Windy.

It's been a wild and stormy day. Our friend, who lives along the coast beyond the first headland in the photos, was kept awake until 4.30 this morning by the wind, hail and snow battering at her windows.

This morning we went to Mach to meet up with our friends for our regular Welsh practice session. They've been rearranging the furniture in the library so we had to chose a new place to sit. There was one table by the computers but I didn't think the people working quietly would be too pleased by our rowdy attempts to master the Welsh language. Instead we took ourselves to the noisy end of the library near the children's section which just happened to be having a messy play session. There we could all be noisy together. One toddler was quite loud but I don't mind that if I'm not the one having to look after the child. We were near the end of the book (written for learners at our level) we were translating when Elaine realised she knew the bridge (where the villains were forging bank notes) and then got more excited when she recognised the lane the fictional detective was driving along. It was akin to watching a tv drama set in a location you know well which is always fun. Afterwards I had my usual walk along the main street popping into the charity shops, where I found a couple of Welsh language study books and a German dictionary/ grammar book for Peter. Unfortunately the lovely bakery is closed on Mondays but our next meet up will be on a Wednesday so I can get some treats then. Another of my stops was to the hardware store to get some things for Peter. It's the only place we know where you can buy small hardware items singly.

It was still very windy when we got home but of course I had a couple of hours working outside. First in the back garden tying up the clematis' new growth before it was damaged by the wind and then in the front garden going over the bed between the shingle and the pond. I spent a lot of time trying out ways to use the last of the bigger quarry stones to make some sort of edge but nothing looked right. 

In the end I used a few of the bigger rocks and some beach stones to break up the empty expanse of shingle for the time being. I often come across stones piled up in towers on my beach walks. I just used the stones that were lying around in the garden.

Having achieved my diet goal of dropping a stone from my post Christmas weight tonight I'm having some new potatoes with my supper. And when I say new that means they were in the garden less than an hour ago. They evaded last autumn's harvest and have appeared in what will be the tomato bed so they are being eaten now rather than left to grow.