Stormy.

The photo below was taken yesterday afternoon a short while before the stormy weather arrived. One minute all was calm if very cold and then the next storm force winds were blowing everything around. I thought I would have to drive to the hall for aerobics but the rain and wind eased off just as it was time to go and I walked down instead. It was bitterly cold and I was glad that I was wearing a woolly hat as well as Peter's thick jacket. It was quite cold in the hall so I kept my fleece and hat on to start with. My hat is one of those with a giant pom-pom on top so I think that's the reason Rachel (she runs the class) kept laughing. She's a real laugh anyway. All that leaping about soon had us warmed up and it wasn't long before I was back to my usual attire of vest top over leggings. The glue from the glue gun turned out not to be the best way of sticking the 'crystals' on my trainers and I had to rescue a few from the floor and stash them in my bra until I got home. I'll try the builders' superglue on those instead.

It was still cold and windy on our walk home but at least we missed the hail which we had heard rattling on the hall roof.

The winds continued blowing and the sea roared all through the night and into the morning. Fortunately there was no frost or ice in the morning. I see from the Met Office weather map that there are yellow warnings for rain for both tomorrow and Sunday plus a snow warning for Snowdonia tomorrow. Today there was just a light dusting of snow up on the hilltops. 

When I got to the stables the girls were all behind, a combination of the cold weather and the owner being away. Usually the horses are in the stables with their saddles on and we just put their bridles on but today we were asked if we wouldn't mind getting the saddles and putting those on as well. I think that we all enjoy messing about with the horses and having little conversations with them as we tack them up. I was riding Margaret who was wearing two blankets so I had more buckles to undo with my cold fingers. There were seven of us in the lesson but nobody was riding the new horses. I'm guessing the owner would rather be teaching us while the new horses settle in. We didn't do anything that exciting in the lesson and I messed up the first canter when all that happened was an extremely fast trot. The next time I was more organised and we had a sensible canter. I also got some very good trotting on the bit so I felt I was making progress.

Afterwards I did the food shopping but didn't go to any of the other shops. Arriving home I really wanted to flop down with a coffee after unpacking the shopping but instead went out and washed the dust from the rendering off the windows. They had hosed everything down but it still was mucky and needed a good wash. I also cleaned the recycling caddy and bin which had got into a terrible state when they hacked all the old render off the walls. Once all that was done I had a couple of hours of doing nothing much at all.