What a lovely day

Had the most perfect birthday yesterday - we had a lovely breakfast of bantam eggs from the pig farm down the road, then Alfie gave me my present - my first ever riding lesson ! Harry couldn't miss out on the fun, so he came out with me. It was very scary when I first got on, yet another experience of being in a world I have no knowledge of. Once we got going, and I got used to the position, and the reins, it was wonderful, such a fantastic view down to the sea, and a chance to be really nosy, as you're high enough to see over the hedges! I was amazed how many fields we saw with just a few cows, very small-scale beef production. Definitely will go riding again, and give Harry the chance to learn to ride well. The thorn in the rose however was when I got off, I have never felt pain like it; 72 hours of childbirth doesn't come close. I stood still on the step and couldn't move for several minutes, much to the amusement of the family. Am still v. sore this morning.

Then off to Caernarfon for lunch, nice G&T in the Angelsey by the harbour, then off to Castell, a newly refurbished restaurant, which was previously a pub for locals, so I disapprove of the change, but they have done it beautifully. Food was fabulous, local mussels (not that I got many as Harry was pinching them) followed by mullet with crab mash. Getting hold of some of this local fish is our next challenge, we're going to go and try getting mussels from the beach.

Lovely afternoon using my new gardening gloves to sort out the nettles, weather was beautiful, and boys very helpful in driving the 50 yards from nettle to compost heap to "help", until the tractor got stuck, and we had to pull it out. I've read nettles are a very good compost activator, so hopefully they'll get to work on the straw and chicken poo very soon. I've also made nettle liquid fertiliser to feed the veg - Paul made a most ingenious weight to hold them down in the water.

Then off to our Welsh lesson - very interesting, started with an interesting reading about the experiences of English people moving into Welsh culture, and how that makes them feel about Englishness. Learnt a lot about pronunciation, so we should be able to read words a lot better now. All the vowels have a long and a short form - when we teach people English do we teach them to say bath the Northern way or the Southern way I wonder?

Finally watched the sun go down with a bottle of red wine.

What a perfect day.