IT Issues.

 My PC has been playing up. Hopefully normal service tomorrow.

It's Back.

Despite a cooler and very grey start the heat built up during the day heralding the return of the next heatwave.

The abundance of butterflies is over, just a single white butterfly and a small brown and orange butterfly that didn't stay still long enough for me to identify it let alone take a photo. 

The bees on  the other hand are still here, at least 20 bumble bees on the lavender and today they have been joined by honey bees who are mainly on the mint flowers. The mint is growing well and I plan to move some to the zoo but can't while conditions are so dry. 

In the morning I painted the patch of render I filled in the other day and did a bit of touching up here and there on the garden wall. The last flakes of dry paint have been swept up from the path at the side of the house and I made a metal mesh cover for a hole that gives access to a ventilation grill. That done I spent the rest of the morning working on my latest sequinned top.

In the afternoon we went to the Arts Centre at the uni to see The Odyssey. Peter enjoyed it but I can't say I was very impressed. To start with the American accents grated which I guess is a personal thing but the actual script sounded way too modern/informal. I can't say much about the weapons and armour as I'm not familiar with those details either from Homer's time or the time of the Trojan war apart from Agamemnon's armour which looked like a cross between Batman and a transformer. What did catch my eye were the boats which were clearly Viking  boats with a small addition on the prow. Also I thought by now everyone knows that the temples and statues in ancient times (Greek, Roman, Egyptian) were highly coloured much like temples and statues we see nowadays in India and other places. So why were those in the film the plain white we're used to seeing in museums?

An unusual modern powered board (a jet board?) seen this afternoon. I don't think I've seen one of those before.

We came home from the Arts Centre with just enough time for me to get organised before heading off to choir. 

Evening sea.

Zoo Day.

Today's 70% chance of rain never arrived despite a morning sky full of grey clouds. The nearest we got was the tiniest spattering of raindrops on the terrace that lasted for no more than a minute. I stayed sitting in my dressing gown and soon the warm wind had everything dry again.

I've begun a system of collecting all the rinsing water from the kitchen sink into a bucket on the terrace and then tipping that water on the raised beds or the planters. It's been so long since those beds have had any regular watering and this way they should get water each day. The tomatoes and clematis in the back garden have been watered with the hose and I try and give them a good soaking every 2 or 3 days.

 

I took a chance and cycled to the zoo in the interests of the environment, my fitness and sparing the car. I still walked up the two short hills on the way home though for slightly less distance than last time.

There was a little mini drama at the zoo today. I was happily tidying up the grass maze when I heard louder than usual goat bleating. (They're very good at begging from the visitors.) As the bleating grew closer I wondered if one of the goats had escaped but then saw one of the zoo staff carrying a yelling pygmy goat to the empty loose boxes. 

This goat is low down in the goat pecking order and gets bullied by some of the others. Not so long ago one of her horns was broken in a tussle and it came off with copious amounts of blood all over both of the girls that look after the animals. And now the other horn was hanging off! Not spurting but a dramatic trickle of blood down the centre of her face and into her mouth. Which she did not like. The vet was phoned and would come later. For the time being the advice was to bandage the break to keep flies off. But by that time with all the crashing about from the goat the horn came off. Fortunately with a longer stump than had been on the other side and no dramatic spurting. I think the girls attempted to bandage the stump and then decided to spray it with wound spray that also has fly deterrent.

It turned surprisingly warm later in the afternoon. Is this the start of the next heatwave that we've been promised? I went to Pilates as usual but this is the last one until September while Rachel, our teacher/coach? takes a well deserved break. I will have to get into a daily exercise routine so that my fitness level doesn't plummet to a new low.

Grey Clouds But No Rain.

Mostly grey clouds today but despite a gentle mist later in the afternoon no sign of any rain yet. I guess I'll have to get the hose out again for the tomatoes.

 

My job for today was to fill in the gap at the edge of the paving with cement. There was also a little bit of render to be filled in by the back gate. 

Then as I had some spare mortar I filled in where the pointing had fallen out on our side of the wall that holds back our neighbour's garden. I think it's her wall but I'd rather not have her garden end up in our drive. I used any left over mortar to fill in the gaps between the paving slabs in the back garden.

I finished off with more hedge cutting in the front garden. The poor escallonia is looking very bare but should grow back by the end of the summer.

I've already had an email from the fabric company apologising for their mistake and hopefully the replacement muslin will arrive soon. In the meantime I shall get on with my latest sequined top for disco aerobics. 

A Ladder and a Lift for Fishes.

Strong winds and plenty of clouds today but almost nothing in the way of rain.

For the first time in weeks I was able to join the Sunday walk which today was in Cwm Rheidol starting at the Hydro station. For some of the time we were on the same roads we had ridden on the other week though of course we had been able to cover almost 20 miles with the horses while today we walked just 3 or 4.

From the road down in the valley we followed a wide forestry track that took us high up on the northern side. Then we turned and scrambled down a narrow and overgrown path, which included an extremely rickety stile, back to the road and the river.

We even got to hear and see the Vale of Rheidol steam train making its way to Devil's Bridge. At the moment because of the fire risk they are not using a genuine steam engine but a modern engine that produces fake steam.

We crossed the river on a narrow metal footbridge that took us to a fish ladder that helps spawning fish to bypass the falls to get upstream. A handy picnic table was a good spot for us to stop to eat our lunch.

There was a nearby viewing area from where we could see the watery steps of the fish ladder that the fish use to get upstream. The wire mesh above the fish ladder is to prevent poaching.

From that point we turned and headed back along the valley through the gently sloping fields of this lush valley. These fields were still fairly green though any fields higher up have turned a parched yellow.

Eventually we crossed over the river by the road bridge. Here the waterfalls are man-made, all part of the hydro system that generates power from water brought through huge pipes from the Nant Y Moch reservoir. At night time coloured lights shine on the curtain of water cascading over the large rocks.

The fish ladder is on the far left of the 'falls' and works very much like a canal lock letting the fish swim in and then bringing them to the higher part of the river.

A short walk back up the other side of the river brought us to the power station visitors' centre and our cars parked along the road.

Job Done.

Lots of clouds in the morning until by mid afternoon a heavy fog rolled in wetting the ground but not much more. A shame as we could do with some proper rain to put out the wild fires that have been burning recently in every part of the UK. Some have been burning for the last 10 days and there has been much anger over the lack of resources to fight the fires. Here in Wales the NRW down graded the contracts with fire fighting helicopters so that they didn't have priority and the helicopters were already being used in England. Another cost cutting exercise with disastrous results. And of course there are numerous reports of life threatening fires from all over the world but there's no such thing as global warming, is there?

This morning we had some 'dragon's breath' clouds over the hills of Snowdonia. Once the sun broke through I watched the clouds for a change. Under the high cirrus a lower layer of clouds was being blown inland by a steady south-westerly wind which was quite mesmerising.

With the waves barely breaking on the shore it was very quiet this morning. A typical relaxed Saturday morning feel. A lone swimmer swam laps unhindered by any surfers who arrive very early when the waves are up. Later on families came to the beach until the fog arrived.

Overhead a line of geese flew southwards having spent the night on the saltmarshes.

I was out early painting the last sections of the garden wall and later on a second coat which thankfully was dry before things turned wet. It was very satisfying to give those scruffy walls a crisp white finish. 

I need to fill in the gap at the edge of the paving and then find a way to protect the oil line that runs along the base of the wall. Either by putting the old metal gates back or leaning large tiles against the wall. 

The wooden panels on top of the wall are our neighbours' and do block some of the light to the bathroom and Peter's study. When one blew down in a storm they agreed not to replace it but although I said I would prefer it if the other two also weren't there they remain. That's their prerogative and I'm not going to fall out over it.

I also painted the pillar at the side of the garage door and said good-bye to the last traces of the peach colour.

The curtain fabric  was delivered in the afternoon. It would have been the perfect time to get the curtains made but there was a problem. I'd ordered 3m of each which was the exact amount I needed. Just cut each piece in half, hem the muslin and attach the muslin to the black-out fabric with curtain tape behind and job done. 

But .... the muslin had been written on with biro making about 10cm unusable. Thinking they had probably given extra to make up for that I measured the muslin and found they had only sent 2m80cms. Not enough. I've sent an email with photos and hopefully replacement muslin will arrive soon.

Instead I altered the exercise top I bought yesterday and made a start on turning a green and black sequinned dress into another disco top. This one is going to need a lot of work as the dress was a very snug fit. Peter had to help me peel myself out of it after an initial try on. I think I'm going to have to cut a panel to add on to the front of an existing exercise top and leave the back plain. 

Oh, and I fixed the toilet cistern which had begun trickling constantly. I know how to fix the old style cisterns with a floating ball valve but for these new plastic systems I had to look on-line. Fortunately the first solution of cleaning all the components did the trick and I wasn't faced with having to replace the flapper or any of the other parts.

Birds.

The weather has been variable today. Sometimes hot and sunny and at other times very windy with grey clouds in the sky. Peter went rowing at 8.00 this morning and unluckily for them a squall blew up as soon as they got out to sea and dropped when they returned after a hard row. Peter didn't have it so bad as he was coxing.

Sitting outside this morning my attention was caught by an unfamiliar bird call. I can't call it a song as it was more of a raspy grating noise. With the sound bouncing off the house walls on either side it took me a while to spot 3 or 4 black headed gulls far out to sea.

This goldfinch observed the garden for a while from atop the street light before heading off to another garden that provided more suitable fare than the handful of seeds I scatter on the paving. Another passing sighting was of house martins swooping over the cliff as they chased small flying insects.

I think the oystercatchers are nesting out of sight below the cliffs but I certainly heard them this morning. They were making lots of noise, probably alarm calls when bigger birds were too close.

My regular garden visitors, Mr Sparrow and his two fledglings.

The woodpigeon turned up of course and hoovered up all the seeds as usual and this morning he was accompanied by a rather nervous blackbird.

At the stables there were only four of us in the lesson. I had Betsi again which was fine. There were some rather soggy patches in the indoor school as they have been turning the sprinklers on during the hot weather to cool down the horses. But Betsi would rather not go through the soggy bits. Nothing dramatic but when we were supposed to be doing shallow curves off the long side and back again instead of going through a wet area and maintaining a nice curve she simply did a half-pass back to the track thus avoiding getting her feet wet.

Swallows nest in the rafters of the indoor school and towards the end of the lesson one family of fledglings were practising their flying going from the side walls down to the ground and back up again through the horses. Luckily the horses are well used to the small birds fluttering around and take no notice of them at all.

Pacman, whom I sometimes ride, went to the Royal Welsh Show again this week and achieved Champion of the trekking class.

After riding I dropped some stuff off at the dump and did the usual shopping. In one charity shop I found another exercise top (I'm just taking it in at the armholes as it's a bit big) and this little geode in Craft. I did wonder about the green colour and thought maybe somebody had tried to dye the stone but my researches tell me it's a fluorite or fluorite and amethyst geode. Some of the crystals inside do shine green when I shine a UV torch on them. I like pretty sparkly stones.

I kept my eyes open for the missing hub cap but it was nowhere to be seen. I asked at the dump and a couple of the charity shops that do that sort of thing but no one had any hub caps. You have to buy a full set and prices range from £25 -£70.