Phew!

Unfortunately not a scorcher today, just a bit of sun in the morning with the sky soon becoming grey and gloomy. There was good wind and although it felt like it might rain at any time it stayed dry and I got some sheets dried on the line.

First thing in the morning I had to go down to the surgery for another blood test. I'd had a phone call yesterday and there happened to be a slot this morning. (Even though there were people in the waiting room I was brave enough to speak Welsh to say I had an appointment at 9.30.) Naturally getting the phone call was disconcerting to say the least. I started by thinking of fairly minor reasons why they needed to do more tests which then escalated to more serious reasons and worse. Of course I knew I was being dramatic but you never know. As it turned out it the first set of results were all fine but the test for diabetes hadn't been included. The nurse who took the blood said she would be able to tell me the result if I ring her tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to be generous and say that maybe the doctor who is new to the surgery, wasn't aware that the diabetes test wasn't included in the basic tests as when I looked the NHS website gave diabetes as one of the possible causes for cold feet. At least I don't have to wait long for the result.

The second phew was over waking this morning with more backache than usual. I wondered if I was going to have to ease off on the gardening which would drag the work out even longer. But later in the day I noticed I had forgotten to take my painkillers last night. I sort my tablets out once a day and keep each set separate in egg cups so it is easy to see if I miss any. That was the reason my back was not good. I'm hoping that once all the heavy work is done in the garden I can start cutting back on the painkillers even more than I have already.

The final phew came after I had some concerns over seeing an announcement that there would be a cliff top weekend reggae 'party' (festival) in Borth in June. My first thought that this would be somewhere on the cliff top in front of our house which didn't seem possible due to the small size of the grassy area. So then I thought it would be in the fields that are are part of the caravan park  just behind us. Still too close for comfort. I love live music but the thought of a weekend of somebody else's music blaring away wasn't appealing. Then I had the sense to look on line for more details. From a video of the last time they held this festival I could see that it was in fields on the cliffs but at least a mile away which is fine. We might even go there for the day depending on the cost of tickets.

Apart from all that unnecessary worrying and going to the surgery I've done some digging in the garden, taken part in the Welsh class, done the ironing and been to disco aerobics. Another busy day.

 

Sunny.

Bright and sunny all day long, hooray.

Tempted as I was to spend the whole day digging I began by spending a couple of hours at the zoo. (And forgot to take my camera or even my phone.) There I pruned the nine mature buddleia bushes in various rabbit/guinea pig enclosures. I had pruned them last year so there wasn't anything that my loppers couldn't cut through. In fact some of them were pruned less than last year when I had cut them all back to grow into bushes 5-6 ft high which makes the yearly pruning easy for me. However I had noticed that some of those bushes blocked visitors' view of the animals inside the enclosures so this year I pruned higher up so that those buddleia will be more like small trees.

Leaving the zoo I stopped to say hello to somebody I know who was out walking a friend's dog and gave her and the dog a lift home as she was running late. It was a good time to dig up a bit of one of her hardy geraniums, Anne Folkhard, which has magenta flowers with a dark purple centre. I had not managed to bring some with me amongst the plants I brought from Dingles so when I spotted it last year in her garden she kindly said I could have some when I had a suitable spot to plant it.

I still managed to fit in a few hours trench digging with blackbird and robins in attendance. I wonder if they think I am purely there to dig up worms for them or if they think the roots I put in my bucket are worms I'm going to have for myself. I know birds don't really think that way but it amuses me to ponder such thoughts.

I finished off with going to choir in the evening. It's a clear cold night with the stars shining brightly above.

 

Sunny.

It's been a sunny spring-like day with hardly any wind. However when when we came home after our trip to town we could see that it had rained in Borth. Large waves have been rolling in all day and the first surfer was out just after 7.00. By late afternoon this number had increased to twenty.

We had to be out of the house by 9.00 this morning as I had an appointment at the opticians at 9.30. Peter had forgotten about my eye test and booked his appointment at the chiropractor for his back at 10.30 instead of the other option which was in the afternoon so he had to come in with me and hang around town for an hour. I think he went to buy some proper sausages from the butcher.

The optician was very thorough and I found out that my dry eyes are a result of the laser surgery. This has caused some irritation of the eye lids so now, along with my handful of daily pills I have to keep a hot eye mask (heated in the microwave) on my eyes for 10 minutes every morning and use different eye drops four times a day as the preservative in the ones from the doctor makes my eyes sting. Something to do with the ph. Apart from that my eyes are in good shape, no signs of glaucoma and only the usual  beginnings of cataracts associated with age. The little red area inside my eyelid is just a cyst, nothing to worry about. Sight is such an important sense and the yearly check up with all the different machines is reassuring.

Of course as soon as I got home I was back out in the garden. The trench is slowly getting wider and deeper. The deeper it is the less likely any remaining roots will grow up through the sandy subsoil. If I was planning to turn the front garden into a vegetable plot I would have been disappointed at the thin layer of top soil but the soil conditions are perfect for a shingle garden.

I shall be turfing a purring Speedy off my lap in a minute to go down to the hall for Pilates. I enjoy having an hour to really focus on my body and I do some of the exercises at home too though in a rather sporadic manner.

 

Gone Cold.

My reward for getting up early this morning was being able to watch the fiery red sky fade into subtle pinks as the day began.

We started with a sunny morning and no wind making it almost warm. Gradually the wind increased and as it was blowing from the east the temperature plummeted. By the end of the afternoon the sky had turned grey and we were hit by icy squalls. Fortunately I had started my digging early and got a fair amount done. Bit by bit as they say.

At last I have chosen a hospital for my toe surgery based purely on a recommendation from a neighbour and that it is only 80 miles away. Also it's a specialist orthopaedic hospital. It's NHS but does private work as well. A shame they don't do private work at the local hospital but I think it's too small. Before I can book an initial appointment they have to have a referral form my GP so this afternoon I walked down to the surgery to arrange that. I got back just before the rain began.

The grey clouds remind me of a Chinese watercolour painting.

The morning sun reflected from a building in Pwllheli.

 

Sunny.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain but when I opened the living room curtains there was a lovely double rainbow, or at least part of one. From then on it has been a sunny day, almost a Borthbados day.

Although the walk was local, from the Osprey Centre through the woods, up the hills and back down again it was one I have done before and I really wanted to get on with the garden so I stayed home to dig. 

Four hours of digging and another trench and a half done. I do wonder if I'm being too exacting with the root removal but the lawn was there for at least thirty years and it would be a real shame to do all the work and then end up with grass or other weeds growing up through the stones. I'm going down to a clay and stone layer which might be the subsoil or maybe just the waste from when the house was built. Above that is a layer of sand which I guess was put down to level the garden under a layer of top soil. That suits me as my trenching plan means I end up with the sand on top which will then be covered with gravel and finally stones. The plants I hope to grow in the shingle garden are all ones that do well in poorer soil. Plants such as grasses, cliff plants and Mediterranean plants. 

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I looked from the terrace and saw that there was still snow on some of the eastern peaks in Snowdonia but I don't think it will be there for long.

 

Sunny.

Lots of sun today but rather cold.

As I sat out with my tea this morning I could see a scattering of snow on the hill tops which by the end of the afternoon had melted away. (The snow not the hill tops.)

I took the above photo at 10.00 when the sun was shining on the snowy peaks beyond. There's still snow up there now but the clouds have dropped so we won't get to see the sunset colours reflected by the snow.

After a quiet winter there has been more activity on the water. Far out on the horizon more than 30 miles away there were what looked like two vessels. However when I looked on the maritime vessel locator site where you can track ships all around the world, it only came up with the one on the right which is the tug boat Selina. We guessed that it was towing some sort of construction barge.

The second boat was the fishing boat Genesis which is based at Aberystwyth harbour. It looks as if they were putting out lobster/crab pots. 

No prizes for guessing that I spent my day out in the garden. I began at the far end of the path digging over the soil and taking out any weeds or roots. I got to a point where I was able to dig a trench right across the garden into which goes the topsoil along with any roots I failed to pick out before being covered with subsoil from the bottom of the next trench. There isn't a thick layer of topsoil so my trench is less than a foot deep but it still takes a while to do as I'm working on my knees and trying to remove anything that might possibly grow again. Also this way I should be able to dig out the last remaining bramble roots. As I worked first one robin then a second began singing to me to remind me to throw worms their way. One was very bold and eventually was sitting on a low stem almost within arms reach while the other was much more cautious and mainly stayed hidden in hedge. The female blackbird turned up for her share too. 

 

Happy St. David's day.

Today is St David's Day so what better to begin with than some cheery daffodils.

And as it's the first of the month here are a few more flowers currently adding a splash of colour to the garden.

New to the garden this year are the drumstick primulas I found in the sad corner at Charlies which are now growing in the damp bed with the astilbes.

In the rockery this plant which I'm sure is related to aubretia is almost covered with white flowers.

The first of the grape hyacinths is flowering. I found them growing in pots and spread them out in the flower beds with the hardy geraniums.

Now these primulas might look a little sad but I'm sure they will perk up after they've had a good drink. I was at the checkout in B&M when I glanced over and saw a trolley with the plants they'd obviously forgotten to water (that happens quite often as they only have a few plants on sale). What really caught my eye was the price, 10p each. They will be quite happy once they are planted out in the garden so I bought four. 

And as it's the first day of spring (meteorological reckoning) what better than the first lamb I've seen this year?

And now for my daily weather update. What a day it has been. It seems that every time I set foot outside the weather changed. (The photos were all taken in the afternoon.) 

It was dry when I went out for my morning cuppa though I did have to take a kitchen chair out to sit on as the outside chairs were wet. As I left for the stables it was absolutely pouring and continued raining as we led the horses into the school. By the time we had finished the sun was out and it felt reasonably warm. Off I went to Morrisons and emerged after shopping into a hail shower. I arrived in town and it was sunny again but bitterly cold. I wasn't the only person who emerged from a shop with an exclamation and sharp intake of breath.

Leaving town I got to the spot where I could see across to the hills round Nant Y Moch and to my surprise they were covered in snow. Not just a little sprinkling on the tops but a thick blanket of white. I hadn't been expecting that.

On the drive home I stopped before the road plunges down to Borth to take some photos.

There wasn't a lot of snow on the slopes above Aberdyfi but plenty on the hills beyond.

I took the last two photos from home.

In my riding lesson I had Margaret again which was fun. Recently I had to skim through past posts and realised I was writing about the same things about my lessons, all very interesting to me but probably not to anyone else so I shall refrain from repeating myself. Today we rode circles and rectangles with crisp transitions (changes of pace), leg yielding and something new to me - giving (loosening) the reins for a pace or two before gathering them up again. This is to check if the horse is holding its neck and head naturally or if the rider is forcing the horse with the reins. Margaret as usual was lovely to ride and did everything I asked of her. I have finally given up with my riding boots, they are just too tight for my poor toe. Instead I borrowed a pair of the school's boots. One pair of 8s was too small, the next were fine until I went out in the yard and discovered they leaked. The last pair were just right giving my foot that little bit of extra room.

The replacement cube unit arrived while I was out but the delivery driver wouldn't take the old one as he said we should have dismantled it. As there are 18 nails in the back panels that isn't an option. I built the new unit which has the same unevenness at the front but I'm past caring. I contacted the help chat, another person in Asia I think, and offered to keep the first unit if they would give me a 50% discount but the reply was that someone will come and collect it.