Warm.

Strange weather today. For most of the day It was very warm with only a hint of wind and incredibly quiet. It was only just now (5.00 pm) when the sky turned black and down came the rain, heavy rain. Sounds like flooding rain. I'm only glad that I didn't bother to water the garden. 

To make you smile - here are my 'aubretia' seedlings. Because I've been carefully weeding the rest of the back garden I haven't been able to find any weeds that look similar. I'm wondering if they might be foxgloves but it's too soon to tell. I'll give them a bit longer just to see what they are.

I had another setback this morning. This was to do with my RSPB membership, not only had they sent me a book on garden wildlife instead of the book on birds I'd wanted but today's disappointment was finding out that our membership does not get us into the Osprey Project. It's so lovely there but I wouldn't want to be paying an extra £12 for the two of us to call in for a coffee. We'll have to check out the bird sanctuary down the road from there which I have been told is also very nice.

Cleaning the blocks and the subsequent lifting has left my back feeling tender so today I did some small jobs including cleaning and waxing these chairs. Unfortunately the back is a bit loose on one of them so I might see if the antique shop in Mach wants them and the small pine cabinet. Or maybe we can glue the chair.

Since the weather was due to change soon I did one load of washing and got it out on the line. That dried by the time I'd finished the chairs. I set up the ironing board but before I could get going I spotted a dolphin out in the bay. I took my camera and binoculars out onto the cliff, didn't get a photo but a good view with the binoculars. Saw the lifeboat returning from a shout. They'd been to tow a broken down yacht to the boatyard at Ynyslas.

I returned to the house about to do my ironing only to see that a seal was up close to the cliff waving a flipper at me (not really) as he ate a large tray sized skate. He was there for ages holding the fish in his flippers bobbing under the water every now and again until the fish was all gone.

After that pleasant interlude I went inside, ironed the duvet cover and fitted it back on. Went to put away the ironing board from the sitting room and lo and behold there were two dolphins cavorting about, maybe fishing, just off the end of the long reef.

Here's hoping that the weather doesn't get cold too soon. This place is well insulated but many people live in poorly insulated homes. How on earth will they be able to afford any heating? In April the average family energy bills for the year were £1,900, that rises to £3,500 this October and then £6,000 the following autumn. All while the energy suppliers such as Esso and BP are making triple (and more) profits compared to last year. And cutting back does nothing about the standing charge which you pay even if you use no electricity or gas at all. Luckily there's no standing charge for heating oil which we have and the price per litre dropped a bit when we got our tank filled up.