Cold.

Crisp and cold today.

It was a lovely clear morning with the only clouds nestled between the first two sets of hills. The high clouds rolled in later in the morning blocking out the brightness of the sun but there was enough wind to make it worth hanging out some washing on the line to get part dry before I hung it up in the utility room.

Peter went off to spend the day with a friend something I don't begrudge at all (not my story to tell) but it made me sad to think that there are so many other things he agreed we'd do which simply haven't happened. From my birthday day in Snowdonia to a quick drive up into the nearest hills to collect rocks for the garden. It's so stressful trying to arrange for these 'outings' to happen I give up in the end. 

I'd noticed, on my daily wipe of the condensation that forms at the bottom of all of the windows that the window sill by the table needed a good sort out so that became the first job of the day. I had a look at some videos and found out that the succulents I kept there were stretching due to insufficient sun. I thought that was the sunniest window but it is north facing so once I've cut back and repotted the leggy succulents they need to go somewhere else. That will probably be my study which has a south and a west facing window. That's a shame as I picked blue-green succulents to match the kitchen colour scheme while my study has more vibrant blue and yellow accents. I just happened to glance out at the fairly flat sea when I spotted dolphins. Not one or two but a pod of five that were fishing some distance from the cliff. Looking through binoculars I could see several leaping almost completely out of the water. I watched until they swam out of sight and that made my day.

Indoor jobs done I decided to get the outdoor driftwood tree up. After all it's almost December and there are trees and lights beginning to appear all through the village. Using an old concrete planter as the base it didn't take too long to assemble the tree and hang the shells. Two lines should keep it upright. Hopefully it will make people smile.

It was too cold to stay out longer so I was a good student and typed up and sent in my Welsh homework. It was choir tonight and we got through five of the twelve Christmas carols we will be singing in public. It was hard to learn the tenor parts while singing extra verses that I wasn't so sure of and then singing Welsh verses too. We're singing with another choir for two evenings by Tesco's to collect for charity and then three more performances in old folks' homes. Better keep practising.

 

Dry.

It was nice and bright this morning so I decided to go to the zoo today. It got cloudier during the day but remained dry which was good enough.

I didn't feel like riding my bike today so drove down but I shall walk down to the hall for Pilates tonight. At the zoo it was really quiet which made for a very peaceful weeding session. I finished off the large woodchip area or at least I thought I had until I spotted the wooden board that originally edged the back of the woodchip. It's a couple of feet from the current boundary and while I could just leave it I think it will look a lot neater if I clear the woodchip right up to the board. I did a little already but there'll be one more week on the woodchip before I move to one of the gravel areas. The zoo is gearing up for Christmas with the wall of 'Santa's grotto' being painted with polar bears and other Arctic animals. No doubt there will be more children coming down to the play areas  soon.

After a day of weeding there wasn't much time between arriving home and getting ready to go out to Pilates. I gave the metal shelf brackets another coat of white Hammerite before doing some Duo Lingo. 

Later - while I still miss the fast paced aerobic workout my old Pilates class gave me now that I'm more familiar with the exercises I feel that this class is also doing me good. Apart from some of the work on our sides which is just too painful for my hips and I have to be careful of my lower back.

 

Showers.

Such a lot of blue sky this morning. That didn't last and from then on it was a day of heavy showers.

This morning we went to Mach to meet our friends for a Welsh language session in the library. For our visits to Mach we've been parking in the bowling club car park which charges £1 for all day parking. However last time the lady in the club pointed out to Peter that if we joined the bowling club the £15  fee would give us free parking for a whole year so that is what we've done.  In the library we did our homework together so either we will all have got it right or else made the same mistakes. Then we had fun translating the  next short story in the book for learners. This was about a chap on a train listening to two young ladies discussing one of their partners and then making comments on the narrator having assumed he didn't speak Welsh. We got a lot of laughs out of that one. Sometimes we couldn't work out the meaning of particular words that we couldn't find in our basic dictionaries and with the WiFi turned off for electrical work we couldn't use a translate app. Instead we had to ask the kind Welsh speaking librarian and most of the time found we had guessed correctly.

Afterwards we walked down to the Welsh bookshop to buy some small posters showing all the mutations but it's closed on Mondays. One of our group lives not far from Mach and she'll pick them up before we meet again. I called in at the hardware shop and bought some metal corner brackets to use for the shelves and more double picture hooks in case I find suitable spots to hang more pictures. One more shopping bonus was finding vanilla extract in the Co-Op and buying three bottles. On my last few trips to town the vanilla extract has been missing from the shelves.

Back home I painted the metal brackets with white Hammerite and painted the piece of wood going under the mirror with the wall colour. That was about it for the day.

More showers and a rainbow in the afternoon.

 

Craft fair.

Grey again today but no rain and not too cold.

Good news, I found the gift I spent so much time looking for. I'd realised that while I was searching I hadn't come across any of the decorations for the small indoor driftwood tree either. That gave me something bigger to look for and when I located the box in the high cupboard above the coat cupboard there too was the gift. 

This morning I walked down to the craft fair which this year was being held in the Community Hall. The much larger space made it possible for more local artists to show their work. I had a wonderful time looking around but only bought a small straw decoration. There were plenty of things that I liked but I simply have nowhere to display anything at the moment. As it is I still have a lot of beautiful glassware and ceramics packed away that I would love to display. I was looking for presents but it is so hard to know what other people would like. It would be such a shame to buy something that I think is special only for it to be hidden away in the back of a cupboard so in the end I didn't buy any presents. Maybe when the possible recpients come to visit we can look through the photos so that I can get a feel of what they like.

I do like this artist's work especially the matt porcelain she uses. I bought one of the little white and green hens last year but the shelf it's on is already crowded.

I bought my straw star from this young couple who had made a varied selection of basketwork items.

Some really interesting ceramics. What caught my eye were the organic and fantasy inspired flowers. Maybe next year if we have more shelf space.

This lady's work makes me want to get out my felting wools and make something, possibly a moon hare.

There were a couple of stalls showcasing turned wood items.

More basketry, on a bigger scale this time.

While I prefer original artwork I was tempted by the prints, my favourites being the sheep and the chicken. The artist uses a mix of watercolours, inks and pastels to great effect.

Not the best of photos I'm afraid but this guy makes amazing pendants, earrings and rings from old spoons and forks.

There were loads of other stalls selling; jewellery, pictures and prints, printed shopping bags, beeswax soaps and candles, wall hangings, Christmas decorations and stall after stall of beautiful cards. I met and had conversations with a couple of people I knew and chatted to the stallholders when I asked them if it was okay to take photographs.

The straw star reminded me of traditional Lithuanian Christmas decorations. You need nimble fingers and good eyesight to make them.

I walked back along the beach (no group walk today due to people being busy) enjoying the wild waves. Back home I quickly painted a final coat on the shelf and then went out to work in the front garden. I got more soil weeded and shifted into the dumpy bag and finished off by digging up the stump of a bush that was sticking out by the paving. I don't know how many times it has nearly tripped me up so I was glad to see it gone.

 

Grey.

It's been grey all day. The first of the photos below was taken in the morning and the second late in the afternoon. Not a lot of difference except that the morning's light to moderate rain eased off in the afternoon.

I haven't done very much day apart from some Christmas planning. Considering that we aren't actually doing anything for Christmas I still need to plan the 'made with love' gifts that I send to the family and when to post off parcels and cards. The local Post Office is only open on certain days plus there are one day postal strikes to consider and I don't want to be driving in to Aber to use the Post Office counter in W H Smith's all in a rush. Somehow I always think that I have plenty of time to get organised but then December begins and the time simply flies by. I've made myself a chart for the three and a half weeks up to Christmas with everything (hopefully) marked which should make things less stressful. However the stress has already begun to creep in. You know the feeling of excitement when you find a gift that's just right for somebody? And then you put that gift away until much later ........... and then fail to find where that safe place was? That's what happened to me. I was sure it was in the big cupboard in the kitchen, I know it was there was for a long time but then I put it somewhere else. First I checked out the big cupboard and a few other places and later I took just about everything out of the big cupboard but no luck. I've looked in all the other possible places but nope nothing yet. There's still a week to look but I'm going to consider it as a present for next year and stop fussing.

In between all that looking I went out to the garage and painted the shelf and a piece of wood to support the big mirror which needs to be put on the wall.

Somebody posted this photo of Borth on the local FB page. Researching on-line puts this in the early 19thC. Contrast it with the photo below that I took in October around 100 years later.

Another one from the early 19thC.

This one was taken in 1958 showing our house on the far left. While I appreciate being able to live here I'm also glad that from 1965 the National Trust began preserving the coast giving us nearly 600 miles of beautiful unspoilt coast path for everyone to enjoy.

And finally I just love this photo of Borth sailors taken in 1885.

Sunny.

It made a lovely change to see bright blue skies this morning. I spent the middle of the day in town and although I saw a lot of wet pavements I didn't get rained on once. A good thing too as I hadn't bothered with a jacket.

I went into Aber for my long awaited eye check. I'm never bothered about my vision, and while I need glasses for old-age short sight I just buy the cheapest over the counter glasses. £1 or £2 a pair so I can keep glasses in all the places I might need them. The optician today said my sight was still very good and that the laser surgery which I had so many years ago was done very well. What I was more concerned about was my general eye health as one eye is still a bit sore and puffy following a tooth infection 18 months ago. It turns out that my eye health is also fine, just more blood vessels showing due to pain meds. The issues with my left eye are due to inflammation from the tooth problem and will go eventually. In the meantime the optician suggested keeping a warm flannel on my eye for 10 minutes twice a day for two weeks to help reduce the inflammation. I'm just glad that there is nothing going wrong with my eyes.

I had a wander around the shops and brought myself another top for pilates in my usual black. I've gone down a size because most of my clothes are too loose. A bonus after a year of dieting. I went into Lidl to stock up on ingredients for my Christmas gifts as I try not to go into town too often. Butter is now £2 a block which i find shocking. It wasn't so long ago own brand butter was around £1 but I only use butter for my baking. Let's face it, you don't see luxury biscuits advertising 'made with oils and random chemicals' on the packaging, it's all about the butter. While I was in Lidl I had to return a kettle I'd bought last week. It's a lovely duck egg blue kettle which went well with the kitchen but the handle was over the top rather than at the side. This put more strain on my wrist when it came to pouring and would have been no good for Peter either so back it went. As I walked to the car with the shopping I looked up to see a rainbow but by the time I'd returned the trolley the rainbow had gone.

Back home there were a lot more clouds and plenty of puddles on the ground. A lone kite surfer was out on the water and the last remnants of the sun were glinting on the wet sand. 

 

Gales.

It's been stormy including hail, cloudbursts and lightning all day with a brief bright spell late in the afternoon. Tonight there's a high tide flood warning for the whole length of the village from the lifeboat station and right out to the estuary. Somebody has just reported that the sea has got over the sea wall down at the far end of the village. Right now the rain is thundering on the roof. I hope it eases off before Peter walks home from the rowing club's curry night. At this morning's high tide I could see that some of the waves had gone right up over the shingle and were lapping at the garden walls of the houses.

We enjoy being able to have a relaxed breakfast while watching the world outside. Today the only people to be seen were a few hardy dog walkers and a crazy surfer. (He can be seen right in the middle of the photo above.) Eventually the surfer gave up and we saw him rushing home trying to shield his face from the stinging hail and rain.

Most of my morning was spent preparing for the Welsh class including trying to make out a conversation from the on-line resources. Halfway through the lesson our doorbell rang so I had to leap up, open the window and call to the delivery person to hand me the parcel through the window. After class I cleaned the dehumidifier filter with the hoover but it has made no difference. The light went on but nothing happened. It might be time to buy a new dehumidifier. 

Then it was time for the disco aerobics. This time I had my feet going in the same direction as everyone else's and quite often the arms too so that's a vast improvement. The constant bouncing on the knees is a bit tough for my arthritis and I eased off towards the end but I certainly felt as though I'd had a good workout.

Something unusual on my way home. Because I prefer not to reverse up the steep slope past our house to get to where I can reverse into the drive I always drive right round the block and reverse into the drive that way. But tonight I couldn't drive down our road due to a car parked almost in the middle of the road. Our road is only just wide enough for two cars to pass and I couldn't drive onto the pavement as we have extra high curbs. I bipped my horn, only once, to see if somebody would come out but no response. I sat for a while and as I looked back before reversing back the way I'd come there was a police car parked across the top of the road. I quickly jumped out and spoke to the police officer about the car blocking the road. She informed me that it was an unmarked police car there to block in the recovery truck parked on the drive of one of the houses. I had no choice but to reverse back out of the road, drive all the way round and then reverse up from the bottom of our road. Sometime later a large transporter came and took not the recovery truck but the small van that was on the truck. I wonder what that was about? I'm sure I'll hear eventually.

 

Storms.

We've had all sorts of dramatic weather today. Some sunny spells, lots of intense downpours and thunderstorms across the day and recently a tremendous amount of large hailstones. The thunderstorms in the afternoon caused brief powercuts but the latest one has blacked out parts of the village and a lot of the surrounding area. Thankfully we haven't lost power  on this wild and cold night.  

I've only seen one rainbow today. I was excitedly photographing this small segment then turned around to see a much bigger section of the other end behind me.

Definitely a day for indoor jobs so I began with checking out the sink waste pipe. It's not blocked but every now and again makes gurgling sounds. Peter, having once been a plumber said we should check the trap under the kitchen sink. By 'we' he means me as the arthritis in his knees and hands stops him from kneeling or undoing the joints in the pipe work. Out comes everything from the cupboard so I could see what I was dealing with and it didn't look good. To start with the shelf in the cupboard can't be removed due to the bar at the front and the clips at the side holding it securely in place. I was just about able to slide a tray under the trap to catch any spills but there wasn't enough room to undo the trap and remove it. It looked as if the only solution would be to somehow cut a hole in the shelf. That I wasn't prepared to do today but before I began putting everything back I thought of a solution which actually worked. I undid the ring at the top of the trap then loosened the ring at the side so that I could turn the whole trap on its side tipping out the water in it. I was able to clean out the trap with an old brush but ........ there was nothing in it but water. So the whole effort was for nothing. Any problem must be in the long waste pipe that runs along the outside of the house and can easily be accesed by screw on end caps. 

Taking everything out of the cupboard did give me a chance to have a tidy up including using some of that new gel tape to stick a basket to the door for the dustpan and brush. 

Finally I was able to get on with baking another batch of Christmas biscuits. Even after resting in the fridge the lighter mix was sticky and hard to handle. I think the chocolate added to the dark mix helped firm it up so I have written a note in the recipe book to add white chocolate to the lighter mix.

With the power flicking on and off in the afternoon the electric clocks either went off or had the wrong time which might explain why I got my time all mixed up when it came to going out to choir. I left an hour early and didn't discover my mistake until I got to Tal-y-Bont. There wasn't much point in driving home along dark lanes only to go out again 20 minutes later so I sat in the car for 45 minutes. Silly me. Choir was fun as usual. We spent a lot of time learning Calon Lan in parts. It's a traditional Welsh hymn that all the old folk in the residential home will know. We start the Christmas carols next week.

 

Sunny.

Cold but sunny this morning. More cloud arrived in the afternoon but on the whole a very nice day.

I cycled down to the zoo straight after breakfast. Every bit of exercise however short must do me some good.

This is my third week of weeding the large woodchip area. I had hoped to finish today but after three and a half hours a cloudbank  made the temperature drop noticably and I decided my back had had enough. Especially as I've still got pilates tonight. I'll definitely be finished next week as there's just the section by the stairs to do and some tidying up of the edges. It was very quiet today, no visitors and the school children (teenagers) who were there to do some practical work as part their curriculum were leaving as I arrived.

By the time I got home Peter had gone out for his Mens' Shed meeting. Before changing out of my workclothes I went and painted the shelf wood in the garage after which I flopped down for a sandwich and a break. The antibiotics I collected yesterday are from a different manufacturer and it was interesting to compare the informaton leaflets. While they were similar there were a couple of differences. The antibiotic is very reactive (can cause ulcers in the mouth or stomach and can affect the digestive system in other ways too). Both leaflets say that you must take each tablet with at least half a glass of water/fluid but the first leaflet says that you can take it with or immediately after a meal while the second says that you should take it with or immediately after. That's not the same thing at all.

The last job of the day was to wipe down the bedroom windowsills with a mould killer as the damp from the shower is encouraging mildew. The dehumidifier has stopped working in that the light comes on but the nothing else happens. Fortunately I do keep the handbooks for our various gadgets. Looking at the trouble shooting section the first three possible faults can only be fixed by repair or replace. Then it mentioned cleaning the filter. It does say that the filter should be cleaned every two weeks, oops haven't been doing that and for quite a while the dehumdifier was running up in the loft plus having bare floorboards in our bedroom makes the room quite dusty. I'll tackle the filter tomorrow and hope to get the dehumidifier up and running again.

I drove down to the community hall for pilates even though it's only a short walk away as it had started raining as well as being cold and dark. The class was enjoyable and I'm learning which exercises to avoid or adapt so that I don't hurt my lower back which is my main problem area.

Wet.

Overcast and very wet today with just the occasional break in the rain.

In my attempts to prepare for Christmas and because it was too wet to do much else today I baked the first of my Christmas biscuits, some Leibkuchen hearts. I've put them in the freezer and will half dip them in white chocolate later. I've only made the smaller hearts but despite following the recipe to the letter they are a bit hard. However I'm sure I read that frozen biscuits become a bit softer. If not that might be a last minute re-do. I'm going to try reducing the oven temperature 10 degrees for the next batch of biscuits.

Although it was too wet to do anything outside I was able to find an old paintbrush and give the shelf a coat of primer. That brush is now sitting in a jar of white spirit as the wood primer is one of the few paints we have that is not water soluble. Nowadays even gloss paint is water soluble which is so much more convenient than trying to clean a brush with white spirit. In fact I generally don't bother cleaning the brush using up a whole bottle of white spirit but get the cheapest of brushes and just throw it away. 

Peter had to go out in the afternoon on rowing club business and offered to call in at the pharmacy for the rest of my antibiotics as they didn't have enough in stock when I collected the initial prescription. That saved me having to venture out when the weather was so unpredictable. But when he returned it was with some different tablets that had been left out of my regular prescription but no antibiotics. So I had to wrap up well and go stomping down in the dark and wind before the pharmacy shut at 6.00. It turns out they get three deliveries a day and my antibiotics came with the last delivery.

Wet.

There was a fair bit of blue in the sky first thing (I was up by 5.30) but then the clouds rolled in. Later the world turned grey and down came the rain. Along with a spectacular flash of lightening and an extended rumble of thunder directly overhead. Followed by yet more torrential rain. The lifeboat crew were out training during the thunderstorm and we could see the lifeboat boucing wildly over the waves.

Today's walk had been called off yesterday. I guess somebody had been looking at the weather forecast so there was no rush to sort out directions to a meeting point. 

Peter reasoned that the dreaful weather would put people off going to the dump so that's where he went with a big bag of garden waste and then onwards to the supermarket. In between he stopped and bought me a tin of knotting. We'll also need it when we build the bookshelves by the front door so it won't go to waste. It came with a built in brush and I've already dabbed over the many knots in the wood for the shelf above my PC.

While Peter was out I baked a bara brith, Peter's favourite cake. I must remember to change the amount of brown sugar in the recipe because I find it's too sweet which I forget until I have a first slice, with butter of course.

Apart from turning on the tap at the bottom of the water butt to empty out the water into the front garden instead of all the rainwater from the roof gutters at the front of the house going down the drainpipe to a soakaway at the base of the house wall, I stayed indoors. I wrote up my diary notes and began to collate them for this autumn's entry in my Hobbit Journal and did some admin and Duo Lingo.