Warm.

Another lovely warm day, we could do with a few more of these before autumn sets in.

We spent the morning in Mach library practising our Welsh with our friends. There was one moment of excitement when the power went out. Only the emergency lights stayed on and a not very helpful automated voice told us 'You have a power cut.' As our friendly librarian Kate asked us to vacate the building the fire alarm went off. But then Kate noticed that other buildings along the High Street had also lost their power. The power quickly came back on and we returned to our table to carry on preparing for Thursday's lesson. Afterwards I had my usual wander around the charity shops but didn't find anything either useful or beautiful.

 

On our way home we diverted off the main road to the tiny hamlet of Glaspwll. We parked by Penuel, a 'potting shed chapel' and walked up the lane to the Welsh Bee Breeding Station. I had been there last year with the walking group so of course wasn't exactly sure where it was, much to Peter's annoyance. I knew we were within a few minutes walk one way or another and sure enough when I asked some passing locals it turned out to be just behind me.

The reason for our visit was to buy some honey to give as Christmas presents. Having read the link I see that there is a spectacular waterfall at the head of the valley so perhaps we'll return another day for a proper walk.

There were five types of honey on offer of which I chose four. The 'magic honey' wasn't available but I prefer to buy the local honey anyway.

One side of the valley was looking quite devastated due to the ongoing logging.

Back home I sanded and painted the battens for the sitting room shelves before going out to do some gardening. First I picked almost 4 lbs of tomatoes. A few days to ripen off and they can go in the freezer. Once all the tomatoes are picked I'll have a day of making a tomato, onion and herb sauce to go in the freezer. I spent longer gardening than I intended but having started giving the escallonia hedge its end of year trim I could hardly leave it half done. That's all the hedge cutting done, all that remains is to take the  many bags down to the dump. If I wanted to make my own compost at home I'd need to use about a quarter of the garden just for compost heaps or bins. Especially as a lot of my garden waste is made up of woody hedge trimmings.