Home Alone . . .

Much as I love my family, it is nice for just my husband and I to have the house to ourselves for a change. T&J are away for the weekend, D off with a friend overnight, and G now up in Edinburgh, doing her Grand Tour. So K and I can have a quick meal tonight (ham and chips I suspect), and sit down and watch Merlin and anything else we fancy. I've just been sat down with my sewing (a tablecloth I am finishing the embroidery on), watching the racing, without any interruption and without having to stop to prepare a decent supper.

I promised some recipes, so they will be the next blog entry.

The photograph was taken this morning, looking out from the window across to the farm buildings beyond.

Saturday's walk

You will be getting fed up with autumn scenery by now, but I thought I would share these photographs from Saturday's walk. I got my husband to drop me off about 2 1/2 miles from home and I walked back along lanes I used to ride Fahly along, the opposite side of the valley to where we live.

You will have to bear with me on postings at the present, as I am having to share the computer with my offspring, as all their computers have gone kaput. I am also finding it hard to motivate the creative side of myself - both with sewing and writing and even cooking on some days - though I did make some toothsome pasties yesterday which I will give the recipe for tomorrow (Ham and Cheese ones). So, for the moment, short on words and long on photos . . .


I started my walk whilst the sun was out, but just around the corner . . .


. . . there were rainclouds behind the farmhouse. Fortunately, I managed to get home before the heavens opened.

The denser part of the hedgerow on the right is where there are cottage ruins, but you have to step inside the copse to actually see them as they are invisible from the lane.

If you look in little copses in field corners, you often find cottage ruins. There were two cottages here originally, in about half an acre each of land. Similar set up to the two on the bottom road I showed yesterday. I will have to try and find them in the 1881 census though I don't know this side of the river so well.

This is looking across the Towy Valley.

A neighbour's Welsh Cob broodmare. He has several mares and some youngstock.

We've not had a great deal of rain yet, but this field is already waterlogged.

Looking up the valley towards Horeb.

This is the last flat bit before a steep downhill - steep enough to KILL the thighs when walked uphill . . .

Plenty of yellow on the side of the valley - looking over my shoulder.

Our house is just tucked in behind the farm in the centre right of the picture.

Some of the young steers (and a young bull, if I'm not mistaken!) on a neighbours farm.


Colour in the hedgerow in the form of Euphorbia (probably the Wood Spurge).

Looking across the valley towards our house.


Back down to the river's edge now, and this splendid oak tree.

Some local autumn colours

Along by the river today. My favourite view (and all the other photographers in our neck of the woods!) However, this was at the end of my walk as I got my husband to drop me off near the A40 so I could walk the 3 miles home along a different set of lanes for a change. It was mizzly but I didn't get very wet - just HOT!



The start of the walk. The A40 runs along in front of the pine trees centre and right. Nearly 2000 years ago the Romans walked this way too and built a Roman road between Llandeilo and Carmarthen. In Victorian times (if my memory serves me well), a hoard of Roman coins was discovered on land nearby.

Behind the piddling sheep (!), you can just about see the outline of Dryslywn Castle in the distance.




A stag-headed oak punctuates a farm trackway.

Here in the valley, the Larches are the colour of Lucozade. Up on the mynydd, last week, they were a bright sulphur yellow.

The lane led invitingly homewards.

Above and below. Broodmares and youngsters at a local stud were interested in the novelty of someone ON FOOT!


Gateway to a neighbour's smallholding.

The scenery looked like it had been spread with a fine gauze veil. In reality, it was drizzle!

This hill may not look too steep, but I can assure you that climbing up it is quite a challenge, and I was glad to do this walk in reverse today!

A Section A Welsh broodmare and her foal, belonging to a neighbour of ours. When we first moved here we bought one of her yearlings - a beautiful palomino colt we called Merlin (as his stable name). Gosh, he would be 22 now . . .

On the "main" road home - leastways, a lane large enough in the most part for two cars to comfortably pass!

Above and below. Once neighbouring cottages on one acre plots, the ruin above might have looked like the cottage below, had it not been abandoned.

Autumn in the Elan Valley

Autumnal colours this year seem to be SO beautiful. I was going to post last Saturday's walk, but I will leave that for tomorrow and share with you instead the autumn scenery from the Elan Valley, near Rhayader in mid-Wales. The first dams were opened in 1904, with Claerwen being opened in 1952, one of the first jobs for our then new Queen. They supply Birmingham with water. Words are superfluous . . .
















P.S. The boys had their "op" yesterday, spent the night in the shower room, wrecked the joint overnight and are now outside hurtling around like they're on Speed and you would never know anything had been done to them!