Sunny.

Lots of sun today but still with a chilly wind. A good day for drying the washing.

After yet another stressful moment of emails not forwarding in a readable format and then disappearing we finally got our homeward air tickets printed. Then came the problem of how to comply with the request to scan our passports. In the end a helpful chatbot took our details and filled in whatever it was they needed and we're all set.

It was a bit windy for hedge cutting but that's what I did anyway.  That was once I'd retrieved the contents of our black bin bag which had blown down the road and all over the cliff after the seagulls decided to rip it open.

The hedge trimming was my main job for the day though I had to spend some time tying in all the clematis shoots that were waving around in the wind. With the ironing done I was able to enjoy sitting out on the terrace for a bit longer than usual. For so many years I've spent most of my time working on one project or another and now at last I have more to relax and enjoy the view.

This evening I went to choir where we revisited that old Welsh favourite Calon Lan as it has been added to the Sing For Water programme. It's generally popular with audiences too as it is sung a lot in schools.

Bottle Kilns.

 

Whilst I was familiar with the sight of bottle kilns I'd never thought much about how they worked so it was interesting to look inside. (I think the iron bands are recent additions to maintain the structural integrity of the kilns.)

So- inside each bottle is a barrel shaped brick kiln that stands on a platform/ base inside which the coal fires would have burned. There are openings all around the base through which more coal would have been shovelled onto a bed of fire. The temperature of 1,000C would have had to be maintained for days at a time for the firing of the pots. Imagine the heat and fumes while all that was going on.

The pottery was fired in rough clay containers and in order for the factory owners not to lose money by letting the kiln cool down the men had to carry out the heavy containers while everything was still red hot.

Sunset last night.

Gladstone Pottery Museum.

Cloudier and colder today. Nice when it was sunny but the sun never lasted very long.

At the zoo I spent most of the time weeding by the ferrets' enclosure watched by two little furry faces peering at me through the wire. It was very quiet today, no visitors at all just some pupils from the secondary school on their animal handling course. 

Back home I did some more gardening and baked a Bara Brith which got a little overdone as I became engrossed in a bit of sewing. Not long and I'll be off to Pilates.

Sunday- 

After a good night's sleep we went off to have breakfast at the Green Dragon, a large and very old pub that happens to be a Weatherspoon's. Not being a pub goer or a visitor to restaurants I was quite impressed with breakfast menu. I had eggs benedict on black pudding and Peter had a traditional breakfast fry up. 

Afterwards I sent Peter off to set up the satnav while I had a wander around Leek with my camera.

St Michael's Church, Leek.

We then headed off to Stoke to the Gladstone Pottery Museum. The above photo shows numerous bottle kilns in just a corner of the city. No wonder Stoke is also known as The Potteries.

Fellow fans of 'The Great Pottery Throwdown' will no doubt recognise the entrance through the tunnel where the workers would have punched their time cards.

It's an excellent museum and we learnt a lot about the processes involved in industrial pottery production in Victorian times. Interesting but terrible conditions for the workers.

The noise from just a couple of machines was horrendous and that was only for a few minutes until we moved to another area of the museum. Add to that the diseases cause by the toxic chemicals (lead etc) and the dust not to mention the sheer physical hard labour. It made for unpleasant reading to see that many children under 14 worked in the potteries and in 1861 there were 593 children just 5 years old working !! in the potteries of Stoke.

Moulds for making items that were not of a regular shape such as handles and spouts. Below is the chemist's room where new glazes were developed. There was so much to see in the museum including rooms of tiles, baths and toilets (the aromas in the air around the very earliest toilets were too much for my hyper sense of smell).  

We finished off with tea and cake (for me) and a Staffordshire oat cake with cheese (for Peter) before the three hour drive home. 

Here is a video (not mine) of the museum.

Panic Over.

We're beginning to lose the 'summer' weather. This morning when Peter went out rowing there was hardly a breath of wind and the sea was calm and flat. By the afternoon a chill wind had arrived flicking up wavelets all across the bay.

For the last week I've been feeling very stressed. We're off on our holiday soon and as I'm someone who doesn't trust phones, the battery might have run down or there's no signal, I prefer to have printed out travel tickets. The e-tickets for the flights out were found and printed but as much as I searched I couldn't find the tickets for the return journey. So I tried the KLM message chat bot but it would only speak in Dutch with no way to translate to English. I sent emails to KLM but nothing. I worked my way through pin numbers and passwords to open 'My Trip.' But again nada. I began to panic or at least get seriously stressed. I allocated this morning to phoning KLM and hopefully sorting it all out. But first I thought I'd have one more check of the folder into which I'd put everything to do with the holiday. And there at the very bottom was an email from Expedia (not KLM) which contains our e-tickets. Phew.

That wasn't the only hiccup in our travel plans. When I saw the printed rail tickets I could see that I had managed to book day return tickets instead of open return tickets. On Friday Aberystwyth station ticket office had been unable to help as I'd bought the tickets on-line from trainline. So that was the next phone call I planned to make. First I checked how much it would be if I had to buy new tickets for the homeward journey and also the cost of return tickets. When I spoke to someone at trainline they couldn't rearrange the tickets so I asked for a refund and would buy new return tickets. Somehow the new tickets cost less than the original ones. A little bonus after all that stress.

Travel arrangements sorted I walked to the pharmacy to collect my prescription and then disappeared into the garden where I gave some of the hedges a trim with the electric hedge cutters. The escallonia I'll leave until the flowers are over so there's just one section up by the terrace to do. I have to pace myself these days. Afterwards I sat out on the terrace though it felt chilly even in the sun and I needed my warm fleece and a bodywarmer.

And now for pretty photos from Saturday.

Having had a relatively stress free three hour drive we met up with Romas in Leek. Things went a little awry because we had planned to meet and park in the market square car park but couldn't because of the antiques market. We found a nearby short stay car park and then Romas drove us to Thor's Cave in the Peak District for a sunny afternoon walk.

Although it is limestone country compared to slate here the scenery is not dissimilar. Our path ran through the valley along the route of the old Leek & Manifold light railway. Thor's Cave has been popular with tourists as far back as Victorian times and Saturday was no exception. Lots of people walking and cycling along the flat wide path.

Then, to get to the cave you follow paths through a coppiced hazel wood until you reach long flights of stairs up the steep hill. These were well made and very even which made it possible for Peter to get up to the cave without straining his knees or ankles.

I went right up to the mouth of the cave but it was so busy (and Peter was worrying about getting back to Leek before our car park ticket ran out) that I didn't bother pushing my way inside the cave.

Instead I turned and admired the view and the path we had followed along the valley.

Back in Leek we still couldn't get into the market square and after some following, losing and phoning we found space to park in a nearby side street.

Romas saw us settled in our Airbnb before heading back to Stoke to get ready for the evening. While Peter went for a drink with some of Laura's family I had a quick wander round this former textile town before relaxing with a cup of tea in the room.

Leek has been a market town for over 700 years and continues to be a prosperous and vibrant place due to its proximity to the Peak district (tourists) and the nearby city of Stoke. The sun and later warm evening contributed to the holiday feel of the place.

There were ancient pubs on every corner with bistros and restaurants galore. Many artisan shops and even the charity shops looked classy. (I only had time to drop into one.) It would be good to spend a bit more time there.

Romas and Laura had booked a downstairs room at Duck Goose (quite a foodie bistro) to celebrate their engagement with about 30 friends and family. Romas had designed Laura's ring himself which I thought was lovely. 

The décor was a quirky mix of antique and modern and entry into the room was a 'hidden door' disguised as a bookcase.

We had met Laura's parents before but it was nice to meet more of the family. It was funny chatting to Romas' fellow band members as I've seen them so often in rehearsal and gig videos. 

The food was very nice too. I had a mushroom lasagne with deep fried enoki mushroom. An interesting and unusual texture with the crispy batter being spicy but not too hot.

The view from our room.

Back Home.

We've had a lovely weekend away but I came home to computer issues so here is the briefest summary.

A walk with Romas to Thor's Cave in the Peak District.

 

An overnight stay in Leek.

A meal with Romas and Laura's friends and family at the Duck Goose.

A visit to the Gladstone Pottery Museum.

It's Summer!

Never mind that it's still April, today has definitely been a summer's day. Blue skies, warm winds and sun all day. In town this afternoon it must have been in the high twenties and it was still lovely here with a light breeze. A noticeable number of people in town were wearing shorts, lots of pale legs getting their first airing. (Mine aren't much better.) 

Sitting outside this morning it was very relaxing watching the waves rolling in. First there would be just a hint of a rise in the sea's surface then as each wave began to form the morning sun lit up the constantly changing curves as they rushed towards the shore. Finally the waves would break upon the sand with a delicate web of foam behind. All this was accompanied by the gentle shushing of waves upon the shore. A lovely way to start the day.

At the stables I had my chunky favourite, Tex. He was looking very dapper with a carefully brushed mane and tail thanks to 3 or 4 members of the Pony club. I took the photo after the lesson when I'd tied him up in the yard as he was needed for a half hour private lesson. (Yes, I can see that the buckle of his flash noseband needs to be pushed back up to the middle.) You can also see by the length of the leathers where my feet come to. But he is a strong pony and I'm not too heavy for him. 

Our lesson today was all about creating 'bend' and I have to say that Tex managed it really well including working on the bit. We had to do a lot of 'change the rein' diagonally across the school bending one way to start with, straight in the middle and then bending the other way.

Afterwards I took bags and bags of hedge cuttings to the dump plus a few other things. I came away with two tins of satin finish white paint for the skirting boards, some white masonry paint for the garden walls and some blue also for the garden. If they're no good I'll return them next time I go to the dump. Considering paint is over £20 a tin it's worth checking the dump first. Then I bought a tin of white stain cover paint at Screwfix and had a wander around Hahav.

In town I found this colourful cardigan (for the carnival) in a charity shop's zero waste tub for 20p and Peter got something too. After I'd found him the cashmere jumper he'd asked me to keep an eye out for a polo neck one to wear when he goes rowing. And today I found him exactly that. M&S, grey, XL and 70% cashmere for £4.50. Not bad.

At home once we'd unpacked the shopping and I'd loaded the washing machine I baked a Bara Brith. Not for Peter this time but for Romas and Laura as we are driving up to see them tomorrow. We'll be having a meal out with Laura's family to celebrate their engagement. After that I had an hour of sitting out in the sun trying to get a little bit of colour in my legs.

Sunny.

The sun is shining and the wind is warm. What more could we want?

With the new day my mind has stopped fretting over minor things and I can move on. Though I may have to add another WhatsApp group on my phone.  

And of course today I've had to concentrate on my Welsh. At least most of the the three hour lesson was not about prepositions. We began with chat and vocabulary around 'exotic animals' before moving on to a somewhat minimalistic cartoon covering small sections of the Mabinogi, a set of fantastical Welsh legends which as usual end in tragedy. It was made even more difficult to understand by having characters with strange names that are not in use these days. Our tutor's explanation of the stories was a lot more interesting.

The latest arrivals to the garden party.

The garden is already bursting with colour, almost too much colour but maybe that's due to the bright tomato red of the azalea. It was here when we moved in and considering how well it is doing even though I moved it from one side of the garden to the other I don't have the heart to get rid of it. The bright pink azalea it was next to (they clashed horribly) seems to have faded away even though it wasn't moved.

After class I did some more sorting out of clothes before grabbing half an hour in the sun. Disco aerobics was, as usual great fun.

Small Things.

A little bit cloudier today and windy. Perfect drying weather which I took advantage of. But with the wind no longer coming from the east it was considerably warmer.

This morning their plunge diving alerted me to the arrival of common terns to the bay. Their presence was a sign that fish are about so hopefully we may see the dolphins soon.

Small things in nature give me great pleasure but unfortunately small things can also be very upsetting. I found out today that the two people I was supposed to meet up with yesterday had instead had the meeting at the pub half an hour later. Is it naïve of me to expect people to turn up at a prearranged meeting? Maybe it's the fact that I  don't have a phone attached to my hand at all times (almost never in my case) which puts me at odds with a generation that sees making last minute changes as perfectly normal. Because of the way I am the incident has continued to play on my mind all day even though the logical side of my mind sees that it wasn't that important.

All that came after Peter and I had been discussing our holiday plans. Apologies for the following major moan but I feel the need to vent or I might explode. Feel free to comment or not  or skip the text and just look at the pretty photos from Sunday.

You might think that spending three weeks on Crete with a hire car would naturally lead to exploring the beautiful and interesting island but I'm afraid Peter is not keen on exploring places. He never has been and now that his arthritis limits his walking to 3 or 4 miles on a good day he would rather stay in one place. He's become extremely cautious about anywhere new so I'm having to research places thoroughly in order to answer his questions. I thought that visiting 3 archaeological sites and maybe 3 gorges and/or beaches over 3 weeks was a reasonable compromise but you wouldn't believe the emotional pressure I've been put under. I expect that in the end we'll do most things and he'll enjoy them but for the moment I'm being made to feel like a horrible person. At least I've found what looks to be a decent stables which do 2hr, 4hr and all day rides so I may be spending a lot of time out riding in the countryside.

Moan over. Just enjoy more signs of Spring.

After the stress of the morning I had a good day's gardening. The hacked back hedge has been squared off and all I need to do is wait for the leaves to grow. In the back garden the clematis have been growing wildly and needed fixing to the trellis before the wind snaps the shoots right off.

After that I had time to do my favourite job which is going over all the shingle picking off every scattered grass stem, loose leaf and any tiny seedlings. And this time picking off all the stray twigs from my hedge cutting. 

Later.- I've just returned from choir where we continued with the Georgian song we began last week. Polyphonic singing is very hard to learn but once we got the hang of it it had such a lovely rich tone. After that we learnt a Hawaiian song which had most of us swaying and waving our hands around before finishing off with a Lea Morris song - Everybody wants to sing.