About Me

Llantwit Major, Wales, United Kingdom
I am mother, librarian, avid reader, sf fan, writer (unpubished), singer(amateur), animal lover, needlewoman.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

And again

Pretty much a repeat of yesterday.

Fab!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

What weather!

The weather has been glorious today.  I wore a jumper down to the beach but took it off when we got down there it was so warm.  Minnie and I did about a 3ish mile walk this morning.  As she doesn't know me particularly I couldn't let her off the lead, but they had given me an extending lead for her so she could roam around a bit more. 

She started off pulling quite a lot, which she isn't supposed to do, but she is young and still being trained, so we just had a bit of a stop and start beginning to the walk while I waited for her to stop pulling and come back a bit  By the end of the walk though she wasn't pulling at all.

In the afternoon I started in on the garden, with Minnie helping me by lying in the garden and from time to time sniffing round.  She and Adam had a couple of games of tug of war which were entertaining - I had a couple but she is so strong I am inclined to leave it to him. 

I have weeded about a third of the back garden, and began clipping back the ivy on the wall (bane of my garden - along with slugs etc) and did a few feet of wall when the clippers broke.  Hmm.  Task for B I think.

We had a short walk down to the supermarket to get a couple of bits, and of course Minnie came in with me.  It is very odd to take a dog into the supermarket!  She was very good, though I had to pull her back from sniffing at the meat counters, but I met a friend so we were chatting and admiring the dog, then the lad on the till leaned over to admire the dog too.  The end result was that when I got home I realised that he had forgotten to give me the stamps I had bought.  So I got into the car to go down and get them.

Minnie is now lying on the rug having a nap before she has her dinner, and then we will have an evening in front of the tv.  She likes watching tv, she was quite absorbed in something last night.

It is now 5.35 and getting cool enough to close the  window! 

Everyone you meet is commenting on how lovely the weather is.  But we had glorious weather last year in April, and the rest of the year was cool, cloudy, and rainy.   Too cold to sit out without a warm jumper all summer.  So everyone is saying how lovely it is, but we hope it won't be all we get like last year. 

Fingers crossed

Friday, March 23, 2012

Minnie visiting

I have got Minnie visiting this weekend.   She is a guide dog in training, and I am being introduced to being a guide dog boarder by having her to stay a few times over the training period here, sharing her with Debbie. 

At the moment she is sound asleep on the rug in front of me, and it is really nice to have a dog in the house.  I am lucky in having good weather this weekend and we will go to the beach and have a lovely walk in the sunshine.

Brilliant

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Police brutality

This is true.

There have been thefts of dvds in one of our libraries, and the security people set a trap with the cctv cameras and caught the guy.  The police were called.  The thief said 'I'm going to be in so much trouble' as it isn't the first time he has been caught.

The police said to him he had two options.
one - he could confess, it would take about an hour and they would give him a life home.
two - he could not confess, they would have to go to a major  police station in the city about 12 miles away, and they wouldn't give him a lift   home.

In the light of such brutality - ie having to get home on the train or the bus instead of getting a lift in a nice police car - he decided to confess.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Best laid schemes

This morning I was a bit pushed for time so instead of going to the gym for my half hour which I was due to spend there, I decided to cycle up and down the hill a few times instead.  This would have been a fairly good plan as it would give me some excercise but only take about 10 minutes.  That would allow me to sort out the recycling, shower and wash my hair, have breakfast, make lunch, and get out in time to get to work.

The first time was fine.  The second time was ok and got me out of breath which was the aim of the exercise after all.  However I somehow managed to pull a muscle in the region of my right hip - probably by swinging my leg over the bike - and have been alternatively hobbling a bit or going ouch for most of the day.

It is feeling better now.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Water water ?

Wales is officially not having a drought at the moment, unlike the south east of England, but we have had a dry winter and water levels are not high.

We went for a walk on Saturday up into the Vale of Neath where there are lots of waterfalls coming down off the Black mountains, and we went to look at two of them.  The waterfalls were very pretty but the amount of water in the rivers was at the sort of level you would expect in the late summer.  The river beds were not full, and the couple of feet of depth which you can tell would be the winter water level were high and dry.

If this is  officially NOT drought it is nevertheless a bit worrying

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Home again

 Home again after a lovely holiday in Spain.  This is the Mediterranean near where we stayed with family.  We had a meal at a restaurant on the beach itself - fab.
 I urge anyone who hasn't been recently to go the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona because it is fantastic
This is the marina in Barcelona.  We went down there looking for the beach which used to be at the bottom of the Ramblas but it is now a marina and shopping mall.   Nice marina, but we would have preferred the beach.

We had a brilliant holiday, but we are both in the post holiday blues still.  It is odd how there is that glum feeling when you come back.  Whether it is going back to work, or just coming back to all the chores etc I'm not sure.  However I had a wonderful  mother's day present from Ad who had cleaned the house till it gleamed.  Seriously impressive!

We did have a really busy return though.  B had arranged to meet friends on the Thursday night, we both went to a concert in the Millenium Centre on Friday and then out to dinner with friends on Saturday.  Next week has no social engagements at all, which is probably a good thing as it will give me time to catch up with things.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Happy St David's Day

Happy St David's day to everyone.

We have daffs on the coffee table and welsh cakes with tea. 

Google did a very nice dragon with a daffodil in honour of the day.

Despite the fog till lunchtime the sun came out and the afternoon was lovely.

It makes you feel that spring is really on its way and winter is retreating - thank the lord!!!