Icy Winds.

It's been a cold and grey day but at least the rain didn't begin until later in the afternoon.

I'm glad I did go to the zoo as I was able to clear several planted areas as well as the winding path/ maze. An extra job was cutting down a large hosta whose leaves had been rendered yellow and floppy by the cold. I wasn't sure if they were safe to give to the pigs so I got another helper to have a look on his phone (mine was in the car) and they are toxic to cats, dogs and horses. So they all went into the giant wheelbarrow for someone to haul up to the compost heaps up the lane. 

I gave the pigs several tub loads of weeds which included nettles, bindweed and roses. It's probably not the right time to be pruning roses but I always cut back any branches that visitors could be attacked by. 

Back home I ironed and hoovered before having a sit down and very soon I'll be off to Pilates. By car if it's still raining.

A few more photos of the ruined farm from Sunday.

 

While the farmhouse is a complete ruin the farm buildings are maintained as the farmer is still using them. 

Taken inside the ruined farmhouse. As our walking group is called The Headless Wanderers naturally some of them had to pose inside the enormous fireplace.

Cold And Bright.

Bright and sunny today with a bitterly cold wind blowing from the east. Ever the optimist I hung some washing out on the line but the light breeze was only sufficient to get the pillowcases to an ironable state. Although I would prefer not to have sheets drying in the utility room that's where the duvet cover has ended up this evening.

I've had a productive housewifely sort of day juggling cleaning and baking (a Bara Brith and chocolate and peanut butter cookies). 

The mildew on the bedroom windowsills needed dealing with and of course that meant giving the collection of jugs and other bits and pieces a wash as well. And since one job led to another I washed down everything that looked dusty and cleaned the mildew inside the wardrobe. It was then I noticed small faint yellow blotches on the other wardrobe door which I guessed were another kind of fungus. More wiping down with the mould spray (which is probably just bleach in a fancy bottle) and the blotches are no more.

 

It was only after all that was done and the sun was beginning to go down that I headed off for a beach walk on the way to collect my updated prescription. Walking into that icy wind was .... bracing.

Phew !

The day began with plenty of pink in the sky, then sun followed by a brief shower with clouds and sun for the rest of the time.

Today's walk began in the woods at Tal Y Bont. This was where what I thought was might be a major problem began. My camera wasn't able to focus. 

Thinking that it might be a problem with either the lens or the eyepiece I gave both of those a wipe but still everything was blurry. Wondering if it was just a problem with the eyepiece I took a few pictures but when I pressed the button to review them they were still blurry. I even wondered if it was a problem with my eye. Changing the settings did nothing either. Thinking that somehow there was condensation inside the camera I put it away and use my phone to take pictures instead even though I can't see clearly what is on the screen.

Later when I got home and uploaded the camera photos they all turned out to be in focus. An investigation of the camera controls eventually led me to a dial hidden underneath the eyepiece which changes the focus of the image that you see. A few turns of that and all was back to normal. Big sigh of relief!

 

The sunny spells lit up the yellows and golds of the beech trees in the wood standing on an orange carpet of fallen leaves.

And the bright orange of the red oaks.

We stopped for lunch at the ruined farmhouse (Brongoch).

Before carrying on to walk through the fields and along quiet lanes.

It was especially beautiful when the sun came out.

We had to climb over this gate which was wired to a very wobbly gatepost at one end and to a bush, also wobbly, at the other.

Then back through the fields past the hillfort of Caer Allt-Goch.  

On our return to Tal y Bont some of us decamped to D's house where we chatted in front of a wood stove with tea and home-made apple cake.

Damp.

We've been stuck in hazy conditions all day. The day began with rain which eased off by the afternoon.

I was so tired by the end of yesterday I knew I needed a 'rest' day. The trouble is the things I like doing don't really involve resting.

I compromised by pottering about in the garage, hanging things back on hooks and sorting through boxes of random 'stuff'. A lot more space is beginning to emerge and I'm hopeful that one day the whole garage will be organised so that when something is needed it will be easy to find.

 

Another job done was to hunt on-line for new bedside lamps. Our tasteful touch lamps have reached the end of their lives turning on and off at random. They are old and apparently the workings inside do fail eventually.

Argos proved to have a surprisingly good range of lamps and I've narrowed the choice down to two. (Apart from being aesthetically pleasing they needed to be touch lamps with several light levels.)  Peter likes both so I've made rough scale drawings so that I can have a good ponder as they aren't cheap.

Finally I had a go at learning a beginner line-dance that Rachel introduced us to last Thursday. Usually we stick to 80's disco and sometimes more modern pop but line-dance was a first. This dance 'The House of Bamboo' took her fancy so we're having a go. At least it's easier than the choreography for a video competition for disco classes that we tried to learn the week before. That was full of steps we've never done and we didn't do very well.

A lone but loud buff-tailed bumble bee visiting the hebe. It may have been a queen stocking up for winter hibernation (or dormancy) as the poor workers and males die off at the end of summer.

All Systems Go.

The plumber has just left after fitting a new expansion tank to the boiler. The central heating is on and showers are back on the menu. 

Not only that but the fibre cable has been fixed more securely and there's no danger of it dangling over the road. That was thanks to Peter following the matter up. He spoke first to Sky and they didn't even seem to have flagged it to BT as urgent. (BT own the infrastructure but our contract is with Sky so we should go through them.) Peter then took it upon himself to contact BT, explained that wires could easily drop into the road and lo and behold somebody came out within two hours. Peter's idea of adding another panel to the soffit board and a metal strap was deemed to be a good one and the fitting was re-attached once the cable was slackened off. 

No sooner had I sat outside with my coffee this morning then down came the rain which continued right until I got to the stables.

There I found that only myself and M (who is older than me and has more health issues) were down for the lesson but we were joined by a member of staff to make us up to three.

I rode Betsi who is so lovely. I had some time with her in the stable before the lesson and she was enjoying having her neck scratched so much that at one point she was just about asleep.

At the start of the lesson I got called out on my habit of riding with long stirrups and had to put them up another hole. And yes it did improve the way Betsi went so I guess I'll have to get used to it. I think my preference for long stirrups may stem from my early riding days when we did a lot of bareback riding taking the ponies to and from the fields. 

Today we worked on leg yielding (again) which is something Betsi does well especially when I keep my eyes on the mirror ahead so that I can see if I need to use more leg to push her hindquarters over.

 

After going to the dump, Hahav and Morrisons I called in at Charlie's. I met our neighbour there who was buying peanuts for the birds but had stopped to look at the Christmas lights but said he has more than enough at home.

Now that bonfire night is over I'm quite happy to see all the Christmas trees and decorations everywhere. I even browse the tree decoration aisles though I cannot image where I would put any additional decorations.

I'd gone into Charlie's to see if there was anything in the equestrian section I could suggest to Peter as gift ideas but nothing caught my eye. The good old favourites, Bailey's and chocolates will have to do.

In town I went into Matalan and bought some warm winter pjs for Pete. They've got a black Friday offer (which goes on for a while) of 25% off men's and women's nightwear which was handy.

This is the small table I painted. (It looks as if I've painted the bottoms of the large table legs but they are just wet.) Originally the metal legs came from my mother's house and were part of a stool with a wooden seat. The seat split making it a bit perilous to sit on and when the wooden garden furniture we bought on eBay came with a lazy Susan I used that to make a small table.

Cancelled.

The day has been dry and verging on chilly today. Not having the boiler to switch on the central heating in the early hours to keep the place from getting too cold is not a lot of fun. Although we haven't been putting the heating on during the day that little boost was just enough to keep things comfortable. 

On the plus side this is good preparation for power cuts. That's what I keep telling myself. Not a word from the plumber either.

This morning I was washing up and mentally making sure I had everything prepared for class before I went out to paint when in came Pete to say the lesson had been cancelled due to our tutor being ill.

Not nice for our tutor but that gave me time to paint the dragon and the table legs and then make a start on tidying up the back garden.

 

It was a good thing that I was outside because all of a sudden I heard a loud bang. Wondering what on earth had happened I was about to get the ladder out to check the flat roofs when I saw that the fixing the chap had put up to hold the new fibre optic cable had pulled away from the corner of the house. 

Not too surprising when you see the metal piece had been screwed into the thin plastic soffit board. Apparently they are not allowed to fix onto the solid wall of the house.

Peter managed to get through to somebody on the phone and explained that if the cable came loose it would be dangling over the street possibly low enough for bigger lorries to get caught on. Even so they won't be sending anyone to fix it until at least Monday.

Rather than let the situation get worse Pete first drove to town to get the correct screws and then put in various fixings so that with wire and cable ties holding the cable in place it can't drop any lower. It was a fiddly cold job with both of us up ladders (I was holding the metal thingy in place) but at least it is safe now. It's a good thing the class was cancelled so that we could deal with this little major problem.

The cable runs from the telegraph pole across the road and to the corner of the house.

My reward for all today's hard work will be to go and dance for an hour in disco aerobics.

Getting Cold.

While it has been dry with even some sun it has definitely been getting colder. 

I got a fair amount done this morning, a second coat of white on the inside of the garage window sills, my Welsh homework done and sent off and extra Duolingo because I'd missed two days in a row. I also did some bits of sewing. Nothing exciting, just some mending. 

The plumber was supposed to come in the morning but he couldn't get the part to fix our leaking boiler. For the time being the boiler is switched off so we don't even have the option of turning the heating on. For the moment it's a matter of wrapping up well.

Something else that needed doing was repainting the metal dragon Vytas gave me some time ago. The sea air had got to it and all the black paint was peeling off.  Once I'd scraped off the remaining paint and rubbed down the rusty metal I used the tin of black Hammerite I picked up at the dump last week. The tin was almost full and it was the hammered effect paint rather than the matt black I already have. I'll give the dragon another coat tomorrow and maybe even do the legs of a little outdoor table that I have on the terrace. 

In the afternoon I had to go to town to visit the dentist so he could take some more moulds of my teeth. I ended up with bits of blue stuff all over my face. And I had to pay the remaining £948 which left a bad taste so to speak.

I only went in one charity shop and came out with this ceramic ball, some holographic 'sellotape' and a bag of small icing shape stamps, holly and ivy leaves that sort of thing.

The cold got to me in the afternoon and I can't face the thought of driving out to sing in a cold hall before a second dark drive home so I'm giving choir a miss.