Headhunted! Plus wildflowers from my walk.

 

Last autumn, a dealer friend Keith and I knew well, was impressed with my stand at the Autumn Antiques Fair.  He has a shop in the next county, and  said he wished some of his lesser dealers would leave, and then he could offer me a Unit, but . . .  Anyway, I've seen him recently at the small fair I do, and he said nothing about a Unit.  Then this last Builth Fair, another dealer with a shop approached me and wanted me to have Unit again.  He is half an hour's drive away, and I was giving it some thought but went to check out the Shop and was shocked.  Keith and I had a Unit there when I was running my little business pre-Covid.  I am sure much of the stock that was there then - especially the bits hanging from the ceiling! - had bred - there was double the amount of "stuff" in the shop, and it reminded me of the first time Keith and I went into ToysRUs and had to come out as we were SO overwhelmed by the pile it high stock in there.

Pignut.

I thought long and hard about it, and then decided there was nothing to lose from phoning my other dealer friend and seeing if there was a Unit available . . .  Well, I spoke to his business partner and she said he was looking to get in touch with me as a dealer was leaving and space would come available at the end of June.  We had a lovely chat and I am going over next Tuesday, with some recent stock photos, and hopefully I will be in.  Which means restarting my old business again, having some fresh business cards printed, and carrying on with my fossicking around Fleamarkets!

Guelder rose

I am absolutely thrilled to bits and hope it comes to pass...  I really wasn't happy about the other offer as it would mean working a couple of days a month in the shop to reduce the Unit rent too and I hated doing that first time round!

Creeping Buttercup

I think this may be Multi-flowered Buttercup (Ranunculous polyanthemos). 

Hedgerow Crane's-bill?

Probably Common Ramping fumitory (they all seem much of a muchness!).

White Dead Nettle.

Crosswort (Cruciata laevipes).

Cut-leaved Cranesbill.  (Geranium dissectum.)

Ground Ivy.  (Glechoma hederacea).

(Sticky) Groundsel.  (Senecio viscosis) Used to pick this for our budgie!

Deeply into our Manx family history

 

Looking down towards Builth just after 7 a.m. yesterday morning.  

I know - I should be doing housework.  I HAVE to do some later on but for the moment I am in a delightful steady frenzy (IS there such a thing?!) of family history research involving people and places in the  18th C on the Isle of Man.  I am like a dog with a bone!    I have solved a family mystery which has been neglected many years and research is so much easier now that so many more links and documents are put on-line.    I am currently perusing the actual parish registers which have been scanned - AMAZING!

  As I only had snippets of names and very sparse details which had come down from Keith's dad,  who sadly died when Keith and I were just friends, it was not a very easy journey.  BUT yesterday I made a huge breakthrough and have found the family holding and what was happening there around the 1890s from a book written in 1945, reliant on wonderful memories from the oldest people in the parish who knew everyone who lived everywhere, even in long-ruined cottages and plots.  It also looks like I have been researching in the wrong parish for some of "his lot" as they appear to be hefted elsewhere.  I still have to trace beyond g.g. grandfather though and that hasn't been easy.  No cast iron links - just guestimates until today, but now I am confirming notes I made back in 2000 when the only tool I had on the internet was the basic IGI (it is now MUCH improved and called Family Search).

Fascinating to see the the common folk (our lot and their neighbours) chose family names for their children - John, William, Philip, Patrick, James, Ann, Mary, Margaret with the occasional more exotic Isabel or Elinor.  The Royal Naval births, however, really went for originality - how about Victoria Sophia Alfrida?  Or Belvedira Clarissa Eliza?  Or John Adolphus Frederick?  So, I am immersed in Kellys, Cowleys, Quayles, Christians, Sayles and Shimmins . . .

Anyway, yesterday very early I went for a long walk, right to the very top of the hill this time, so my fitness levels are definitely improving.  Today I treated myself to "Walking the Old Ways of Radnorshire" - a companion to the book in the same series which is of Herefordshire.  I hope there will be soon one of Breconshire too, which is actually the county we live in, although it is part of Powys now.  So, lots of photos and not much in the way of writing, but you probably know I just LOVE to research and so I am like a terrier down a rabbit hole and keeping cool at the same time.

Hedge Woundwort, and below, Yarrow.

Right at the top of the hill, a choice of 3 bridleways.  We've walked one (below) up through the woods, when we first got here.  Can't wait for it to cool down so we can explore the other two.

The wild flowers of mid summer

Navalwort.

Rosebay Willowherb.

Dog Roses.

Looking up our valley on a recent walk when our eldest daughter was here.  We had planned to be dropped off by the iron footbridge across the river, much higher up the valley and cross it and walk back along the lanes over that side, but the road had been blocked for repairs to a dangerous stretch of wall.

Below:  I was intrigued that this dead tree above still had a couple of teensy green-topped twigs, but I think they are seedlings which have managed to get established in the rotting wood.

The lane ahead leads down to our valley bottom.  Our house is out of sight to the left of this picture.

Here the farm buildings stand in front of our house.  Anything painted white is one of the original farm buildings (we were the accompanying farmhouse until the farmer sold it to us 28 years back).  You may just see our chimneys on the right of the cluster of buildings, just where that branch comes in from the right.  The heavily wooded bit immediately behind our house is our copse but it merges into the trees forming the boundary and then onto next door's farmland.

Looking up our river valley again.  This is the right hand slope of it, and at the top, just out of sight, is the old Iron Age enclosure.

You can just see the "hillock" on the top of  this hillside, which was one of the Iron Age enclosure boundaries.  It is square in shape.

Robin's Pin Cushions on the wild Dog Roses.  Properly known as "Bedeguar Galls" these are caused by the larvae of a tiny gall wasp, Depoloepis rosae.  The grubs inside feed on the host plant all winter and hatch out as adults in the spring.  They are asexual, and just a tiny number are male.  (The Wildlife Trusts)

Honeysuckle is in mid-romp along the hedgerows.  I can remember teaching my kids to pull off the individual flowers, bite off the very base and suck out the sweet nectar.  I expect folk have been doing that for 1000s of years.

Above and below, Bramble flowers may be simple, but have a beauty all of their own.  They are lovely to draw.

Now I have cracked how to load my photos in future, I should be back in the land of blogging.  Just need a few more hours in the day though!