Cold.

Still some snow to be seen in the distance and the air itself was very cold. The day began quite cloudy with the occasional brief shower but by the afternoon we were back to blue skies.

I know, it's another rainbow with its end in the sea very close to the cliff. It didn't take long for the shower in the distance to arrive before moving on.

The builders/decorators arrived before nine this morning which was a nice surprise. They painted another coat of white in the two rooms and then got on with taking the tiles down from the separate toilet. They kept themselves to themselves though of course I made them cups of tea through the day. They said they were happy to be working inside because usually they are given the outdoor jobs. I however felt the opposite and took myself out on to the terrace. I bundled myself up with a throw over my knees, the big yellow workman's coat and woolly hat. Camera to hand, ginger biscuits and my Kindle and I was perfectly happy. That was until my Kindle needed charging up and I couldn't use Peter's (I share his account so our books are on both Kindles) because his was low on charge too. Instead I listened to the radio on my MP3 player, watched the sea and made plans for the garden. Although I already have an ideal plan it may be too expensive to be practical so I'm thinking about how to utilise the existing structures in a similar way. 

Military planes had been out leaving interestingly shaped contrails in the sky. It is a shame that we're north facing so don't get much sun in the front garden in the winter. A couple of miles up the coast is the town of Aberdyfi which can be seen basking in the sun across the bay and has better sunset views. But because of the river it is about 30 miles by road to the nearest hospital at Aber which I why I didn't even look at properties in that area. Head trumped heart in that case

Eventually coming back indoors I was horrified to find that as well as bashing the tiles off the toilet walls they had been hammering away at the concrete block walls and the dust had got everywhere. Floors, walls and furniture were covered in enough dust to write your name in. If they had told me when they began I could have fixed a dust sheet across the doorway to the corridor to keep the worst of the dust at bay. I did put up a dust sheet but I wasn't happy and did say so to the builders. I kept it light and they apologised profusely but I just hope they might remember in the future to let people know about the dust or take better precautions. While they were here I washed the floors on this side of the dust sheet and put down large sheets of paper to protect the floor and after they left I did the same to the corridor.

A surprise find of snowdrops in the front garden.

Having bought the wall tiles for the toilet from B&Q back in Devon I began to worry that I might not have bought enough. I knew that I'd aimed for three rows of tiles and now thinking that each tile was 20 cms high thought that they weren't going be high enough on the wall. I went out to see how many tiles I'd bought but no matter how many times I counted the boxes there was only enough  for three rows and some spare. Then I thought to check the size of the tiles and lo and behold they were 30cms not 20 which made the height perfect. Phew! Now all I need to do is keep on staying up till midnight to try and get a delivery slot from Wickes. Once I've tried for a week I'll admit defeat and look elsewhere.