Calm.

As forecast the storm died down over the night and we woke to beautiful blue skies. That didn't last long and the grey returned by the afternoon amd eventually it rained.

While Peter went off to collect the car and then on to town for some shopping I began building my outdoor Christmas tree. I used a plastic covered metal rod, one of a number I found in the garden, for the central support so step one was to drill holes in the driftwood I'd collected and thread the ordered sticks on the metal rod stuck in a plant point.

At that point I had to stop to get ready for our Welsh class. I do enjoy the actual class but I struggle with the amount of extra time needed to do the homework, learn the vocabulary and practise sentence structure. Today one of our breakout times (where you work in small groups) was to ask and answer 'What are you going to have for lunch?' and 'What are you going to do after the lesson?' It was more about asking the questions but our answers eventually got sillier and sillier within our linited vocabulary until the message came through to leave the breakout room. We also learnt that generally sentences begin with a verb so instead of saying 'John wants coffee.' You have to use Mae -a form of the verb to be first. Already confusing and then even more so as the pronunciation in the north is my while in the north of mid-Wales ie here it changes to ma.

Once the lesson was over I went straight out to the garden to set up my new tree by the front garden gates. Then came the fun job of hanging up all the tassels made from plastic rope and the whelk shells all collected on the beach. There was a bit of flexibility of the rod causing a lean to the tree so I secured it to the bushes beside it. Hopefully the tree will make a few people smile though maybe some will think it's just a random object made by a crazy person. Peter kindly described it as artisan.

(Not the best of photos but it was already raining when I took this photo.)