Very productive weekend so far. The cold slowed me down a wee bit, but I'm nearly 100% again -- it didn't go to my chest, phew. Thursday morning the fence guy came and measured up. I'm still waiting to hear from him with a quote, but I'll go ahead if it's not too outrageously expensive. His plan is to cut off the existing concrete fenceposts, which are too short, and put in taller timber ones. There will be slats about 3ft high, then trellis to 5ft, so it'll be strong but have an open feel. They have to do something fancy at the top end where the land slopes; he drew me a little picture.

Friday the tiler finally turned up, hurrah, and gave me a quote. He's going to do the tiling on the 17th. I rushed straight off to Linlithgow and chose some tiles -- which were so hot off the press the samples had only arrived that morning. Then Bertie and I went for a walk to Blackness. It was ferociously windy, really wild. On a whim I went for a tour of Blackness Castle, which turned out to be much better than I'd imagined. I'd like to live there! I'm going back with my camera next time. Back home and feeling quite energetic, I attacked the elder tree with the saw, got half of it down. It has to go - scruffy, ailing, and in the way of the new fence.

I finished that today. Sawed and sawed and sawed. It's astonishing how much bigger the tree looked lying on the lawn. Uh, and then I had to cut it up into bits and carry all the bits out to the car. Sweat, sweat, sweat. Meanwhile Jim next door was trimming hedges, we both had our cars brim full of vegetation. Off to the tip, more sweating, then home for a final cleanup before having a much needed shower. At this point I had a bit of a relapse, got a headache that just wouldn't go away and felt blech, even after a quiet walk and some ibuprofen. So I've been blobbing out, and now I'm off to bed.

Tomorrow I've got to finish off all the boring things I've forgotten to do, laundry, work rotas, blah blah, and I may go and see Moulin Rouge in the evening. Work on Monday. How fast this weekend's gone!!