Late April Frost

This morning as usual I rose earlyish somewhere around 6 40am. I went to look outside and saw no rimy frost so I naturally thought we had got away with it here. I was wrong for when I looked out the back where the bird bath is I thought what I saw was ice on the birdbath so I went outside and sure enough there was a reasonable film of ice on the birdbath. I then went and looked at my outside thermometer and it showed just above freezing. Remember the sun had been shining for well over an hour  so with the wind it stopped the rimy frost from forming.
 Later this afternoon we had a short and heavy hailstorm as you can see from the photos I have posted. I guess it was around 3.00.pm. when the sky suddenly darkened and first it started to rain bit as it got heavier it turned to hail. Had it lasted for say 15 minutes we would have been covered to a depth of about 2". Thank goodness it didn't last.
 Over the week end I have had contact with my relatives regarding to me making my last Will and Testament. One I had a conversation with was my Sister's Daughter, it is the one who lives in Scotland and I asked her how my Sister was for I knew she was struggling with memory loss. What she told me made me wonder. First she told me that she has difficulty in reading anything which is a pity as it was her Birthday on the 16th. of the month. She then told me that her Husband does the cooking and they seem contented. The next thing she told me though made me think hard. She told me she had a telephone from her Father and he told her it was urgent for her to go over to see them. She lives several miles away but went straight away. When she arrived he told her the Police had been to see him and took his car off him because his eyesight was not so good. She told me she had a devil's own job to persuade him to scrap his car but he seemed to accept it after all. The next time she paid a call he then told her that the Police had also taken his Pilot's Licence away too. She told me she had to keep a straight face. Incidentally he has never had a Pilots Licence and has no idea how to fly. Finally she admitted that her Mum sometimes fails to recognise her which is a shame and to be honest my Sister will only get progressively worse. It seems as if her Husbad is heading that way too. We must be grateful for small mercies.
 On a more positive note. At the week end the lad came to see me ready to plant the onion sets that was left y the gardener. Off we went round and I told him that first we would dig the garden over. He went to get the garden fork and rake but could not find them. It was not surprising for his Carer had let her Son take them to do his garden, so it was back to mine to get my fork and rake.
 By the time we had finished it was getting on for 12.30.pm. but at least with the wet weather the onions should benefit from that. More soon.