Sunflower part 1

I'm not sure why I haven't blipped the sunflowers yet, though they did have a walk-on part in a blip a few days ago. Now that the barley and wheat is mostly harvested, and even the herbal hay they make down here is cut (perhaps that's why the horses are so chilled?), sunflowers and corn are the main crops left. This year the field at the end of our road is sunflowers - and this is the biggest one I could see. Shooting into the sun has made it look a bit cut out and stuck on, but it's not. Actually, I spent longer cleaning up specks on the sky tonight than it would have taken to careful 'cut out' this sunflower. I'm wondering if taking the camera to document a dusty building site is such a smart idea... or it could of course be the half packet of chocolate digestives that the kids somehow managed to crumble over my camera yesterday while going into my bag for a snack...

Today, you will be delighted to hear, we battled against the odds and were high achievers. Despite comically bad customer service at every turn in the DIY store (@exBeeb: Leroy Merlin) we bought many toilets, showers and doors, a hot water heater, much wood of all shapes and sizes and a cement mixer*. I'm not going to bore on about the extraordinary number of ways in which the staff tried our patience, but they really do deserve an award for the imaginative way in which each team member found a new and delightful way to persecute us. Stopping us leaving through a perfectly valid and signposted route just through sheer wilfullness was the final straw, and those ladies got the shouting-at that had been building up inside me all day.

Anyway, once home and unloaded, we loaded the van with junk and headed off to our local tip - where the delightful man pointed out that we really should get a card to prove our residence, but it was fine for us to go in. Then on to get the kids and head to the supermarket to hand back the rental van. Another saga with the most thorough van rental lady in history. When we rented it (on Wednesday night) it took 40 minutes. We had to return to pick up the van on Thursday morning, as we had been missing one crucial bit of paper on Wednesday (another 30 minutes as she wrote an essay on each teeny scratch and mark on the bodywork). Today she noticed a mark on the back and was unsure if it was dirt or a scratch. I rubbed it with my finger to show it was dirt, but she wasn't happy and went into the shop, returning with a bag of cotton wool and some car polish. She proceeded to polish almost the entire van with cotton wool before being satisfied that we had not, in fact, written it off. A saga with the petrol followed (broken gauge, so she had to go with Mr B to make sure it was properly filled up) but finally we were allowed home with much pizza and beer. A very long, tiring, body-aching day.

Tomorrow, we have to move 80 sheets of plasterboard.

Oh joy.


*I'm not convinced we really need a cement mixer, but Mr B has always wanted one, and I'm sure he'll think up many reasons why we need cement. I'm keeping in his good books by not mentioning how annoying he was today, in case I end up with some new heavy shoes and a trip to a bridge....