All Change.

The storm raged on through the night giving a morning of such heavy rain  we could hardly see through the windows. By high tide at 11.30 (first two photos) it was possible to see the waves crashing right up to the sea wall. Peter went down to open up the lifeboat shop on the off chance that the weather would clear up and sure enough it did. 

It stayed windy but the clouds began to clear leaving us with a lovely sunny afternoon. Having yet again abandoned my plans to go to the zoo I was determined to get on with some crocheting or else the Christmas present might end up being a later birthday present.

Once it became clear that the sun was here to stay I took myself and the crocheting outside and had a lovely afternoon. I find it the nicest way to work, sitting outside with the sun and the (warm) wind on my face and the sound of the waves in my ears.

Plenty of flowers still and the new garden gate is doing a grand job of protecting all my latest planting from the wind that used to blow across the very front of the garden.

 

Gale Force 8.

Gale force 8 this morning with rain lashing at the windows and wild seas. (Peter's rowing mate is the launch manager at the lifeboat station and rings him with the weather updates.) The wind has mainly been coming from the south-west so it is still warm and by afternoon the rain had stopped though the gale isn't due to blow itself out until Thursday.

The weather conditions put paid to all our plans for today. No zoo of course and Peter got a message telling him there was no point in opening the lifeboat shop. (He was going to cover for somebody who is on holiday.) Also we had planned to take the camper up to the garage in Tal Y Bont to have an oil seal in the engine changed but the barn it is stored in is almost at the very top of the hill and the large barn door opens directly into the wind. It is not advisable to try and open the door in these conditions so Peter had to reschedule the garage trip.

I spent a peaceful morning sitting at the table, watching the waves while skinning tomatoes for sauce. I've used up all the tomatoes from the freezer and even went out and picked more from the garden.

In the afternoon I went through almost the last of the big boxes from the move (only three years ago). Some stuff is going to the charity shops and the rest has been redistributed into other boxes. Bit by bit I'm getting there. Off in a minute to Pilates. It's not raining so I'll walk down though I shall be wearing a coat. Speedy has tucked himself up for the evening in his fluffy cat bed here in my study

 

Wild.

It looks like the autumn storms have arrived. We had a rainy morning and choppy seas but eventually it brightened up and large waves were lining up in formation much to the delight of a few surfers. We have clear skies at the moment but this may just be the eye of the storm.

While Peter went off to get two new tyres for the car and to take more bags of garden waste to the dump I went out to do some gardening. Initially I only planned to plant the hebe and some primulas but as the rain was holding off I carried on to do some weeding. I finished off by weeding the steps, much as I like to see the lines of the stonework softened by plants that's not a good idea for the steps. In this wet climate the steps need to be plant free to keep them as dry as possible. Safety first and all that. Talking of safety, of the many cars that went past on the cliff road today only one was sticking to the 20mph. Peter said it was much the same in town except for the main road that goes from Morrisons into town past the council offices. 

When eventually I'd had enough of gardening I came inside and cooked up another batch of tomato sauce using all the fresh tomatoes I'd picked in the last two days. Still plenty more on the plants and in the freezer. I also got round to taking apart a cork board that I wasn't really using and fixing it to the inside of one of the kitchen cupboard doors. I don't like to clutter up the walls but I needed something for stuff that couldn't just be written up on the whiteboard. (I've straightened it up after looking at the photo.)

A few more photos from yesterday - Machynllth.

We emerged onto the High Street a bit further up than I usually venture. The date above the front door of this house says 1628.

Then to a new (to me) part. This is Y Plas, (The Place) now used as council offices and a venue for events. As we'd been climbing the hill at the start of our walk we had heard strains of music coming from a music event there.

In the grounds are formal gardens, a children's playground and vegetable gardens maintained by Edible Mach a community project that grows food around the town for anyone to harvest. They're the group who made that delicious vegetarian Christmas dinner last year where we sang carols.

 

20 MPH.

It has been raining almost constantly throughout the day here at the coast but for once the weather was slightly better inland and we only had a few light showers on our walk.

Our walk today began at the outskirts of Machynllth, (our cars were parked in the slip road to the right of the roundabout in the foreground.) From the road we headed straight up the hill climbing the 'Roman Steps' a series of steps that have been cut out of the rock with a drainage channel to one side. There is no evidence that they are Roman though there are the remains of a Roman Auxiliary fort at Cefn Caer, just a few miles to the west on the other side of the River Dyfi. More likely is that they were cut by workers at one of the quarries up in the hills. As we climbed the hill we had great views of Machynllth to the east and the river valley to the west.

We hadn't been walking long before we made an early lunch stop to take in the views. As far as I can work out from the OS map we were about 350 ft above the valley.

From there we swung round the back of the hill towards the next valley,

and then through some woods.

It was easy to see why these native woodlands are known as the Welsh rain forest.

We came across this pretty building (which I can't find on the maps) with a flock of black birds in the adjoining field. We were quite bemused as to what these birds were, they looked like pheasants but were such an unusual colour. In the end we decided they must be pheasants especially when I spotted one in the more normal beige. I've since looked them up and they are indeed pheasants, a melanistic variety known as Blue Pheasants. While searching for information I discovered that pheasants were introduced to Britain as ornamental birds by the Romans, had died out by 1700 and were re-introduced by the aristocracy in the 1830s.

We carried on along the glyndwrs-way-national-trail- a 135 mile long route through mid Wales for a bit before heading back down to Machynllth and then home.

Midnight last night the new 20 mph speed limit came into force in Wales. Everywhere that used to have a 30 mph limit ie built up areas (anywhere that has street lights) is now 20 mph unless there are signs saying otherwise. This is to make roads in built up areas safer and to encourage more riding of bikes but oh dear, 20 mph feels like you are crawling along.  I couldn't stop laughing as I tried so hard to stay below 20 mph along the mile long Borth High Street (I was giving three friends a lift home). We reckoned that a bicycle can easily do more than 20mph but most bikes aren't fitted with a speedometer. That's going to be interesting if bikes are overtaking the cars.

I had just parked the car and was talking to a friend who was passing taking a dog for a walk when she spotted dolphins in the bay. I ran inside and stood in the doorway, (it was raining heavily) to take photos of the four dolphins fishing close to shore. One pair looked to be a mother and calf with the calf always keeping close to the adult. A nice end to the day. Oh and we watched the opening programme of Strictly, I think I recognised three of the celebrities. That's how out of touch we are.

 

Wet.

The day began grey then by the afternoon we had frequent light to moderate rain showers.

My morning was spent doing various household jobs and getting ready for a riding lesson in the afternoon. I had Serena again for the lesson. We did a lot of trotting when I learned that although her trot is very speedy she responds well to the way you sit and you can slow her down simply by slowing the rate at which you rise without having to do much with the reins. We worked on leg yielding which I wasn't too bad at and then we did quite a bit of canter work. There were only two other riders in the lesson so we were able to work independently rather than simply following one behind the other. One of the riders was younger and I think on her own horse while the other lady was 60 and had been riding for a few years. This I know because she also goes to disco aerobics though she didn't recognise me because she likes to be at the  back of the hall while I prefer to be right in front.

After the lesson I went down to Morrisons to do some shopping. It's also handy because they have decent toilets with plenty of hot water (the ones at the stables are okay but more basic). I can give my hands a good wash and then brush my hair which is generally a combination of the 'dragged through a hedge backwards' look while also being sweatily plastered to my head. I then went into town, bought a couple more handy fridge trays to organise the kitchen fridge and the gin for my sloe gin. (I did explain to the cashier what they were for as I didn't want to look like an old boozer.) I got the above hebe at Home Bargains. They don't have many plants so it was a lucky find as only this week I'd been thinking I needed to get something evergreen to fill up the gap under the hedge at the front of the garden especially for the winter and a hebe was one of the shrubs that came to mind.

This morning I took a couple of photos of the steps area in the front garden as a record before I start work and then I thought to look in my files and found some even earlier photos.

2019

2023

2020

2023

So far all I've done is remove the gate and post and cut back the foliage overhanging the path. It's no fun getting slapped in the face by wet leaves or poked in the eye by a sharp branch. Lots more work to get it properly sorted.

Grey tonight with not much chance of a repeat of last night's pretty sunset.

 

Sunny.

The mild morning turned into a very nice day indeed. Good enough to hang some washing out on the line.

I spent the morning doing the household jobs including picking vast quantities of tomatoes which are now in the freezer. Eventually I was free to tackle the gate post. This time along with three other drills I brought down the extra large drill. That made drilling into the granite blocks relatively easy but I don't know how many times I walked from the bottom of the garden to the garage/workshop. First there were all the tools to bring down and then repeated trips to find the right sized drill bits, wall plugs and screws. The wall got a few extra holes drilled in it and so did the gate post but now it's done with an easy to manage rope loop holding the gate to the wall. When the strong winds come they will be blowing the gate against the wall so short of the wall falling down (which might happen) the garden plants should be nicely sheltered.

As I sat working out my latest project to use up the last of the walling blocks a red dragonfly came and perched on a plant not far from the pond. I do like to see wildlife in the garden (apart from the slugs).

My final outdoor job was cutting down the 7ft fennel plant in the herb garden. It has been a lovely feature but too big in its current position. Seedlings have been planted in better locations for next year.

Peter went out in the boat this afternoon. His damaged knee means he can't row but he was able to cox. He hurt his hand moving boxes when they had a delivery at the Lifeboat shop on Wednesday which flared up into an arthritic attack making his hand swollen and painful but luckily it had calmed enough for him to go out today. He would be very miserable if he couldn't get out on the water at all.

 

The Grey Returns.

Today has been grey and sometimes wet.

Yesterday afternoon, when the pharmacy had its half-day, I discovered I was out of one of my painkillers. First thing this morning I walked to the pharmacy to find out what had happened to my repeat prescription. And there it was, it had been ready for over a week, crisis averted. But I was annoyed because when Peter went there two days ago he asked if there was anything for me and was told 'no,' When I complained all I got was a 'sorry'. It's no good them sending me the notification because I don't turn my phone on (it sits in a basket unless I'm going in the car.) so they send both sets of notifications to Peter.

After a late breakfast I cycled down to the community gardens for C&C. I brought my heavy duty gloves with me so that I could carry on hacking back the brambles that were making their way across the paths. Today's cake was a Lebanese cake made with tahini, semolina, coconut, almonds, lemon and orange. It was interesting and tasted like baklava. C who makes the cakes said the recipe was very unclear and has found a different recipe for this cake which she will try another time. I came home with more cooking apples which I've already stewed, and a couple of eating apples.

Later, C's son who was doing some gardening for my next-door neighbour, brought round a load of arum lily tubers which he'd dug up for me from my neighbour's garden. They are now at the end of the front garden where hopefully the calm green leaves will tone down the vivid yellow of the euonymus. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with sorting out the gatepost for the new gate. My first attempt wasn't secure enough to hold the heavy gate. This was mainly because the granite blocks it needs to be screwed into are very uneven and the post wasn't lying flat. Also I need more and longer screws. This afternoon I chipped away at the granite to level it down and also found a strip of wood to act as a wedge near the top of the post. The next step is to drill more holes in the granite blocks, a long process but doable.

At choir we are practising songs for Sing for Water, a nationwide charity event to raise money for WaterAid projects in Africa. About 100 of us will be singing in Aber in October. One of the songs we are singing is Water is Life, a beautiful song which was written as part of the protest against the Dakota access pipeline (Standing Rock). Such a sad sign of how money triumphs. The initial protest were successful but the following administration overturned the ruling halting the pipeline.

We've recently begun watching 'Hinterland' on tv. We'd finally caught up on 10 series of Silent Witness and I thought that a crime drama based in Aberystwyth might be interesting. It was made for S4C (the Welsh channel) 10 years ago. Most of the dialogue is in English with about a third in Welsh. Although I can understand words and phrases I still need the English subtitles. Imagine my excitement when the opening shot of the first episode was the view down the hill road into Borth with the village and beach spread out beyond. That first episode was set in Borth/Ynyslas and Devil's Bridge so we recognised lots of places. One character kept getting interviewed outside his workshop which I go past every time I go to the zoo or the community gardens and according to the sound effects there were a surprising number of trains running through Borth. The funniest thing is when they cut in different locations that are nowhere near where the characters are supposed to be or they travel along lovely scenic roads that don't lead to where they are supposed to be going. So far about half the episodes have been heavily based in Borth/ Ynyslas, we do have the beach, the bog, the river and film worthy boat yards. The hinterland settings are harder to identify, okay I haven't recognised any of them but the scenery is very familiar. It's taken a few episodes for me to realise that one of the two main characters lives in a house just along the road from us which in real life is the home of R who teaches the Pilates and aerobics classes. It makes it all fun to watch.