Ouch !

Today's ouch, a big one at that, was a visit to the dentist. Not physical pain but ouch nonetheless at the cost of my new denture, a whopping £1,900. That's just for a lower denture, I'm not bothering with an upper denture, not at those prices. They even wanted me to pay for the whole lot in one go. As a point of principle I agreed to pay half today and the other half at the next visit. 

The reason for the denture is not so much cosmetic though it will be nice not to have such visible gaps but to make it possible to chew with more than one pair of teeth after breaking a tooth in Crete last year. Something that's kind of necessary though you don't need teeth for ice cream or cakes!

It's been chilly but mostly bright today and as there were plenty of waves in Cardigan Bay I thought I would share some wave photos from St Ives .

 

It's no wonder that artists and later holiday makers have flocked to St Ives for over 200 years. The colours and majesty of the Atlantic waves are simply amazing.

And yes, the sea was all these different colours. I could have sat for hours watching the waves.

Enjoy.

More Memories.

It was very grey this morning and with the light levels being so low good old S.A.D. began to rear its ugly head. That greyness drains my energy leaving me with very little motivation. However just going outside it felt brighter and my mood lifted immediately.

I went down to the zoo mid morning and got a lot of weeding done. The grass maze, the gravel garden and the small play area are now weed free. Next time I'll have to do the gravel by the ferrets as the warm wet weather has caused the weed population to explode. 

The sun came out for a while and the air felt quite warm. The clouds are now sitting below the tops of the hills due to the temperature inversion.

When I got home a chap from BT was there (or rather somebody from a company working for Openreach) to install fibre into the house. (Not that there was anything wrong with the internet speeds we already had.) We had thought that the new cable would simply replace the old cable but that wasn't the case. Instead it comes in through the other side of the house into Peter's study. And to my surprise there was going to be a wire running from the pole on the far side of the road, above the garage roof to an otherwise unused pole in the lane behind the back garden and then back across our neighbour's garden to Peter's study. Hmm, I said. 'Why couldn't the cable run to the corner of the house and then along below the roof to Peter's study?' The chap thought that would work and now instead of wires over the back garden and my neighbours' garden it runs as I suggested. A good thing I came home at that time.

While I was still in my work clothes I made a start on the cold frame. All I had to do was move a couple of pots and planters and then build one side and the front wall with the heavy blocks. Now I may see if I can work out a way to sit the perspex on top so that I can open it to water the plants also weigh it down against the winter winds.

 And now for a few more St Ives memories.

When I was little this was a bookshop over two floors. I can remember getting a book token as a present (I was an early reader) and choosing a book about animals from this shop.

Across the road stands the Catholic Church where I was baptised. We went to Sunday mass there every week and being in the days before anyone noticed my poor sight I remember seeing candle flames as starburst lights.

Down at the bottom of the hill this corner building used to be the butchers shop run by Walter Pearce, father of the artist Bryan Pearce. The Pearce's lived in the house above the shop. Their front door was in the passage at the side and led straight to steep stairs that had a thick red rope as the bannister. I  remember going to look at Bryan's paintings in his room right at the top of building. My mother's gallery was one of first to show Bryan's work and we are very lucky to have two of his pictures, an etching and a screen print, in our sitting room here.

 

A later memory of Island Road. We spent our honeymoon here in a room (kind of a bedsit) on the ground floor of one of the houses on the right. We came back for a week the following year but after that we went elsewhere and later the sheer cost ruled out coming to St Ives with our family.

Memories.

Low cloud kept things wet today even more so when we were in Mach where it was especially wet. We had our usual meet up with our friends though as the library was closed 'due to unforeseen circumstances' we went to the Caffi Owain Glyndwr. 

I feel I've had a very productive day. Not only did we meet our friends and go through the next unit of our Welsh course on our way home we collected eight concrete blocks that I will use to make a cold frame.

I'd put a request on the local village FB page asking if anyone had any spare blocks and somebody offered me some for £1 each. I had asked for any kind but not the heavy concrete blocks which these turned out to be so we could only put four at a time in the car. (They were that heavy!). 

While Peter drove the second lot home I walked down to the pharmacy, collected my prescription but couldn't have my 'flu jab as their second pharmacist won't be there until next week.

At home an even better result. I found the holiday company's site and have booked us a week in St Ives next year at only £20 more than this year's price.  We're at the age where it's comforting to know exactly where we are going.

Our stay in St Ives brought back so many memories.

 

A view of the front door of the (then) Sail Loft Gallery which was my first home.

This was the home of my friend Laura who was about five years older than me. Her father was a reviewer of Jazz music which I'm afraid led to my lack of appreciation of Jazz having heard too much of it there and later in London when we stayed with them for a while. 

Every summer there used to be a fancy dress competition on Porthmeor and I remember Laura in an elaborate toadstool costume. Lea, Laura's mother quickly turned me into Looby Loo (Andy Pandy's puppet companion) with two plaits and a dress so that I could also take part.

The harbour beach was my playground (all the children played unsupervised in the streets and on the beach in those days) and I have happy memories of climbing on the rock in the centre of the photo.

The fishing boats were smaller in those days but it is good to see that St Ives is still a working port.

Below is the sweetshop/ general store that was the scene of my misdemeanour. I can still remember, aged about three years old, noting that my mother kept her purse in the wardrobe drawer, helping myself and going on a little spending spree in this shop.

Not only was my mother very cross with me ( I may have been smacked) but also with the shopkeeper who should have known I was shopping clandestinely. 

More memories to follow ......

Small World.

There were only six of us on this afternoon's walk, a rather wet one around Llyn Pendam, and yet one lady who has only recently joined our group, had been down in Cornwall last week and was in St Ives on the 26th at the same time as us.

I wasn't sure about going on the walk but having been assured by my home weather man that it was not going to rain off I went. Straight up into the clouds which resulted in us getting very wet. We opted for a shorter walk round the lake which only took about an hour. Still it was good to stretch my legs and take in the autumnal dew bedecked cobwebs and the arrival of large fungi. 

I haven't done much since returning except some editing of the many photos I took in St Ives. Today's offerings are all Porthmeor beach. If I stick to one location at a time there's less chance of repeating photos.

 

Holiday Memories.

It's been bright and sunny here in Borth today with fairly calm seas. When I brought the washing in from the garden it was almost dry.

I had to go in to Aber which was busy, (three times in the car park somebody got to a space before I could get there). Well it is a Saturday and also all the new uni students are wandering around proclaiming start of their new lives with coloured hair and eye catching outfits.

I didn't really have any specific need to wander round the shops but I'm glad I did because not only did I have a long chat with somebody I know but I found a pair of M&S leggings, dark blue tie-dye pattern in my size for £3.

I didn't bother going down to Morrison's but did the shopping for the rest of the week in Lidl (also busy).

 

When I got home we hung the picture we bought in St Ives. Although we had sunny weather while we were there it is evocative of Porthmeor beach and will be a constant reminder of our lovely holiday.

Below is the raku seal reclining for his photoshoot on the chunk of copper ore I found on Porthmeor beach. He's now back on the kitchen window sill amongst an array of interesting pebbles found on Marazion beach when we were there some years ago. 

Goodbye St Ives.

We're back home. It was a long drive, which Peter did even though the plan had been that I would drive the final few hours through Wales. Seven and a half hours scrunched up on an uncomfortable passenger seat with just one half hour break! I thought we were going to make at least one more stop and though Peter would have stopped if I'd asked by that time I was so uncomfortable I just wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

It's taken me a couple of hours to unpack my stuff and deal with all the food and other sundries and of course get all my photos onto my pc and now I'm shattered. Still it was a lovely holiday.

Still Here.

This morning's dustbin collection at 6.00 was pretty quiet and I don't think I would have noticed if I hadn't already been awake. But the red bins outside our window have been multiplying. Where once there were two now there are five!

Since our stay is coming to an end I decided to wrap up and go for a dawn walk. It was lovely walking along the beach with stars overhead and the bright lights of fishing boats out at sea. I was almost alone on the beach, just a couple of dog walkers and a runner.

Having gone up and down the beach I went round the Island to catch the dawn throwing a golden light over the mainland.

 

It's gradually getting a little colder especially when the clouds block out the sun's warmth. I've still snatched every opportunity to be outside watching the waves and taking plenty of photos. I thought about going bodyboarding again but decided that there was too much of a wind chill factor.

In the morning we walked round to the harbour where Peter bought us a dramatic beach picture to hang in our sitting room as a wedding anniversary present to ourselves to remind us of this lovely holiday. It's not an original, those cost thousands, but a good quality print which was still very expensive.

Peter also bought himself another wetsuit on sale in the Tikki shop. XL this time as the one he has (also on the sale rale for £199) is quite snug and has to be climbed into through the neck opening. I went to the charity shop and bought a couple of paperbacks, a James Herriot and a Miss Read, to replace a book of Greek myths that Peter wants to take home from here. (The handbook says to do this if we want to keep any of the paperbacks.)

Walking back along the harbour I sat on a bench for a while to listen to a fairly decent (his voice did show his age) busker singing ballads that I recognized. There I spotted waves breaking over Smeaton's pier so of course I had to walk right round the harbour to take photos of the waves breaking up against the back of the pier wall.

Peter didn't think his ankle would stand up to walking along the cliff path on the far side of the beach so instead we walked onto the Island where we sat on a bench to watch the surfers tackle the waves off Porthmeor. One good thing about this place is being able to go straight on to the Island with its easy walking and plenty of benches. Later I took advantage of the low tide to walk right to the rock pools at the far end of the beach and came back with a pocket full of pebbles and a large chunk of rock which in places had a metalic ring due to the high amount of copper in it.