Helen

Another routine Friday: drive to the Co-op, visit M for tea and crossword, pop into Eurospar for a couple of things the Co-op don't have and then back home via the by-pass to give the car a bit more of a run. This last item turned out to be a mistake because there were road works just beyond the roundabout where I turn off. I sat in the ever-lengthening queue of traffic for ages as cars streamed past going the other way. I had reached the point of seriously considering whether it would be possible to pull out and drive across the central reservation and go back through town, when our queue started moving again.

I wouldn't actually have done this very strange (and possibly illegal) manoeuvre, but it was tempting. It would have been even more tempting if I still drove a Daihatsu 4x4 which would have bumped over the kerbs and the strip of grass easily. The Skoda Yeti might have been OK too, but as I said, the traffic started moving so I could stop pondering the possibility.

The weather is still unexpectedly nice and yesterday we went for a walk to Fairbourne. We parked at Morfa Mawddach and walked to the coast and all the way along the sea front to the Friog end. It was so warm that I didn't bother with a coat and by the end I'd even taken the sweater off because a short-sleeved t-shirt was fine.

( Photos here... )

There is a recent craze for leaving piles of balanced stones on or near the beach. The WWII anti-tank defences make excellent plinths for displaying piles of stones and bits of flotsam. Could one describe it as an artwork?



( Read more... )

The forecast shows dry sunny weather for the next couple of days, so I need to get on with some outdoor jobs while I have the chance.

We're still only getting one decent day per week and that was yesterday. I felt a bit tired and downhearted first thing, so instead of going to the forest as we'd planned the previous day, we drove to Penmaenpool, walked along the Mawddach Trail and then up into the woods. G's favourite tree (an oak he calls Tree) has buds but they're not yet opening. The moss is looking very green after all the rain and there were birds singing.

After leaving the walking and cycling trail you have to climb steeply. Some of the paths must have been created a long time ago, probably by whoever lived in Abergwynant Hall when The Picturesque became fashionable and anyone with an estate wanted some suitably romantic woods and crags. ( Pictures here... )

The route we took goes past this wooden bench which has a carved buzzard at one end and a little mouse at the other.



After following the narrow paths in the woods, we reached a broad track which took us back to the trail at Abergwynant and thence back to Penmaenpool. The trail was fairly busy with cyclists and walkers, some with dogs. One woman was jogging with her son riding a bike. They had a drone and were filming themselves. Perhaps they have a YouTube channel or a TikTok?

The sunny weather and exercise did make me feel better and I got useful things done in the afternoon.

Then today the weather reverted to be being awful with high winds and heavy rain. It did calm down after lunch, but too late to do anything outdoors.

Last year I didn't go away anywhere until the trip in mid-November to stay with our daughter. I used to rely on G organising our trips away and it took me rather a long time to realise that he just doesn't want to travel any more. He used to travel because he wanted to give a paper at a conference, but he doesn't want to do that any more. Now he has everything he needs and wants here. He's busy with his projects and has some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK to go for walks in. However, I felt I'd got into a rut and so we had a conversation about going away for short breaks and G said he was perfectly happy for me to go on my own.

The weather has been so bad up until now, that I didn't want to go anywhere. However, there was a post on Facebook from a friend saying that she was planning to visit Birmingham art gallery to see their pre-Raphaelite paintings on Good Friday of the Easter weekend and did anyone want to join her? That prompted me to actually arrange the trip I'd been vaguely thinking of since I saw online that the gallery had reopened.

I've just booked a hotel for one night. You can do Birmingham as a day trip, but not if I want to get there for 10 a.m. So I'll have half a day on my own on the Thursday and then get an early afternoon train back after meeting with friends on the Friday morning. It should be enjoyable. As a precaution, I've paid the extra so I can cancel up to the morning of the day I intend to stay. I won't buy the train tickets too early either. Early April can be lovely, or it can be awful with rain and floods or even snow. The railway companies also have a habit of arranging engineering work at Bank Holidays. But hopefully all will be well and I'll get a nice mini-break.

We had a very spring-like day last week (Wednesday) and I thought the weather was finally improving. I felt rather tired on Thursday for some reason, so G went for a walk on his own. We finally managed a walk in the forest yesterday (Saturday) and it was dry and even a bit sunny, but today we're back to deep gloom and drizzle.

But here are a few of photos from the walk in the forest. For a change, we drove up to the main car park by the mountain bike centre. It was so busy! We were astonished. We've not seen so many people there since last summer. Of course we usually walk mid-week, so the fact that it was a Saturday will have made a difference, but we wondered if it was the half-term holiday in England. Either that or everyone has been stuck at home during the endless rain, saw the decent forecast for the weekend and all rushed out at once with their bikes on the cars and in their vans. Anyway, the route we walked was quite quiet, though we did meet a few walkers with friendly dogs, a jogger and a few of the cyclists. ( More here... )

I think this is the mossiest route that we do. At least the moss has enjoyed the extremely wet winter.



( More mosses... )

We also passed one of the wood ant nests. There wasn't much activity, but there were a few ants wandering around, but only on the nest itself.

The walk is just 3½ miles and is the shortest of the three forest walks we do. Strangely, though I'd felt tired and achy on Thursday, after the walk a couple of days later, I felt much better. The tiredness could be hay-fever. There's a huge alder tree out at the back beyond the bottom of our gardens and it's been covered in catkins for ages. I'm taking an antihistamine which is keeping the symptoms damped down, but I hadn't been feeling quite right. The area of the forest where we walked was pretty much all conifers, so pollen was minimal.

8/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: H is for Hollow

If a lyre wasn't hollow, it wouldn't make a proper musical sound, just a tinny plink.



I really ought to get back to playing it, but I've been waiting for warmer weather because the most suitable room isn't usually heated during the day.

Also, bonus photo of little tête-a-tête daffodils. I bought some of these little daffodils in pots last year and had them by the front door. When they finished flowering, I planted the bulbs out into the garden -- and they came up again this year! I'm surprised and delighted. Normally I am Death To Plants.



In other news...

Today is actually sunny. I want to venture out for a short walk, but I also have various things I want to do because I have meetings tomorrow and Monday so will lost two half days. I just wish we'd be allowed more than one fine day per week.

The novel (A Deadly Giftis still progressing. It's slow going because I haven't pre=imagined the ending in detail and only know what needs to happen rather then exactly how it happens. But I have either written words or made plot notes every day so far this month. The Get Your Words Out challenge is still working.

It's interesting that though I'm focusing on keeping the writing habit going, I am writing a decent number of words. I have always known that if I actually start to write, I will produce a reasonable amount of words. In the past, slow progress was mostly due to spending a lot of days not writing.

Writing progress
February writing goal: 8,000 words

A Deadly Gift

Total words this month: 7,063 / 8,000 (84%)
Words in novel (to nearest 100 words): 88,500

Searching the internet goes better when you know the right search term.

I ordered a garden tool that I'd seen advertised on Facebook. I was a little worried when I realised, after placing the order, that it seemed to be being dispatched from China. However, I didn't lose hope. The sun hats (also purchased from a Facebook ad and sent from China) did arrive and turned out to be excellent. Anyway, after watching the tracking, I saw that the item had left a town with a suspiciously Chinese name, then there was a little aeroplane symbol for a while and, finally, it arrived in the UK. The day before yesterday it had arrived in Chester and yesterday it turned up. Yay!

However, it needed a handle. You could buy it with a handle, but reading the comments under the advert, the handle the company provides is only a couple of feet long (60 cm) which would mean crouching or kneeling to use it and my back, knees and hips wouldn't stand that. No problem, I thought, I can buy a handle separately.

First I thought I could use the handle off a heavy stiff-bristled yard brush that I don't really use any more, but it proved impossible to remove. So plan B was to buy a new handle. But searching for broom handles didn't bring up any that were thick enough. After going round in circles for ages, I saw the words "shovel handle" and had a lightbulb moment. A quick Google on the new search term immediately brought up what I needed, and reading the reviews, it looks as though it's what other people who have bought the same tool have been buying. It will arrive on Monday and then, as soon as the weather improves, I can start removing moss and weeds from the paths.

7/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: G is for Greasy

I hate things that are greasy. I can't eat greasy food or stand the feel of grease on my hands or a greasy surface. I love my cleaning spray that cuts through the grease in the kitchen. It also smells nicely of lemon.

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In other news...

I can't get started on anything today. There was a 90 minute dry period, otherwise it has rained incessantly, sometimes mixed with hail, all day so far. The SAD lamp can only do so much and my brain feels as though it's mostly shut down due to the gloom. I feel I should be hibernating. I'll try standing just outside the front door for a few minutes, under the overhang of the roof and see if I can wake up properly.

6/52 for the group 2026 Weekly Alphabet Challenge

This week's theme was: F is for Frozen

The weather is very wet here and too warm to find any natural ice. As there's nothing in our own freezer that would be at all photogenic, I have resorted to the frozen food cabinets in our local Co-op supermarket.

The Get Your Words Out challenge on DW is still proving to be motivating. It's not provided as much writerly chat as I thought it would, but perhaps that's for the best? There is the danger that you end up writing about writing rather than, you know, actually writing more words for the story.

Anyway, the first week of February has been productive. I had been worrying that I was getting the details of scenes out of order, but having written some of them, I have managed to at last get them in the right order and some do follow on from one another. I just have to keep plodding along.