A Day In The Sun.

Still in the mid twenties again today and feels like a summer holiday (abroad). The beach is full of families right now (6.00pm) enjoying the good weather because as we all know within days we could be back to weeks of miserable wet weather. 

While I haven't been to the beach I have managed to spend most of the day outside. I had woken early so was able to have a lengthy morning contemplate of the outside world. Even at 6.30 there were a couple of dog walkers on the beach and a keen swimmer in the sea.  

Once the morning jobs were done I walked down to the pharmacy only to be told that they didn't have either mine or Peter's prescription despite Peter telling me a message had come through last week. When he checked his phone we saw that the message was from last month! At least on the way back I dropped my entry form for the scarecrow competition in at the shop.

My next job, after hanging out the washing and some weeding in the back garden was to finish off Peter's Viking armour. That I did sitting out on the terrace. Getting those studs in with their 400 tiny prongs over has left the tips of my fingers a bit tender. As did carrying on with more sewing. I had finally got fed up with the way my riding hat always ends up tipping forward over my eyes. When I first rode ponies hats were held on with a piece of elastic. Later when I was riding seriously as an adult the straps were attached at the back as well as the sides. Now not only have riding hats become much bulkier, quite like old-style motorbike helmets but the straps are part of a leather panel that continues down the back of the neck. My head must have odd proportions as I was unable to tighten up the laces and buckles to hold the hat back firmly. This is in spite of the two very serious ladies who fitted my hat when I bought it. They did keep trying to ram smaller hats on my head which felt like a vice which would have given me a headache in minutes. When I first realised I had a problem I sewed the straps shorter but it obviously wasn't enough. I've now redone my alterations, sewing through up to six layers of leather and hopefully now I won't have to keep pushing my hat back so that I can see better. My last sewing job was to stitch together strips of the faux leather to make the criss-cross bindings to go around the legs of our Viking trousers. Now that the costumes are done there are only the shields for us and the boat to complete. Next creative project is the scarecrow - Gandalf and the BinBagRog (my version of the Balrog.).

Having had a lovely day out in the sun off I went to choir. It was all going well with about twenty of us singing African freedom songs when half-way through somebody got a message to say that a lady who used to sing with us had died yesterday. Things became very sombre and quiet after that and having decided to carry on we went on to sing gentler farewell songs. 

Phew, What a Scorcher!

The sun has been shining all day and although I didn't put out a thermometer Peter tells me it was in the mid 20s. Because our house faces north and has lots of insulation it was considerably cooler indoors which some people might prefer.

29/4/25.

I happened to be looking through my photos when I saw that it was exactly one year ago that the shingle garden was finished. I've had so much fun finding plants for the garden and it's amazing just how much most of them have grown. 

29/4/24.

As usual for a Tuesday military jets were flying high above us on their way to do the Mach loop leaving circular jet trails in the sky.

I cycled down to the zoo, did three hours of weeding in the sun (factor 50 sunscreen liberally applied before leaving home) and cycled back. In the interests of safety I wore my bright pink jacket so by the time I got home I was thoroughly hot and bothered. I still didn't manage to cycle the whole way home but got further up the hills than last time. By the time I got home all I was fit for was a long cool drink sitting out in the shade on the terrace. 

That was followed by a refreshing shower and more sitting out on the terrace this time putting studs into Peter's Viking armour. Each stud has four prongs that have to be individually bent over once I'd poked them through the fabric so it was a time consuming process. Not to mention the blood blister on one finger where my spring loaded pliers bit me and then blood and a big 'Ouch' when the prong of a stud stabbed me right under a nail. I got half of the 100 studs in today and should finish the rest tomorrow if the fine weather holds.

While I worked I could hear the happy squeals of families enjoying the beach. The waves were perfect for children coming in gently and curling over a knee height when they almost reached the shore.

My day finished with Pilates. So nice to be coming home in the light again.

A Warm Day.

The day began by being somewhat hazy but gradually blue skies appeared with interesting cloud formations. In Mach it felt like a summer's day while here on the coast it was a few degrees cooler but still very pleasant.

As mentioned we went to Mach this morning to meet up with our friends to work on our Welsh. We went through our homework then looked at our coursework for this week and probably the next as well. Afterwards I had my usual stroll around the charity shops, found nothing and bought some milk in the Co-Op. 

While Peter went off to play pool I had an afternoon working in the garden. My first job was to sort out the water butts for the front garden. When the builders did the rendering they had to move the water butt by the terrace which included disconnecting the hose at the outlet tap. Then they'd put the water butt too far back so I couldn't access the outlet tap to try and put the hose back on. Instead I had to empty out the water butt into the street after which I was able to take the water butt round to the back of the house and give the inside a thorough scrub. To make things easier I fitted a short length of hose pipe to the outlet tap and then joined that to the original hose which leads down to the front garden. ( Hot water was useful for softening up the plastic hose.) Once the water butt was back in place I fitted a tap to the much larger water butt in the front garden which fortunately is at a lower level than the first water butt. All I had to do then was find the hose from the higher water butt which originally I had run under the long hedge, cut it shorter and feed it into the top of the large water butt. Now it just needs to rain and then I can use that water for the pots down in the front garden.

I finished off by fishing out blanket weed from my tiny pond. A (baby's) bottle brush is the perfect tool for that. I came across a few of the water snails which I carefully returned to the water but I expect I'll have to keep on scooping out the blanket weeds until the snail population expands.

A lot of the latest flowers in the front garden are purple/blue including the dwarf camassia I bought at the plant fair last year.

A Walk In Coed Tamsin.

We had lovely spring weather, not too hot and not too cold for today's walk in Coed Tamsin, the woods belonging to Bob and Felicia. The short track down to the parking space in the woods is too rutted for my little car so I parked up in a clearing and walked down. Just before that I had come across a lamb running in the road trying its best to get back into the field from which it had escaped. I stopped and opened the metal gate, through which it was trying to jam its head but the gate opened the wrong way and the lamb shot past me and off down the lane before I could grab it. I had no choice but to leave it and I'm sure it would either find its way back into the field or be found by the farmer. 

For once we began the afternoon by eating our lunch in the clearing flanked by neat piles of wood, two pole lathes and Bob's workshops.

After lunch we went for a gentle stroll through the woods that at this time of year are carpeted with bluebells, and celandines, herb Robert, violets and the occasional kingcup.

There was quite a change to the woods since our last visit as so many trees had fallen in the storms. And they were not little trees either so that has meant a lot of hard work to clear them. Now the woods are a lot more open and new trees have been planted in some of the clearings.

Afterwards we returned to the cottage and its amazing woodland garden with stunning flowering shrubs. A small group of us ended up sitting next to the large pond, enjoying the sun and watching out for the newts hiding under the lily pads. Then back to the cottage garden lawn for tea and biscuits. 

An Eventful Morning.

It was wet and kind of hazy again this morning but did its best to warm up through the day. That was enough incentive for me to get another lot of washing out on the line though I'm giving it as long as possible (now that it's getting warmer) before bringing it in for ironing.

I woke early, fell asleep and then had such an unpleasant stress dream that I had to wake myself up to get out of the dream. I was pottering around in the kitchen while Peter made the tea when he pointed out that there was spilt milk in the fridge. Yesterday I had to buy a 4L bottle of milk as there weren't any 2L bottles and although I'd screwed the top back on tightly before putting the bottle on its side on a shelf it had still leaked. Thank goodness for kitchen roll! At least it wasn't too bad and hadn't gone down into the freezer or worse still right under the fridge. I was busy cleaning up and taking out the organiser trays (yes, our fridge is organised) when Peter noticed that the porridge which I had forgotten about was burning. Yikes! A quick transfer of porridge into another saucepan and a dishwasher tablet for the burnt saucepan sorted that out for the time being.

 

Having got things under control I went to drink my tea out on the terrace when I saw what at first I thought was a fat, fluffy cat on the cliff grass by our garden gate. It then went down a slope so all I could see was its back (I had the camera by this time) and my next thought was that it was a giant otter or maybe a racoon-dog from the zoo. But of course as soon as I got a better view it was clear that it was a beaver. On a cliff ? Peter stayed watching as it disappeared in the long grass further up while I quickly wrote on some large boxes asking people to keep their dogs on short leads as the cliff is a popular route for dog walkers. I left the boxes at key points on the cliff as I was concerned about beaver and/or dogs ending up over the cliff. My next move was to leave a message with the Osprey Centre as they have a beaver enclosure and also with the RSPCA. And of course put photos on the village FB pages. I've had over 100 reactions to my post and some comments including one from somebody who is part of the Welsh Beaver Project. She came up and had a good look around but there was no further sighting of the beaver. Apparently there are beavers on the Leri (our nearest river) and this may well be a youngster that is looking for new territory. Not that it will find anything along the cliff as the streams which run down to the sea are all tiny. It may well retrace its steps back to the Leri and they can swim in the sea though they don't like to. I wondered how you would lure a beaver into a trap and I now know they like carrots and apples. I'm going to put out some carrots and set up my trail cam tonight to see if it is still around. I had a call back from the Osprey Centre in the afternoon. They only have one beaver now and it has black fur.

There had been lots of meat half-price in Morrisons yesterday, still expensive in my view but I did buy some diced beef. This I have used to make a stew/casserole? in the slow cooker. No recipe, just carrots, parsnips and onions along with some herby tomato base and spices. 

Once the stew was on the go I planted out the plants I bought yesterday before going down for a walk on the beach.

On the beach I walked along under the cliffs so that I could keep an eye out for the beaver even though Kim, the lady from the beaver project had already walked that way checking for beaver tracks.

No signs of the beaver, just a few birds and some interesting rocks.

The photos from our recent rides came through yesterday evening. That's me with the short sleeves on Cody. I think my grin is a bit too manic and I need to work on my shoulders but you can see the marvellous scenery and we were all enjoying ourselves. There are also some short videos including the scary steep track but I need to work out how to copy them from a FB message.

Oops.

The day began grey and hazy then as we sat eating our breakfast it began to get sunny with a good drying wind. But by the time I got home from town (photo below) we were back to a damp haze.

I was wishing that I should have put some washing in the machine when Peter offered to deal with the washing (or words to that effect.) Before I set off for town I made sure that he knew about running a rinse cycle after the wash was supposedly finished and off I went. Since I wasn't riding and yes I was a bit creaky this morning but not too bad, I reversed the order of my shopping route going straight to Lidl, then over to park by Matalan so that I could visit a few shops. That included leaving another bag at a charity shop, I do like getting rid of stuff. Then down to Morrison's followed by Charlie's where I checked out their plants, bought a picture frame and a tap for the water butt I plan to set up in the front garden. I saved the best till last which was a visit to Newman's garden centre to check out their new stock. I found one plant for by the pond and some rockery plants to fill in the gaps left by the phlox none of which survived the winter. 

Arriving home I spotted Peter by the washing line, "Oh good" I thought, " He's fetching in the washing now that it's getting damp. But no, he was just hanging out the washing !! I'm not sure how he thought it was going to dry in those conditions but apparently I hadn't actually asked him to hang up the washing which was why he went out leaving it in the machine. Mmm. I have to say I was extremely grumpy at having to fetch it all in, hang most of it up in the utility room and then stand there ironing the bedsheet for double the usual time with an aching back instead of having a coffee and a rest before ironing. Now I know that I could have simply got out another sheet from the cupboard but to break my rigid routine of washing and ironing straight away would have me feeling quite uncomfortable. Worse than my aching back and I was just so cross since it was unnecessary. Rant over, the job's done, I had my coffee and painkillers and I can look forward to putting in the new plants tomorrow.

Bird Tales - I went in the kitchen a little while ago and was concerned when I saw a male blackbird sitting on the terrace. Something wasn't right with it as it was almost laying right down and looking a bit bedraggled. We kept our movements to a minimum so as not to disturb it and after a while it sat up properly and then stood up. It's gone now so presumably has recovered from whatever had happened. An attack by a rook or a seagull perhaps?

While in town I heard the familiar insistent piping of a young seagull begging for food. I looked around and sure enough there on the pavement was an adult bird with a sizeable chip in its beak. The begging noises were coming from a large fledgling hopping round and round the adult. The next sound was an indignant squawk and when I looked again the fledgling was in possession of the chip. Persistence pays. 

A Long Ride.

Although quite hazy to start with today turned out to have the best weather of the week so far. Perfect weather for going out riding in the afternoon.

In the morning I made a pair of vambraces for Peter. That's the costumes almost done. And then in the afternoon off I went to the stables for a four hour ride up in the hills. There were just four of us, all from the Friday lesson plus Iola, the owner. In the morning I'd had a message to phone the stables which had me worried but it was to sort out which horse I'd be riding. The original plan was for me to ride Meg but the lameness she had last week has turned out to be an abscess in her foot so she can't be ridden at the moment. Since Hazel spooks at things in the school she needs to be ridden out by the staff until she settles down.  So then I was asked my weight, thank goodness I've lost my winter weight, to see which of the other horses I could ride. There were two options but as I hadn't ridden one of them at all I was given Cody who I've ridden once. He's the well mannered horse that is used for advanced dressage lessons and I felt perfectly safe riding him. Which was especially good when we rode down a extra steep track with a big drop to one side. The stony track was about 18" wide and running with water, not something I would have been happy about riding down alone on a horse that hadn't been that way before. We began the ride by crossing the wide shallow Rheidol river then gradually made our way up to the top of the ridge overlooking the A 44, the main road that leads eastward out of Aberystwyth. We rode along the top of the ridge before making our way down the far side back into Cwm Rheidol. It was interesting to spot a number of places that I had also walked along with the Sunday walking group. As Iola seems to know everyone in the valley we had a number of stops (in Wales there's no such thing as a quick chat). Imagine my surprise when I recognised a chap on a ladder as James, the builder who is coming to do our porch. We had our own conversation and he confirmed that he will be coming round next weekend with the paperwork for the porch. I don't carry my camera with me when I'm riding but hopefully I'll soon be able to share some photos and videos which Iola took while we were out.

(Our internet connection keeps dropping out so I'm not sure when I will be able to publish this post.)

Yesterday's sunset.

Cloudy.

Cloudy again today. It was quite warm in the morning but then became chilly later on.

The sun put me in such a positive mood this morning as I sat on the wall basking in its warmth. I surveyed the new flowers and general growth in the garden with the beach, sea and two mountain ranges in the distance.  

While Peter was out rowing in the afternoon I made my vambraces (arm protector thingy). I'm glad I didn't find a leather coat to cut up as leather would have been much more difficult to cut and sew.

As I hung some washing out on the line I noticed many clematis shoots waving in the air so next I went round tying them all down.

I should be going to choir tonight but as the afternoon went on I began to feel cold and tired and had no enthusiasm for going out this evening. Instead I shall have a quiet evening at home.

A last set of photos from Sunday-

This red kite was not having a good afternoon. We had just watched it being harassed and finally chased off by two small, sparrow-sized, birds. And as soon as it left their territory along came a rook who carried on with the fight, diving and generally attacking the red kite until it flew right away.

Dry.

A mix of cloud and sun today. The clouds had parted just as I went to sit outside with my tea leaving me with a lovely warm sunny spell.

I decided to ignore the 40% possibility of a shower and not only hung my washing out on the line but cycled down to the zoo as well. Luck was on my side and so far we haven't had any rain at all.

At the zoo I dug up at least half a bucket of thick bindweed roots before they have a chance to start sprouting through the woodchip covered carpet in the safety zone by the guinea fowl pens. I had planned to brighten up the empty adjacent pens by planting the sweet peas that I've been growing at home. But yesterday I checked to see if they are safe for the zoo animals (in case a visitor decides to feed the animals with something they've picked) and guess what? Sweet peas are toxic to goats, as are the wallflowers which I had also planned to plant at the zoo. So I guess the visitors will have to look at vacant enclosures filled with stinging nettles. I then went on to my usual job of weeding one of the gravel patches. 

There were some new arrivals at the zoo, two young kunekune pigs. Very cute and small at the moment but they can reach 60-200kg when fully grown. However they are know for their friendly nature while the three mangalica (long-haired) pigs were enormous and difficult to handle. Those have now been rehomed. (Not eaten.)

 

I managed to cycle most of the way home but as my back was twinging I pushed the bike up the two steep sections near home. At home I planted the sweet peas in the back garden and gave one pot to my neighbour along with some blue grass that I have grown from seed. In return she gave me an old black umbrella as I've been asking around for one that I can use for the scarecrow competition.

The female blackbird has taken to sitting in her nest though not all the time and so far I haven't seen any eggs.

Now for some sheep photos from Sunday's walk.

Badger-faced sheep, above is the Torddu variety (black bellied) while below is the Torwin (white bellied).

And these polka-dotted lovelies are Kerry sheep. That's Kerry in Wales not Kerry in Ireland. I find all these sheep breeds quite fascinating.

Another adult Kerry sheep.