Frosty.

Crisp and sunny today. Lots of blue skies in the afternoon with more clouds towards evening.

I always click the alarm on for Friday mornings to be sure of getting up in time and duly did so last night. However I failed to notice that the battery had gone flat so it was lucky that I woke at 7.40. That left me a bit pushed for time and I had to chose between sitting outside or doing Duo Lingo. Of course I chose to sit outside to watch the pink dawn light reflected on the distant mountains.

It was still frosty this morning which was fine for most of my drive to the stables along the main roads. Driving across the valley the tyre tracks of earlier vehicles stood out clearly on the frosty road and I could see that there had been a few wobbles and slides towards the hedges. I just reduced my speed even more especially on the narrow bridge over the river. At the stables the horses were warm and cosy with rugs on over their saddles as they waited for us to put their bridles on. This week I was riding Margaret which made a nice change. All the work was in trot again getting the horses to bend around our legs, then keeping them nice and straight before leg yielding. With seven of us riding it was harder to find space to ride circles though we had the options to ride 10m circles (half-way across the school) or to turn across the school  and walk 4 paces or halt on the centre line before continuing which helped us spread ourselves out. Towards the end we also had trotting poles to go over which really made Margaret bounce her way over them.

No need to stop at the builders' merchants today so I went straight on to Morrisons. It wasn't crowded in Morrisons but queues did build up at the only two out of eight checkouts that were open. They have a lot of self-service checkouts but I make a point of using the normal ones to encourage the store to keep them open. That said when I go to Lidl I nearly always use the self service checkout and try to use the one that doesn't have the annoying voice telling you what to do next.

In between supermarkets I went to B&M and Charlie's to get a couple of things. Naturally I had to browse the final Christmas reductions. 75% off in Charlies got me the three decorations for just over a pound. I thought the iridescent butterfly might be fun in the garden. The fluffy stocking was reduced from £5 to £1 in B&M so how could I resist?

By the time I had unpacked the shopping the setting sun was casting a warm glow over the village. Sometimes I wonder if it would have bee nicer to be down along the beach with year round sunsets and full daytime sun but then ........ there is the constant danger of flooding by high tides at the front and the river at the back which is why we ruled out most of the village. And if global warming continues and the sea level rises then that part of the village will be lost. Also they don't have the mountain views we get from here. So I'm happy being up on the cliff.