Rali Ceredigion.

I woke to the sound of rain this morning which fortunately had stopped by the time (6.30) I was ready to sit outside.

Watching a dunnock that had come down for the seeds I'd put out made me realise how different is the behaviour of each species that comes here for breakfast. The dunnock is so very wary. Even when it makes it down on to the paving stones it stays perfectly still for quite a while making sure there is no danger before darting forward to snatch a seed. The slightest movement such as the wind blowing the tall grasses and it scuttles away to either hide behind a planter or back up into the raised beds.

The sparrows on the other hand spend a moment checking things out from the safety of the hedge and then down they come like a group of chattering urchins sorting through the seeds for the ones they like the best. 

And then there are the woodpigeons. They only come one at a time but I have seen two of them on the roof and boy are they confident. If I come down the steps all they do is hide around the corner until I walk past. And then every seed is hoovered up even if I'm sitting on the wall of the raised beds with my coffee.

At the stables this morning I found that I was going to be riding Cody while L had Betsi. Cody is a much bigger horse, I would say several sizes larger than Betsi and while he goes well and is used for more advanced dressage lessons. I found him quite stompy today. Mainly I think because he is more powerful it was harder on my back to relax into his movement. Betsi on the other hand feels lighter and has more of a floaty action. Not that it isn't good for me to ride different horses but given a choice I'd pick Betsi.

 

While at the stables I found out that the main road between Morrison's and town (up to the police station) was closed due to Rali Ceredigion this weekend. (Rally racing on public roads). I'd seen that some of the side roads were going to be closed but hadn't realised the full extent of the closures. 

As I don't get that much from Morrison's I decided to go straight into town from the industrial estate using the Llanbadarn road and get all my shopping at Lidl.

Although there didn't seem to be many people in town perhaps because the school holidays are over or else people were keeping away but the traffic was very heavy with long queues at roundabouts and traffic lights. It took me 5 minutes just to turn out of the Matalan carpark. 

One of my town stops was M&S to collect a sports top/vest ? (I never know what to call these things) but unfortunately it was too big and I returned it straight away. They'd only had the larger size and I took a chance as its a loose fit top but nope, it was way too big.

Report on my cooking venture - Peter was only too happy to eat something I'd cooked and said it was delicious but for my part it didn't seem any different to eating an omelette, albeit a very nice one with leeks, mushrooms cheese etc along with (s)mashed potatoes. I think that mixing in an egg, butter and seasoning into the potatoes would have made a difference. One good thing is that I made plenty, enough for tonight and as Peter is out tomorrow night (an RNLI function that I chose not to go to) my supper tomorrow as well.