Snow and daffodils

I am kicking myself for not taking my camera with me today when we went to the auction at Brecon. I heard hailstones being flung against our bedroom window overnight but we didn't have any snow locally - although it's on the higher ground surrounding the Towy valley, and of course, the Brecon Beacons are white.  I missed some really beautiful scenery, though of course, since we were driving along you'd have got some very blurred photos!

This is how our valley looks like with a dusting of snow.  Photo from 2010.

As we drove along the A40, it began to snow and was coming down steadily by the time we reached Sennybridge (which is always a very cold spot and quite often has record low temperatures).  The fields were all white and around Brecon it was a proper snowscape, although the roads must have been salted because nothing stuck.  Amazingly, there were Daffodils out (on the verge at Trecastle, if I remember rightly) but I should imagine this cold spell will slow many plants and bulbs down.

We spent all day at the auction, although I managed to pop out in between lots we were interested in and got some groceries from Morrisons, and checked out Bobbins, the sewing/patchwork shop there. I was very disappointed as there was scarcely a fabric there that I liked, apart from some very expensive Batik collection packs.  Nor was I prepared to pay £12 for a pack of offcuts of which I could only see the top fabric, and didn't know the amount in it or the other fabric designs.  I would have asked, had I felt inclined to pay up, but I didn't!

This is another 2010 photo.  The mountains you can see are above Llyn y Fan Fach, and are the Carmarthen Fans - the very end of the Brecon Beacon range. In Welsh, the Carmarthen Fans are called Bannau Sir Gaer.   This last peak is the Black Mountain (or Mynydd Ddu).   Today Black Mountain and all the uplands of the Brecon Beacons, including of course the flat top of Pen-y-Fan were all white with snow, and I was interested to see many old field systems (from the times of the 18th C Enclosures) on the lower land revealed by the dip and ridge of snow showing up old boundaries, long grubbed out to turn one or two acre fields into one 10 acre holding.  Even more fascinating was where the snow line began - and how, as we drove between Llandeilo and Llandovery, the rusty red slopes of Garn Goch, an ancient Iron Age hillfort, had no snow on it, unlike the higher slopes above.  Definitely a warmer place to set up camp.

Anyway, it was a reasonably successful auction, and we have some fresh stock for the Unit now.

Finally, sunrise on a snowy morning from my office window.  I wonder if I will wake up to that this weekend?  Since I am off down to Southampton to stay with my best friend Trish on Monday for a couple of days, I could do with it holding off a little longer.