Stormy.

Really wild stormy weather this morning with the occasional rainbow. Peter has just been out (6pm) with his anemometer which read 40mph winds.

In the morning we drove to Mach to meet up with our friends to practice our Welsh. There it was sunny and relatively warm. Off came the bodywarmer I had on under my jacket and the fingerless gloves weren't needed either. Caffi Alys in the lovely 600 year old building was closed even though that wasn't supposed to happen for a few more weeks. Instead we tried a vegetarian cafe mainly because it had reasonably sized tables for all our books and most importantly, toilets. The toilets were clean and quite smart (these things are important) but the cafe began to get full around mid-day. Good for business but we felt we couldn't stay longer taking up a table for six. With many places shut on Mondays and more for the winter finding a suitable future venue was looking difficult. But our friends had the great idea of checking out the library which is also on the main road and yes we would be welcome there. The library is going to be a designated 'warm space' (how bad is it when the fifth richest country in the world has a significant proportion of the population that won't be able to afford heating this winter? ) so will be open for people to come in, relax and be warm. They are quite happy for us to come to practice our Welsh. They have Welsh books we can use and there will be plenty of Welsh speakers both staff and other library usesrs and yes they do have toilets. We can bring coffee in lidded cups too. Maybe we could call in at the bakery cafe (no toilets) for refreshments first, they did an excellent fried ham and egg sandwich and the carrot cake was delicious when we went there before. Today I had a slice of coffee cake which was dry with too sweet butter icing, a bit of a disappointment.

In the car park was a beech tree festooned with small plastic juice bottles. We thought it might be some kind of art project, Mach is that sort of place but looking closer at the photos I wonder if it is some kind of science project sampling insects/ pollution? We were too busy chatting to go and see if there was a sign on the other side of the tree.

Afterwards I popped into the hardware store to buy some tiny hinges for something Peter is working on and a toilet roll holder for the blue loo. I also got a couple of nice cards in the card shop and had a look around some of the charity shops.

There's always something new in the antique shop windows.

There were too many showers in the afternoon for me to work outside. Instead I cleaned the tops of the plastic storage tubs in one side of the wardrobe and was able to take out some clothes, some for the winter and some to give to the charity shop.