Ruta's Ramblings

Grey and windy again with the view looking much the same as yesterday.

Being Friday I was up at a reasonable time to drive down to the stables for my riding lesson. I got to ride Cadno again. (His ears are turned back not because he was in a bad mood but because he was looking at me.) There were only four of us in the lesson one of whom was one of the young instructors on a novice horse as somebody hadn't turned up. This time we were taught by the riding school owner but continued with the work we had done last week on getting the horse on the bit, lengthening the stride in trot and some work in canter which for most of us meant keeping the canter going and not falling back into trot when the horse felt like it. I felt I made progress and was able to stay sitting stuck to the saddle and to keep Cadno cantering on until I asked him to trot. I also had a lot more success in getting him to work with a more rounded neck which gives better and gentler communication between the horse and rider. 

After the lesson I headed into town calling first at the dump to get rid of more bags of garden waste and then on to the supermarket. There I bought four pots of bright pink thrift and then two more of the pale pink ones from Charlie's. Being a native cliff plant they are perfect here. The plan is to plant them along the path through the shingle when that gets done. In the meantime I've already planted them up into bigger pots for the winter. I also bought a caryopteris for the latest raised bed. I just can't resist any plant that has grey leaves and blue flowers. 

On the way home I called in at Huw's and ordered a dumpy bag of topsoil which is going to be delivered on Tuesday. This afternoon I threw some large white beach stones into the raised bed. Even when they've been smoothed down by the sea they don't form beautiful shapes so I didn't want to save them for the garden. Most of them had been used as fillers in the cross wall that I took down and are stained by the coals and ash that had also been hidden in the narrow raised bed.

The sedums in the planters are only just beginning to flower. I'm not sure if that's due to the odd weather we had this year or because I planted them quite late in the season.