Wet.

It's been raining heavily all day long. The surfers have been out, it is the weekend, but the waves were not a patch on yesterday's clean sets.

My busy Friday and this rotten cold got to me this morning and I felt quite groggy when I woke. A lie-in with soothing cups of tea and coffee helped a lot and I've spent the day getting on with things but at a slower pace than usual.

I set myself three tasks to do to satisfy my need to feel that I achieve something every day. First I cooked up another batch of stewed apple. Some of the apples from the big bag I bought went to top up the fruit bowl and rest were for stewing and freezing. That works out better value than just buying six apples to eat in the week.

My next task was to see what I could do about changing the wardrobe curtain. The curtain that goes across what once used to be the shower matches the window curtains but apart from being too short (though I have more fabric to add on a bit if I want) I would prefer to have a plain curtain.

I had hoped to reuse some lightweight cream fabric that had been across the wardrobe at Dingles but after pinning it up I realised it was too yellow.

Yesterday I had bought a cream bed sheet (M&S, £2 at the climate shop) which I shortened and pinned to make the lining for the new curtain. It also is not quite the right shade of cream (Dulux magnolia to be exact) to use as the actual curtain so I will need to be a bit more careful with my colour matching. I may even send off for some fabric samples to buy new.

I started some knitting or at least picked out the wool to make a cosy for the new metal travel mug that I bought for our library meet ups as the handless one I have sometimes spills a bit on the way home.

In general a very quiet day.

Thanks, Bob.

We've had a dry day with a lot of sunshine. There must be some serious weather going on out at sea as when I got home the bay was a surfer's paradise with large waves were coming in cleanly at regular intervals. Perfect for surfing.

Bob (of the title) was not my ride for the lesson that was still my lovely Tex, but  his morning Tex was standing in the stall next to Bob's stall. Bob has his own extra wide space as he's a very large cob.  

As I brushed the worst of the tangles from Tex's mane Bob kept leaning over the dividing wall giving me lots of nudges. Very sweet apart from the fact that Bob's muzzle with its magnificent moustache (Tex also has a moustache) was dripping wet after he'd had a drink from the wall mounted water trough. Of course I gave Bob some pets despite getting a soaking each time he had a drink.

We had a good lesson and after doing some work without stirrups went on to do the canter exercise again. But because there were seven of us and we were struggling to get canter Iola changed things so you had to wait for her to call you name and say which colour cones to canter round. After a couple of false starts Tex went well but we didn't get too many more chance for a canter. At the end of the lesson we were told that all of us need to work on our canters. Fine by me. Next week should be better as there will be another adult lesson at 12.00 and so far there are only four of us for the earlier lesson.

After riding comes shopping which I enjoy. Of course these days I'm in no rush nor do I have small children to supervise and we are in the fortunate position of being able to afford the things we need.

Not being in a rush was good today as after the cashier had had rung through some of my items his till closed itself down (don't you love technology?). Apparently that had been happening all week. As I unpacked my items so they could be rung up again while the till rebooted itself the supervisor suggested to the next customer that she moved to a different till. Then as a goodwill gesture to make up for the inconvenience she said I wouldn't have to pay for the first item which happened to be a bag of frozen blueberries. Not bad since they've gone up to £3.35. (Lidl's ones are small and are often already tasting mouldy.)

Then I went off to town. I took a bag of empty table blister packs to Boots for recycling and just for the fun of the hunt had a look in some of the charity shops. I was running my fingers over the rail in Oxfam when I came across this over-sized shirt in a deep purple/blue. Wondering if my fingers were telling me the truth I checked the label and sure enough it was pure silk. And at £5.99 a real bargain. It will be a perfect cover up for taking on holiday and weighs almost nothing. It's disrespectful to go into Cretan churches or monasteries with bare arms and I may need to cover up from the sun as well.

My shopping adventures did not end there. Every week at Lidl I buy seven bananas to go on our porridge. I generally pick a couple of yellow and the rest green to ripen through the week. But last week's green bananas were still green and inedible today a week later. I took them back to Lidl, no receipt of course but they offered a refund straight away. To make things easier the chap simply gave me this week's bananas at no cost so we ended up with seven for the price of five. 

Bitterly Cold.

The pink of the dawn thankfully was not followed by rain. Instead it's been a clear day with few clouds until later in the afternoon. All day long the strong easterly winds brought the bitter cold. (A quick check of the forecast says 7C or 8C tomorrow morning so no need to put anything over the car windscreen.)

We had to be up early this morning as Peter had his regular appointment at the hospital for an injection into his knee. Parking is impossible at the hospital so I drove down into town to wait for Peter to let me know when he was ready to be collected. I just had time to drop off some stuff at the Climate Shop and stock up on throat sweets before he phoned.

We were home in good time to prepare for our Welsh class. I joined Zoom with plenty of time to spare, checked the sound and video then at the last minute the timer went round and round without connecting. I ended up having to turn my PC off and starting again before I could join the class.

The class didn't seem too hard today. Though we did start with a lengthy dictation. I struggled to write quickly enough but our tutor read the passage through twice so I filled in most of my missing words. It's the prepositions that catch you out. Y, yr, i'r and ar all sound similar so you have to rely on which one would be correct grammatically. Then we went over adjectives to describe activities/ tv programmes while also learning the sentence structure to use when saying I think ...... in Welsh which is quite different to the English. Luckily I've come across it a lot in Duo and in my head translate it as I think that ...... which is not quite accurate but works.

After class I needed to get some milk and also to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy. Naturally I combined that with a beach walk where I tried to capture the light on the waves.

With so many variables; the sea, the wind, the light and the tide the view is constantly changing. Something I never get bored with. You can understand why artists love to paint the sea. I'll make do with my trusty camera.

Sunny.

Today has been bright and sunny with very little wind and not too cold.

I felt a bit rough with this cold so it took me a while to get going in the morning. On days like this I make a mental list of things to do- things that must be done, things that it would be good to do today and things that will need doing at some point. Once I've completed the 'must do' jobs (the morning routines and today putting out the recycling) I can relax and anything from the other two lists is a bonus. 

I hand washed a few things (shame there wasn't much wind) and sorted some stuff to take to town tomorrow. But then my attention was caught by the sun shining into the corner of the front garden. My carefully thought out lists were abandoned and I had went out to cut back the dry stalks of the Michaelmas dasies that grow in the far corner. I had to be careful not to damage the leaves of the tall Dutch? iris that  are also in that corner. I went on to do a bit more tidying in the garden and ended up filling a whole sack ready to go to the dump on Friday.

I finished off the afternoon with some ironing and then chopping of veg to go with the salmon (baked in foil parcels) that we will be having for dinner tonight.

Cold Issues.

We woke this morning to find the house at 15C which to me is cool while Peter says cold. This was because the central heating which is normally ticking over at 17.5C had failed to restart after a brief power cut last night.

It was an odd power cut. I was dozing off just before midnight when I noticed that the street light had turned off. It does turn off at night but usually around 1.00. Then, although I could still hear the radio through my earbuds the clock display on the clock radio went out. The red power light was on and the clock on Peter's radio was fine. Stranger still was the fact that as soon as I turned on the touch lamp on my bedside cupboard my clock display came back on. Then went off as soon as I turned the light off. I tested it numerous times and the same thing happened every time. As I decided not to worry about it the electricity briefly went off completely. I was fully awake by that time so got up and filled a thermos with boiling water in case the power was out again in the morning. In the morning the power was back to normal but the village FB page was full of chatter with people trying to find out what was happening.

 

Once as the heavy morning rain had stopped we went out to restart the boiler. I had Peter tell me what to do and took a couple of photos so that should I need I could do this by myself.  Up till now I've been happy for Peter to do such tasks but there may come a day when I need to do them. It was very simple, just lift off the cover and press the big red start button but I've written instructions (using Paint) on the photos anyway and put the photos in a separate folder for future reference.

The other cold issue is that I've picked up a cold. Sore throat, runny nose, that sort of thing. My guess is that I caught it at choir last week as the person sitting next to me mentioned she thought she was getting a cold. I stocked up on throat sweets yesterday and have been having lots of hot drinks. I was thinking about still going to Pilates as it's in large space but when my arms started feeling achy in the afternoon I emailed my apologies. I definitely wouldn't go to choir tomorrow but hopefully should be okay for disco aerobics. And of course like my fellow riders I would have to be bedridden not to turn up at the stables.

I've carried on with the spring cleaning with plenty of breaks, bit by bit gets the job done as my mother used to say. Today my attention turned to one section of the built in wardrobe in our bedroom. By having a general sort out and consigning more clothes to the pass-it-on pile there's now one less storage tub at the bottom of the wardrobe and bags of stuff in the utility room waiting to be taken to the charity shop.

I also had a good clear out of a lot of my old papers and pictures that are of no use to anyone. They will go in the recycling tomorrow. I still had to look through everything but it's good when I can finally let go of stuff.

Bits and Bobs.

No sun at all today. We had a dry morning but by the afternoon the rain had set in getting heavier as the day progressed.

We were up in good time to head off to Mach to meet our friends in the library only to discover that it's not until next week. We must have been rushing last time and I forgot to write down the date of our next meet up, something I've always done up till now. It's usually every two weeks unless one of us has other commitments. At least I was able to take a large box of books and some coats to the charity shop and then came out with a brand new insulated bag in a purple pattern (of course) for £2. I've just seen the exact same one on eBay for £12.

 

Returning home I carried on with sorting out in the bedroom and managed to go through a whole chest of drawers. They're a lot tidier now and I've even got another bag of clothes to take to the charity shop. Afterwards I abandoned the bedroom and did some organising of the random photos on my PC. I download daily from my camera into dated files and keep a record in a diary but I also save photos I find on-line. These two seem quite appropriate when Spring cleaning.

And now for a few more photos from yesterday -

I hadn't found out much about the hillfort until I began researching the memorial stone that was sitting in the middle of the hillfort. It turns out Emyr Wyn Davies farmed Llety Evan Hen farm (with his son) in which the hillfort stands. (Emyr is buried in the church yard at Bont Goch) Then I found out that the hillfort is also known as Llety Evan/Ifan Hen (Old Evan's place) and also Hen Gaer (old fort). Using those names I found more photos of the iron age hillfort but nothing more about the standing stone or the large stones in the centre of the hillfort. Another interesting fact found when going through parish records were the 36 Elizabeth Davies many of whom lived in the neighbouring village. At first I thought this might be linked to the popularity of the Queen but some of the Elizabeths were from the 1800s. Just a popular name I guess.

Emyr Wyn Davies 1942 - 2022.

Llety Evan Hen is an organic farm and the meat is sold through Rattray's the butchers in Aber where we buy locally produced meat. Another neat link. All the sheep looked very well cared for with plenty of salt licks available and fodder beet from the neighbouring field for them to eat.

Pen Y Castell Hillfort.

After last night's deluge it was a pleasant surprise to find the day bright and sunny. But to let us know that it is still winter a bitterly cold easterly wind blew all day long.

It was a good day for going out for a walk in the hills. Today we headed to Pen Y Castell (castle top) hillfort. I have not been able to find out much about this hillfort and my search was made harder by the fact that there are a number of hillforts with the same name.

It was a short drive to Bont Goch where the thirteen of us plus a dog squeezed into three cars for an even shorter drive along a potholed track.

Today's walk was characterised by very muddy and slippery conditions due to all the recent wet weather and of course the wind was biting.

Dotted around were wind turbines making use of the windy conditions. These ones aren't too harsh on the eye but the latest ones that are due to be put up near Nant Y Moch  are three times the height and will have considerable detrimental impact on the natural environment.

Eventually we came in sight of the hillfort that was our destination. Although lower than the neighbouring ridges its isolated position with steep drops on the south and west sides in particular would have made it more defensible. From where we stood on the track it looked as though the eastern flank of the summit had been dug away to create a steeper approach.

We could see the inner ramparts with the opening for the main gate clearly visible.

Just out of sight in the above photo a small menhir stood in splendid isolation. I have been unable to find out much about the hillfort or the standing stone but somebody who seems to have an interest in such things suggests there is a significance to the position of the stone which faces the gateway (can be seen as a break in the rampart on the skyline above the walkers.) 

Standing within the ramparts we had clear views in all directions and could just make out the memorial on the site of Pen Dinas, the hillfort near Aber. So beacons could have been seen.

The plan had been to have our lunch break sitting in the hillfort but it was so cold with the icy wind that we decided to find a more sheltered spot to sit and enjoy our food. The photo above shows some of my fellow walkers departing through the main gate opening.

Standing in the gate opening the outer rampart on the left, ditch and inner rampart on the right could be seen clearly. Amazing to be looking at something constructed 3,000 years ago.

Walking through the surrounding fields we found a pile of rocks facing into the sun. There we sheltered from the wind to eat our lunch.

On our way back we had a good view of the hillfort looking up from the north western side. 

Windy.

It has been very windy today with just the occasional spit of rain though it looks like rain is about to set in any minute now. 

In the morning I washed the Rohan flag and hung it only the line. Not quite Meduseld but almost (with a bit of imagination).

Later we had a decent rainbow (with a hint of a double) dipping down into the sea. What intrigues me about the photo is the white streak rising up from Snowdonia. Possibly just a mark on the camera lens though I don't see it on any other of the photos. It is roughly where military planes do the  Mach Loop so maybe it was where one was pulling up steeply.

And of course the spring cleaning continues. I've moved on to the bedroom and how long it will take depends on the amount of turfing out I do. There are a couple of wooden chests and a drawer that could do with sorting out but I may give up half-way through. Today I've been wiping, waxing and hoovering behind cupboards. I also got round to hanging up the last few small pictures. (Let's ignore the half dozen extra holes that weren't quite positioned right thankfully hidden behind the pictures.)

For a while now the unopened snowdrops have been hanging like miniature lights above the red sedum but at last some are beginning to open.

Full Speed Ahead.

Considering the Met Office forecast said there would be a 90-95% chance of rain today the weather has been very kind to me today.

It was cold but dry as I sat outside waiting for dawn and then it rained while I was eating breakfast indoors. More light rain as I drove to the stables but the only time I was caught by the rain was just before I left town for home.

I had my lovely Tex again for the lesson. It took me a while to locate him as he wasn't in the stalls with the other horses needed for the day. I eventually found him in the pony barn, built last year, where the ponies are tied up around the walls.

There were six of us in the lesson and for once we did lots of cantering, or tried to. Our instructions were to canter half circles across the school whenever there was a safe space to do so. It took a few attempts on my part with Tex trotting faster and faster with me laughing my head off instead of cantering but eventually we got there. That was on the left rein but when we all changed direction it was much harder to get the horses into canter. (I suspect horses are stiffer on that side because they are always led from the left.) In the end I put both reins in one hand, which stopped me from pulling on the bit and used the other to give Tex a smack on his rump with my whip. Quite cowboy style as I cantered round one handed. After doing that twice Tex cantered nicely whenever I asked him. 

 

I didn't have any need to go to the industrial estate so skipped my usual browse of Hahav but went straight to Morrison's then town and finally Lidl.

At home I put away the towels that had been airing, threw the washing in the machine and emptied and wiped the small cupboard in the inner hall. I'm chickening out of emptying the large cupboard but will have another look to see if any more of the contents can go.

After that I cut up and stewed a large bag of apples as we have finally come to the end of the stewed apples made from neighbours' windfalls. And then I got to rest.

The coastguard guys were out training on the cliff again today. I bet they were glad it wasn't raining all the time.