Sunny.

Another lovely sunny day, we may even be heading into another (mini) heatwave. Hooray.

I woke reasonably early and made a real effort to stay awake so that I could get up at a sensible time. Speedy was happy for an early breakfast. Straight away I got on with baking bara brith. I'd soaked the fruit overnight and mixed up a double amount so that I could batch bake and be economical with both my time and the oven. Result we now have one large ring bara brith and two standard loaves. I kept half of one loaf out for immediate consumption and the rest went in the freezer.

Our fortnightly Welsh practice had to be postponed but we decided to have a trip out anyway. First stop was to see the 18C furnace in the village of ..... Furnace. It sits on the main road to Mach so we've passed it a few times but never stopped to have a look around.

The first arch opens into the massive furnace where charcoal from the surrounding woods was placed. 

The second arch opens into the space where once there was a pair of enormous bellows powered by the waterwheel to blow air into the furnace and increase the temperature.

From there we climbed up some steps to the buildings on top of the furnace now occupied by horseshoe bats (we didn't see any).

Walking back along the small ravine we came to the waterfall created by the dam that was built across the river. It's only a tiny river but there was enough power in the water diverted through pipes to run the wheel and so the bellows.

It was a pleasant stop after which we carried on along the main road to the Dyfi Osprey Project where I took lots of photos and I'll post a selection tomorrow.

The sun was blazing down but there was a good cooling breeze making walking along the boardwalk a comfortable experience. After a lovely walk and visit to the hides and yes we saw an osprey circling overhead as well as on the giant screens we stopped for a coffee and cake (me) and tea and bacon sandwich (Peter). Peter had been going to have a ham and cheese sandwich but they had run out of ham and then out of tomatoes for his next choice of a BLT which is why he'd opted for his usual choice. There were a lot of people having something to eat which is why they running short of choices and it is all run by volunteers so we didn't mind.

When we got home I carried on baking and baked two lemon drizzle cakes which are now soaking up all the lemony drizzle. My freezer is filling up with all these goodies.