You dirty rat!

A better day today so I decided to finish off the painting of the new garden steps. It was mostly what was out of sight at the back - I'm not doing anything underneath! Although I'd watered the paint down a touch I ran out with just one spar to do! I'll probably buy another bucket of paint as I'd like to give the deck a second coat sometime.

I'd come in to clean up afterwards and glanced out of the kitchen window to see a brown rat sitting under the bird feeder - the first time I've seen one in the garden, though they're quite common down beside the Black Lynn, Oban's watercourse. I took a lot of pictures through the window then thought I'd try outside. Ratty, or Rattus norvegicus to give him his Sunday name, climbed up the pole but presumably realised that he couldn't really get anything out of the feeders, so came back down. He didn't seem to be aware that I was standing less than ten feet away - maybe they're short sighted! They always say that a rat is always no more than 15 feet away! This was the best out of the 30 pictures I took, blown up a little. The cats slept on indoors, quite unaware that their territory was being invaded!

After lunch I took the car down to Kwik-Fit to get the tyres checked - the four of us are going down to Ludlow for a week next Thursday, so thought it would be worth doing. One of the rear tyres, although still legal, is getting a bit worn so I'm having that changed on Friday. 

Came back and sat in the sun for a while - it's turning into a gorgeous evening!