Stormy.

It was very warm this morning with a strong wind blowing from the south and a sky full of black clouds. The heavy rain arrived at lunchtime making it so dark we needed the room lights on.

I've now gone into almost panic mode over the crocheting. If I want to get it finished by Christmas (which it would easily have been if I hadn't miscalculated the stitches) then every spare moment needs to be spent working on it. I'll need to be ultra organised with my time to fit everything in but I think I can do it - just.

We had a good Welsh lesson this afternoon. It really helps to go over both the previous lesson and the next when we meet up in Mach and it looks like we'll be having a fourth member of our class join us after Christmas. She only joined our class this September but lives close to Mach.

Before the rain set in I indulged in some wave watching and got some reasonable photos of the 'white horses'.

I've already packed the car with the equipment I need for riding and a couple of bags of things for the charity shop. After all there are only so many jackets I can claim to actually need. It's not raining at the moment but I'm going to drive to the Hall for aerobics because when it does rain it's extremely heavy.

This really was the colour of the world for a brief moment at sunset.

 

Outside Decorations.

A little bit of sun today with some wind.

There was enough wind to make it worth hanging out the washing, throws and cushion covers from the sitting room which are now hanging in the utility room for a last bit of drying.

This morning Peter went off for his long awaited appointment at the hospital. It turns out that he had actually torn his ligament which is now mending. He's going to have an injection right into the ligament a procedure that requires a local anaesthetic. Hopefully that will be soon. All his rowing and exercising at home has kept his muscles in good shape but he's now on a watch list re the arthritis in his knee and the only solution will be a knee replacement.

Only now have I remembered that the boiler man was supposed to be coming to service the boiler right at the time when I was out in the garden putting up the big driftwood tree. But for nearly all that time I would have been clearly visible from the road so Peter's going to ring and find out what happened. (The chap does has health problems.)

Anyway, here's the tree with a few additions for this year. Presents made from wood offcuts and plastic rope and JOY spelt out in beach stones. While I was laying out the branches on the pavement a lady came past with her dogs and told me that she enjoys seeing my tree each year. I've always wondered what people think of my creative efforts and it's nice to get a positive comment.

Walking along the road in the dark last night brought home to me just how few houses in the village and especially up here, are occupied in the winter. Almost all the houses were dark. I'm not sure if it's sad to see the place so desolate or if I quite enjoy the relative peace.

As I walked down I could just see the cheerful twinkling lights of the window displays in the beach Shop and the neighbouring café. Here is a video of the whole display. The Christmas tree outside the RNLI hasn't got its lights yet and overall there are very few lights up in the village. Walking up from the corner yesterday all I could see was one house with two small lit trees in the front porch and the lights around our window. My Pilates/aerobics teacher has a nice display of white lights and stars in her windows but she wasn't back from the Hall then and so far our next-door neighbour hasn't put up his colourful roof lights. There is one house in the next road that has full house lights including a sleigh and reindeer but you can't really see it from Cliff rd.

 

Dry.

Dry today with lots of fluffy clouds in the sky.

It would have been a good day to go to the zoo but last week, despite wearing builders' knee pads I managed to rub off the skin on one knee. That's a problem with getting older, everything is so flippin' delicate. It's mostly healed up but I've found that kneeling on it, which is what I do at the zoo can be painful and makes it bleed. Instead I stayed home and crocheted. In between crocheting I delivered Christmas cards to our neighbours. At the same time my next-door neighbour was doing the same so we exchanged cards in the street.

Now for the last of my Craft Fair photos.

I like the use of beach pebbles to form the lid handles.

It's amazing what people do with different materials. I can just see the mackerel hanging on a sumptuous Victorian Christmas tree.

The Eco-printing was interesting but to my eye the results look a bit dingy.

Some very different ceramics, bright colours and a matt glaze.

Off soon to Pilates. I may have to keep my knee slightly off the floor and I better remember not to do one arm plank, which was an option last week, on my left arm as my shoulder has been weaker ever since I fell off a horse, jumping a gate when I was about 14. The trouble is my arms are strong after all the building work and I can do things like a full plank while I'm complete rubbish when it comes to bending sideways. 

 

Mach.

Still a little snow left on the mountain tops but for the most part it has been wetter and warmer today.

We drove up to Mach this morning for our Welsh language get together in the library. We spent a lot of time preparing for our next Zoom class trying hard to remember the nasal mutations. We couldn't find any logical reasoning for the letter changes unlike the soft mutations, B to F, C to G etc where you can see that the new letter is similar to say but softer. Now we're trying to find examples that are easy to learn. Our best one so far was for B to Mh, Bisgedi (biscuits) becomes M(mmmm) hisgedi. (Spellcheck does not like all these Welsh words.) We then went on to read more from the Wynne Evans book but have decided we don't like it and won't read any more. Although the course recommends it for the unit we are on there is far too much grammar/ tenses that we haven't done yet and it was a real struggle to make sense of a lot of it. We've found another book for learners that we'll try next time instead. Afterwards I went to the Post Office counter at the back of Spar and posted off all the rest of my Christmas cards. Only a few cards to hand deliver to the neighbours and that's done. Then we drove round to the architectural salvage place looking for a chest of drawers for Peter as he's now decided that he does need something to put his clothes in. It needs to be quite low as he wants it by the side of the bed and I've just realised we had the perfect chest of drawers at Dingles which I gave away on Freecycle. They didn't have much but it was worth a look. There are antique shops in Mach but they are very pricy so I shall keep looking on-line and in Aber. Something will turn up eventually.

I've been feeling very tired so I didn't do much at home apart from some crocheting.

Now for some more lovely things at yesterday's Craft fair.-

This stall holder's mum makes jewellery from sea glass and sea worn pieces of blue and white pottery. The house earrings on the right are made using old wooden Monopoly houses and the silver items on the chokers are miniature replicas of tins of sardines.

Local photos and wooden items which are always very tactile.

I was tempted by the B&W lino print of a lapwing but it was too pricy for me this year.

I have bought stuff from this lady before and dropped a big hint to Peter that I wouldn't be adverse to having another of the little green birds.

I thought these bark decorations were interesting but they were too big to go on our tiny tree.

More Craft Fair photos tomorrow.

 

Craft Fair.

We had rain this morning, and for most of the day which meant it wasn't so cold here but there was snow up on the mountains. Snowdonia was hidden by clouds but even after a day of rain and the clouds had lifted there was still a fair amount of snow on the peaks. (Photo below taken in the morning.)

I cried off the walk yet again. I had too much to do and it was through some woods we have already walked in twice this year. 

First thing this morning, before we'd even eaten breakfast I was off down to the Hall for the Craft Fair. And what a joy it was. Over 30 stalls showcasing work by local artists and crafts people.

I began by looking at all the stalls and chatting to people I know and then on the second time around I did some buying. I bought cards and a small ceramic vase (for me) and found a framed lino print as a present for Peter. There were some really lovely bigger prints and original works but you're talking £50 - £150 which was a beyond my budget.

I took photos of some of the stalls always asking permission first. Only one lady didn't want me to post pictures of her work on-line but everyone else was quite happy. (She was worried that her designs might be copied.) I made sure to take photos of the pieces I especially liked to show to Peter as he was going to the Hall later in the day.

For the house I bought one of the green vases (already in my bag) from this potter who works in Cwm Rheidol (The Vale of Rheidol) for the not too extravagant amount of £12. If I had more shelves I would have been tempted to buy more ceramics from other potters as well to put on display.

I bought Peter's framed print from this lady.

While Peter was out checking the camper and then down at the Hall I went up in the loft to put away some stuff and have a quick look in the boxes of decorations. When I got up there I had a nasty surprise. There were drops of condensation all over the felt and they were dripping onto the boxes and pictures below. Apart from that it's no good for the wood. Just when I thought the damp had been sorted. Luckily there was an enormous tarpaulin up there and I was able to cover everything over for the time being. I've sent an email and photos to the builder and hopefully he will have some ideas. Peter thinks we might need to put insulation between the beams. 

Decorations.

There was still a frost this morning but with clouds and rain fast approaching the day was much warmer than recently.

Very pretty skies at sunrise.

Today we had the charities Christmas Fair on in the Hall.  There were stalls manned by a wide range of local groups; churches, scouts, greyhound rescue, the donkey sanctuary, the railway station museum and the RNLI to name but a few. I try to support the charities as best I can without ending up with a whole lot of stuff I don't need. This year I bought hand made Christmas cards and a large and bushy lemon scented geranium. Usually I buy cakes or biscuits and this year one of the church groups was selling home made sweets including truffles but I'm successfully losing a few pounds in advance of the Christmas calories so had to pass them by. I did buy a pack of glow sticks. The sort you break to activate and then wear as bracelets etc. I'll take them to next week's aerobics and share them with my fellow dancers for the final bop of the year.

On my way home I called in to see Peter at the RNLI shop. I didn't think he would have any customers but he's just informed me he took nearly £50 which is not bad for a wet December day. 

When I got home I began putting up our minimal Christmas decorations. (There are others around the place.) This I thought would be a fairly quick job but once again I was wrong. Having found the box with the wood for the indoor tree it didn't take me long to slot the wood on to the metal rod, only to discover that I was a few sticks short. The extra sticks used to be kept on top of the storage box as they were too long to fit inside. They must have got separated and I do remember fairly recently coming across them and thinking they were surplus to requirements. I'm not sure what happened to them after that but I'm guessing I disposed of them. As  stopgap I drilled a hole through a block of wood to fill the space and then had to take the tree apart and build it again. The small bit of driftwood at the bottom wouldn't move so I left it for now. Mr Mouse has gone on display too and there are some lights and other decorations around the place. The orange peel stars look more like starfish now so I shall make new ones next year. They are easy enough to do, just use a tiny cutter on some orange peel and a needle and thread to make the loops. The next thing will be to set up the big driftwood tree by the garden gate.

 

Cold.

Bitterly cold again today. The front garden stayed frosty all day and so too did part of the beach.

Down at the stables I found that I was riding Margaret again. I was originally down for Cadno but there was an extra person at the last minute and she got him instead. Having only ridden Margaret once before I was keen to ride her again and to see how we got on together. As usual there was a lot of instruction about getting the horses onto the bit and then, because we had both of the girl instructors also riding in the lesson we were asked to comment on how the other horses were doing. It was my good fortune to be on Margaret as she was going very nicely for me and I was able to ride her with very light contact on the bit and still have her arching her neck well. All that resulted in her being pointed out as going the best in the group. Not quite so good when it came to the canter work. Margaret is very young and has only been ridden since October last year. She gets over enthusiastic in canter especially if other horses are also cantering. I had one really nice steady canter on her and the other was a bit rushed though I stayed in control and she slowed down when I asked. After that she was less settled and kept trying to go sideways down the long side. I hope I get to ride her again soon so that I can work on this.

After riding it was the usual run in to town via the industrial estate to pick up a few bits for the mirror frame and wardrobe. Although the traffic was heavy it was nothing like yesterday as the road/railway works had finished. I called in at Charlie's for nails and I might just have had a browse of the riding gear. I also found one more plant in the sad corner. 

As I came through the village on my way home I saw that the beach was looking interestingly frosty so as soon as I'd put the shopping away down to the beach I went.

This is the spot where once the cold spell has gone on for a while, we get some spectacular icicles.

At this time of the year we can't see the sunsets from the terrace but have to go down to the beach to catch the setting sun.

I post this most years but this Funny Jingle Bells video makes me laugh every time. Enjoy.