Showers.

Sunshine and showers brought rainbows too one of which was almost touching down at the bottom of the garden.

One of today's jobs was to make carrot and swede mash with all the carrots I bought yesterday and a swede that was lurking in the fridge. Apart from a tub to go with Christmas dinner and a generous portion for tonight there are another 16 portions in the freezer. I've gone with a tip I read on-line and put them in freezer bags, labelled of course, patted flat. That not only makes the bags easier to pack but the contents will defrost more quickly when needed. What I do need to get is a large pan that will work on the hob and go in the oven too. While my enormous casserole dish is still fine for the oven I can't put it on the hob to brown off meat or fry onions or spices. I'm kicking myself because there was the right kind of dish at Lidl's but I held off because it was £20. I'll try and buy it on my next shop as I'm assuming Argos is now closed. Might try B&M first when I go to Morrison's.

With the plasterers coming tomorrow I had a final clean up in the two rooms they'll be doing and sorted out some old dust sheets that we found in the garage. The floors of the two rooms they're doing are concrete but they will also need to walk right through the house to plaster round the French doors in the sitting room and I want to protect the laminate floor. Those dust sheets can then go straight in the bin. That might sound a bit wasteful but with plaster dust and not being 'our' sheets I don't want to keep them. Plus I have boxes of our own dust sheets.

I went for a beach walk later on and called in at the shop to see if they had a jar of mincemeat so I could make some mince pies. No mincemeat and though there were a number of brands of mince pies that's not the same as home-made. Peter's already missing Sally's home-made mince pies.

Somebody has been creative and made this reindeer with driftwood. Looking at the photo I can see that there are Christmas lights wound all over which must look very pretty when they are lit up. An idea for next year as there's a paved space behind the gates at the bottom of the garden where a reindeer or tree could sit.

Speedy is back to normal now and has been begging for his supper since 3.00. There are fields behind the houses at the top of the road so he could have hunted himself a rabbit.

Showers.

Speedy slept all night and still wasn't hungry this morning. Looking at his bulging sides I think it's safe to say his sleepiness and lack of appetite were due to over eating. Possibly a wild rabbit or else the contents of a bin somewhere. By this evening he was looking thinner but I still only gave him a small portion for his supper.

While Peter painted the walls of my study with the bright green gritty paint I took myself off to Aber. There had been some showers earlier but luckily I only got lightly rained upon as I walked round the shopping streets. It's always nice to see so many independent shops and going through the photos I saw that the shop with the black frontage is a music shop. Good to know. I went into the wool shop and bought two bags of wool for felting. It wasn't too expensive and as well as wanting to have something to do in the bleak winter months I wanted to support a local shop. (All non-essential shops in Wales will be closed again from Christmas Eve.)

I went to the carpet shop to see what remnants they had in their window but though there was a suitable piece for £10 they're not open until Monday. Peter needs a piece of carpet to put under his study chair as he feels the wheels are a bit slippy on the laminate floor. I had first done the food shopping in Lidl's. They've got a promotion on basic veg and potatoes-1.5kg, carrot-1kg, parsnips 500gms and red cabbage per kg were all 14p. I bought plenty and tomorrow will be making a giant batch of swede and carrot mash and a pan of red cabbage cooked with bacon and apple. With two fridges we have plenty of freezer space and both of those freeze well.

I called into Tesco's for a change and treated myself to a pair of reduced sports leggings, black ones (surprise, surprise) with a blue patterned strip winding down the side. In the three months we've been here I've worn a very limited selection of clothes which apart from some old work clothes consists of some loose b&w trousers and a pair of black sports leggings to wear with boots. Talking of boots I so nearly succeeded in a search which has been going on for years. Every time I go in a charity shop I look for a pair of well loved and cared for men's leather walking boots in the hope they will be soft enough to fit gently round my wide toes. Today I came across a beautiful pair of excellent quality boots but sadly they were just a little snug across the toes, a size larger and they would have been perfect.

A bit of a horrible journey home when having had my journey in to town diverted I missed the turn-off on the way back, hoped the road closed sign on the long way into Borth didn't apply,(it did) and had to backtrack miles to get home. As I unloaded the car in the pouring rain a gorgeous rainbow arched over the village but by the time I got my camera only the tail end was left.

Supper tonight will be eaten on the sofa so we can watch the final of Strictly. No doubt once again Peter will be complaining that it's a popularity contest instead of a talent contest. It is what it is and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't really matter who wins. It's just a fun spectacle to watch.

New restrictions have just been announced, large areas of the south-east will not be allowed any mixing of households and for the rest of the country the relaxed rules will only apply to Christmas Day. In Wales the lockdown which was due to come into force on Christmas Eve now starts at midnight tonight. This is all due to the new variant of the virus which is more virulent and to the fact that people simply will not follow the rules. I'm glad I did my town shopping today.

 

Wet.

It has been mild and very wet though with occasional moments of nearly dry. It looked to be even wetter inland with clouds plonked right down on the hill tops.

The builder was due in today and he'd asked Peter to order a skip. Peter phoned for one and was told it either needed to be filled ready for collection before 3.00 or it could stay here until January 4th. So I abandoned my plans to go shopping and instead got on with filling the skip and other building jobs. The trusty flat bed trolley was very useful as I shifted all the bags of garden waste from the front garden into the skip. Meanwhile Peter broke up the remaining kitchen units that were in the garage and cleared out any other rubbish from there. Then I prised up all the lino tiles in the utility room, two layers and threw them into the skip. That revealed the next problem. The utility room was originally a poorly constructed lean-to built on a garden patio/concrete base. They'd painted a waterproof barrier on the concrete before laying the first set of tiles but this had now come up with the tiles. Our builder isn't sure if the adhesive for the new tiles (which I've now declined to lay) would be sufficient to act as a waterproof layer or if we need to paint on a barrier first. He's going to find out as sealing that floor has got to be a priority. On the plus side the plasterer came round with the gritty glass paint and he and his team will be here on Monday to get all the plastering done in a day. That's really an extra bonus as it seems that most tradesmen here are stopping work today for the Christmas break. In Barnstaple we have Factory Friday, here it's Mad Friday.

Clearing everything into the skip gave me the chance to sweep out my study after which I removed wallpaper from the last corner and swept up again. There had been a lot of mold on those walls and while I suspect that the work would normally be done over all the black spore colonies still showing on the plaster I like to remove as much as I can first. I still had that fantastic W5 spray which shifts all the visible spores so I sprayed, wiped and sprayed again. The more spores removed the better as far as I'm concerned. Our final job was to shift the packs of laminate flooring from the study to the sitting room to keep them safe while the plasterers are working.

What a day's work! When I went to have a shower I found the blackest, most enormous blood blister over the top of one of my big toes from wearing wellies for most of the day. I must get some thick socks to protect the skin on my toes which these days is very delicate not to mention takes forever to heal.

Didn't take many photos today though I did manage to capture some morning haze over the sea.

Speedy is behaving oddly today. He went out after his breakfast as normal after which he retired to sleep on our bed also normal. What isn't normal is the fact that he is still sleeping at 8.30. Usually he wakes around 2-3 and begins begging for his supper which he gets anytime from 4.00 to 5.00 depending when he had his breakfast and how long I can last against the pleading eyes and little croaks (he doesn't miaow). At first I wondered if having the builder and then the plasterer in the house might have unsettled him but the builder left in the afternoon. There are no signs of injury or illness and he wakes up if I talk to him or stroke him so I'm wondering if he found something to eat while he was out and gorged himself. Maybe with all the strong winds a bin had blown over or else he got into another cat's dinner. - I've just been and checked his legs, all fine and his gums are a normal pink (no internal bleeding) and all I'm getting from him is 'Leave me alone I'm having a sleep.'

Two deliveries today, the wooden upstands to go on the kitchen worktops and a present from Vytas of a box of Spanish cheeses. Can't wait to try those.

 

Wet.

Wetter today and there was a definite nip in the air. 

First thing the sea was choppy but later on the swell began to build and a few determined surfers hung out in the water catching the occasional wave. There's a yellow weather warning for strong winds and rain tomorrow though we're just on the northern edge of the area covered in the little map.

I drove down with the parcels to the Post Office this morning. Then I carried on and picked up my prescription from the pharmacy. Later on the postman brought us cards and parcels from the boys which was lovely. That's more or less all my Christmas preparations done, just a book to collect from Waterstones and some sneaky wrapping to do when Peter's asleep. Oh and the Christmas dinner. My choice would be smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels but Peter likes a 'proper' dinner so I'll be making a casserole probably lamb. Not that I won't enjoy it too but less preparation and less clearing up always wins in my view.

I am a hard person to satisfy. I was getting a bit stressed at working to a deadline but no sooner had the parcels been safely sent than I was 'bored' with nothing to do. It was raining and even when it wasn't my knee is still burning after my long - what ignominy when less than three miles is long, walk so going out for a walk or doing some gardening would have been foolhardy. One thing I did do while sat at the pc was set up a second email account so I can use it to set up a Skype account. I did have one but it wouldn't recognise the password, I couldn't rest the password either and also couldn't set up another account using the same email. One of those situations guaranteed to drive you mad. Got myself a new email but decided to leave the Skype bit for another day. Then when wanted to write a new post it didn't recognise me and kept sending me to a set up page. Sorted it eventually but there were some scary moments when I wondered if I'd lost my blog altogether. 

The builder has been working all day and then the plasterer came round to see what needs doing next. (Bear with me this is still the same thread.) Looking at the inner walls in my study it turns out that I need to scrape off all the loose paint/plaster/paper and then ......... paint the old bare plaster with that paint with glass bits in. Just as I did to the upstairs corridor at Dingles. I wasn't expecting that but it's up and down ladder work and not too hard on my knee. (Peter did some unpleasant drain clearing work this afternoon. I didn't ask for details.) I may try and do the scraping tonight to get it out of the way.

 

Stressful.

It's not been too cold, quite a bit of rain in the morning and dry in the afternoon.

My plan for today was to pack up the parcels of Christmas goodies ready for posting. It started well, Peter had the perfect thick card to use as cake boards and it wasn't long before the cakes were securely packed in the correct sized boxes to be sent off as 'small parcels'. I'd bought two plastic tubs for the biscuits which I thought were perfect for the job. How wrong I was but I didn't discover that until later. To pack the biscuits I used the cellophane bags that greeting cards come in which worked very well.

Next came the wrapping of some small crafted items. I know that taken logically the wrapping around a present isn't part of the item but for me the presentation adds to the pleasure of a gift. I really enjoy being able to create a beautifully wrapped gift which doesn't mean spending lots of money. Brown paper tied with string, a sprig of green and something drawn on with a gold pen can look absolutely stunning. That said I've got a large stash of paper and all the extras bought in the January sales. Wrapping done it was time to pack everything into boxes for posting. I didn't have the right sized boxes so began by cutting one down and that's when the stress began. The tubs for the biscuits were a couple of cms too long and too high and no matter how I tried I couldn't fit them and the other things into small parcel sized boxes. In the end I gave up and decided to send 'medium' parcels which can be up to 61cms x 46 cms x 46 cms. That's the size of a small moving box and much larger than I needed. I packed everything including and then cut down the height of the boxes. I found folding the tops of the boxes down hard to do neatly even when I scored the cardboard and it took a lot of tape to secure it all. It's finally done and now I've got two enormous parcels to take to the Post Office. I could have avoided all that stress if I'd saved the right sized cardboard boxes and thought about the best size of boxes to put the biscuits in. Will try to do better next year.

The builder has been here all day and it looks as if my study is just about boarded out.

New restrictions have been announced for Wales as the numbers are going back up again.  We'll be going into full lockdown immediately after Christmas. Shops will be shut again and movement restricted. I can't see things getting better until we're all vaccinated. I'm trying not to think about the new variant of covid that they've discovered which is even more infectious. 

 

Cake Day.

It's been a day of sunshine and showers which began with white horses blowing across the bay.

The builder has been here today and I've been picking his brains to try and solve the porch issue. Basically neither of the companies want to do a pitched roof because the angle will be smaller than usual. It's to do with water running off the slope, not enough angle leads to capillary action sucking water back up and under the tiles. Our builder suggested using a plastic tile which has better tolerances, much joy on my part at this news. Then he got on the phone to the small local company as he knows them and apparently it's also because of the wind blowing in from the sea so they wouldn't want to guarantee the roof even with the plastic tiles. And they've got so much work on their books they wouldn't be able to do it until next April so really they don't want the job. My suggestion is to have either a glass roof or a fibreglass roof both of which would solve the wind and the angle problems. Building work is never simple. 

Sunshine and showers gave us a spectacular rainbow. It was so big with both ends landing in the sea I couldn't fit it all in one photo. There was a section of a double rainbow but it was too faint to show up in the photo.

Today's tasks were to finish decorating the Christmas cakes and pack the truffles. I'd been pretty pleased to find both the green and red food colourings I needed in Lidl's the other day. Not so pleased when I discovered the 'red' was in fact orange or at the most generous interpretation terracotta. But definitely not red. With no time to go back into town to look for red colouring elsewhere I made do and the marzipan apples ended up being oranges. I shall be complaining to Lidl's (hence the photo). Imagine if I'd been in the middle of baking the red velvet wedding cakes I did for Vytas and Sally.

The gold cases I'd bought on-line were a touch too large for the truffles so I was glad I'd grabbed the multi-coloured ones in Morrisons the other day.

Before I added the marzipan pears, oranges and leaves I glazed the tops of the fruit cakes. Making the glaze took longer than it should as I was worried about burning the mixture of dark muscovado sugar, water and whiskey (should have been rum but I wasn't going to use Appleton's for cooking). The recipe simply said 'stir over a low heat until dissolved and simmer for 10-15 minutes until syrupy'. Plenty of leeway for disaster there so I took it slowly, stirred and stirred until it looked 'syrupy' and brushed it over the tops of the cakes.  Now all that's left to do is put ribbons round and pack up securely. Got a couple of felting projects almost finished while Peter made a chicken stew with barley, parsnips, carrots and potatoes. For a change I had the stew as well and very tasty it was too.

PS. I shaped the marzipan first and then put it on plates before dabbing on the food dyes with my finger. Because it was marzipan it was taking a long time to dry so while I stirred the cake glaze with my right hand with my left hand I dried the marzipan with my hairdryer. Lateral thinking eh?

 

A Long Walk.

It's been a wild day with a few showers and plenty of dark skies. The waves were coming in fast and strong during breakfast as we watched three surfers attempting to catch the waves. At one point I saw two of them turning in to a wave only to tumble in a tangle of flailing limbs, it was just too powerful for them.

This morning I ordered the curtain poles for the sitting room. Big wooden ones that come with rings and brackets. They came to just under £100 but the one over the French doors is over 4m long and the one for the window is over 2m.

I had been getting thoroughly fed up with the mess of black wires lurking in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. Initially I put them in flimsy plastic bags and today I transferred them into better quality small freezer bags. A lot easier now to pick out the right 'black wire' when needed.

With low tide at 2.47 I thought it was time to get out for some fresh air. While the sun was shining out to sea (above) inland the sky was black (below), even darker than the photo shows. In the above photo you can just see a dad and his daughter, aged about 4. She had her trousers rolled up to the knees and was happily splashing over the tiny waves holding her dad's hand.

It was a bonus extra low tide and I was able to stride out along the sand passing below the big rock piles. I did get caught out on my return by which time the tide had turned and was on its way back in. The first few 'points' were fine but then I came to one where the waves were starting to come right up to the rocks. I timed my move carefully but miscalculated the extent of the deeper channel by the rocks. In came the waves almost to the tops of my boots. It made no difference if I went on or back so I soldiered on getting my legs splashed and feeling water soaking down to my socks. I sat down and took off my boots but no water came out when I tipped them up.

With the tide so far out there was a large amount of the petrified forest in sight.

This was the furthest I've gone on my beach walks so far, about 2 1/2 miles in all. In the photo below I'm standing with my back to the sea with the village to my right and mountains in the distance. The red sign marks the end of the sea wall path which had been my previous turning point.