Windy.

A wild day with strong winds creating breakers right across the bay. Frequent squalls and some sunshine.

In between showers I was able to get out to do some gardening. My ribs were still sore so I didn't dare to continue working on the top of the hedge from the street side as this would mean stretching across the hedge while standing on the stepladder. Instead I got to some of the top from the terrace hopefully without too much stretching after which I headed down into the front garden for some general tidying. Usually I bag up my cuttings as I go along but once in a while I race ahead with the chopping and just throw the branches down. Cutting up and bagging these does make for an easier job when I can do it sitting in one of the light bistro garden chairs that are proving so useful. If I'm not sitting in one (slowly sinking into the ground) I put my bin bag on the chair so that I don't have to bend to put clippings in the bag. I got all the loose stuff from the hedge bagged though of course there's the general heap in the centre of the garden to bag up too. 

The acrylic samples I ordered with the custom colours arrived today and you can see that I didn't go light enough. Now that I've reduced the area to be covered by the splashback I might look into glass rather than acrylic.

We needed some potatoes so I waited for a dry spell before heading down for a walk on the beach before going to the shop. Got onto the beach and was hit by wind driven rain. Within a minute the backs of my legs were soaked so I made my way to the slipway and off the beach. Got to the road and the rain stopped. Not wanting to miss my walk I turned back, probably confusing the elderly couple who'd parked their car at the top of the slipway to watch the sea, and carried on up the beach. 

While the rain had stopped the wind hadn't giving me a good push up the beach and drying me off pretty quickly and I was rewarded with the end of a rainbow dropping down into the hills. No sign of any apples today but the wind was blowing millions of bubbles across the surface of the wet sand. It also blew me off course a couple of times and I discovered the unpleasant sensation of cold wind blowing up my nose.

Now that it's November my thoughts turn to Christmas preparations. Christmas itself will be a low key, maybe non-existent event in this house with the latest lockdown restrictions ruling out any chance of seeing family this year but I will still be sending made-with-love gifts and cards to friends and family. With that in mind I spent a happy time looking at ideas for felting and then found my felting stuff. I'd been looking forward to sitting at the table here, listening to the radio and stabbing away and had deliberately not carried on felting in Devon. I do have a couple of ambitious ideas but I think I should start with some simpler projects first. 

As expected England is going into another four week lockdown, several weeks too late according to the scientists. There's talk of hospitals including in the South-West (which had very low numbers) being unable to cope if the number of cases continues to rise. Here in Wales our lockdown eases slightly next Monday but the message is still to stay home whenever possible.