Wintry.

Grey with rough seas for most of the day with a short spell of sun late in the afternoon.

For some reason I feel weary today. By the time I was ready to work on the cupboard I was finding it very hard to muster up any enthusiasm. I think that's partly because I've reached the stage where I need to sort out drills, drill bits, screws, wall plugs and suitable wood which involves searching through a not too tidy workshop. (I kept wishing that I could just ask Peter to do it but at the moment his arthritis is bad and even walking is painful.) The shelves will be supported by wooden batons fixed to the sides and back of the space. There was one set of batons up in the right place but as the shelves aren't going to be so deep as before each side piece needed taking off the wall before cutting an end off and drilling a new hole in the wall which I now know has a coating of cement over  bricks. (I'm guessing this was where the cooker was in the original house layout.) For this I needed one drill for the wood with two bits to drill and countersink the hole and then two drills to drill into the wall as the largest drill is too heavy for me to use to start the hole. We don't have enough wood to make all the batons but I presevered, sorted out the supports for the first shelf and then measured up and made a list of all the wood I needed to buy. Not as much progress as I'd hoped but it was still some progress.

After that I made some spicy carrot, onion and lentil soup which had caught my eye on another blog. Naturally I only used the recipe as a guide so it might be a bit too spicy. I may have to eat plenty of bread with it or carry on cooking it with some potato. Also I added some extra tumeric and having used the hand blender (as per the recipe) the end of the blender is now a vivid lime green!

For the rest of the afternoon I carried on messing about with the crochet as I'm still working out how to combine two patterns.

Now for some cheery flowers from yesterday.

These clumps of snowdrops were at least 18" tall. (Hence my boot to give an idea of the size.)

There were a number of different varieties of Hellebore around. I liked these green ones the best.

The red cornus was stunning.

 

Walk at Ty Glyn.

No sea mist today, quite a bit of sun instead.

After a slightly earlier Sunday breakfast than usual I bravely set off on the 23 mile drive to meet up with the walking group for a visit to the walled garden of Ty Glyn. We did not visit the house which is now a hotel. I can't find a site that gives the history but the original house was built in 1620 and remodelled in 1768 with extensive gardens and parklands. The last owners left the gardens and some buildings to the Ty Glyn Davis Trust which provides self catering holidays for families with special needs children. The sensory garden is also open to members of the public ie us.

Having carefully worked out my route and checked out the junctions using Google Street View I had only got as far as the main hill into Aber when I heard a loud rattle or crunching sound as I drove. It sounded as if a plastic cup but heavier was being dragged under the car. (At this point I should mention that I prefer to drive with the window open so that I can hear what is going on outside.) I was getting very concerned but did wonder if the noise might be coming from a souped up car that had been driving behind me and then went past. In case it was me I drove to Lidl's car park. There was nothing caught under the car that I could see but just to make sure I thought I'd check inside the engine compartment to see if anything was loose. Wasn't able to do that as I couldn't find the lever to open the bonnet. That sounds really bad but when I asked somebody on the walk who has the same car she didn't know either. I will get Peter to show me as it's silly not to know. (I have changed car wheels and not infrequently changed the extra large battery in my old landrover.) I drove once round the car park with no noise and carried on.

Apart from that I found my way to the meeting point without any problems. 

Twelve of us set off on our walk which at first took us through wooded tracks and past picturesque properties.

Eventually we found ourselves walking through part of the woodland that had been planted with ornamental trees including Sequoia. Under the trees were great carpets of snowdrops.

Then it was into the walled or 'Secret Gardens'. After hundreds of years of cultivation the gardens fell into complete wilderness until work began on restoring them in 1997. Although at first glance it looked as if everything was still in winter dormancy a closer look revealed many new shoots, bright bunches of snowdrops and crocuses and clumps of hellebores. Plenty to see for those of us that are keen on gardening.

There were also many whimsical statues. While I felt many were lacking in artistic merit they would certainly amuse anyone visiting the gardens.

Plenty of places to sit and today we ate our lunch seated on chairs around a table under a handy shelter.

For the more active there was robust play equipment. Many shrieks of laughter as some of our more daring members tried them out. I confined myself to attempting to walking along a swinging chain until it got too wobbly.

It was only a short walk today, just three miles but I'm glad I went. It was a boost to my confidence to travel further afield and hopefully I can persuade Peter to return later in the year when the garden is more alive. We could park near to the gardens so he wouldn't have to walk over rough ground and then maybe we could visit the seaside town of Aberaeron which is only four miles away.

My journey there had invovlved turning off the coastal main road onto a back road up over the hills. On my way home I stopped to take some photos of the village of Llan-non and the coast back to Aberystwyth. It was sunny all the way home and then grey clouds and rain swept in from the sea.

 

Lumpy Fingers.

The sea mist was back again today but not as severe as yesterday. It's not cold either and I noticed that although we have the thermostat set at 18C the central heating has been off for most of the day. We had an oil delivery yesterday and we've only used half a tank (about 700l) over the whole winter. As long as we don't have a long cold spell before spring this current delivery should last us right up to next winter.

With no culinary disasters to clear up ( apart from a final scrub of the saucepan which after three soaks is now back to normal), I was able to get on with working on the hall cupboard. I removed by prising, unscrewing or simply snapping off, all the nails and screws sticking out of the plaster. The glass shelves only had to be lifted off some supports and are out the back ready for the dump. Next came the removal of the wallpaper from the top section. Having already destroyed the edge on the biggest of my cheap wood chisels I didn't worry about using it to scrape away at the paper. Then came the bit I really don't like, wetting the paper still stuck to the wall before scraping it off, this time with a proper wallpaper removing blade. I don't like that job because I find wet paper quite disgusting, it really makes me cringe, not sure why. I got that all done and was thinking about starting filling in the holes with Polyfiller but decided to leave that for another day. My work did not come without a cost. I wore work gloves but forcing my hand against the wall when I was taking out the nails damaged the joints on a couple of fingers and they now have sizeable lumps on them. The fourth finger has a lump the size of a large pea and there are two! smaller lumps on the joint of the little finger.  I've got them pressed into an ice pack but fear the lumps may be here to stay. Only the other day I was feeling a similar lump on the joint of my middle finger on that hand thinking how nice it was I didn't have any others. A good think I don't wear any rings. (I got out of the habit of wearing my wedding ring when it kept getting scratched from the reins when I was riding most days and then from my gardening tools.)

It sounds like a nice walk tomorrow which includes a visit to a walled garden so there should be some interesting photos.

 

Toast ?

We've spent the day engulfed in sea mist.

Why toast? Well, I woke early and after a relatively relaxed lie-in got up at 7.00. I fed the cat, watered the plants, prepared the breakfast then went to do my daily Duo Lingo. As I sat at my PC I could smell toast. Must be somebody's breakfast I thought though how could I smell it through the double glazing? Thinking I'd better check the kitchen I walked in to find smoke pouring from the porridge pan. On the days I'm up early I get the porridge (which I prepare in the saucepan the night before) up to the boil, turn it off then put a lid on it and the tea cosy on top to keep it warm. That way all I need to do is cook it for a little when we're ready for breakfast. Today I forgot the turning off bit. The burnt porridge went outside, then I turned on the extractor fan and opened the outside door to get rid of the smell.

Toast story no. 2 - We've just started a unit on describing various ailments in our Welsh class. The word for ill is sal, easy enough to remember but I'm sad we don't use the South Wales version - tost and yes that does also mean toast. I'd love to be able to say I'm toast but while it might be understood here it would be seen as rather odd. Incidentaly I don't like to eat toast, or crusty bread. To me that's like filling your mouth with nasty painful shards. (The dentist says my gums are in good health.)

With the burnt smell still lingering after breakfast I wiped down all the cupboards and then realised that the worst of the smell was around the extractor hood itself. That was the one thing I had forgotten to clean in the recent blitz of the kitchen. My excuse is that I didn't have an extractor of any sort for 25 years in the country so it's not on my radar. Also we do almost no frying so the amount of grease generated should be minimal. But when I took the extractor apart I found it quite greasy as was the housing over the fan itself. Instead of a paper filter our model has a metal mesh which took forever to scrub clean and that was after a soak with a dishwasher tablet. I cleaned the fan housing as best I could using dry cotton buds. Luckily I had some paper filters that I'd bought for the extractor in our last house and I've put one in front of the metal mesh to catch the grease. The saucepan is having a second soak with a dishwasher tablet but I don't know if I'll be able to rescue it.

When all that was done I put a bara brith in the oven. I followed a new recipe and the mix looked a lot better. Peter still has a slice of the last bara brith left so I won't get a taste report until tomorrow.

Eventually I was able to do some more work on the cupboard. I took out three shelves, prised the wood off the walls and cleaned up one shelf. Not only was it covered with a layer of sticky backed plastic but there was laminated hardboard stuck on one side. It looks like it was once a shelf in a kitchen which leads me to think that maybe the last owners made all the built-in cupboards themselves. They had that very large work shed in the back garden after all. The three shelves can be re-used so I only need to find one more shelf and then buy some wood to edge the shelves.

 

Happy Birthday Vytas.

Happy Birthday to Vytas, our oldest. I can't believe he's already 37, the years have flown by so quickly.

I chose this photo of him taken in the New Forest last May as it shows how he takes after both of us in different ways. He's enjoying a pint of Pete's favourite beer while showing that he shares my fascination for LOTR and my hairstyle though his hair is a little longer and a lot thicker.

He and Sally have done a lot of travelling this year, mostly to heavy metal gigs in this country and abroad. That included a visit to the Czech Republic where they stayed in an old prison and he was able to show what his job as a scientist might have been like in days gone by.

They had a holiday in France and recently one in Lanzarote where they enjoyed the sun, volcanic landscape and historical sites. They also came to visit us when the weather was a lot wetter.

It was wet here today as well. A heavy sea mist that didn't lift until well into the afternoon.

The mist made for some pretty flower close-ups.

I had a quick walk along the beach on a roundabout route to buy some bread from the shop. At the moment there's a lot of sand on the beach which is great for walking on.

Zoom class today was all about roedd/oedd [oi-th] and doedd - it was/was it? and it was not. That got quite confusing when we had to ask and then answer questions together. We got even more confused when our tutor lost her internet connection and we were just looking at each other wondering what to do. That only lasted for a few moments before she was back with us once more.

Once class was over I got on with the next stage of the hall cupboard alteration which was to remove the bottom half of the front. I couldn't undo the screws in the hinges so rather than risk damaging the surrounding plaster by bashing at the frame I chiselled away the wood from the hinges until I could bend the whole door off. That made a mess of the doors but they're going to the dump anyway. I've decided not even to investigate the structure of the brickwork above the cupboard. That was after I realised that taking out the board that's there would let down all the dirt and stuff that's accumulated in the chimney over at least the last 30 years. Can't bear the thought of that so I'll go with what we have.

Then it was time for disco aerobics. I got myself much nearer the front to get a better view of our teacher's feet. I was dripping with sweat by the end of the class which was either down to working harder or maybe just because the ceiling heaters are turned on at the front of the hall.

 

Some DIY.

The day began with grey skies that soon turned into steady rain but a few hours later we had this .......

As the UPC window trim had been delivered yesterday I thought I might as well crack on and deal with the gap under the French doors. It seemed like a very simple task, just trim the plastic membrane that was poking up, clean the floor and window and cut the plastic coated strip to cover the gap between the flooring and the window frame. But getting down on my knees is not a lot of fun and I found I had to shape the ends of the trim to fit neatly into the gaps. It looks so much better but I still need to stick the trim in place (remembering to stick it only to the frame and not the floor as the flooring might need room to expand when the atmosphere is damper). Looking on-line it seems I can use either super glue or silicone. Super glue sounds easier but I only have some cheap and not very good glue so I shall have to get some of the proper stuff. Once the trim is stuck down hopefully that will reduce the icy draughts that attack my ankles in the evenings. Plus there should be fewer woodlice making their way up from under the house. They come up at night then die of dehydration as they attempt to cross the arid wasteland of the laminate flooring.

Having done that first job I was on a DIY roll and decided to make a start on the hall cupboard. The plan is to remove the doors of the cupboard and turn it into an inset bookcase. Initially I had thought we would get a builder/carpenter to do this for us but it is just so hard to get anyone to come and do things especially small jobs that I decided to at least start the job myself. I really would like to open up the space another foot but that would be very messy and depend on the structure of the chimney so I'm prepared to keep to what we have. Peter got me a cheap set of wood chisels and so far I've taken off the top part including the sliding glass doors. There wasn't as much mess as I thought, hopefully it will be the same when I remove the lower half.

And that has more or less been my day today. No choir tonight which feels strange but back to normal next week.

 

A Warm Day.

Happy Valentine's Day. 

A day to appreciate those we hold dear in our hearts.

This morning we exchanged the usual cards and gifts- chocolates, roses and beer (I'll leave to you to work out who had what.) We very nearly had a day out but in the end it wasn't to be. Why am I not surprised? After getting up early for a delivery we waited for the electrician to call in for his money. Sometime in the morning was the arangement though he did come first thing. To rub salt in the wound he was heading off for a day out with his wife though at that point it had just begun to rain.

With the greyness of the day and those first drops of rain I suggested that we abandon our plans to go to Devil's Bridge, a local beauty spot not far from Aber. That was a relief for Peter as he then told me his knee is giving him trouble again.

Instead I opted to go down to the zoo as rain is forecast for the rest of the week. 

I drove there in case the weather got worse but instead it turned into a sunny and very warm day. My first job was to weed the large play area. Initially I could see very few weeds but when I went right round the perimiter I found a lot of weeds beginning to sprout from big clumps of roots. It was so satisfying to know that all those potential intruders are now in the compost heap. That done I removed as much as I could of the brambles growing in the safety moat around the wolf-dogs. They were in a very vocal mood today and there was lots of howling as people walked their dogs along the lane on the other side of the zoo fence.

Back home it was so warm that I took my crocheting along with a coffee out on to the terrace. There I was almost lulled to sleep by the gentle swooshing of the waves and the warm wind caressing my face.

The crocus I planted all had their flowers open to the sun. By chance they are the same variety as the clumps of crocus on the other side of the garden that were planted by the last owner.

......... Later on - Walked down to the hall for Pilates and for the first time it was still light. I even wondered if I'd done my usual thing and misread the clock at home but I hadn't. My back had been much improved today but I still made sure to be very careful and not push myself too far when we worked on the muscles in our lower back. I felt nicely toned up by the end of the session. The walk home was in the dark and we still have a stretch of street lights out of action. They stopped working when BT dug up the road to put in fibre for broadband. Apart from the concern about what I might be treading in the lack of street lights improved my view of the stars. It's a clear and cold night so the stars were easy to see, even the great swathe of the Milky Way. I had to stop a couple of times and just look up to take in all that magnificence. At home I either have to wait until after the street light has turned off or stand with my back to the light to get the best view.