Red

6.6C very grey and almost misty towards the shore.

The forecast for tomorrow looks like rain, so I decided that I would get a board (it was an old shelf) from the garage and get on with the quick job of clearing the few weeds from the veg bed I want to use for main crop potatoes this year. I try not to tread on the veg beds except if I am digging them over and I often put the board down when I am planting. It acts as a good straight line for planting and spreads my weight and avoids soil compaction.

After the last of the leeks we won't use and the weeds were gone I decided I might as well get on with the heavy job of taking 300 litres or so of home made compost from one of my two compost bins and spreading it over the potato patch. That involves pulling the bin off the compost (vertically) and putting it to one side, then filling trug after trug with compost and carrying it the few yards to where I want it to go. I now have a good thick layer of compost on the potato patch and after a week or so of weathering I can get the potatoes in. Maeve the Deerhound watched me work from the comfort of the computer room and only came out into the garden for a sniff and a final inspection when I was almost finished :-)

The empty compost bin will be used for grass clippings, prunings, kitchen caddy contents, shredded paper and so on for about a year. The other bin, which is almost full now will be left to rot and will be the compost for potato growing in 2014.

After lunch Maeve and I went for our usual walk. Down on the beach it felt misty but not cold. We didn't see anyone. We had the whole beach and the Fishermen's huts all to ourselves. We pottered for a while. I decided on a close up shot of this red metal float which can be seen in recent blips of the 'creel rack'.

I had Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene on my Nano. I like listening to the end of part 4, which has the sound of waves breaking on a shore, while I am by the shore. Works particularly well when there is no wind and the waves aren't making much sound :-)