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Today was mostly spent in the garden. Interestingly, it was the hottest early May bank holiday Monday since we’ve started having early May bank holiday Mondays. That was back in 1978 (though it started in Scotland a bit earlier…1871). The previous hottest was in 1999 when the temperature reached a rather less than staggering 23.6. Today, however, we reached that temperature by about 10am and just kept getting hotter. Eventually the mercury topped 28.7 (in Northolt, London).
And, of course, a lot of people took to the beaches. In Norfolk this wasn’t the best idea given the temperature on the coast, in some places, was ten degrees colder than inland. That’s a bit harsh! Mind you, not as harsh as the engineering works affecting anyone travelling to and from Brighton. A few people were somewhat irate with the inadequacies of the bus replacement service.
Not that any of that really affected us that much. I spent most of the morning painting Mirinda’s new tool shed in her new favourite shade of grey while she worked on a document that’s taking up a lot of her time at the moment. The tool shed will need another coat while the document is nearing its end. (So much for her early May bank holiday Monday!)
As a bit of a break after lunch, we went up to the Watts Gallery.
They are presently holding an exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, mostly by Burne-Jones. And for anyone who doesn’t know, Mirinda LOVES Pre-Raphaelite paintings. It’s called A Pre-Raphaelite Collection Unveiled: The Cecil French Bequest. Cecil was a great collector of Pre-Raphaelite stuff. He was also quite smart because he purchased a lot of it just as the prices plummeted following the start of the 20th century when their popularity was on the wane.
The paintings on display are all beautiful, without exception. Most I didn’t know, which is always a lovely discovery and Mirinda was happy with the fact that it took about half an hour to thoroughy see everything.
I took this before seeing the NO PHOTOGRAPHS sign. Sorry.
Back at home and after a bit more gardening, we set off on a somewhat bizarre quest. Mirinda hates snails (so do I but my hatred of them extends to their imminent mortality rather than an extended holiday) and wants to rid them from our garden. Of course, as I’ve reported in posts previously, snails will return. There have been experiments that prove this.
In order to prevent their return, it’s important to move them as far away as possible. That doesn’t prevent them from, eventually, returning, but if you include a busy road between you and the new location, you can more or less guarantee they won’t make it.
So, we packed a bucketful of snails into Max and took off up Hale Road. I figured we could dump them near the war memorial so I could get a photo (or three) of the WW1 names. And that is exactly what we did. While Mirinda dumped our strange passengers over the fence of a handy sports ground, quietly wishing them luck and long life as they trotted off into their new world, I snapped away at the memorial.
I recognise a few of these names.
As a special treat because I’ll not be around for a couple of weeks, I made Mirinda a Persian roast chicken tonight. It was very, very yum!
