Rainy Thursday in March

Woke to dense cloud and rain. Not a spectacular start to the day.... I had a doctor's appointment at 9am and was 15 minutes late for it after we tried to take a 'short cut' having dropped Immy at school, only to find ourselves snarled up in a stop-start-stop-start traffic jam caused by resurfacing work. Apparently the local councils are furiously trying to use up their annual budgets before year-end on 31st March, which has resulted in a flurry of roadworks in what seems like every street in Nelson.

I had to have a small patch of sun-damaged skin near my collar-bone removed for investigation. This was done under local anaesthetic and I did feel for the rather young doctor, who had called in a senior member of the practice to mentor her - I don't think she had done this before very often. She asked me periodically "How are you doing?" in what I think she hoped was a reassuring, cheerful tone - I replied "Fine, thanks!" and rather wanted to add "But how are you doing?"

When we arrived home, we noticed that the misty rain (we seemed to be in the cloud-line at one stage) had created several blippertunities in the garden. Yesterday we popped into a nearby garden centre and picked up some new plants for the outdoor pots, including a couple of attractive grasses. The rain was clinging to these in beautiful crystal droplets, which is what I've blipped here. There was also a rather interesting spider's web billowing from the overhead beams on the deck, adorned with what looked like strings of pearls, fit to make a choker for a duchess, at the very least - I really wanted to blip that but I think this shot is the better one. The construction of the spider's web intrigued me and put me in mind of this video on Youtube, which I came across a week or so ago through a link on Amandahugankiss's blip, so I can't claim to be original in posting it!

The rest of the day passed uneventfully in continued rain: a rather wet trip to Richmond after we had picked up Immy from school, incorporating a brief meeting; a quick chiropractic session for Immy; an exciting visit to the recycling centre to dump the bottles and then a browse around the curiosity/bric-a-brac shop where we picked up a rather battered old chair with a rattan seat, for Immy's bedroom. She was quite insistent that she didn't want a 'new' chair to go with her study desk (whenever Jonathan finishes it - he built it in a day but the painting of it is a more protracted affair!).

This evening we had dinner at a nearby Bistro overlooking the sea. I've been trying to convince my husband for ages that we should try it and we were very glad that we did. I had salmon to start followed by a vegetarian dish of zucchini-wrapped feta with pumpkin and beetroot; N. had baby squid and then fresh Snapper and Immy ordered fillet of lamb - it was all very fresh, expertly prepared and beautifully presented so we will definitely be going there again. Just a pity about the background 'muzak' but, as LadyMarchmont says, where can one get away from that nowadays?