Day 8 of Summer – It’s the weekend!

The weekend was here and the summer continues. Temperatures here on Saturday made it just above 20°C again with a maximum of 21.2°C – just about perfect as far as we are concerned and as usual we had a busy day making the most of it.

I started the day going out for the cycle that I hadn’t had time to do the day before. I started off at 6:30am cycling around the Borth loop twice, with a hard time trial effort for one entire loop in an anti-clockwise direction from Rhydepennau. It wasn’t that fast, but was, according to Strava my 3rd fastest time so wasn’t too bad either. I then headed off exploring a few country lanes, finding some nice hills and a few dead ends and extending my ride. I felt as though I could go on all day long but arrived home over 50 miles later before 9:30am having earned my breakfast

Anna and I had breakfast in the conservatory, did some chores and then carried out a bee inspection. All seemed OK with the hives. The one in which the queen died had plenty of queen cells so we destroyed all but a few of the best and left them to hopefully re-queen on their own. The other hive seemed fine and all was quiet. I then wandered around the garden taking some photos of the bright flowers in the garden before getting ready to head out.

Poppy with Hover Fly

Anna was playing in the silver band again, this time at a fete in Penparcau School so we all went along to enjoy the summery festivities. It was quite large affair with not only the band and various stalls, but historic re-enactments, football competitons, fancy dress and much more.

Penparcau Summer Fete

Next stop of the day was a mystery shopping stop. I won’t say where as it is supposed to be a secret, but we had specific tasks to do at a specific shop and various things to note. Anna gets paid £14 for doing it and it didn’t take too long, helped by the fact that the sales assistant was particularly poor. We had to answer the questions honestly though and if he wasn’t that helpful then that’s what we’ll have to report – I hope he doesn’t get sacked because of it!

We then went for a little walk along the seafront in Aberystwyth and into Isaacs Sweet Shop on Pier Street. They had a stall at the fete and Morgan wanted some of his super-sour ‘Toxic Waste’ sweets. They didn’t have any on the stall so he kept some money back to buy some in town. I guess having the stall at the fete had worked as we were now in the shop spending more money. The Toxic Waste sweets are pretty sour and even have a warning on the back of them saying:

“Consuming more than one piece at a time may cause irritation to the mouth. Sensitive individuals should not consume this product”

We know the owners of the shop to a certain extent so started chatting and when he realised that Morgan wanted Toxic Waste sweets he told us about some ‘Mega Sours’ which were even more sour and offered us one to try. Again this worked as Morgan bought some as well as the Toxic Waste sweets, and they were indeed ‘mega’ sour. In fact, they were so sour that as we finished them off walking back along the seafront I said that it had made my tongue pretty sore. I showed Anna and Morgan my tongue, and not only was it sore but it was bleeding!! Who’d believe it, a sweet that make your tongue bleed! I can only assume that I must be one of the ‘sensitive individuals’ that shouldn’t consume such things!

We had dinner in Baravin, a new pizza place on the seafront where the Kings Hall Carvery used to be. It was really nice in there and very different. Not you usual pizzas, but pizzas with much more interesting toppings. I had a pizza topped with Welsh lamb shoulder, minted pesto, peas and mozzarella whilst Anna had a slightly more traditional pizza with roasted vegetables, goat’s cheese and pesto. There were others that I liked the look of too.

Once back at home we wandered over to the beach which had been invaded by tourists to meet some friends (Shem, Faye, Sol and Dharma) and sat there chatting as the sun set. Shem had been spear fishing off the reef in Borth and had just polished off a huge fish he had caught before tucking into a spider crab. Morgan, Sol and Dharma headed off to do some fishing off the beach and then they played cards before we headed back home through the campers and partygoers on the beach – It really is a different world here at the moment thanks to the sunshine and we’re not sure that we like it!

At least the loud music and festivities from the party on the beach didn’t keep us awake.

Tags: Summer