Sunshine on spikes

Today began dull and unpromising. My first job of the day was to try to do something to fix the car. Last night I drove down to the seafront as I mistakenly thought that the paddle steamer 'Waverley' was coming in at 8pm - I was mistaken. 

When I got back to the car I discovered that the clutch pedal was almost down to the floor and I could barely engage gears. I eventually managed to get into first and drove home, changing up only with difficulty. When I drove up the drive I couldn't declutch and the engine stalled. 

This morning I phoned the local garage and they suggested checking the fluid level before anything else. That was OK, so I had another go and found that when I pulled the pedal up by hand it clicked back into position and everything seemed normal. The garage very kindly offered to slot me in either this afternoon or tomorrow morning to check everything out, so I drove down and walked back. No call yet, so tomorrow morning hopefully. I'm planning to drive to Fife on Friday to a Professional Gardeners' Guild meeting, so hope I have it back by then! 

After lunch the weather brightened up, so did some work outside before getting the chairs out with a book and a cuppa. After  while though it got too hot for me - 18 degrees in the shade, 22 in the sun - so I came in!

As the sun began to disappear behind the trees I got the hose out and gave everything a good soak!

I almost forgot to say that my Blip today is of the plant I brought back from London well wrapped up in my suitcase - it's Agave stricta 'Nana', the spikiest plant known to man! The full-sized version is native to southern Mexico and yet is supposed to be hardy down to minus 12C - if kept dry!