Rain.

It's the first of July and it's been cold and frequently wet here. In Mach it was at least warm and not quite so wet. The weather was so dismal that the osteospermum and mesembryanthemum on the terrace both refused to open their flowers.

We went to Mach this morning to meet our friends in the library to practise our Welsh. We have a lot of fun as we (or at least I) think up silly but grammatically correct answers to the homework we have been asked to do over the holiday. We were just about as noisy as the small toddler play session being held next to us. Afterwards, to celebrate the end of our third year of trying to get to grips with this complex language we went to have lunch in the old Parliament Building in what used to be Caffi Alys. (Can't remember what it is called now.) The new staff aren't Welsh speakers so we didn't get to practise our Welsh. That is a shame as I'm confident saying 'May I have ....... ? ' and of course 'he's paying'. The food there is the standard café fare, not the exciting food at the Royal House Café but not bad. Peter had a salad with breaded scampi and chips while I had leek and potato soup with a bread roll. I had my usual quick look around the charity shops but apart from a Spanish phrase book and a French dictionary for Peter didn't find anything to tempt me.

I felt quite tired when we got home, a combination of an unaccustomed lunch and spending several hours using my brain. After a break I then attempted to get on with my next small project. This is to hang 11 old carved and painted wooden swallows on our bedroom wall. Most of them have a nail sticking out of them but I need some way of attaching them to the wall. My first thoughts were to make a wire loop which to go round the nail and then hook over a nail in the wall but so far my attempts haven't worked. I'm almost thinking I can Blu' Tak them up as the wood is very light.

Then I had a go at making some raspberry macaroons using one of those box kits, something I haven't done since I was a teenager. I bought it because it was on special offer in Lidl, I like macaroons and it contains only natural flavourings and colours. Currently the macaroons are cooling as is the filling which looks and tastes just like the pink blancmange we had with school dinners. A good thing I like pink blancmange. Of course the macaroons look nothing like 'real' ones but having cracked rather than perfectly smooth shiny tops won't affect the way they taste. Making the macaroons fitted in well with Peter's plan to have scrambled eggs on toast for his supper as he was able to use up the two eggs yolks plus one whole egg (one in which the yolk broke before I was able to fish it out).