Heavy Showers.

It's been a day of heavy showers that eased off by the afternoon.

I was able to capture some of the wonderful sea colours in between showers. 

It really was that green.

While we were eating breakfast I spotted a couple of goldfinches feeding on the thrift seed heads. 

Our job for the day was to put up the other three blackout blinds at the sitting room windows. It was one of those jobs which seemed simple but after some of the plasterboard fittings proved faulty and somebody (possibly me) miscalulated the measurements for placing the brackets it took quite a while. Before cleaning up I mixed up some Polyfiller and repaired the plaster down one side of the window which had cracked away when the horrible old bay window was taken off. From there I moved on to filling in the gap which appeared around the door frame into the sitting room. Those two jobs done it was time to hoover up all the plaster dust from putting up the blinds. Naturally I didn't stop at just the sitting room but went round the whole place getting to all the corners the daily swiffering doesn't reach. And then I decided it was time to wash the floors too so the whole place got a wash. At least I have a decent sponge mop for that job.

The rest of my day was taken up with baking biscuits as not only do we have a street party to go to on Sunday but we're visiting a friend later in the week and I want to take along some biscuits. They've still got to be iced but I'm not that happy with them. I wanted to make some 'dainty' biscuits but I still chose standard sized cutters and also forgot that biscuits spread a little during baking. Petit fours they are not. They look paler in the photo than they really are but they are a type of sugar biscuit and meant to be pale and interesting. I say type of because naturally I strayed from the recipe, one lot have salted caramel flavouring and the others have coconut powder added. Mainly because I happened to have those in the cupboard. 

All that cleaning and baking has worn me out. I'm really not cut out to be a housewife. And I've yet to do any of my daily routine let alone gardening or sitting out on the terrace though it has been quite cold out there.

 

Showers.

A day of frequent showers with more sun in the afternoon.

I had a very early start to the day having been woken at dawn, (4.15) by the noisy singing of birds. I was up before 6.00 which meant I did my DuoLingo, played the piano and cycled all before breakfast. I also got out my mat and tried to remember my floor exercise routine. I've found a pilates class in the village but want to have a week of exercising at home first.

As I cycled I watched the changing colours of the sea which unfortunately I couldn't capture with my camera. The sea went from silver to grey and then duck-egg blue to deepest green/ turquoise and every shade in between. I was thinking about the brief sighting we had of a dolphin out by the reef last night when lo and behold there it was again slowly surfacing by the reef. I jumped off the bike, grabbed my binoculars and watched the dolphin make its way up to the cliff and then along down the coast. Plenty of clear sightings accompanied by loud splashes as it surfaced for air.

With the morning being quite wet Peter put up the extra coat hooks in the utility room. I was wondering why we hadn't put in the white buttons over the screw heads when we put up the first set of hooks and then I remembered that it was one of the builders who put them up. The builder who made such a mess of the tiles. He obviously doesn't have an eye for details.

While Peter did that I moved the old metal gates up from the front garden. I've a plan to use them to support the sugar snap peas I'm going to plant. Then I tackled a job that's been bugging me for a while - checking the state of the loft. I had been avoiding going up there as I didn't want to find more condesation and soggy cardboard boxes. However when I climbed the ladder I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as everything seemed to have dried out. That meant I could flatten all the boxes I'd been saving in the bathroom and they can go out with the recycling. Our current builder came round in the afternoon and I was able to give him the measurements of the window we want to put in the bathroom. It will be at least 2 months before that arrives.

With things brightening up I was able to do more planting in the back garden. Peter caught me carrying a small but heavy concrete planter up from the front garden. I used that and a second that I'd brought up earlier, to plant two clematis for the trellis in the passageway by the garage. I thought that was all the clematis but I've found one more in another pot that needs a home. Maybe I'll try it in the front garden.

 

Mixed Weather.

The day began fairly bright and warm with almost no wind and a flat sea. Later in the afternoon the temperature dropped and we had a spell of heavy rain. A friend who was out walking further along the coast watched a thunderstorm out at sea. Now at the end of the afternoon the rain has cleared and it's warming up again.

Before the rain arrived I had a session pottering about in the back garden. Lots of little jobs like sorting through the last pots and weeding out the tiny seedlings popping up in the beds. The weed of the moment is oxalis which has tiny nodules on the roots. I'm sure if you leave them behind will grow a new plant so I have to try and get rid of the tiny brown pips as well. 

I'm very pleased with the lettuces, grown mainly for Peter's sandwiches. Top left half is the first sowing which is ready to use, top right the second sowing which seems to be lacking, bottom left are the thinnings from the first sowing and bottom right is the third sowing. Yesterday I sowed a row of a different mix of cut-and-come-again lettuce in a different bed.

I had just about finished my tidying up, watched by some starling seedlings who had been visiting the bird feeder in the neighbours' garden, and was ready to go down to the front garden when it began to rain. Forced back indoors I baked Peter a big apple and sultana cake which should last for a while and did a couple of sessions on the exercise bike. Bake Off - The Profesionals is back so I got to watch that. I'm not sure if that's a good thing for someone on a diet! I'm in agreement with Stacey Solomon (one of the presenters) who said she was going to taste everything, put on 5 stone and tell everyone she was pregnant again. 

Sunset last night with the sun going down behind Bardsey Island.

 

Windy.

Still bright today with a strong but chilly wind. Perfect drying weather so out went the washing which dried in time for an afternoon ironing session. Peter went rowing in the afternoon and I expect his kit which went in the machine when he came back, will be dry before evening.

I had a late start today as I didn't get to sleep until after 3.00. Luckily that doesn't happen so often these days.

It's the start of the half-term holiday and things are getting busy on the beach and the lifeguards are back for the summer.

With the weather being so good I headed out to the garden once the housework was done. There I carried on with sieving and washing of the pebbles and then carrying them up to the back garden. I've now covered the whole of the concrete base but it does need more so I shall keep on bringing them up from the front garden. I also did a bit more tidying in both gardens, putting stuff away makes such a difference.

 

Sunny.

Bright and sunny today though with the wind blowing from the north-east it felt considerably colder.

My day started nicely as I realised it was one of those days when I had woken up with no pain, anywhere. Such a lovely feeling. None of my various aches and pains are that significant but even minor pains when  constant can be wearing. 

But from there things went down hill moodwise. The Community Hub runs a community cafe on Fridays, tea, cake and a hot dish on a pay-what-you-can basis and they'd posted on FB that this week they were going to have a Jubilee celebration with donations going towards the dementia group. I thought it would be a chance to get involved with the local community and who can resist the lure of cake and trifle? At first Peter said it would be a good idea to go but he's never been one for trying new things or taking a chance and has got much more set in his ways as he's got older. He started coming up with objections based on the fact that he wasn't sure what the event involved and also he wanted to go shopping straight away rather than a bit later on. It really wasn't worth the effort to try and change his mind and I would have never have heard the end of it if things didn't turn out well so I stayed at home while Peter went off to shop. I'm quite happy to be at home but I felt sad that our life seems to be closing down. It's just so hard to get Peter to agree to go anywhere or try something new because it might not go well. 'So what' is my view, just try something else. Peter did bring me home a chocolate brownie, my current favourite from Lidl.

Instead I spent most of the day in the garden. I weeded and raked one of the plant beds in the back garden and planted dwarf French beans and another row of mixed lettuce. I felt bad throwing the last of the foxglove seedlings away but I don't have anywhere for them to go. There were some more aquilegia seedlings that I was able to plant around the bamboo. It's a shame I can't plant them at the zoo but according to my research they are toxic for rabbits and I can't take a chance that somebody might pick them to feed to the rabbits. Then it was down to the front garden pebbles, sieving and washing ie dunking them in water to get the soil off as we don't seem to be getting enough rain to clean them. I want to try a get the bulk of the pebbles up to the back garden before the boiler gets moved over and there's even less room for me to squeeze past.

I ended the afternoon by ironing the washing that had dried nicely on the line and there was still time to sit for a while on the terrace.

 

Stormy.

Very grey today with a strong southerly wind whipping up the waves. Fortunately the wind was blowing from the south so while cold for May, Brr! the wind had a warm feel to it. It rained once which was enough to send me racing to get my work clothes from the zoo in off the line. The sun began to break through in the evening and there was a pretty but brief sunset.

Speedy was very happy this morning. I'd woken at 6.00 and as it was looking grim outside I went and let him in and naturally gave him his breakfast of dry food. I went back to bed and dozed off until Peter got up at 8.00 to make that reviving first mug of tea. Whereupon Speedy manage to convince Peter to give him a second breakfast and ate most of it. He wasn't so thrilled to have a reduced evening meal of tinned food.

All too soon it was time to prepare for our Welsh class. It was quite hard today as we tried to get our heads around using the past tense specifically 'did' which has different forms for I/you/he-she/ we/they/you pl and is also used with verbs to give the past tense. Think did for the ed we use in English. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.

After class I felt the need to be outside so on went my big yellow coat and off I went to move bricks, 76 of them from the front garden to behind the street wall. I carried the bricks down to the flat bed trolly at the gate and then pushed the trolley along the pavement up to the street wall and stacked the bricks ready for putting troughs on.  The bricks are made of concrete and considerably heavier than standard clay bricks so I only put ten of them on the trolley at a time. No point in either damaging myself or the trolley. I now have 7 neat stacks of bricks by the street wall and an empty space in the front garden and the satisfaction of another job done. The plumber came round later and hopefully will be coming soon to move the external boiler over by 2 inches so that the kitchen sink waste pipe can run behind it to a working drain. It will be nice not to have to keep throwing the washing up water over the terrace.

 

Cloudy.

Cloudy today with moments of sun.

Back to the zoo this morning for more weeding. Weeds are popping up everywhere and it was hard to know where to begin. I started by tackling the flower beds so that I could plant out the hardy geraniums I had brought from home.

That done I moved to the woodchip in the big play area. Normally I would work on my hands and knees pulling up every weed but time was running out and the weeds were rampant. Instead I went for speed over accuracy and hoed and raked over the wood chip to get the worst of the weeds out. Even so I didn't get it all done and the far corner will need to be done next week.

One of the other volunteers strimmed around the no-mow wildflower meadow and made a path through the middle as well. My home-made sign now sits among the wildflowers. (I counted eight different flowers already.) There was what would have been a wonderful photo-op when Mrs Pea stood in front of the sign with her head cocked as if she was reading it. She then went and had a lovely dust bath in the woodchip. Sadly my camera was still in the car.

Buttercups in the pygmy goats' meadow. I guess goats don't eat buttercups.

By the time I chatted to some of the other volunteers and then took a few photos I didn't leave the zoo until nearly 4.00.

Driving home I could see a crowd of coastguards up on the cliff taking part in a training exercise. I would have fitted right in with my yellow jacket though I think theirs are a lot cleaner than mine.

All I felt like doing then was sitting out on the terrace with a coffee and contemplating the sea.

 

Sunny.

Bright and sunny today. In the morning it looked as if we might have some showers but the day just got better and better. 

My first job of the day was to have another attempt at painting a sign for the wildflower meadow. It has better spacing and shows the difference between doing something in the evening in the morning. It would have been even better if I'd remembered to rub out the pencil lines before spraying with varnish. But not too bad for a bit of old wood, red oxide rust paint and an basic small paintbrush.

Painting done I went out for a day of pottering about in the back garden. Some weeding and repotting in the sun. I still haven't decided what to plant the clematis in under the end trellis by the garage. I had planned to use an old plastic trough but after I emptied it I found that it's in a worse state than I thought. A shame as it's just the right size to sit under the trellis.

Another of the hardy geraniums in the front garden has come into flower. That's five varieties flowering and five more to come if I haven't planted doubles.

In the back garden I moved all the pots and tubs from the second side of the concrete then swept and cleared off leaves and soil so that it's ready for more pebbles from the front garden.

 

Grey.

Still grey and just as I was washing up the breakfast things (Peter does the dinner washing up), it rained quite heavily. Fortunately by the time I'd done some Duo Lingo the rain stopped and I was able to spend the rest of the day outside. In fact by the afternoon it was warm enough to shed my coat while I worked in the garden.

My main outside job was to continue working on the gravel behind the street wall. Superficially it looks the same as it did yesterday but now the pebbles are sitting above the layer of fine gravel/cinder. The pebbles had worked their way down into the gravel but it was easy to use the metal colander to sieve through the mix and place the pebbles back on the surface. It also gave me the chance to remove the last weed seedlings and some fine clumps of roots. Once that was done I brought along some reclaimed bricks ready for the troughs when they are returned.

My second gardening session was less strenuous. I had a gentle time transferring pebbles from the front garden up to the back garden. I varied picking up leaves off the pebbles with sieving out pebbles that had worked down into the gravel (these are grubbly so I've left them for the rain to wash) and finally scooping up clean surface pebbles into buckets and taking them to the back garden.

The last thing I did this afternoon was to paint a sign for the 'no-mow' area at the zoo, a suggestion of mine that is going ahead. Now that I'm looking at it I'm not happy with the placement of the words. I carefully measured it out but failed to take into account the extra room needed for 'm' and 'w'. Either the first letters should line up or the words should be central. Oh dear, I think I'm going to have to do it again if I can find another piece of wood.

 

Grey.

Quite grey today with some light rain which caused me to run and bring in the washing which having been hung up early was already half dry. The rain proper set in towards the evening.

I woke early and had done my Welsh, cycled and hung up the washing before breakfast.

While the air plants were having their weekly swim I changed the plants above them around as the trailing plant was growing down over the wood.

My job for today was to tidy up the space between the house and the road and on the other side of the front door. The other day I lent some of the big troughs to the Community hub to put some plants in while they are having their asphalt replaced and that spurred me into doing something about the weeds growing in the pebbles and troughs. I worked my way along with three buckets, one for weeds, one for the bits of rubble left by various builders and a third for rubbish. I still need to remove the soil that fell out of the troughs which used to run the whole length of the street wall. (I'm reinstating the troughs but on pillars made from bricks or concrete blocks rather than on wood which will eventually rot.) That done I used the flat bed trolley to move some spare long decorative concrete blocks down to the front gate where I rebuilt the little wall the builder took down. (I did say he could.)

This morning I was shocked to hear (R4/ The Independant) that six NHS trusts now have food banks or food vouchers for their staff. A dreadful sign of the times when health workers can't afford to buy food. Let's hope they don't follow the advice of a government minister that people who are struggling financially should either work more hours or find a better paid job.

 

Dry.

Dry today with some sunny spells.

I have spent most of my day working in the front garden. 

First Peter gave me a hand to use more cable ties to secure the plastic wind mesh to the inside of the garden wall up near the terrace. It was difficult to work my way under and through the hedge and it made Peter chuckle to hear my squeeks (and worse) as I got caught on the branches. I didn't have to do that many cable ties but difficult as they were to reach it would be harder after I planted up the bed under the hedge. I used up the broken fancy concrete blocks (that came from where the wall was driven into) to create some support for the soil that had been inside the extra raised bed (that I dismantled) and then used up the last of the soil from the dumpy bag to form a sloping bed over the blocks. Then I planted up the slope with montbretia from under a hydrangea on the other side of the garden. That way there should be plants under the hedge all year round wth the bonus of orange flowers during the summer. The rest of my time was spent in general weeding and tidying up.

The new neighbours turned up again. This time both families, the parents we met before, their daughter, son-in-law and their three children. We didn't get a chance to chat as they were busy unloading stuff from a cattle truck and then doing stuff around the place.

 

There were a few brief sunny spells today but for the most part it has been grey with frequent short showers.

Once I escaped to the garden the showers were so minimal all I needed to do was to put on my workcoat while the rain was falling. Carrying half a bucket of soil at time I got the terrace raised bed filled in two sessions. Now I need to source some rocks before I begin planting. I've got enough soil left in the dumpy bag to top off the old bed by the road where I took down the leaning blocks.

For a rest after moving the soil I knelt on the grass and bashed and shook the soil off the last of the turf from the groundworks. That's another job done.

It was windy today and I can see that I need to rebuild the wall the builder took down to get the mini digger into the garden. It's a shame he took the blocks away though they may have been smashed to bits. I'll have to see if I've got anything around the place as I need the wall back to shelter the garden shrubs that are now getting blasted by the wind from the sea.

Nothing else of note today, just the usual things like housework and Welsh practice. Peter went out in the morning to buy more cement which he used to finish off around the new manhole cover. I haven't seen it yet as he's got boards over it to protect it from the rain.