Windy.

It's been very windy all day long with a touch of rain in the morning and sun later on.

I ran down to the shop before breakfast, or rather since I can't run due to my arthritic knee I staggered along as the wind attempted to blow me sideways into the road. The reason for going was to buy some stamps. I only send a few Easter cards but I was one stamp short yesterday. My goodness, stamps are so expensive these days. No wonder people don't send cards or write letters. First class stamps cost £1.25 each so now they sell books of four stamps as even those few come to a fiver.

I've had two good sessions out in the garden. Two more days of digging should see that part of the job done. It was so wild and windy at first that I wasn't surprised not to see any of my usual bird companions. That is until I looked round and saw the female blackbird and two robins sitting on the raised bed wall watching me intently. They got their worms but once I've finished digging they'll have to find their own food. I noticed that the bold robin sometimes carried whatever he found in his beak so I guessed that he was feeding chicks. On one occasion he turned up with a small wasp/fly in his beak and try as he might he couldn't pick up the grub he had spotted so in the end he ate the fly and then the grub. Later on I realised that he was taking worms to the second robin which was actually making piping 'feed me' noises. The second fat robin had its adult colours and a normal beak, not the brown feathers and gaping beak I associate with fledglings but Prof G. tells me that although the chicks fledge at 14 days the male continues to feed them for another three weeks while the female sits on the next lot of eggs.

The sea stayed pretty wild as the evening sun lit up the waves and the gulls nonchalantly bobbing up and down.

 

A Good Day.

It has been a lovely day, both weather wise and in general. 

In fact I can say that I've had an excellent day and of course the sun made me even more cheerful. To begin with I woke just before the alarm was due to go off so that I got everything done in a relaxed manner before setting off in good time for the stables. The next thing was that I finally had a chance to ask the owner if I could possibly exchange my riding boots, still good but now giving me a bunion, for the larger pair I was borrowing from the school. (They have long and short boots in all sizes for people to borrow.) No problem at all said the owner so now I'm the proud owner of a pair of Harry Hall boots that don't squash my toes. That was then followed by a very good lesson on Cadno. At the end of the lesson as we were lined up before dismounting the owner told us that she is planning four all day rides in June if any of us were interested. Oh yes, that would suit me perfectly. I did ask if they could not be on a Thursday as I can't really miss Welsh class (though I would be tempted) but they will be on either Sundays or Mondays which are fine. I hope I'm up to five hours in the saddle, with a break for lunch. The final good thing at the stables was that just as I was booking my next lesson I was told that there will be an additional two and a half hour hack next Monday. That had only just been put on FB so I got my name down pronto and cancelled the one hour hack I was planning to go on on Wednesday. That made up for the disappointment of missing out on the first long hack.

After all that excitement I drove to the builders' merchants to order the first bag of rough gravel. Seeing that the big bags were stacked on top of each other in the yard I asked if it would be possible for the delivery guy to stack a second bag on the first as there is only the floor space for one bag inside the garden gate. Yep that was okay and as I was still £10 under the limit for free delivery I included three paving slabs. That way I saved the £15 delivery charge, or £30 if I had the bags one at a time and I need fifteen paving slabs for the new path.

Things were not that exciting at the supermarket though I did buy three thyme plants to go by the new path. I've got a list in my head of the plants I would like for the shingle garden so that I can snap them up when I come across them. We don't have a good selection of garden centres but Morrisons do some plants at reasonable prices. I had my usual look around the town shops and got a couple of frames for some photos I want to put up and two bags of polystyrene balls in assorted sizes for crafting. I've seen some nice ideas for needle felted Christmas decorations but the polystyrene balls are quite pricey in the craft shops. I also bought another long gym top (sleeveless) in Tesco. It was reduced to half price and by the time I used one of my vouchers it only cost me £2.50.

I only had an hour for digging when I got home but I dug out two very deep bramble roots which I'm glad to have got rid of. Just after I finished outside there were a few drops of rain and I could see what I'm calling 'nearly rain' clouds. 

The clouds were trying to rain but not quite succeeding. And then there was just a hint of a rainbow. 

Now that is what I call a good day.

 

Grey.

We were back to the grey skies again today with some interesting clouds over the mountains. At least it stayed dry but it is definitely getting colder again.

I got up early this morning, my reward for not crawling back into bed was being able to get all the morning jobs done before sitting outside for my quiet time.

After breakfast I was straight out in the garden again digging yet another trench. The robin soon came down to wait for worms. He took one from my hand and then kept sitting on the bucket into which I was putting all the roots. I'm sure it was checking to make sure I wasn't keeping some of the worms for myself. I had to keep an eye on the time because of course we had our Welsh class at 1.00. I was just getting set up when the doorbell rang. It was our neighbour come round to ask if we had any jump leads as her car had a flat battery. Peter found the leads for her and luckily she didn't need to use our car to start her battery as her daughter was there with her car. We were low on numbers in class as people are off doing things for Easter but we still had a useful lesson. After class I fitted in another couple of hours of digging before it was time for disco aerobics. That was fun as usual and now I'm quite worn out. I still need to look at a video explaining 'inside leg to outside rein' for tomorrow's riding lesson.

 

A Day of Two Halves.

The day began grey and romantically misty, stayed dry long enough for me to drink my tea outside and then it poured. The rain cleared early in the afternoon and all of a sudden we had sun and intensely blue seas.

I couldn't decide which of these atmospheric morning photos I preferred so am posting both of them.

While it was raining I put some bits and bobs in the various boxes in my bedside cupboard. I'm trying to be organised from the start rather than stuff everything in just because there is more storage space. I also mended a tear in Peter's work trousers. I like mending clothing knowing that something isn't going to waste. 

Then once it was dry again I was back out in the garden. I finished off the trench I started yesterday but only did one section of the next as I had to spend time digging down to remove a very ancient dandelion root. The robins were absent for most of the time, only the bolder of the two came later on. There weren't many worms where I was digging so I didn't get a chance to see if the robin would feed from my hand again. The blackbirds were around though. The male blackbird found a fat worm I'd thrown (they're much better than the robins at seeing where the worms land when I throw them). He went off and along came the female who collected her worm. Then the cheeky male came and tried to steal her worm too. I told him off and he left the female alone but I expect there will be a few words said at the nest tonight.

I never cease to be amazed at the changing colours of the sea and sky. We wondered at the cause of the circular area in the sea (above). Was it a shoal of fish or just a random current throwing up sand? Minutes later there was no sign of the circle. Very strange.

 

Dry.

The day began warm and sunny but by the end of the afternoon things had hazed over.

Of course I was back out digging away in the garden. My progress wasn't as straight forward as usual as there were some deep (3ft down) bramble roots to dig out and one venerable dandelion root that was nearly 2ft long. Now, instead of a tidy trench across the garden one side resembles bomb craters where I had to burrow down through the clay. The bold robin was my close companion, he's very fond of the occasional small white grubs that were in the soil. He's welcome to eat those, I'm not sure what they are but probably not good for my plants. And .... at last I've got him to take worms from my hand, five times today! I had a quick tidy in the back garden too as some of the weeds were already flowering.

A few last photos from Sunday's walk.

Chickens in the station car park, or maybe not. (There is a bigger car park further along.) I assumed that there was no parking by the sign and anyway it's out of season.

Sea mist rolling in this evening.

 

Warm.

Today has been mainly sunny and warm. A hint of things to come? I hope so.

Today I have been mainly digging yet another trench with some occasional forays downwards into the clay subsoil to prise out bramble roots. Peter took another load of bags down to the dump, only one more load and I can start to order the gravel.

And now for the watery photos from yesterday. Mainly of the Afon Mynach which we crossed twice but also of some smaller waterways. It is the Afon Mynach that creates the spectacular waterfalls at Devil's Bridge. Incidentally the Welsh name for Devil's Bridge is Pont (Bridge) ar (of the) fynach (monk - M mutates to F after ar)

We crossed over this bridge where the river had cut away the bank under the bridge leaving one of the fence posts hanging in mid air.

Walking along a track through the fields we found the first frogspawn of the year in a puddle.

 

A Walk From Devil's Bridge.

Apparently the day was dry and mostly sunny here at the coast but it was a different matter in the hills above Devil's Bridge. It had begun raining as I left Aber, got much heavier for a while and then almost stopped by the time I got to the car park. We walked in and out of clouds/drizzle for most of the walk with the sun only coming out right at the end.

As usual I took lots of photos, keeping my camera tucked safely in a plastic bag when it rained and in my desire to share the walk I'll post the landscape photos today and keep the watery ones for tomorrow.

Those are low clouds not smoke.

After some fairly easy though wet underfoot walking through fields we then traversed the side of a very steep slope along a narrow (about 6 inches wide) and extremely slippery due to the deep clayey mud path. When the track through the gorse widened to include some wet grass on the upper side we stopped to have our lunch. There was much debate wondering if we would be able to get our less than youthful bodies back up off the ground without slipping forwards and down the slope but we resumed our walk without mishap. We had to climb over a number of stiles along our walk and care had to be taken with them too. All were very slippery and one was more like a see-saw needing somebody to hold one side of the step down for the person climbing over to do so safely.

From there we entered a forested area. Many of the pine trees were dying, a result of being planted on a too wet slope.

Through the trees we could see the Afon Mynach (The Monks' River) as it wound its way to the waterfalls at Devil's Bridge. Our way then swung right round as we came down into the valley, over the river again and back towards Devil's Bridge. 

It was only towards the end of our walk that the sun finally came out bringing some welcome warmth.

Some of us had to park at the Cwm Rheidol steam railway station as the small car park behind the chocolate shop was full. (The chocolate shop was open then but I resisted the temptation to go in and buy some of their handmade chocolates.) Although the steam railway won't be opening until Easter the station café was open and there were lots of people about. I asked somebody what the event was and he told me that an local band played there every Sunday hence the music we could hear. By the time we were back from our walk everyone had gone and all was quiet.