In which Theo goes missing . . .

I didn't sleep well last night.  My legs were aching again and my back was definitely feeling more like Richard III's than mine . . . mainly because I had picked up two stout hedgerow sticks on my walk and tried Nordic Walking.  It is EXACTLY those muscles (if I stretch my arms out today) that are complaining.

Yesterday afternoon I was back down in what had been mum's flat when she was alive, doing some re-decorating.  Theo (now called the Fisher King for reasons I shall shortly share with you) was down there with me, exploring and Having Fun.  He came in at one point absolutely shrouded in cobwebs, and I could only assume - with hindsight, later - that he had been in the cupboard.  Anyway, at around 4 p.m. I had finished, so I shut the doors down there and came upstairs.  Now, with 7 cats in the house you don't always have tabs where they all are at any one point in time.  They come and go as they please.  However, come bed-time, Theo was not asleep on a chair as he normally is.  We did a quick search, opening doors and calling him, but nothing.  Not a single chirrup or meow.  We went to bed.  My legs were aching again and my back complaining too, and I tossed and turned, until the pain made me reach for Paracetamol.  I continued to toss and turn, wondering where on earth Theo could be.  In the early hours of this morning, an idle thought on Theo covered in cobwebs trotted into my mind.  I bet he's in the cupboard down there I thought, but was too warm and by that time un-aching, to go down two floors with a torch and satisfy my curiosity.

So when I got up this morning, I went to check, and there he was, warm and snug as a bug in a rug and wondering why I had shut him in a cupboard for the night?!!!

As for his new title, The Fisher King? Well he has always been fascinated by the fish in the pond and for months has been trying to catch one.  A couple of weeks ago, I found he has been successful, as there was a very dead (and flat!) goldfish in his bed.  A week ago I didn't find a fish, but there were several strands of Canadian Pondweed on the kitchen floor, which is a bit of a give away - he had been at it again.  He is very clever.  The nearest we have ever had to a fishing cat was dear old Lucky, who used to flick the tadpoles out onto the patio with her paw : )

The photo at the top shows Himself playing in part of a jug and basin set in the hall.  He had his bit of rabbit skin there and had been chasing it around the jug, almost juggling with the latter (which is bulbous at the base) just like someone from the Moscow State Circus.  We removed the jug whilst it was still in one piece!  Isn't he a character?  And SO affectionate - when he comes on my lap, he makes a fuss of me like I am stuffed with cat nip!

Still longing for spring and warmer weather, so here is the lane on the way up to Llyn-y-Fan Fach (you can just see the cleft hills in the distance).  Take yourself back over a century and imagine Edward Thomas striding along here, as he did then . . .

There's still snow on the mountains

This is the photo for Em that I was searching for the other day, showing how the river nearly froze from bank to bank . . .  Makes today feel almost like mid-summer!

I took myself up the hill for a walk as the sun had come out.  Sod's law decrees that when I had got as far as I was going (just before old Isaac and Rosina's house), the sun slid from view and it began to pick with rain, which, by the time I had got to the top of our hill, had turned into small hailstones.  Ah well, I wanted to see if there were any Primroses finally out, and yes, up by Isaac and Rosina's there were flowers every few yards, but only one up our hill, though the celendines were more prolific, and there's plenty of Dog's Mercury all along the hedge bottoms. 

A view of the Brecon Beacons from the Hereford road (Hay-on-Wye behind us) near Brecon.  I love the dramatic winter clouds rolling across Pen-y-Fan.  I found this whilst searching for the snow photos, so thought I would give it another airing.

Frozen river again.  Reminds me of the Big Freeze in 1963 . . .

And I am longing for SPRING, to bring me scenes like this one on the way to Builth Wells.

Ah well, it was warm with the sun out today, and there is no end of frogspawn in our ponds, and the wild garlic leaves are poking through the soil, and the birds are nest-making - the Herons at the Heronry at Whitemill have been busy this past couple of weeks now, and on the farmbuildings opposite us here the Jackdaws are cramming beakfuls of twigs through the gaps beneath the roof.  As they do this every year I wonder there's any room left with years of previous nests jammed in a tight space.

 This was pretty much the view of Black Mountain today, except the snow faded away on the foothills - literally along the snowline - showing it was only the fact it was higher on the mountains that had turned the sleet to snow.  The two flat-capped tops of Pen-y-Fan were visible, some 40+ miles away, although by the time I had turned for home, the clouds had claimed them again.  The snow line went just beyond the line of hilltop Bronze Age cairns, and below them, the Iron Age hillfort of the Demetae at Garn Goch was dark from rain.  I could just make out the litter of large rocks which formed the defences.  Here are hundreds of photos, if you have the curiosity! 

A Robin was interested in me today, though he made sure he went higher up the hawthorn as I approached.  Two and a half brace of wild Mallards flew the pond as I appeared, and a Long Tailed Tit flew overhead as I strolled back down the hill, coat collar turned up against the hail.

Then it was back to painting.  I have to get the paint for the sitting room, ut then I will be almost up to date with it again for another year.

The love of a good book

Ever since I can remember, I have been a bookworm.  We didn't have many books at home when I was little, as there just wasn't the money for them.  As soon as I learned to read at school (and I can remember those  Janet and John books very well!  When it came to my childrens' turn to learn to read, my son refused point blank to learn to read them as they were boring!) I just had to have a book in my hand.  Even now, I panic if I am somewhere that I may have to wait around, and I have nothing to read.  Even the backs of sauce bottles and drinks cans will do if I am sufficiently desperate!

I made the decision in January to read my way through some of the classics I had been meaning to read for a good few years, but they always got sidelined in favour of a historical novel or something I couldn't put down.  I blew the dust of dear old Thomas Hardy's "The Trumpet-Major" - it was so long since I had read it before that I could scarcely remember the tale at all.  I have to say, it was not one of his best novels . . .  In fact, I got thoroughly exasperated with the characters.  It seems to me that Hardy didn't know a great deal about the way a woman's mind worked, but hell's teeth, he knew even LESS about men, if that is possible.  The "love interest" in the novel is Anne Garland, who is wooed by three men: "stupid, coarse Festus Derriman, a man with expectations; John Loveday, the quiet, thoughtful trumpet-major; and Bob his brother, a sailor whose heart isn't as faithful as it should have been."  Well, Festus Derriman came across as a Schizophrenic and not in the least attractive a character - whilst the two brothers seemed to treat the romance with kid gloves and the girl placed fox and geese with the lot and wasn't worth crossing the road for.  It had a very weak ending too, and it isn't a book I shall read again.

I have moved on to Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" which I thoroughly enjoyed when it was made into a tv drama.  However, I am half way through the book and just want to give Sebastian a good slap and tell him to grow up, so I may end up abandoning the book before long.

I have a quartet of Eden Philpotts' novels to read: Orphan Dinah, The Three Brothers, Children of Men and The Whirlwind, all under the banner of his Dartmoor Omnibus.  I think I shall read one, and then return to the others when I am in the mood.  He writes so evocatively of Dartmoor, as my dad always said, and although he can be melodramatic, he captured the characters of the Moor so beautifully.

I would love to read/re-read my way through the entire works of Dickens too, but I think that would take me a loooooooooong time, at just a few pages a night. I will probably end up taking my favourite man to bed with me . . .

: )

A picture for Em

Annoyingly, I can't find the folder I want, but this is our river, nearly frozen from bank to bank, when it was Minus 17 in our valley (according to the AI chap who has a thermometer in his van cab . . .)

It's felt just as cold this past week!  Somewhere I have another folder with better - and icier! - photos.  Anyway Em, I promised you an icy photo, so here you are!

Escape from reality

Family worries leave me with little of any positivity to write about, so I will share this with you, from Sean Street's "A Remembered Land" - recollections of life in the countryside 1880 - 1914.  Strangely, many (MANY!) years ago, I was once interviewed by Mr Street when he worked for Radio Solent, or was it Radio 2CR in Dorset?  A lovely man and one who shares my passion for social history.

"The shop had a fine, rich blend of smells, bacon and cheese predominating, with alluring undercurrents of tea, liquorice and peppermint.  There was a varied choice of biscuits to be had at popular prices.  (I specially remember 'butter creams', juicy and toothsome at three halfpence a quarter), and chocolate and sweets to suit all comers.  Fry's chocolate cream was on sale in big, thick bars at a penny apiece and penn'orth of sugared almonds, bulls' eyes, acid drops, fruit jellies and the like filled a sizeable bag.  There were comfits, too, in different shapes and colours, bearing romantic legends: 'Will you be my sweetheart?', I love you', 'Will you be mine?' . . . and jars full of mammoth peppermint humbugs.  Ha'porths were served just as willingly as were the larger amounts, and a fat bag of popcorn was sold for a farthing.  In fact, a penny spelt riches when spent at the shop."

Lilian Bond, Tyneham: A Lost Heritage
(Dorset)


Sadly, Tyneham was the entire village (well, one of them probably) commandeered by the MoD just before Christmas 1943, so they could have their practice ranges there.  The village was never returned to its own folk and is still MoD land today.  Good for wildlife, not for its former inhabitants.  The buildings are now ruins and the shop just bare walls . . .  So sad.

Many thanks to my dear daughter T, for buying this book for me when she saw it in a charity shop, as she knew I would treasure it and enjoy it. 

Hell's Bells and Buckets of Blood!

It's been one of those sort of weeks here.  Various - big - worries and seemingly insurmountable problems of the sort which keep you awake at nights.  We could do nothing to influence the outcome of one (though fortunately it seems to have resolved now) and the other, well, we will just say a nettle had to be firmly grasped and there was only the option of the drowning man to grasp it and haul out onto the shore . . .

In the meantime we made the most of the dry weather.  Do you remember the old saying: A peck of  March dust is worth a king's ransom ?  Well, we had the dust here and the cold to go with it, but a bit of sunshine too and on one afternoon I was down to my t-shirt when we were logging one of the old ivied ash trees we had felled.  Now it seems much milder and the kitchen was only down to 58 overnight.   It has been hovering around the 51 or 52 degrees C mark, which is not warm enough for cats, they tell me!

We have had the predicted rain now, which the garden did actually need, and although it has stopped me working outside, there are plenty of jobs to do inside, so I am painting one of the spare bedrooms at the moment with the lovely breathable clay paint which covers so much better than limewash, which needs half a dozen coats to cover decently.

 

Oh yes, then there's Himself, in play mode as always . . .  He is in training to be the Fearless Hunter.  He has long been a Fishing Cat, hanging over the pond, dipping in his paw in an effort to grab one of the goldfish.  I came down the other morning to find he had been successful, and there was the evidence in his bed . . . one very dead goldfish.  Uneaten of course, as he hasn't made the connection with hunting and EATING!  He is incredibly loving, and sometimes when he is on my lap I wonder if I must smell of cat nip as he goes NUTSO making a fuss of me.  There is a lot of dear Tippy in him.  The other day one of the boys (probably Alfie) caught and ate most of a baby rabbit, leaving only the scut and a bit of skin and fur.  Well, that has been Theo's Best Toy EVER and he has been batting it all around the house . . .

I finally got around to some breadmaking yesterday, but a few weeks ago I had a sore index finger - it felt a bit like a thorn had been picked up on the top joint.  No thorn - instead it is Arthritis and that makes kneading bread very painful now - so I think next time I see a breadmaker on offer at the car boot sale, I shall get it for making the dough, though I will still prefer to shape by hand and bake in the oven.

Finally, I cheered myself up by buying some seeds yesterday.  Mostly from Lidl (and for pennies, especially compared with the ridiculous prices charged by seed companies in this country.  Lidls also had a good selection of rose bushes on offer and fruit trees too, the latter at £3.99 each.  One chap had put 2 apples, 2 pears, 2 plums in his trolley along with about a dozen roses.  I had to go to a well-known and VERY overpriced nursery chain for my Duchy Original seeds (flat beans).  There, just 20 seeds cost £2.99.  I know they are organic but heck, they should be covered in gold dust for that price!  I took myself by the scruff of the neck and walked past all the other over-priced plants although the double-flowered ruffly Pelargoniums in purples and deep reds were so gorgeous (but at £5.99 they were staying on the shelf!)  It was horrifying enough finding that a dozen small vegetable seeds were £3.99 a tray, and then, for SINGLE flower seedlings for the garden, £1.29 and - for Fuschias - £1.59!!!  Small soft fruit bushes were all £9.99 each.  There must be people who go and buy them but heck, car boot sales are far better places in season to stock up your garden. 

Winter Wood and Weariness

  

 This is the new view from the top of the yard after my OH and I got busy with the chainsaw earlier in the week and felled three of the old Ash trees.  There is a lot more light coming in now and we have more of a view too.  It is nice to be self-reliant but I can't help feeling if we relocate TOO near civilization when we do finally move, we will be considered the modern equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies . . .

These ivy-covered Ash trees at the top of our yard were diseased and leaning and had to come down.  Fairly straightforward, but we had to rebuild part of our neighbour's fence . . .

There's a LOT of firewood there, but boy, there's a heck of a lot of ivy too and removing that is a job and a half.  My job and a half in fact, as my OH uses the chainsaw and I wield the axe to remove the ivy (some of it is as thick as my wrist). 

 


And here's some we did earlier!  This is some of our woodpile for next winter.  The orangey pile in the centre is an Alder tree which had been brought to us by the river, already seasoned, and just needing to be carried, split and dried.  Today, in advance of the rain promised for next week, we shifted most of that pile - over half a ton - into the woodshed.  Now we both feel like we could sleep on the head of a pin!  At the top of the yard are some  lengths from the dead tree which brought down our phone line - we thought it was only right it should pay the price for its untimely fall . . .

The Carmarthen Journal had a couple of paragraphs about our lack of phone line this week, but I think perhaps they didn't quite believe our tale that we had got a rope across from pole to pole for BT, so just to prove that we did - here is the photo.