Small Things.

A little bit cloudier today and windy. Perfect drying weather which I took advantage of. But with the wind no longer coming from the east it was considerably warmer.

This morning their plunge diving alerted me to the arrival of common terns to the bay. Their presence was a sign that fish are about so hopefully we may see the dolphins soon.

Small things in nature give me great pleasure but unfortunately small things can also be very upsetting. I found out today that the two people I was supposed to meet up with yesterday had instead had the meeting at the pub half an hour later. Is it naïve of me to expect people to turn up at a prearranged meeting? Maybe it's the fact that I  don't have a phone attached to my hand at all times (almost never in my case) which puts me at odds with a generation that sees making last minute changes as perfectly normal. Because of the way I am the incident has continued to play on my mind all day even though the logical side of my mind sees that it wasn't that important.

All that came after Peter and I had been discussing our holiday plans. Apologies for the following major moan but I feel the need to vent or I might explode. Feel free to comment or not  or skip the text and just look at the pretty photos from Sunday.

You might think that spending three weeks on Crete with a hire car would naturally lead to exploring the beautiful and interesting island but I'm afraid Peter is not keen on exploring places. He never has been and now that his arthritis limits his walking to 3 or 4 miles on a good day he would rather stay in one place. He's become extremely cautious about anywhere new so I'm having to research places thoroughly in order to answer his questions. I thought that visiting 3 archaeological sites and maybe 3 gorges and/or beaches over 3 weeks was a reasonable compromise but you wouldn't believe the emotional pressure I've been put under. I expect that in the end we'll do most things and he'll enjoy them but for the moment I'm being made to feel like a horrible person. At least I've found what looks to be a decent stables which do 2hr, 4hr and all day rides so I may be spending a lot of time out riding in the countryside.

Moan over. Just enjoy more signs of Spring.

After the stress of the morning I had a good day's gardening. The hacked back hedge has been squared off and all I need to do is wait for the leaves to grow. In the back garden the clematis have been growing wildly and needed fixing to the trellis before the wind snaps the shoots right off.

After that I had time to do my favourite job which is going over all the shingle picking off every scattered grass stem, loose leaf and any tiny seedlings. And this time picking off all the stray twigs from my hedge cutting. 

Later.- I've just returned from choir where we continued with the Georgian song we began last week. Polyphonic singing is very hard to learn but once we got the hang of it it had such a lovely rich tone. After that we learnt a Hawaiian song which had most of us swaying and waving our hands around before finishing off with a Lea Morris song - Everybody wants to sing. 

Zoo Day.

While the sun shone it felt quite pleasant despite the icy easterly wind but when the sky turned grey it was not nice at all. At least it was good for drying the washing out on the line.

The first aquilegia flower.

I toyed with the idea of cycling to the zoo but in view of the strong wind opted to drive instead. I began by weeding some of the narrow strips around the aviaries and then turned to my main job, finishing off the gravel patch by the guinea fowl. I had cleared two thirds of it last week but the final third is hard to do and needs a whole session. It's awkward because it has a lot of mud, not enough gravel and is the direct route along the main path to the animals. 

Today I brought my heavy duty hand hoe and was able to turn over all the muddy gravel and remove even the tiniest seeding. I surprised myself when I found an old rusty nail which I lobbed successfully through the opening of a litter bin six feet behind me. (I'm generally quite uncoordinated.) 

After getting that done I went round to go over the paths in the grass maze and was saddened to find that all the self sown lemon balm (covering an area 6ft x 4ft) was gone. I suspect there had been a goat escape at some point as surely nobody would have pulled it all up especially around a stone with 'Please do not pull up the plants.' written on it.

I had a quick walk around afterwards. Mr Pea ate a dandelion flower I gave him but didn't put his tail feathers up.

Okay, which one of you was it? 

I suspect the Welsh mountain goats as they are forever ramming their fences and shelter walls.

I've just been down to the boatyard waiting for two other people to turn up for a meeting about the carnival. However despite an email this afternoon confirming the time and place the other people did not turn up. I waited almost half an hour before coming home. I don't understand how people can make arrangements and then not turn up.

I'll be off down the road again in less than an hour for Pilates. At least I can depend on that.

Sunset last night.

Back To Mach.

It was a bright but chilly morning. In Mach, sheltered as it is from the sea winds it was positively warm. The afternoon back in Borth was much cloudier and greyer.

In Mach we almost had the library to ourselves though the town itself was busy. As we went through last week's homework I discovered a number of mistakes in the homework I'd already sent to our tutor. Oops. We practised our prepositions using the card game that I'd made which now has a home-made dice (I know it should be die but who says that?) with he/she/ they etc to get us used to the different forms of the prepositions. Then we carried on translating a book of short stories but there were so many unexplained idioms that we couldn't work out we've decided not to carry on with that book.

Afterwards I had my usual trawl around the charity shops. One thing I've been looking for was a bum-bag for when I'm riding on holiday to at least put car keys in and today I found one. Not your average nylon one but a soft leather one. Only £2.50.

Back home I got on with a few small jobs- another dab of paint on the knots, bringing down our cases from the loft as we're going up to see Romas and Laura, putting new batteries in some of the garden lights and washing some of the stuff from the back of the car. Friday's milk spill had leaked out of the bag which I hadn't noticed until I opened the boot yesterday and got a whiff of sour milk. Hopefully it's all dealt with now.

Now for the rest of the Sunday walk - Llanafan and round Trawscoed Mansion.

 

From Black Covert Woods we crossed the road and went past the old vicarage. Pete F. remembers being given a lift as far as here by the vicar back in the 70s. It's up for sale, details here. I reckon the roof needs to be repaired. You could see it bowing and there looks to be damp in the upstairs rooms. But the garden is gorgeous.

We stopped and chatted with the owners for quite some time and he told us about the strange mound in a field further up the footpath. We'd speculated about it the last time we walked this way and my guess that it was a bunker was correct. 

We carried on through semi-abandoned farm buildings,

and then reached the point where we could see the mound in the field. The chap had told us that it had been a bunker for the ministry staff, a nuclear fall-out shelter? He said his children used to climb in there and also said the hatch was sometimes locked and sometimes wasn't.

In 1947 the mansion house became the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Wales, and the home farm is still occupied by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and managed by the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER).

Naturally we diverted from the footpath to go and have a look. Sure enough there were no locks so I lifted up the metal hatch. A metal ladder went down about 10ft and although some people wanted to climb down we could see it was wet and dark at the bottom so decided not to. I didn't take any photos as I was holding the hatch up and we had disturbed an ants' nest.

Carrying on it wasn't far to the village of Llanafan where we had our lunch at the picnic tables by the football pitch.

From the edge of the village we could see Trawscoed Mansion in the distance, quite a long way from the bunker.

We had a gentle stroll through the once landscaped countryside swinging back round to the mansion from where it was a quick cut through the wood and the car park.

Black Covert Woods.

A crisp morning turned into a lovely sunny day.

It's always nice walking in the sunshine and I took so many pretty photos today that I shall spread them over a few days.

 

Ten of us plus a cute eleven month old cockapoo called Benjy met up at Black Covert Woods (Gelli Ddu) near Trawscoed, about 45 minutes drive from home. Bluebells and other spring flowers carpeted the floor of the woods.

We are really lucky to have so many of these woods and nature reserves all over the place. Usually there's a small car park and picnic tables with well maintained paths. It did seem a shame that this new picnic table has had to be bolted into the ground but that's modern life I suppose.

Our route took us along the Ystwyth river which runs down to Aberystwyth. (Aber - mouth of). The clear waters looked inviting though no doubt they were too cold for swimming or paddling.

The trees were covered with fresh green leaves and the air was filled with birdsong. 

The Ystwyth.

We stopped for a pre-lunch break (some one was hungry) right by the newly repaired bridge.

This is known as the swinging bridge and it certainly does that. As soon as you start walking on it you can see the base undulating ahead of you. Then as you approach the middle of the bridge it also tips from side to side, quite unnerving.

Part Two to come ......

Highs and Lows.

First thing this morning it was bright and sunny but by the time we had breakfast it had clouded right over with only a few tiny patches of blue. The clouds cleared later in the day making everything much more cheerful though with a chilly wind.

The tulips are looking quite bedraggled but I don't have the heart to cut them down yet. 

While sitting on the wall drinking a coffee I amused myself watching a bumble bee. The blue lithospermum has been the favourite with the bees for a while and now they're moving on to the aubretia.

I've had a good day. After a busy Friday I enjoy having the whole day (without commitments) to get on with things in the garden, house and kitchen. I've managed all three today.

Painting the knots was my 'house' job and that came with highs and lows. Finding a half-full large tin of white vinyl satin paint was a high but when I gave it a stir the unpleasant smell told me that it had 'gone off'. That tin will have to go to the dump. I've marked on it that it is off to stop anyone taking it home to use. They have two large cages for paint tins at the dump and nearly all of it is white paint so I'll have a look there first before buying more of the vinyl satin. They don't mind people taking paint from the cages. Last time I got a half full tin of black Hammerite which is always useful, a medium sized tin of red floor paint perfect for around one of the outside drain covers and grey paint for carnival stuff.

In the garage I found a tin of white vinyl matt paint to use on the knots for now as the dark brown knotting solution will need a number of coats of white to cover it. That was a high but then as I was about to paint I was surprised by a very large spider sitting on the side of the tin. I put her outside in the garden as I didn't want her crawling on me while I walked through the house to the garage. Painting was fine until I discovered two more knots that hadn't had the knotting solution and even worse one more knot that still needs rubbing down. The knots have had two coats today and I shall keep on going until the brown is covered over.

My house or rather kitchen job was to make another jar of vinaigrette dressing for this weeks salads which was quickly done.

I spent the afternoon cutting back the escallonia hedge. It now looks very bare on our side, just brown sticks. I began by thinking 'yeah, it will grow back' which then became a slightly more worried 'I hope it will grow back'. I have cut it back hard before and escallonia puts out leaves from old wood so fingers crossed.

Fly Your Kite.

The morning was grey and full of showers but by the afternoon when I took my photos it was bright, sunny and very windy. Perfect conditions for the kite surfers.

When I got to the stables the list had me down as riding floaty Griff again but then Iola (the boss) said I should have Cody instead. Cody is an experienced dressage horse but he has been off work for a couple of months. This was to be his first time back in a lesson so I was asked to keep him long and low to start and nothing smaller than a 20m circle.

Katie was teaching but she and Iola spent a long time watching Cody to check how he was going. I thought there was a difference depending on the direction we went round the school and his trot didn't feel as even as before. Cody was pronounced okay but despite the girl who has a private lesson after us asking if she could have him instead of Griff one hour of work was deemed enough as he needs to build up his muscles.

Afterwards I did the usual shopping including town where I collected more pastries and rolls from Porthi Aber. I've put most of the sweet croissants in the freezer as they are supposed to freeze okay. I also dropped off another bag of clothes at a charity shop. I'm slowly paring down my clothing reserves though as my weight is forever going up and down I feel the need to keep a selection of sizes just in case.

When I got home before having a shower followed by tea and pastries (I can't lie, I had an almond croissant -mmm, and a maple and pecan plait, usually my favourite but not as good when just past its 'best by' date) I cleaned up the result of one of the milk bottles leaking in the cool bag, put a saucepan of apples on to stew, sanded down a couple of last knots and then painted all of the 52 knots with knotting solution. After all that sitting down with my tea and pastries was so good. (Salad for supper tonight.)

Lesson Day.

It has stayed dry all day, sunny in the morning and grey in the afternoon.

Peter and I did some Welsh lesson preparation together after breakfast. I find it helps to go through the next few sections in our folders before the class, fewer rabbit in the headlights moments. 

In the lesson we began with more work on those pesky prepositions and then turned to a much more entertaining section about animals. Plenty of opportunities to chat and to learn new vocabulary. We had our tutor stumped when somebody asked what the Welsh for chicken run was and she had to resort to her advanced dictionary. Obviously not a term used in colloquial Welsh. There were some fun animal names, hamster - bochdew [bok d ow] / 'fat cheeks' and guinea pig - mochyn cwta [mok in coo ta] / short pig. Others were easy , eliffant, jiraffe, mwnci and teigr. I decided we might as well call flamingos - pink birds.

 

During the break and after class I sanded out the last few knots and washed down all the woodwork that will need repainting.

Salad has been made for supper and shortly I'll be off to the Hall for an hour of happy dancing.

The female blackbird in particular is fond of these fruits on the end hedge (can't remember what it is). This hedge is also full of powdery mildew which goes everywhere when I cut it especially with the electric trimmer. There's not much I can do about it but at least it seems that each species of plant has a powdery mildew specific to it and it shouldn't spread to any other plants.

Waiting for ............... .

........... a Spitfire.

After yesterday's anniversary flyby was postponed until today there was much anticipation in the village for today's appearance. It rained in the morning, take off from Valley was moved from 10.00 to 2.00 by which time the sun was shinning.

Peter and I stood on the terrace enjoying the warmth of the sun straining to catch a first glimpse of the Spitfire and two escort planes but to no avail. After an hour the weather closed in again (torrential rain) and we heard that take off had been moved to 4.00.

By that time Peter had gone out but I kept watch eagerly. I and others in the village thought the planes would come swooping along the coast from the Llyn Peninsula but that was not the case. All of a sudden three planes appeared high in the sky from the direction of Mach. As they reached the flat land behind the village they turned and headed off southwards. I managed to take four photos which is better than nothing.

 

Here is a  FB video taken by Kevin Talbot who was up on the hill behind the village.

In between waiting for the Spitfire I completed and sent my Welsh homework and also got on with more sanding of the paintwork. There are still three more knots to do in the hall before I can move on to the next phase.

I'm off to choir soon and for once I've found a bit of time to practise the Sing For Water songs. Luckily most of them are ones we sang two years ago.