Red or Blue ?

It has been a warm, cloudy day with the occasional light drop of rain. The sea has been calm and I find the gentle blues of the view quite calming too.

The only diy I did today was to repair the missing end of the garage doorframe with the resin filler. I stayed away from the garage aka workshop as Peter has begun planing down an old scaffolding plank to make shelves for the sitting room. Instead I carried on with the general tidy up of the back garden. I had toyed with the idea of leaving the aquilegias and linaria that had sprung up around the young fruit bushes but then I remembered my plan to fetch up seaweed from the beach to act as a top dressing for the poor soil. I shall put a load on the salad bed too as it's supposed to deter slugs and snails. I'll have to wait for the storms to throw up a decent amount of seaweed first. I saved some of the aquilegias by moving them into a raised bed and a few foxgloves went down to the front garden. I also cleared the space where I shall try and make a perspex cold frame to keep any frost off the more tender plants in pots. I had a number of potted seedlings and cuttings that for some reason the birds keep knocking over, maybe to get at the worms that gather underneath. Instead I sat the pots in empty plastic troughs. Then I went out and gathered wallflower seedlings from out in the street. There are a number of wallflower plants growing by the road that put on a good show each spring. I've been told they originally came from this garden so I've rescued and potted up a handful of the many seedlings growing in the gutter to eventually plant in the front garden. ('Some' is such a useful word but maybe seven times in one paragraph is too much so will change change some of the 'some's. Can you spot where?)

 

To amuse myself I photographed anything red in the front garden and here are a few of the photos.

I prefer blue flowers but the hydrangeas have forced me to incorporate red into the colour scheme too.

Wet.

A very wet day. Yet again Peter's flying experience had to be postponed. It's a shame that they only do it on Sundays. However it was a good thing since I woke up this morning with a nasty bout of cystitis. (I'll spare you the details.) I realised that I needed more than the sachets you can buy over the counter so I began the saga of getting the appropriate antibiotics. First I rang 111 who answered quite quickly and confirmed that yes I need to speak to the doctor. Next thing was to wait for a phone call from the doctor. After an hour I checked my phone which had been right in front of me the whole time. Aargh! there was a missed call three quarters of an hour before. My phone had enough signal to make a phone call out but not to receive one. My next phone call to 111 had me on hold for 20 minutes until I could explain the situation and give them the house phone number. It's now two hours later and I'm still waiting. There's a time constraint in that once I see the doctor at the hospital I will still need to take the prescription to Boots or Morrisons which close at 4.00 on Sundays.

Update 3.00 - back home with some strong antibiotics from a very nice doctor at the hospital. No need to go to the chemist for the prescription either. It turns out that the house phone has a blocker which stops any private (withheld) number from ringing through. Usually that's a good thing to stop cold calls and scams though Peter doesn't recall setting this up. As to my phone not ringing, that's down to me messing about with my phone and inadvertently turning off the ringing. I've turned it back on now. In one way I can see today as being messed up but then again even though it took a while I had access to free medical treatment unlike many people in the world.

 

Warm.

It's been a very warm day with the rain arriving in the late afternoon. No signs yet of the thunderstorms coming in from the south with intense rain and hail that the weather forecast predicted.

I did a lot of gardening today. Mainly in the back garden which has been a bit neglected this summer. I must remember to keep watering everything in tubs and raised beds because even when we have rain it isn't usually enough. While some plants have struggled others flourished including the weeds. Self sown aquilegias, knautia, foxgloves and feverfew are everywhere. Some I'll leave but others need to go. 

In the front garden the first of the Fox & Cubs (aka orange hawkbit) is flowering. Although a native wildflower my plants came from a friend who was weeding them out of her rockery. She warned me that they are 'spreaders' but that's fine as they are in a small bed under one of the hedges where they can spread to their hearts' content.. Out in the back garden one of the nerines is flowering, for the first time ever. I knew they can be temperamental so have been waiting patiently for a few years. Hopefully some of the others will flower too and continue to do so each year.

Before the rain set in I sat outside and darned two holes in my riding gloves. They are fabric gloves with 'grippy' palms and I see no point in throwing them out just because of a couple of holes.

With the rain drumming on the roof I thought I'd brighten things up with some of yesterday's butterflies.

Below is the type of location that was full of butterflies, I managed to catch a white butterfly in flight bottom left. Above- two Large Whites (everyone apart from lepidopterists calls these Cabbage Whites) feeding on the blackberries.

A Red Admiral.

A Small Copper.

Walking the Coast Path.

On the coast it has been bright and breezy but a misty haze has been trying to creep in from inland.

As our original plan to visit the Osprey Centre and then the café in Mach was deferred I decided to cadge a lift to Aberystwyth with Peter and walk back along the coast path. The sign post said 5 miles but that fails to take into account the undulating nature of the cliff top.

Peter dropped me off at the end of South Beach and I followed the path that winds its way around the cliff railway to the top of Constitution Hill locally known as Consti. In the above photo I am halfway up and in the one below I had made it to the top. It took me 15 minutes and was a hard climb. No wonder they built the cliff railway.

Looking northwards I could see Aberdyfi in the distance. That made the walk feel less of an expedition and more just a local walk.

However I had not been to Clarach holiday village before as the coast road runs a bit more inland. There were extensive holiday park amenities which normally I would avoid but thankfully there were very few people around so I didn't mind walking through it and I have to say that the toilets were spotless.

Before I got to Clarach the hillside behind me was covered with dead and dying pine trees whose trunks were full of holes. Such a shame.

But ahead the sun shone and the wind blew. Walking in the sheltered spots between brambles and gorse I was amazed by the number of butterflies especially as they seem to have been so scarce this year.

It was only just over an hour into my walk when the sight of the old lime kiln on the beach told me that I had reached Wallog, the point that I got to when I walked from Borth. It was a long haul up the far side of the hill so when I made it to the top I had a 20 minute break for a coffee and a couple of oat biscuits.

Then back along the familiar route until the Memorial and Borth came into view. Not counting the rest stop it took me two and a half hours to walk the five miles.

Before we left home in the morning I painted a second coat of blue on the garage door and after I returned from my walk I went over all the metal work with black Hammerite paint. Then I was free to do some gardening. I dug out the two mature fennel in the front garden, that was hard work and moved some agapanthus and sea holly into the space. The agapanthus had not done well in their raised bed in the back garden so I'm trying them in a border in the front garden instead. I had planted the sea holly in the shingle but the tall blue flowering stems flopped right over. I'm hoping that by planting them all in a group amongst other plants they'll support each other. A couple of other perennials also got moved as the colour of the flowers was quite right where they were. I'm fussy about colours in the garden.

Sunny.

Well, we've been blessed with yet another warm and sunny day with the perfect breeze for drying washing, paint and floors.

I've had a busy day but the lovely weather boosts my energy and it's been great to get so much done.

First stop was an appointment at the surgery. No need to drive today though I have to factor in extra time to stop and talk to people on the way. (Three conversations this morning.) The cardiologist had looked at my results and notes including some from Devon and decided that I don't have atrial fibrillation after all. That's a relief. Just a mildly irregular heartbeat. I'll stay on the beta blockers but split the dose between morning and afternoon to try and stop my heart rate from going down so much. Best news was that I don't need to take the blood thinners so no more dramatic bruises or bleeding from the smallest cut. Yay!

Once I came back I painted a second coat of blue on the garage doors plus a first coat on the inside of the one we use now that I know there is enough paint. The paint on the back gate is finally dry enough that I can close it without it sticking to the frame. Above is how it looked when I had just started taking the paint off and below is how it looks today. Not a perfect job but perfectly adequate for a back gate.

Then it was time for our Zoom class, the first of the year. There was a lot of admin to go through first, checking we knew all the information in the learners' handbook so we didn't do a lot of Welsh. We had a gentle start to get our confidence and pronunciation back. There were plenty of additional courses on during the summer which some people have done but I didn't fancy any of those. Two new people have signed up but didn't appear today so it might just be the old crowd.

After class I did the ironing and then washed the floors which is something that doesn't need doing that often. With doors open at both ends of the house the breeze is drying the floors as I type. 

Soon I shall be off to disco aerobics, shorts I think for tonight, and that will be the end of my full day.

Sunset last night.

Still Sunny.

There were more clouds this morning but by the afternoon there was not a cloud to be seen and it was beautifully hot. If it carries on like this for a few more days we should have some red tomatoes to harvest.

Not only was the sun shining but there was a good drying wind. Good for the washing on the line and also for painting. I wasn't happy with the finish of the back gate as there was a ton of dust/ bits caught on the surface so I sanded it down with extra fine sandpaper and used a new paintbrush to give it one last coat of paint. It already looks so much better. Then I moved on to the doors into the garage. But when I sanded and washed them down I noticed the tell-tale holes of woodworm. While I knew it wouldn't be effective over paintwork I still went over the whole lot with woodworm killer hoping that enough would penetrate the spaces between the boards and down into the holes to kill whatever is or was living in there. Then I painted over the oxblood doors with the blue gloss. I had been waiting for all the repairs to the render to be done (hah!) before painting over the walls and then all the woodwork but the delay by the builders is forcing me to do things backwards.

And now for some photos and FB videos from yesterday -

Having climbed the first big hill we stopped to look out to Aberystwyth and the sea on the horizon.

There were plenty of even steeper hills to ride up and then down, 

with some level tracks through woods and forests.

We stopped to let the horses have a drink as we crossed over the Rheidol close to the stables.

And here are some short FB videos showing the varied terrain we crossed on our epic day. There's also a good one of the red kites being fed up at Nant Yr Arian just before we left. - The hill tops, A very steep track, Above Craig Y Pistyll if you stop the video at 58 seconds in right in the middle is the bridge where on the Sunday walks, we ate our lunch. To the left of that is the path that climbs the rockface beside the waterfalls which are hidden by the ridge of trees, More downhill in the forest ,Kite feeding and Homeward bound. (All these photos and videos were taken by Iola Evans riding on Petra.)

A Sunny Day's Ride.

The sun shone again today making it perfect weather for a day out riding. Not only was it lovely and sunny but there was also a pleasant breeze so we didn't feel too hot. 

This is Petra, the horse Iola (the owner of the stables) was riding. (Only  few photos have been posted on FB so far.) After four hours of riding through country lanes and hill tops we had made our way round to Nant Yr Arian for a very welcome lunch break. After such a long ride dismounting would have been tricky in itself but then I had to lift my leg over the bulk of the saddle bags as well as the back of the saddle which resulted in a slow and very inelegant dismount from Cadno who is quite a tall horse. After our break we crossed the main road and followed a new route down to the Rheidol valley. Cadno was his usual lovely self but I felt that he was getting tired by the end. All day we had been at the back of the group with another horse and kept having to trot on to catch up with everyone else and the last few canters were a lot slower than the others. Not to mention that I was feeling pretty tired at that point. Still I really enjoyed the day and recognised more places that I had been to on the Sunday walks. That included the waterfalls at Craig Y Pistyll that we walked by in July. 

We were out for 7 hours with about half an hour's break for lunch and covered 20 miles. But look at the state of my shin even through riding boots. I was pretty horrified until I remembered the blood thinners I'm now taking which would explain why the tissue has bruised so easily.

I left the stables looking forward to a hot shower and a cup of coffee only to meet a large tractor with machinery coming towards me down the narrow lane. Being the good country girl that I am I pulled over to let him pass only to find what I thought was a puddle at the side of the road was in fact a very deep rut. So deep that once the wheel fell into it the whole car dropped down so that the wishbone? (the car's underneath structure) was sitting on the road surface and I was going nowhere. The tractor had gone on obliviously but two young farmers in a truck stopped to help and so did a farmer on a quadbike. The farmer on the quad offered to go and get a wooden wedge to put under the wheel in the water and the other lads said they had to go but would return later to see if I still needed help. The first farmer turned up in an enormous machine, with two prongs on the front for lifting round bales and a chain. It turned out that the tractor I'd pulled over for was from his farm but I think he would have been helpful in any case. Some more of his workers turned up in a van and between them all they pulled my car out of the puddle and got it back on the road assuring me that I hadn't broken my car. Boy was I relieved though in the worst case I did have my phone and we are members of the RAC, in fact we pay a lot every year to have that security of knowing we would be rescued .... eventually.

Last night I was surprised to see so many con trails in the night sky. A fellow blogger in England had mentioned there was an international air force exercise going on from the airbases near her. I had a hunt on-line and found that it was/is Exercise Cobra Warrior though the MOD notice says daytime only. I expect this is all in anticipation of international aircraft being needed for the situation in Europe.