Windy.

The wild and windy night time weather carried on into the morning. Hoping the rain would hold off I hung some washing on the line, double pegged to stop it from flying away. The washing stayed secure but the laundry basket and box of pegs ended up down by the house with a number of the plastic pegs broken. 

Indoors I caught up with the housework as I'd taken things easy at the beginning of the week. 

I planed to spend the afternoon backing up photos while also giving my study a thorough clean. In the end the backing up was abandoned in favour of listening to Nightwish to blot out the sound of pop music coming through the party wall. That's something that you have to put up with when you live in a terrace house, I just wanted to listen to something I actually enjoy. My PC is on a go slow at the moment (I'm sure it's the weather) and doesn't like doing two things at once. So I opted for music while I tidied, cleared and wiped every surface in my little haven. I noticed that the piano stool had lost a couple of screws underneath so that got dealt with as well and to finish I gave my big mirror and the windows a wash and polish with newspaper.

Somebody in the bass section took this photo last night. Only new members are supposed to have the song words to look at while the rest of us are constantly asked to learn the words and our parts from the choir website as we definitely can't have the words for the concert. Somebody here was cheating! 

Wet.

It's been a cold day with frequent heavy showers and the occasional burst of sun. The wall flowers are beginning to flower and so far every one has been yellow. I had been hoping for some orange and rust coloured flowers for a bit of variety. The only information when I bought them was if they were tall or dwarf.

I spent the afternoon going over some of the songs for the choir's concert which will be on Friday week. This evening at choir we did more of the same. Going through a song described as an easy one we'd suddenly come to a major halt when one or more sections had difficulty in coming in on time or in tune. We don't use sheet music and it's a matter of remembering and watching the choir leader and/or hoping somebody near you knows what they are doing. 

Not a Good Day.

First thing this morning we had a phone call from the estate agent to say that the owner of the bungalow had decided not to sell because she wanted to keep it as a holiday home. What a disappointment. It wouldn't surprise us to see the bungalow back on the market at a higher price. The estate agent did sound disheartened and will let us know if anything similar comes up. So no more browsing kitchen ideas and back to trawling through house listings.

It has felt quite chilly today through a mix of early sun, clouds and showers. I needed to pick up Patch's prescription from the vet and combined that with driving across town to do some shopping. I also finally remembered to take a bag of worn out clothes for the recycling bin at Tesco's. Apparently even the worn out clothing gets shredded and recycled. That's just reminded me of the rag-and-bone man going around with a horse and cart which I saw once in a while in my childhood.

When I was a child there would be the very occasional treat of some Lithuanian fudge called 'Little Cow'. Only on rare occasions as not only were we very poor but sweet items weren't part of my upbringing. Ever since supermarkets began stocking a range of Polish food I've cast my eye over the shelves hoping to spot the familiar yellow and brown packaged sweets but never with any luck. Today I looked a little more carefully and saw these Krowka sweets which had the same shape but different colours. Needless to say I bought a bag and upon testing I found they were the fudge I remember from 50 years ago. Researching on line I found that they were developed by a Polish company and that Krowka also means Little Cow.

 And look, boxes of chocolate just for me!

For the first time in a year I decided to skip tonight's Pilates as I'm not feeling 100%, nothing too bad but the Tuesday sessions are very energetic.

Stormy.

I'm pleased to report that I woke this morning feeling back to my normal self. Maybe Rocky Road is a cure for colds? The stormy winds had carried on through the night blowing the bins over again and bringing more rain. The wind eased up a bit during the day but we had many heavy showers which by the afternoon contained sleet and hail. I spent the day doing my usual exercises and housework with more browsing at kitchen plans. 

On the Friday journey home we stopped at the Gloucester motorway services, a surprisingly beautiful building built like a hobbit hole inside a green hill. Looking on-line today I saw that it is called the best motorway service station in the whole country.  

Going inside the light and airy space we became immediately aware of the green/eco ethos behind the design. Lots of natural timber with the food serving areas lit by downlights set into tree trunks. To start with there were none of the usual fast food outlets with nasty and unhealthy food offerings. Instead the food was of the 'home made' style. We didn't need to buy any food but had stopped for a loo break. Very modern design as expected and as I waited for Peter I saw that they had 'family room' toilets with both adult and child sized toilets and sinks. Other rooms offered the chance of a shower which to my quick glance were free. (I may be wrong there.)

I needed to stretch my legs so we  headed for a stroll around the Farm Shop. Oh my! what an amazing selection of goodies. Only the very high prices kept me from buying anything. Above is a selection of different brownies and cakes while below are tea cakes (biscuit, marshmallow and chocolate) in very tempting flavours.

Peter went and had a look at the fresh meat counter where he found steak for £45 per kilo! Below is a table of kabanas and biltong which you could mix and match. The names suggested that they were extremely hot.

And for the ultimate temptation a table of chocolate truffles and other hand made chocolates. They also sold equally beautiful and pricey ceramics, jewellery and all the other things you might find in a quality gift shop. Reading the reviews on line it seems that the shop stocked speciality foods only found in top range delicatessens. If I won the lottery, which I don't play so isn't going to happen, I'd fill the wicker baskets that they have for shopping baskets, with no difficulty at all.

I found this picture today showing the stunning coastline near the bungalow. Yes, that's a campsite behind but the shadow next to the arrow is a steep section of the field so the holiday trailers are out of sight on the slope beyond. Peter has already spoken to the council and checked that there are no development plans for that field at the moment. The campsite may expand but not in the foreseeable future.

Storm Freya.

I woke this morning coughing and spluttering and some aching, all signs that I'm going down with a cold. (It'd better not be flu' as I had the flu' jab and Peter didn't.) No exercise at all today and taking things easy seemed to do the trick. I'd get up for a while, do some 'stuff' and then go back to bed with lots of hot tea to keep up the fluid levels. I drink very weak Earl Grey so not too much in the way of caffeine. 

Meanwhile Storm Freya howled and raged outside. Lots of rain and wind in the morning with bins being blown over and daffodils flapping this way and that. I love the wind and had the bedroom window open while I kept warm with a woolly hat and thick dressing gown.

One of my current admin  tasks is to trawl through on-line ideas for open plan kitchens and put any I like into a folder. Of course you have to take into account that these examples are as big as a barn and completely devoid of anything but the furniture. Often no kitchen gadgets or few decorative items giving a wonderfully minimalist but totally unrealistic picture.

Wet.

This afternoon I was back at Loxhore learning how to make stained glass decorations. We didn't have to cut any glass, thank goodness, just designed and then used a soldering iron to join everything together. It was interesting to learn the technique but I doubt if I'll take it up as a hobby. Still it was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, chatting and doing my best to be neat. We had a delicious shared lunch to which I brought some Rocky Road that I made last night. Right now Storm Freya is blowing in with predicted winds of 80 mph tonight and tomorrow.

On our journey home our route took us through the town of Pembridge which has many Medieval houses. These are just a few photos that I took as we were driving. I noticed that even the new houses being built on the outskirts had to be built in the half-timbered style.

Borth.

We're back from a successful trip to Borth in Wales when we looked at a bungalow which subject to all the usual checks we are buying. Even though we are only buying and not having to co-ordinate a sale the whole buying process takes a long time and we don't plan to move until all the work needed is done so we'll be in Pilton for a while.

Borth is a characterful seaside village 7 miles north of the university town of Aberystwyth with good rail and bus links to Aberystwyth bringing the students during term times. One of our house hunting criteria was to be in walking distance of shops and basic facilities and so far have seen a doctors' surgery, 2 supermarkets, a post office, a rowing club, pubs and a small zoo as well as all the usual seaside businesses. Being within 10 miles of  Aberystwyth Hospital and having good train and bus services also fit in with our future proofing plans.

The 2 mile long sand and shingle beach attracts many holiday makers who stay in the numerous caravan and holiday parks that are found all along the Welsh coast.

We drove up yesterday, a journey that began with finding out that having done the update on the Satnav as advised on the radio it then failed to get any signal as I tried to put in the post code. Then followed a visit to the petrol station to buy a road map and try to remember the route I briefly looked at when finding out how long the journey should take. The four and half hours turned out to be seven hours due to rain, roadworks and getting stuck behind slow vehicles. This was done without a break until near the end to reschedule the house viewing and to give me a chance to recover from feelings of car sickness brought on by map reading and a splitting headache. I didn't even get out to stretch my joints which were not helped by my less than comfortable car seat. At least we were able to take some breaks on the return journey. We went up in the car as the fuel money saved by not taking the camper plus campsite fees was more than enough to cover the cost of a very nice B&B a few miles outside of Borth. Even though the weather was wet yesterday the sight of the beach lifted our spirits. After settling in at the B&B we went back into Borth to check out the village and to get something to eat. There are 3 pubs in Borth; the one we went in which was the working men's' haunt (the beer met with Peter's approval), a posher one which does restaurant style meals and the 'hippy' pub. We were told that Jimi Hendrix had visited that pub and an on-line check confirms this. I felt that following giant pink dinosaur footprints painted on the pavement was a sign that it could be my type of place. Everyone we met in the pub or in the street was really friendly, another good sign. We were both so tired that instead of going to the smarter pub for a meal we shared fish and chips sitting in the car by the beach. An early night in our pleasant B&B followed by a tasty cooked breakfast set us up for the day. Then we drove down to Borth to see the beach in the sunshine before the long journey home.

Wales shares the same geology as North Devon and the Cambrian mountains (which would be called hills in any other part of the world) are similar to Valley of the Rocks and the North Coast but instead of ending at the top of the valley go on for miles and wonderful miles. Can't wait to go exploring the wild countryside.