A Woodland Walk Near Llanfarian.

The other day I was bemoaning the fact that I don't wake up early enough to see the sun rise but even though it was a pretty dawn this morning all I did was feed the cat, take a photo and my tablets and go back to sleep. After all it was only 5.30.

When I did emerge to start the day properly we had a bit of a drama. Let me set the scene- I looked out to the terrace and there was Speedy frozen in stalking mode. A couple of feet away from Speedy a male blackbird was lying on its back twitching and feebly waving its legs in the air. I burst through the door shouting at Speedy who promptly shot off down the steps in pursuit of Big Ginge the cat from up the road. In Speedy's defence if he had been the one to bring down the blackbird I would have expected him to have it firmly in his mouth as he knows from the few occasions he's caught something, that I will do my very best to take it from him. With both cats out of sight I picked up the blackbird and placed it in a box which I then put in a quiet room either to die in peace or to make a recovery. And both surprisingly and happily it did. When I checked on it an hour or so later it was standing up looking for a way out. I should have checked its wings before releasing it as when I took it back to the garden it scuttled off rather than taking to the air but I did see it holding both wings out. It ran under the bushes where a little later it was chased by a pair of blackbirds. It was out of my reach but finally went upwards into the hedge where I hope it was able to fully recover from its ordeal.

Todays walk of just over 4 miles was from the village of Llanfarian a few miles south of Aber. It was in two parts, the beginning and end of the walk were through a wooded valley above a narrow stream.

It was an overcast day so the flowers weren't sparkling in the sun but in every direction a carpet of spring flowers covered the woodland floor.

Mainly yellow celandines and bluebells interspersed with stitchwort and wood anemones with the occasional primrose, dandelion or wood violet. 

When we walked this path two years ago the wood anemones were at their best and as far as the eye could see the ground looked as if cherry trees had been shedding their blossom but today the wood anemones were confined to smaller patches with the celandines being the stars of the show.

As well as all the flowers we came across a big patch of young gooseberry bushes and a little further on a patch of young blackcurrant bushes. We wondered if there had once been a farmhouse garden there or perhaps the seeds had been deposited by a greedy bird?

While wood anemones are mainly white occasionally we came across some pink ones.

Less pretty but quite interesting was the fungus King Alfred's Cake found on some dead wood. They can remain in place for years and really do look like very charred buns.

We had a pretty sunset tonight which hopefully means we shall have another dry day tomorrow.

Slab Cutting.

It's been sunny all day long. The first photos were taken before breakfast and and the last at about 6pm.

At last everything was in place for Peter to do a day of paving slab cutting. Up till now it's either been the weather or his arthritis that meant the work couldn't be done. (The cutter is too heavy for me to use.) Before Peter could get started I had to chip away a concrete ridge from about half of the slabs. Knowing that there would be lots of concrete dust everywhere I covered over not only the pond but the plant beds around the pond and the rockery. It was good that I did that as the red dust went everywhere. Just a shame that I hadn't noticed that the plastic dust sheet I put over the pond had dried paint on it. When I took it off there were lots of white paint flecks floating around on the water. It took a while to fish out the majority of the white specks.

Once all the slabs had been cut it was my job to lay them as best as I could. The ones in front of the rockery are on sand which was relatively easy. The rest of the paving isn't perfectly level so my amateur efforts don't stand out and it is good to have the gap filled.

There were also two spaces by the steps that needed slabs cut to size and one of the stone stepping stones in the shingle needed squaring off. That done I could finish planting the thyme and thrift in the shingle and I brought some more lamb's ears round from the back garden. Tidying up afterwards was my hardest job of the day. I swept up as much of the dust as I could and made a start of tidying the remaining oddments on the paving.

The first clematis have begun to flower in the back garden though Thursday's frost caught some of the petal edges.

Evening sun.

 

Sunny.

It was all swapped around with the weather today. First thing in the morning it was cloudy, grey and chilly but then things got better as the sun made a welcome reappearance and stayed for the whole day. Walking around the streets in town where there was very little wind it was positively balmy with plenty of people walking around without coats or jackets. Here we still had a brisk wind which kept things cooler but simply seeing the sun makes such a difference.

This week it was back to the usual Friday routine of riding first thing. I like routine. Today I rode Margaret again. There were only five of us in the lesson which is better though no cantering. Instead we worked on leg yielding and a new exercise for me, riding in a 20m circle then leg yielding to spiral inwards to a 10m circle and back out to 20m. Margaret is very responsive so it wasn't too hard to achieve.

After the lesson I continued with my shopping routine and found some plants at Morrisons. They are usually quite cheap but it's a matter of finding what you want. I got two rockery plants at £1.25 each and two hardy perennials at 2 for £3. My last stop was at a builders' merchants to order a dumpy bag of top soil and a sheet of marine ply to make some corner shelves in my study. That's the last of my big spending for the moment. A good thing too as my riding lessons have gone up by £5, that's a 20% increase which is a bit steep. But there are no other places to ride around here so I have to put up with it or ride less often. It will make me think twice before going on longer rides.

After a reviving mug of coffee at home I went out and put another coat of paint on the brickwork. I hadn't been too happy with the original colour which although cream looked to have a slight green tinge which didn't blend in with the coping stones or the shingle. I delved into my art supplies and found some red calligraphy ink. I mixed in a couple of splashes of that into the paint and although at first it look alarmingly peachy once it dried it turned a warm shade of cream that blends in better with everything else.

 

A Sunny Morning.

I woke this morning to clear blue skies and a calm blue sea. But all too soon the clouds began to roll in and the sea changed to green then grey and the temperature plummeted. Eventually late in the afternoon we had some rain too. A moderate breeze was blowing all day and the towels I hung out on the line were almost dry when I brought them back inside.

In the morning I needed to pick up a prescription and some milk so I had a brisk walk along the beach at the same time. There was just enough time before our Zoom class to give the pedestal of the sundial and the pond brickwork a coat of cream paint. I could have lived with the red brick paint on the pond wall but as the sundial's pedestal was in a shabby state and needing painting to cover where some of the render had fallen off I thought I might as well do the bricks as well. I was able to do a second coat later in the afternoon as the paint had dried in the wind. The bricks will need at least one more coat but I think the pedestal will pass muster now.

Our Welsh class went well as usual. Lots of listening to recorded conversations and announcements. It's surprising how much we can understand, or maybe not seeing as this is our third year of learning. I console myself by thinking about all the neural connections being made as my brain tries to process the information which was one of the reasons I'm learning Welsh

Off in five minutes to disco aerobics. 

 

Chilly.

It's been another of those days when we couldn't tell what the weather was going to be like. Definitely less windy than of late but a heavy shower after breakfast caused Peter to change his plan of cutting paving slabs for me to going into town. A real shame as we didn't have any rain after that.

It still felt quite cold so I wrapped up well and did some small jobs in the garden including sweeping the paving. Not so easy when my yard broom only has a head and no handle. I better buy at least a broom stick, with screw fitting, next time I'm in town. Having a few rocks left over from all my projects I used up some of them to carry on the rockery theme in the small raised bed that I made last year. I also used some of the original pebbles on the raised bed by the pond. No doubt eventually the plants will grow over them but for now they'll help to keep the moisture in the soil and look tidy too.

One indoor job that I did was to drill holes, lots of them, through the plasterboard in my study to find the positions of the wooden studs so that I can make some shelves in the corner.

It was too windy this morning to throw bird seed on the terrace, much to the annoyance of the female blackbird who came and twittered at me. Instead I put some in a dish lower down in the garden. I wasn't expecting to see a rook helping himself when I looked through the window later in the day. I let him have a bit of a feed before shooing him away as I didn't want to see the rest of the rooks descending into the garden.

Off in a minute to choir. I'm warmly dressed as we (the tenors) won't be sitting near a radiator this week and it does get quite chilly on the other side of the room.

 

Still Windy.

It's been windy again today. This morning I couldn't tell which way the weather was going to go but in the end the clouds cleared and we had a lovely sunny day.

It would have been a good day for hanging out the washing but instead I headed off to the zoo where I spent the day weeding. First I planted up more mint in the space where somebody 'weeded' out last year's mint. I always check if the plants I bring to the zoo could be toxic to any of the animals but imagine my surprise when I saw that mint was toxic for dogs. Upon further investigation I found out that it is only Pennyroyal which is toxic and all the ordinary mints pose no problem. I ended up being at the zoo for five hours which is a long time for me and my knees and back are not that happy. A good thing I've got Pilates soon.

Since I didn't take many photos today here are a few more from Sunday's visit to Coed Tamsin-

A grassy spot filled with snake's head fritillaries. 

More lovely garden flowers. I shall look for camassia on sale as I really like blue flowers.

Out in the woods this tree had a passageway through the trunk and it even had a bracket fungus forming a porch.

High up, almost at the crest of a hill was a hole filled with water. This water is being pumped up by the action of the wind on the tall tree. Even with only a slight wind the rocking action in the canopy of the tree is transferred down to the roots and water is drawn up to this hole. It was most odd to see the surface of the water pulsing up and down. When it's very windy the water gushes out of the hole sending mud pouring down the hillside. 

Windy.

It's been a wild and stormy day. Our friend, who lives along the coast beyond the first headland in the photos, was kept awake until 4.30 this morning by the wind, hail and snow battering at her windows.

This morning we went to Mach to meet up with our friends for our regular Welsh practice session. They've been rearranging the furniture in the library so we had to chose a new place to sit. There was one table by the computers but I didn't think the people working quietly would be too pleased by our rowdy attempts to master the Welsh language. Instead we took ourselves to the noisy end of the library near the children's section which just happened to be having a messy play session. There we could all be noisy together. One toddler was quite loud but I don't mind that if I'm not the one having to look after the child. We were near the end of the book (written for learners at our level) we were translating when Elaine realised she knew the bridge (where the villains were forging bank notes) and then got more excited when she recognised the lane the fictional detective was driving along. It was akin to watching a tv drama set in a location you know well which is always fun. Afterwards I had my usual walk along the main street popping into the charity shops, where I found a couple of Welsh language study books and a German dictionary/ grammar book for Peter. Unfortunately the lovely bakery is closed on Mondays but our next meet up will be on a Wednesday so I can get some treats then. Another of my stops was to the hardware store to get some things for Peter. It's the only place we know where you can buy small hardware items singly.

It was still very windy when we got home but of course I had a couple of hours working outside. First in the back garden tying up the clematis' new growth before it was damaged by the wind and then in the front garden going over the bed between the shingle and the pond. I spent a lot of time trying out ways to use the last of the bigger quarry stones to make some sort of edge but nothing looked right. 

In the end I used a few of the bigger rocks and some beach stones to break up the empty expanse of shingle for the time being. I often come across stones piled up in towers on my beach walks. I just used the stones that were lying around in the garden.

Having achieved my diet goal of dropping a stone from my post Christmas weight tonight I'm having some new potatoes with my supper. And when I say new that means they were in the garden less than an hour ago. They evaded last autumn's harvest and have appeared in what will be the tomato bed so they are being eaten now rather than left to grow.