A roundup of my week

These earlier photos are of the Brecon Beacons, when I was able to stop in a proper layby to get my camera out.

Shhh.  I'm hiding.  Those dratted cats have just been all over me as I tried to sit and do some x-stitch.  After a week's frantic gardening and very little sleep last night, I have given myself the afternoon off.  However, with geriatric Fluff on one side, who I didn't dare stroke because of her propensity to drool when happy, and fatso Ghengis on the other, sitting under my right elbow on the arm of the sofa, and gradually trying to slide down onto my lap, I didn't have much room to sew!

We have had a busy week.  On Monday we had to go and collect a bed we had bought at auction.  It is a French pine sleigh bed (single) and will go with us when we move.  We have to get a mattress for it first though.  We went on to Hay-on-Wye after that, as we had an appointment there, and we also caught up with a friend of ours there.  Then it was home and some gardening, to make the most of the wonderful spring sunshine we've had this week.

I just couldn't resist a couple of books at Hay this time.  Firstly:

This is a lovely compilation of snippets from British newspapers over a hundred year span.  I will add some pieces over the next few days.  It gives a real insight into how countrydwellers lived their lives.  I love social history.

Here was another book with my name on it as I have long wanted to walk a stretch of the southerly end of Offa's Dyke path.  The closest I have got to it is a hundred yards along the stretch by White Castle!   Must Do Better!!

Tuesday was spent mostly gardening.  I am currently out in the paddock plot, and have decided to let one area grass over (though it needs some more garden thugs removed from it first) as it's just too much hard work trying to keep it weeded.  It has never forgotten it was once a field . . .  I've weeded most of the gravel path, including UNDER the edging rocks, and pulled all the long grass and weeds up from around the young fruit trees, dug it over, fed them with lots of Poultry Poo Pellets and topped with compost - it looks so much tidier.  I've been digging out the grass and brambles from around the raspberries, but there are so many raspberry babies it is hard to tell where the original rows of canes were.  Last year was just so wet and I couldn't get out to tidy up that area at all so I have two years' worth of undergrowth to deal with.

As it has been the Cheltenham Festival (National Hunt Racing) all week, I gardened frantically and then dashed in to watch the races.  We even had a couple of winners though my choice for the Gold Cup (Cue Card) was unlucky and fell three from home.

On Wednesday, another outing, as we had planned to go to Abergavenny Fleamarket again.  We made an early start, but there were no goodies for us this time and we came away empty-handed, though we had a chat with a few dealer friends there.

Abergavenny has our nearest Waitrose supermarket.  I needed a couple of things and just couldn't resist these two in-house magazines:

With the baking ideas for Easter, I just couldn't resist them, especially as one was free anyway.

You'd have thought it was a quick enough route, along the A40.  However, what we didn't know was that they had SHUT the A40 just after Brecon, and although they had put up a detour, it was a lengthy one.  We cut off across country (clever clogs!) and came out - just where they had shut the road off completely!!  We managed to turn left again before we ran out of A40 (by the first lorry) and this time came out at Bwlch.  Narrow lanes (nothing we're not used to) and little hamlets we had never seen before.

On the way back we started off on the Official Detour (which would have been 15 miles long), before cutting acrossd country again.  I wish I hadn't been driving as the views along the back of the Black Mountains was amazing, but there was no place to park up and take photos.  This is the best I could do:

As you can see, little eyebrows of snow still left along the ridge.

Yesterday we went into town to do the grocery shopping.  I had to go to Charlies to get a final sack of Sunflower hearts for the bird-feeders.  Opposite is a place selling - sorry, giving books away free for a donation.   I went inside to check it out, and couldn't resist this novel, plus an historical trilogy set along the Welsh Marches by Edith Pargeter, and Anthony Trollope's Dr Thorne, which was recently serialized for tv but which I missed. When there are THREE programmes you want to watch all on at the same time, something has to give . . .  I can see me going back there - for someone denied books as a child (no money for them) I just cannot shake off the urge for yet MORE.

Anyway, we have decided we will probably move away from Sky (it's so expensive) and instead we have taken out Amazon Prime, bought an Amazon Firestick and are enjoying that.  We're already on episode 4 of the third series of Black Sails (almost a pirate version of Game of Thrones, in that it is an epic power struggle with no holds barred).

Today I have been baking - the hot X buns were a failure (again!) but the sesame and ginger biscuits perfectly edible if a tad mis-shapen!  Have a good weekend all.