Well, we are on with the agent now. (The Smallholding Centre if you want to be nosy). All we can do is keep on top of keeping it clean and tidy and W.A.I.T. That last word is the hardest part. Everyone loves it but not everyone can afford it. This is our final move and we need every penny we can get . . . A little will come in from selling the furniture we will not have room for, but that will only pay for part of our removal costs. Anyway, I hope to find private buyers (and better prices) for some pieces and am going to take photos of everything we have for sale, make up a catalogue and take them to the next Fair.
We went and saw friends in Hay again yesterday, and viewed a property whilst we were over that way. It was very much in the style we favour and would work on many levels, though there are a couple of stumbling blocks regarding WHERE it is. Tam is being very encouraging though, but of course it depends if it's still around when we are in a position to buy.
Whilst we were out and about, we stopped a little while at Bredwardine Church, where the Rev. Francis Kilvert was buried. He was the incumbent at the time of his premature death at 38 from a ruptured appendix and peritonitis. He wrote wonderful diaries, still being published, although sadly much of his writing was destroyed by a family member (may actually have been his widow in her later years).
Over a blocked doorway is an intriguing carving, possibly 12th C. The right hand figure looks very like a monkey, but some consider it to be like a Sheelah-naa-gig - though not obviously so in the normal way! The left hand figure looks to me to be rather like a bird-headed man, such as you find on some Pictish stones.
Kilvert called this door "the Devil's door" . . . and elsewhere it is mentioned that this is a half-humanfigure with its tongue out (like the Devil in a similar representation at Hereford cathedral, some 12 miles away). The other figure is considered to be a woman with a "fanciful head-dress" and two clear nude breasts, and could be Luxuria - connected with the vice of Lust. See LINK.
Looking across the orchard from the church.
The new header photo shows the orientation of this tomb - possibly on the gap between the end of Hay Bluff and the hill (must see which one it is) to the left of it.
The bats, the bees and the baking? Well, Tam always asks when she arrives, "There are no bats around are there?" as in the summer we occasionally have one in the house. August is the usual time, when windows are open etc. Anyway, I said "No, too early." Damn me if there wasn't an eldritch shriek when she went upstairs the night she arrived - a bat was about. It made its way into our room and we had to get up, open the window, and wait for it to make its escape.
The bees - well, they found their way into the house AGAIN, and the attic was full of them when we returned yesterday. Most of them dead on the floor, sadly, but we let out the ones who were still alive. Can't find out where they came in, but I have just gone around and vacuumed them all up (we were out at a car boot sale earlier and didn't get back till after lunch).
Baking - I tried a new-to-me recipe for Energy Bars. They are tasty, filling but too crumbly so I shall have to try again with more honey/oil mixture. Recipe to follow.
