A Beach Walk.

The weather was quite grim in the morning, improved gradually over the day and there was even sun and warmth by the end of the afternoon.

I was up early and had to sit inside the door with my tea to avoid the frequent showers that I watched blowing in across the bay.

My plan for the day was to make some chocolate truffles for an upcoming birthday. For that I need to buy some cream at the shop which was the perfect excuse for a walk along the beach.

The tide was out far enough for me to walk under the cliffs and have a bit of fun rock pooling.

One large pool had an unusual number of periwinkles.

Further along on the wet sand were a lot of jellyfish.

There were the common moon jellyfish (about the size of a small orange) and the larger compass jellyfish, (the one below is upside down.)

And just a couple of blue jellyfish which though not as bad as a Portuguese man-of-war still sting.

Refreshed by my walk I made three kinds of truffle with almonds, crystallised ginger and salted caramel pieces. Usually I decorate each kind differently but this time they are all just dipped in chocolate. It will be like a lucky dip selection or Bertie Botts jelly beans ( Harry Potter) though of course there are no unpleasant ones. After dipping the truffles in melted chocolate there was enough chocolate left for me to experiment. I added a generous dollop of double cream and an even more generous splash or two of Baileys and then put the resultant ganache in chocolate moulds. - I've just tried one and although they haven't set hard enough to be called chocolates it still tasted very nice. I suppose I could put them in the freezer and buy more chocolate to coat them with or I could just eat them.

The beach walk wasn't my only foray out. First thing in the morning I had rung the surgery and been given an appointment for the afternoon. I just wanted some reassurance that the latest aches and pains along with more palpitations weren't something to worry about. I only got to see the nurse practitioner, she has a different title but I think that's what she is. I wasn't convinced by being told that the palpitations are probably due to me worrying but at least she took a blood sample to rule out heart failure and I will have a 24 hour ECG. That won't be for a couple of weeks as the surgery only has one monitor left and I have to wait my turn.

And of course being Wednesday I have spent the evening singing with the choir. More practising the songs for Sing For Water which we will be doing the weekend after next.