Storm Austen.

When I woke this morning or rather was woken up by the alarm clock there was not a drop of rain nor a breath of wind. Sitting outside with my coffee the sky was barely lightening in the east while to the west it was blacker than any night sky. Fifteen minutes later the rain began, light at first and then ......

the storm arrived. By the time I was ready to leave for the stables the wind was howling around the house and whistling through the wires. It sounded so violent we checked the latest weather maps to see what the wind speeds were inland but as they were a lot less, 25mph, I decided to risk the twenty minute drive.

Even so I drove with one eye on the road and the other on any trees beside the road. My biggest concern was the long stretch between Capel Dewi and the Lovesgrove roundabout which has very tall trees on either side with hefty branches right across the road. The last bit of my route runs through a wooded hillside and also has many large potholes which were disguised by the water on the road. But I got there safely.

Arriving at the stables one of the gates for the railway crossing was closed but when I went to investigate I was told it had just blown shut. I ended up tying the gate back to a fence with some baler twine.

Of the four riders due to ride this morning I was the only one able to make it so I ended up having a half hour private lesson on Betsi. We started a bit later so I had some bonding time with Betsi in the stable. She likes a good scritch under her mane but even better is when I give her a scritch on her wither. Along with some very quiet crooning on my part Betsi began to drop her head, her lip began to quiver and eventually she yawned and out came the tongue, all signs of relaxation in a horse. I don't think she was so quite enamoured with crossing the yard to the school for some work. It was a good lesson, half the riding time of a group lesson but four to six times the individual focus ie all the time. It was useful to have constant assessment as I (mostly) rode a 20m circle working on creating bend and being on the bit at the same time.

Morrisons had noticeably fewer customers and most of those were clad in full waterproofs.  They must have a water problem with their roof as every now and then there was a pipe leading from some plastic taped under one of the false ceiling tiles, to large containers down on the floor of the aisles.

I still had to stop in town as I needed to visit the Post Office, at the back of what was W H Smiths but is now something else. I only went in a couple of charity shops and found this small paperweight to add to my cobalt collection. The bubbles in the glass look a bit like the 'snowstorm' of sea foam that is currently being blown over the cliff. I can even see some stuck on my study window.

Battening Down The Hatches.

The sea was quite wild in the morning but the clouds soon cleared giving us a dry day. (The rain started as I walked home from the Hall this evening.) A brief lull between days of heavy rain with Storm Austen due to blow in later tonight. Even after the storm we are due more heavy rain. 

Taking advantage to this one dry day I went out straight after breakfast and painted the garage windows. The undercoat I used is oil based which should give the wood more protection. I wore latex gloves while painting but had to take one off to remove the masking tape I'd put on the glass so now I have one very messy hand. I dislike the smell of white spirits so much that I'd rather have painted fingers and do my best to remove the paint in other ways.

The painting took so long that I only just made it in time for our Zoom class. Today's lesson focussed on talking about technology and also about Tryweryn, the village that was drowned in 1965 to make way for a reservoir that supplies water to city of Liverpool on a 999 year lease. One of the class told us that at the moment the water level is so low the remains of the village can be seen. Hopefully the rain that is currently falling and the rest of the winter rains will fill the reservoir otherwise no doubt the English cities will be looking to drown more Welsh valleys.

This political aspect didn't come up in the lesson but we did talk about 'Cofiwch Dryweryn' (remember Tryweryn) the slogan which can be seen painted on rocks in various places.

After class I had to quickly bake another batch of chocolate chip cookies. Yesterday's batch was a bit strange due to me misreading the amounts of ingredients. I use a recipe I wrote at the back of a cookery book that includes imperial and metric measures and also the amounts for making a smaller batch. I'd only used half the amount of flour needed which made for delicious soft biscuits but not quite what I wanted. Today's baking came out much better and I shall be sending those with a few of yesterday's and we'll just have to eat the remainder ourselves.

No sooner had I finished baking than it was time to quickly put away anything that might be blown around outside and then off to the Hall for disco aerobics. Tonight's session was a fund raiser for breast cancer research and together with donations from other classes this week Rachel thinks she's raised over £500. Nearly everyone wore pink and there was pink lighting to go with the usual disco lights. There were refreshments in the form of Prosecco and nozecco plus cakes and fruit to make it more of an event. It all adds to the fun.  

I can hear the rain pounding on the roof though so far not much in the way of wind. Fingers crossed that we don't get any flooding in the village. This afternoon some of the rowing club pulled the two Celtic longboats round to the car park on the other side of the road out of the way of the beach stones that get thrown over the sea wall in high winds.

 

All quiet this afternoon.

Memories.

A wild and stormy day in which to to remember the tragedy of Aberfan. Shockingly no one has ever been prosecuted for this even though there had been warnings about such event being possible. Making money was all the mining companies cared about.

We had a very wet morning and though the wind continued to blow the afternoon was dry and even sunny at times. I was glad the recycling bag was safely tucked in the cupboard next to the porch especially when I saw that the food caddy still with a heavy bag inside blown over and starting to be blown along the pavement. I went out as soon as the recycling lorry had been but they had kindly put the empty food caddy over into the space between the house an the garden wall.

 

In the morning I made a batch of chocolate cookies as a practice run for my Christmas baking and also as I plan to send some as a token birthday gift.

I spent the afternoon sitting at the table with a wonderful view of the waves getting my Journal up to date. I try to have a system of keeping daily notes that I collate and write up every three months but sometimes life takes over and suddenly I find I have 6 or even as today 9 months of notes to collate and write up in my journal. (Hooray for highlighters.) Sometimes I found that I'd missed making the notes or that I can't remember what they refer to and then I went back to the blog to refresh my memory. Looking at the blog with all its photos brings those memories straight back while the journal with a section for each season gives a good overview and is good for pinpointing exactly when something happened. Naturally I still keep all the daily notes in a folder so that I can double check. That's just the way I am.

This evening we have been to the Hall for a talk & discussion on flood and general emergency preparedness. Up here on the cliff we are not at risk from flooding but it is good to know what needs to be done in an emergency. We have volunteer emergency wardens in the village, two in our road, who will check on vulnerable people. 

There were some good ideas put forward as well and I think a wind up torch/radio will be the next thing on our shopping list. I didn't know that if the power goes out for the phone masts you won't be able to make an emergency 999 call after 30 mins to an hour as that is how long the back up power lasts. This is something that is being worked on at the moment.

Gloomy.

It's been a cold and clammy day today. While it was brighter outside there were frequent medium showers that ruled out any outdoor work. Often a strip of blue sky could be seen over to the west but as the winds were easterlies they kept bringing more clouds.

It was one of those days when I didn't want to do anything. Especially when so much is aching after yesterday's efforts. Even the birds have hunkered down.

Pilates tonight should help ease out those aches and it's good fun too.

 

I used being stuck indoors to get some admin jobs which had been on my mind making me feel guilty for not sorting them out. 

I also managed to play the piano for a while as this is another thing I feel guilty about not doing. Perhaps now that the house renovations are coming to an end (I hope) and there's less to do in the garden over the winter I will get myself into a better routine. As well as being good for the soul playing the piano is good for the brain and to keep my fingers from seizing up. That is after I've done all my Christmas making and before I start my January Spring clean.

We also hung the Bryan Pearce etching above the tv however because the light from outside is reflecting off the glass I think it may eventually have to go in the hall. But now there's a screw to hang a picture from, in the wall I may wait until we find a picture without glass, to hang there instead.

Sunny.

It rained in the night but has been dry all day with plenty of sunshine.

While Peter went into town to pick up yet another large tin of wood filler I got our next pumpkin soup started in the slow cooker. As well as pumpkin I put in carrot, potatoes (from the garden), onions, chorizo and the stock from Saturday night's spare ribs. There's enough for at least three meals by which time no doubt we will be ready for a change.

 

As soon as Peter returned I got to work on the garage windows. I added more wood in the places where the old wood had rotted out completely otherwise I may well have needed yet another tin of filler. I did my best to smooth down the filler as I worked because sanding by hand has left my (good) shoulder very painful. I still had sanding to do at the end and while the final result is not as smooth as I would like I'm now confident that the windows will last for a good few years yet.

There was enough time to start painting but by that point I really needed to stop as too many bits of my body were aching. I found that a hot compress (the one the optician sold me to cure my dry eyes but didn't) popped in the microwave really helps with the shoulder pain and an ice pack on my lower back is good too.

Tuesday and Wednesday are forecast to be very wet as are Friday and Saturday but I might be able to start painting on Thursday.

A Walk At Tynygraig.

Dry, sunny and chilly in the shade today.

This morning as I sat outside a light easterly wind flattened out the waves creating a rippled effect on the surface of the water. That made is relatively easy to spot a dolphin doing a bit of fishing a couple of miles away in the bay. I was especially pleased at the sighting as I haven't seen many dolphins this year.

 

The walk this afternoon started at the village of Tynygraig. I was glad I was being driven by somebody else as the directions we'd been given were a bit vague and we ended up having to stop and phone the walk leader to find our way to Y Felin (The Mill) but we got there in the end.

The first part of our walk was around the gardens and grounds of Y Felin. This included the old Manchester and Milford railway line.

We could have gone into the railway tunnel that lies just outside the property but it looked too wet inside to bother.

There was a large vegetable garden with raised beds, poly-tunnels and green houses (the owners have lived there for 45 years). I was most impressed with the triple section compost bin. The boards at the front slide out making it easy to remove the compost. 

This is the old mill pond which now runs a turbine that provides electricity for the house, along with a roof covered in solar panels.

The owner told us that he has plans to restore the original water wheel as all the parts are still in the wheelhouse though currently in a dismantled state.

We then went down to the 100ft waterfall cascading impressively down a sheer rockface. 

Going back along the river we came to an adit, an ancient mine entrance. The tunnel was slightly higher than head height but very wet underfoot. Some of us went in about 6ft as far as the tree trunk placed there as a barrier.

From there we climbed back up to the house and gardens and the thirteen of us ate our lunches perched along a couple of raised beds. Then we were invited into the house for cups of tea and fresh baked Bara Brith. We spent a long time there sitting around a very long table, chatting and admiring the art works on the walls.

Then a neighbour of our hosts took us across the fields to the small church of St Gwnnws. The church is fairly modern the original medieval church having been restored in 1829. The circular churchyard wall points to the site being a pre-Christian sacred place or possibly a fort. 

We were not able to get inside the church but in the entrance porch was the Llanwnnws stone, an ancient grave marker dating from the ninth century. It was moved to the porch for security.

From there we walked back down through the fields to the house and then home.

A Golf Ball And A Pea.

You know that autumn is here when you have to add wiping the condensation from the bottom of the windows to the list of morning jobs as was the case this morning. Not surprising as yesterday evening the stars had been shining in a cloudless sky. 

It did feel cold this morning and I'm glad all the tender plants are either in the porch or in the cold frame.

The day itself has been sunny with not a drop of wind so it wasn't worth moving the washing from the drying rack in the utility room to the outside washing line.

Today was a good day for working on the garage windows. This job has been a series of underestimations. (The photos below are of the worst window.)

Firstly before I had seen the windows from the outside I underestimated just how bad the damage was. Still worth trying to repair.

Next I underestimated how much of the wood moulding I would need. Fortunately it only came in 2m lengths and as I replaced the missing or rotten wood along the whole length of three panels I ended up with just 1cm left over. I also put in a 13 inch piece of bigger wood in the corner.

My next underestimation was of the amount of the wood filler I needed. I used the whole of a 1kg tin and a bit more I had left over from before but I still need more. I've ordered another large tin just to be on the safe side. At £26 for the bigger tin it's not cheap but it does the job and saves having to put in new windows.

My final underestimation, though that's stretching the meaning a little, was not realising the clear liquid I used to harden the wood earlier would leave white marks all over the tiled sills. It would have been easy to just wipe the tiles at the time but instead I had to give them a scrub as I don't like to leave things messy.

By the end of the afternoon the less damaged window has been filled and sanded and new wood put in the other window. The bottom piece for that window has been filled (mostly) and I just need to repair the upright pieces.

 

And the strange post title? Those are the measures given to mix the wood filler. A golf ball sized lump of the paste and a pea sized squirt of the catalyst. A very sensible pair of measures as everyone knows how big a golf ball is and peas are more or less the same size. You can't mix up too much at a time as it hardens quite quickly. 

After reading about specific (and expensive) black spot/algae remover for concrete tiles I had a go at seeing if bleach would do the trick. And by gum it does. I did a bigger section overnight and you can see from where I missed a corner how effective it is. There are only 20 of those very textured slabs at the bottom of the terrace steps and considering that even with the pressure washer I can't get them clean, this is a good solution.

I bought some reduced spare ribs yesterday and they've been simmering away in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight. I wondered if it was safe to cook meat on the low setting as per the recipe but a check with the meat thermometer showed that the temperature of the meat was in the 70s well above the recommended 63C.

Peter has been out rowing this afternoon (they're the tiny dot in the photo below) so I'm guessing he's looking forward to dinner too.

Windy.

Bright and breezy today.

I haven't been sitting outside early in the mornings so much recently but I really enjoyed watching the world wake up this morning.

The flocks of seagulls making their way southwards looked black in the early morning light and at first I wondered if they were rooks or even the large local flock of jackdaws. As they flew lower I could tell by the shape of their wings that they were gulls.

It's interesting trying to make sense of all the different lights from across the bay. Blue lights in Tywyn (8 miles away ) surely meant an ambulance so my thoughts went out to whoever that was for. 

More mundane were the orange flashing lights coming along the coastal road towards Aberdyfi. They didn't carry on through Aberdyfi but went up into the hills so my guess is a tractor.

At the stables I was greeted by the kittens and Halen had a long snuggle in my arms. I was going to take photos of them afterwards but there was a sudden downpour, the only one of the day. 

There were just four of us in the lesson and I rode Cody. Because I see how relaxed horses are when ridden bitless I tend to try and ride with a light contact which I get 'corrected' on. Of course it's different with school horses rather than your own and I will admit Cody went a lot better once I shortened my stirrups and my reins. Most of the lesson was in sitting trot which also helped.

Afterwards there was the usual round of dump, Hahav where I dropped off some houseplants, Morrison's, town and Lidl. On the way home I stopped at Huw's and bought a long length of moulding (wood) to use in the window restoration. I bought a pumpkin in Lidl (55p) not for décor but to make more soup as the last lot was so delicious.

By the time I got home all I was fit for was putting the washing in the machine (which is having an hour on the line for the wind to blow through) and collapse in front of the tv with tea, painkillers and an ice pack. In other words my usual Friday afternoon routine. 

 

Wet.

I generally greet Thursday mornings with a groan as I remember it's Welsh class day. To be fair I don't mind the actual lessons, our tutor pitches them at the correct level and we are making progress. It's more the fact that four hours (preparation plus lesson) is a big chunk out of the day.

At least today I was more organised with the other things I needed or wanted to do. I didn't get up especially early as Peter's snoring last night had sent me to the tv in the sitting room for an hour but even so I got a Bara Brith in the oven before breakfast.

Afterwards in view of the rain we could see and feel approaching I broke my routine (so hard to do) and left the washing up until after loading the car with shopping bags, my riding stuff and a number of house plants. They were taking up too much space on the utility room windowsill which gets used for cuttings and (in the spring) sowing seeds. I can't throw out plants but I'd asked in Hahav and they said they could take them to sell in their shop in town so that's where they're headed.

It was only after I'd bagged up some large pheasant grass plants which I'd allowed to grow 'in case' that I came back inside to wash up. I'm not good with changes of routine. Shortly after down came the rain and it's been raining ever since.

 

After class I did the 'would like to do' job of giving the utility room window and sill a clean doing my best to avoid any spiders. It looks so much better. Now I've got some time to relax before going off to disco aerobics.

I played around with this photo to try and get the correct floer colour with mixed results. In reality the leaves aren't as green and the flowers are an even deeper shade of purple. Very similar to the purple of the fuchsias above.

Washing Day.

More sun and wind today so a good day to wash the sheets.

Having cleared most of the plants from the terrace it was obvious that the terrace needed a going over with the pressure washer. This time instead of going all the way down the pavement and then carrying the pressure washer over the shingle garden I gave in and pulled it through the house instead. I had been worried that the wheels would mark the floor but luckily that wasn't the case.

It is always satisfying to see the film of green disappearing from the stone terrace and I was able to get rid of most of the black spots as well.

I carried on to do the the steps and most of the red paving slabs by the side of the house. The ones that lead to the garden steps are very textured and it's impossible to remove all the black algae (?). I may try one of the specific black spot removers that you can buy. 

It was a hard session on my back and I still had the ironing to do. But now I can look forward to crisply ironed sheets tonight after I get home from choir.

 

Going out in the garden to hang up the washing I noticed one of the new clematis flowering. It had snuck up behind the trellis so I hadn't even noticed it was there.

Windy.

Today has been windy and apart from once when a cloud released a few drops of rain, dry. A good drying day.

Before going down to the zoo I painted lots of wood hardener on the rotten soft parts of the wooden garage window frames. 

I spent a happy four hours weeding at the zoo, still plenty more to do next week. At one point another volunteer asked for some help in opening the gate to the giant tortoise run and bit later he couldn't move the bolt to the tortoise house. Hopefully he now knows that when bolts wont open first try lifting the gate (that worked for the gate) and if that doesn't work jiggling usually does (and did). While I was there I hand fed some cabbage to one of the tortoises which was outside. It was interesting to note just how strong their bite is (on the cabbage not me). It was making a kind of huffing noise, a bit off-putting as I didn't know if that was an angry or a happy sound. 

Once I got home I had time to take a break for an hour before going off to Pilates. It was a good session. I was a bit worried about my shoulder but that was okay. Peter is out at a meeting so I'm going to watch 70 Up which he wasn't interested in. 

Now for a few more snippets from St Ives.

This is Barnoon Hill which is on the route I took into St Ives having misheard the Satnav. I had offered to drive the last bit as Peter gets stressed in narrow streets especially when there are people wandering all over the road. Faced with this view I was pretty stressed too and yes the way got even narrower at the bottom. I drove very slowly in first gear and breathed out a big sigh of relief as I turned onto a slightly wider road. 

(Above) That's the view looking up from the bottom of the hill.

Naturally I made sure to check out the three charity shops. This one was a vintage charity shop and looked more like an Aladdin's cave. There were small signs on the shelves saying Yes we are a charity shop, as it really didn't look like one. I believe it is for the local hospice. I bought Peter a pack of vintage playing cards as he finds modern cards difficult to shuffle. The old ones slide between each other much more easily.

Finally, this is Seal Cottage which could have been my home had my mother wished. Mrs Sanders was a good friend to my mother and when she left the cottage to the St Ives Arts Society to be lived in by artists she stipulated that my mother had first refusal. But by that time we had moved to London and my mother turned down the offer.

The other side of the cottage sits on Porthmeor with a handy door onto the sand. I can remember sitting at that window being taught to play solitaire on a wooden board with marbles. Mrs Sanders also left me her piano and I had that piano for over 30 years until we moved out of London.