Showers.

After a wet morning it's been a mainly dry day with a few light showers.

My back isn't too good at the moment and I've been feeling quite weary so I didn't go to the zoo and have even pulled out of choir tonight. Instead I got on with some small jobs including painting the shelf battens and cleaning the mildew off the legs of a wooden stool and giving it a polish with Brywax. I did that outside as the wax has quite a strong smell but of course no sooner had I finished than another shower arrived.

Last night I discovered that as long as I include some street or house lights I can get my camera to take photos of the stars. (I've tried the night setting on the camera without much success so far.) I'd gone out to stare at the world when I noticed what looked like a line of lights which appeared to be moving. My first thought was one of the Starlink arrays but even though it was very faint it didn't appear to be in a straight line nor were there enough lights. Now I'm wondering if I was imagining the movement and it was actually Betelgeuse or some other constellation.

Here are a few photos from our trip to Mach last Monday.

One of the most impressive reminders of the town's medieval origins is the Owain Glyndwr Parliament Building. Originally built in the 1500s it was extensively rebuilt in 1900s. Until we moved our venue to the library we used to meet in Café Alys on the ground floor. It's now the Café Owain Glyndwr and we treat ourselves to lunch there at the end of most terms. 

The Royal House, which sells delicious food, was built around 1560 with many later additions over the years right up to the 19th century façade. Only a few houses away stands the town clock built in 1874. It was paid for by the townspeople to celebrate the 21st birthday of Viscount Castlereagh. A bit of major sucking up to the local gentry?

 

Being a prosperous tourist town there are a number of antique shops and more to my taste at least five charity shops which are always worth a visit as they often have some very good stuff in them. Two other shops I also visit are a large old fashioned hardware store where you can buy items in ones and a gift and card place where has a large range of really nice greetings cards.

Somewhere I would like to shop at is Red Shoes where you can buy made to measure shoes. Those would be perfect for my broad feet but they cost at least £1,000. A fair price for the work but out of my league.

Wet.

Lots and lots of rain today with the occasional hint of sun between showers.

It was too wet to work at the zoo today and anyway I needed to be in as a builder was coming round to look at the work we need doing on the render. Of course he turned up during some very heavy rain and after a brief conversation said he would return tomorrow to look at what needs doing. An hour later it was dry again but that's how it goes.

I've felt very tired today so have alternated between household cleaning and resting. I'll still be going to Pilates tonight, probably in the car unless things get a lot drier.

One thing rainy weather does is to bring interesting sea conditions and colours. I'm not sure if this white band which stretched all the way across the horizon, was sea mist or just the light reflecting from the surface.

With the air getting colder visibility has also improved and I could pick out individual buildings 30 miles away across the water.

At one point I noticed what looked like flocks of black ducks out at sea. Using my camera to get a better view I was able to confirm that they were indeed black ducks- common scoter a winter visitor that likes to dive down for mussels and crustaceans on the sea bed.  

Later on we had some wonderful sea colours.

Warm.

Another lovely warm day, we could do with a few more of these before autumn sets in.

We spent the morning in Mach library practising our Welsh with our friends. There was one moment of excitement when the power went out. Only the emergency lights stayed on and a not very helpful automated voice told us 'You have a power cut.' As our friendly librarian Kate asked us to vacate the building the fire alarm went off. But then Kate noticed that other buildings along the High Street had also lost their power. The power quickly came back on and we returned to our table to carry on preparing for Thursday's lesson. Afterwards I had my usual wander around the charity shops but didn't find anything either useful or beautiful.

 

On our way home we diverted off the main road to the tiny hamlet of Glaspwll. We parked by Penuel, a 'potting shed chapel' and walked up the lane to the Welsh Bee Breeding Station. I had been there last year with the walking group so of course wasn't exactly sure where it was, much to Peter's annoyance. I knew we were within a few minutes walk one way or another and sure enough when I asked some passing locals it turned out to be just behind me.

The reason for our visit was to buy some honey to give as Christmas presents. Having read the link I see that there is a spectacular waterfall at the head of the valley so perhaps we'll return another day for a proper walk.

There were five types of honey on offer of which I chose four. The 'magic honey' wasn't available but I prefer to buy the local honey anyway.

One side of the valley was looking quite devastated due to the ongoing logging.

Back home I sanded and painted the battens for the sitting room shelves before going out to do some gardening. First I picked almost 4 lbs of tomatoes. A few days to ripen off and they can go in the freezer. Once all the tomatoes are picked I'll have a day of making a tomato, onion and herb sauce to go in the freezer. I spent longer gardening than I intended but having started giving the escallonia hedge its end of year trim I could hardly leave it half done. That's all the hedge cutting done, all that remains is to take the  many bags down to the dump. If I wanted to make my own compost at home I'd need to use about a quarter of the garden just for compost heaps or bins. Especially as a lot of my garden waste is made up of woody hedge trimmings.

Tired.

The day began with some sun which gave me the chance to sit out in the front garden clutching a coffee trying to wake up. Although we didn't get the stormy weather heavy rain arrived in the afternoon.

Since the doctor change my pain meds I've been finding it hard to get to sleep at night sometimes even falling asleep for 10 minutes and then waking up again. For the last few nights I've gone back to getting up and watching tv until I literally can't stay awake any longer. I was so tired today that even if the walk hadn't been cancelled due to the weather forecast I wouldn't have gone. No energy for walking and I wouldn't have felt safe driving either. One of the first Welsh phrases we all learnt was wedi blino [wedy-bleen-o] meaning tired, as a response to How are you? and now I've moved onto wedi blino lan which means exhausted.

Down in the front garden the California Poppy was not convinced that the sun was out but the robin was serenading me from the top of the street sign. Once properly awake I made a quick visit to the shop to buy some ground coffee. When Peter went to open a bag of coffee which I had bought from Lidl two weeks ago he found two long slashes in the back. Most probably they were from the packaging process, how had I not noticed? but it could have been malicious. We didn't want to take any chances and will be returning the coffee to Lidl. Although it is more expensive it's good that we have a food shop in the village.

Even though I hadn't collected quite enough sloes I made a start on the Christmas sloe gin using a felting needle to poke holes in each sloe. Hopefully I'll find some more soon to top up the jars. Sloes, sugar and three months should turn the medicinal smelling gin (to me at least) into a ruby red, sweet and fruity tipple. I believe it went down quite well with its recipients last year.

Breezy.

The day began bright and sunny with a good drying breeze but later it became greyer. The large waves that were rolling in were a sure sign that there is a lot of energy out in the ocean. Possibly a storm which may be heading our way.

I've had a day of pottering around both indoors and out. I baked another Bara Brith as the last one is almost finished, put three lots of washing out on the line, did the ironing and then spent time in the front garden. A bit of weeding here and there and some clipping of the escallonia hedge. A robin came and sang loudly at me from the hedge but I did not have any worms to give it.

 

A bedraggled peacock butterfly resting on the shingle.

For supper tonight we are sharing the last pulled pork pasty and I'll be cooking up a sauce using tomatoes and a courgette from the garden plus an onion and odds and ends of veg from the fridge.

Warm.

The weather has been very pleasant today. Lots of interesting cloud shapes with a mild wind that made it feel like a summer's day.

This morning I was back to riding Margaret which made a nice change. (15.1hh) Cadno, bless him is a wonderful schoolmaster but he does make me work hard with my legs. Margaret at 4 years old (or she might be 5 by now) is a relative baby, very supple and quite bouncy. Her biggest issue today was not keeping straight when moving in a straight line but she was excellent for most of the tasks we were given which included shallow loops (serpentines) and bending to the outside instead of the inside. When we were asked to go into sitting trot she made it easy for me by doing an almost collected trot whilst on the bit and still light on the reins, think slow motion with a nice round neck. I am pleased with my progress in that I stayed in sitting trot for the whole time even though we were told that we could go back to rising trot for a bit if we needed. It's a good thing we didn't do any canter work because I know that's when Margaret and I don't do so well.

Afterwards I did the usual round of shops and a walk around town. I was going past the self-service free range eggs and local organic milk machines when I noticed that there was a third machine with a selection of snacks including some from Pwdin, that shop which closed down where the lovely lady made indulgent chocolate brownies and related treats. Of course I had to support her new venture and buy myself a treat. Not a brownie but a 'Ferrero Rocher Chocolate Bomb'. Imagine a Ferrero Rocher chocolate surrounded by a brownie in which were hazel nuts and the whole thing rolled in crushed Biscoff biscuit. I have to say it went very well with a coffee.

 

I had called in at the 'big' Charlie's, this is the large store down by Morrison's to buy more hooks for Peter's cap rail only to find a gap where the single white hooks should be. That was a shame but then in town I called in at 'little' Charlie's which as the name suggests is in a small shop and resembles an old fashioned hardware store and they had the hooks in their more limited stock. At home I had to re-do two of the screws holding the bars on the wall which for some reason is slightly bowed and then I was able to add the extra hooks and put a dab of white Hammerite on the screwheads to complete the job. So far there are eight caps hanging there but no doubt a few more will eventually appear to fill up all the hooks.

Sunny.

Bright and sunny today. Last night's clear skies, with lovely views of the stars, made for a chilly night and morning so I was glad that I had already put the the tender plants in the cold frame. There wasn't much wind, just enough to get a line of towels nicely dry by the end of the afternoon.

There were eleven of us in the Welsh class today. It was good to see new faces but any more would be too much. During one exercise where there were pictures on the screen for us to talk about I wondered why our tutor didn't ask me to contribute even though I'd been putting up my hand. It was only when we went back to class mode that I realised I had inadvertently turned off my camera. Silly me. Still that's better than thinking I had muted myself when I hadn't. That's a situation I dread so I'm always checking for the red line that shows I'm muted.

 

I had hoped to do some gardening afterwards as I'd only been able to spend a little time outside with my coffee enjoying the sun as were at least two or maybe more dragonflies but I had to wait for the damp man. When he came I showed him all the areas I was worried about. He doesn't think the damp course has failed but that most of the damp we see inside is probably due to condensation or places where the outside render has blown. (The sooner that gets sorted the better.) He agreed that the solution for the really bad damp by the French doors would be to cut away a strip of the paving on the terrace and put in a covered gutter all the way along so that the damp course there is no longer breached. That means trying to sort out builders for that job as well. He suggested stripping the inside wall of the wardrobe which is definitely damp, treating with mould killer and then using a mould treatment paint both of which he sold me. Guess what my next diy job is going to be?

Before the damp man's visit I fixed the second baton to Peter's wall. All I need now is to buy more hooks. I love getting things organised.

Off in a mo. to disco aerobics where I can clear my head of all these building worries. (Building as in diy not as in increasing.)