trees. Happily this was indeed the case, with all the fallen trees that had blocked the way having been cut and stacked by the side of the track, and we were able to have a good stretch of our legs. The devastation wrought by the storm was still quite breathtaking and along some stretches of the path we walked across a soft aromatic carpet of pine branches - the sweet smell of pine was so strong and so good it was as if we had walked into an enormous Christmas tree sale.

After a good walk we headed back home for some lunch and to consider tackling an afternoon's work.

We didn't feel especially motivated to change into work clothes and head outside - while dry, today's weather was somewhat on the fresh side of things, the sun not putting in an appearance until around 4.30pm, and we were both feeling somewhat weary - but knowing that the next three days are likely to be damp (if forecasts are to be believed), we felt that we ought to soldier on. So once we'd changed clothes, given Reggie a bone to keep him occupied and carried tools down to the terraces, we embarked on an afternoon of wood splitting followed by bramble burning for Stuart, and hedge trimming followed by tyre-step building for me. I ran out of tyres before I could finish my flight of steps (we only had 6 left, and the height and slope of the bank requires something more like 10-11), but by the time 5pm came around I was more than halfway there with my six steps.

We called time on our outdoor work for the day (and probably for the weekend if the forecast is correct) just after 5pm and retired indoors to light the fire... and relax.