Monday 15th June - where's the cat?

 He stayed hidden in the weeds all the time we were out on the patio with BB's proper tape measure, my sewing yardstick/metre ruleyard, spare bricks for marking out edges and pavements chalk.

We were trying to fathom out how to arrange the steps down from what will be the new patio, without encroaching on the garden. Tricky, as the patio is only 2m deep from house to garden, and because of the slope of the ground the garden edge of the patio will be about 45 cm above ground level. 

Chalking the lines makes everything so much easier! That pillar of bricks, 45cm tall, marks the height of the floor of the extension. 

This sketch is just part of the patio area. We worked out that if we have a drop from the extension doors to the patio of around 10 cm - a shallow step - we can do three steps in an L-shape, each having a rise (or drop - depends which way you are going!) of around 12 or 13 cm.

Aki the cat put up with all this happening around him... perhaps he was muttering 'there is no cat' and hoping we hadn't seen him.

There's a rumour that work might start soon... I'm not holding my breath...

...

It's been a bit tough this week but I have persuaded, pushed, cajoled and bribed myself to get 3,400 steps each day. 30 days times 3,400 steps comes to 102,000; just over what I'm aiming for...

I need to get started on the rest of today's steps...

.....

I gave started reading an old copy of a Young Adult book by Madelaine l'Engle called 'Prelude'. One of the characters, a woman who was a concert pianist but badly injured her shoulder in a terrible car crash was playing this Gigue in G by Bach, from his French Suites. There was a time when I could just about get through it, but never as well as Andras Schiff here!

It's such a joyous piece.