Caught.

Here is the culprit, a young seagull caught in the act. I did get it on the trail cam yesterday too but having carefully noted down the numbers of the relevant photos I got distracted by looking at photos of Speedy in the garage and deleted everything on the card before copying the ones I wanted to keep. (I need to find out how to change the time as for some reason it is 2 hours out.)

We have had a lot of cloud today making it feel a bit clammy though there have also been occasional brief sunny spells. I have spent some time outside, organising the new chairs (two are now in the garage) and cutting up an old wooden garden chair ready to take to the dump on Friday.  With not much else to do in the garden at the moment I went over the shingle picking up any stray leaves or stems. Each time I find any salsify seedlings out they come as I don't want a garden overrun with those fine but enormous plants. Most plants have survived the winter but so far there's nothing happening for the catananche. That would be a shame as it was a very pretty flower. I'm quite impressed with the brachycome a half-hardy perennial as only one of the six plants didn't make it at all and the others just have some damage on the windward side.

After outlining the letters and a third coat of varnish Speedy's stone is now in the garden.

For the rest of the day I've just been pottering around indoors so here are a few more photos from yesterday's walk.

A typical Welsh cottage (above) with some large red calor gas cylinders for cooking and/or heating outside and below a typical Welsh pony. It was very friendly while looking for a snack. (It may have smelt the oat cakes I had eaten for my lunch.)

And not so typical alpacas. There was also a brown and a black alpaca in the same field. I guess it makes it easier to identify them if they are all different colours.

And back to the typical - sheep on a hilltop.

As we walked along the road Bob was pointing out which of the ash trees had died and we wondered why some hadn't succumbed to the dreaded ash die-back that is decimating ash numbers. (Modern usage of decimate not the original 1 in 10 meaning.) The hope is that some trees are sufficiently diverse to have a type of immunity which can then be passed down to future populations. The broken branch ends of the lone ash tree below probably mean it is already dead. As one of the group said - a perfect lightning rod in its high and exposed situation.