On Schedule.

Despite the pink morning sky we've had a dry and quite sunny day.

Because I dislike doing things at the last moment as that can easily become too late I try my best to be organised. With a number of deadlines including posting dates, I found it best to draw up a calendar for the weeks running up to Christmas and write down all the things that needed to be done. 

So far I'm on schedule which is a relief. First thing this morning I drove to the Post Office and sent off two parcels which included the boots which sadly were too big.

The other job which I suppose didn't really have a deadline was to hand deliver cards to the people we know in our road. 

Now there is just a bit more food that can be prepared and frozen for Christmas itself and I can have a breather before I do the final shopping. I'm going to try and buy what I can tomorrow but that may be dependent on the roadworks that have caused chaos in town.

Some of the roadworks were planned and then one of the few roads into town had to be closed for the week for emergency work. With the sea on one side and hills on the other there are only a few ways into town which added to the three primary schools and two secondary schools in the immediate vicinity of the road closure led to total chaos. Children were late, workers were late and people were missing hospital appointments as the whole of town was gridlocked. 

The closed road is how I get to Morrisons so I thought I'd go round the back of town and come in from the other side tomorrow. That was before I read of people taking an hour to get down the hill on that side into town which normally takes a few minutes. They are hoping to get the road open again by tonight instead of tomorrow night but I shall have to try and get an update tomorrow. If the roads are still bad shopping will have to wait until Saturday (busy) or maybe Monday.

 

Driving down Borth High Street there was building work going on everywhere. There was a lot of scaffolding around which was up before the storm. I guess some people plan their roof repairs for the winter or perhaps they've had to wait for builders.

At our end of the village there's a row of three old cottages all leaning in every direction due to having been built on an unstable shingle bank. The middle one was the worst and was boarded up months ago. Now the builders are in and so far they've completely removed the roof and the front wall. It will be interesting to see if they rebuild or simply demolish the cottage.

The yellow house below is the village Post Office or at least one room is. No knitted topper to the post box at the moment, maybe the Christmas one is still in production.

While I was at that end of the village I had a quick 10 minute walk along the beach. 

It was nice to blow away the cobwebs before settling down to three hours of Welsh. It was a good class but I felt exhausted by the end. 

We had our last Pilates class this evening, Pilates by candlelight! The hall lights were on low and by each space was an electric tea-light in a paper bag with cut out stencils of a snowflake or Christmas tree on the sides. It all looked very atmospheric. We did some gentle Pilates and stretching and ended with quite a long relaxation session. I was right underneath one of the big gas heaters that hang from the ceiling and the heat combined with relaxation nearly sent me to sleep. Afterwards there was mulled wine or hot spiced apple drink, mince pies, Bara Brith and stollen to get us in the mood for Christmas.