An Enriched Life

 I went to my patchwork group yesterday.  As always, I went to my friend Pam's for lunch and a natter (took cheese and home made bread and I'd baked an Apple Gingerbread cake for them all).  At the class, Alex told me how to repair the hole in the middle of the quilt and whilst it is a bit of a lash up as I didn't have the materials to make a centre to follow the concentric pattern around the "hole", I had taken a strip off the side and just had to go with the fabrics I had in that, a difficult combination of different weights from polycotton to a heavyweight cotton.  Done - not perfect, but when put together it will be rehomed.  I need to get some batting from Doughty's now, and some yellow fabric to make a border for the other unfinished quilt I bought (Rosie will be having that).  My friend Pat was making a stunning quilt - just on the final border so it is all but finished bar quilting and binding.  Must ask her where she got the fabrics as I will need to make a quick new housewarming quilt for Danny and E.

Pat has horses, and Sheri too, so we all talked horse for a while as I unpicked the rows ready to place them in the quilt.  It was like old times, pre-Covid, when I went every week.  I only lived about 4 miles away then.

The Dog Roses are in full bloom at the moment.

On my journey, I listened to my podcasts.  Excavations at Knowth on the way home, and In Our Time (Melvyn Bragg) on the way there, a podcast I wouldn't have chosen probably, but it followed on from another of his I had been listening to, and was about the Barbary Corsairs and was really very interesting.  I learn so much through these podcasts.  Then on tv in the evening I watched another History Hit, Witchmen Trials in Iceland, which was fascinating too.  I never knew there were big chunks of Europe, Iceland included, where it is men who are the ones accused of Witchcraft.  Tonight, it will be Histyory Hit: Edward II I am watching.

Ground Elder has such pretty flowers.

I am so glad to have my life enriched by these programmes.  Driving through the beautiful Welsh countryside, my knowledge of the past and visits to Welsh churches, make sense of the scenery - especially when you have a short stretch of Roman Road and in Llandovery there is a field where there was a Roman fort (no excavations done there though).  The next ones along are Brecon and in the opposite direction, Llandeilo.  Old Drover's Roads have become modern roads today and the first bank (Black Ox) in Llandovery, was established in 1799 by the son of a drover, a drover himself, David Jones.  He married advantageously (his wife had a fortune of £10,000) and with his earnings from droving, aged 40 he started the bank there.  The Abergwesyn road, which joins the A483 at Beaulah, was a drover's road, and from Llandovery, the drover's road followed the line of the Roman road to Trecastle.  History just brings the landscape alive, makes it 3-D.

My knowledge of wild flowers and birds brings me satisfaction when I see the more unusual examples too.  

White Bedstraw with Cleavers stretching over it.

I have been berating myself for the state of the garden and yard - esp. the latter which desperately needs weeding, but then when I came down this morning, there were four Greenfinches helping themselves to the seeds of Black Medick and Shepherd's Purse and the like, and last night I watched Bullfinches on the seedheads of the Tormentil on the bank.  So I tell myself I garden for wildlife . . .

We have two Swallow nests in the stables this year, and a full house of Housemartins - 6 nests along the end wall facing East.  They are such a joy to watch.

Well, this won't do.  I need to pack the car for a Tip Trip (long overdue) and get some laundry on.