Cold.

The day began with lots of bright sunshine and ended with a fiery sunset with the cold northerly winds bringing clouds and rain in the afternoon. At our age it takes us a while to get back to our routines after a trip away and I think we're both still catching up on sleep. This afternoon I made a start on altering the crop top that came with the vest. I'm even using tacking stitches as trying it on with a million pins in could be quite painful.

 Red Kite. (Photo from the web).

As we drove along the River Wye on Thursday I was thrilled to see a Red Kite hovering about 15 ft. above the field next to us. Red Kites were virtually wiped out in the last centaury by pesticides and gamekeepers/farmers even though they mainly eat worms and beetles and in the 1930's there were only 2 breeding pairs in the whole of the UK. Protection saw the numbers increase to 80 pairs in 1992 in Wales and now the Welsh population is thought to be between 750 and 900 pairs. They are easy to identify with their forked tails and while we were driving through the mountains I saw at least 10 birds flying together.

After we had looked at the bungalow we went for a short walk along the coast path, too muddy and slippery without walking boots, and I saw yet another kite disappearing over the headland. 

After a wet, grey afternoon the sun made a brief but glorious appearance.