Final holiday roundup - three amazing desert castles

 

This caravanserai dates to the 7th C.  It was a resting place for traders and had something like 65 bedrooms.  There had been a fountain in the central courtyard, and in one room was the large round base for what had been a bread oven.  It was hard to imagine it thronging with people and animals now.

As you can see, it had been much restored.

The desert - the views just went on and on.

Wonderful carvings had survived.

"Just as our coach arrived at Quseir 'Amra, I noticed a bird taking off from a low shrub.  It was a HOOPOE!!!  It was too speedy for a photo, as was the 2nd one I saw shortly afterwards.  Top of my lifetime "wants" on my birding list!  Since I was about 12 in fact, as I remember reading Monica Edwards' book "The Summer of the Great Secret" which as a bout a Hoopoe spending the summer at the castle on Romney Marsh in Kent, and they were trying to keep its presence secret."

This is Quseir 'Amra, a Royal Hunting Lodge, and again 7th C. These desert castles were created by the Umayyad lords.  From the outside, it didn't look too impressive, although it had a separate bath-house/sauna built, and you can just see the water windmill which bucket-lifted water up from a 40 foot deep cistern.

Hunting dogs.

From my journal: "Inside, oh my goodness, ancient 7th C fresco's, though sadly some were very damaged because they offended those who came after - Bedouins who used this as a dwelling.  As this had been a hunting palace, there were clearly leisure pursuits also available and several walls/ceilings had pictures of a sexual nature which had been appropriately damaged later.  There were many other different paintings - people at work, hunting scenes, someone playing a lute, the ever-present Tree of Life and a lovely frieze of desert animals.  I loved the painting of a Centaur, which had been introduced from other influences (Greek mythology)."

Of course, the photo of the centaur is one of the ones which is still on the camera.

Journal: "THEN - OH MY GOODNESS - Al-Azraq Castle, built by the Romans and used ever since.  This final Crusader Castle was the very one where Lawrence of Arabia discussed the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916. " Wikipedia says: 'The Sykes-Pico Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from Russia and Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.'

Journal entry "The actual castle was built by the Romans.  The double front door was made from two slabs of stone weighing 1000 g, and had pivots on their outer edges (now greased by diesel oil - it would have been olive oil in the past). There was another elsewhere - a single door even heavier at around 4,000 Kg."

Here I am, stood in the very room where Lawrence of Arabia and Prince Faisal had their talks.  The blackened stones above my head were from later Bedouin fires.  The sense of history here was breathtaking.

The very heavy door!

Gabby goes to the shops!!  Prices were very much cheaper here than in the cities or the stop-offs the coach tour used.

Then across the desert again . . .

To the Dead Sea.  That's Israel on the far shore.  I just had a paddle, but most of the folk on our coach floated (it is SO salty, something like 40% saline, you can only float - and you don't want to splash it in your eyes!)  Afterwards, it's obligatory to cover yourself in the mud, which is good for the skin, and then you can have a beach shower to get off the worst before going back to the showers which were part of the hotel complex we had lunch at.  You could hire a towel.

I'll put a couple of museum photos up tomorrow.  Now it's gardening time again.

A day out to look forward to

 Before the car decided to give me problems, I was going to go to Aberystwyth to go on Rosie's 1st birthday outing.  It clashed with a coach trip run by the Heritage Society to some of Radnorshire's most interesting churches, with lunch at the Visitor Centre in the Elan Valley, and home via Cors y Lyn bog (the one I have visited several times now, with boardwalks).  Anyway, now the car's off the road, they were looking to fill the last seats and I got the very last one and friend Pam will give me a lift into town on Saturday.

Not today's walk - this is up in the hills near Pant-y-Llyn.

This morning Pam bought me up my newspaper and we took her rescue dog for a lovely walk along the River Wye, up past Pen-ddol rocks, and up through the woods and back in a loop.  It was lovely

I made a big pan of risotto with a gammon steak chopped up, rice, tinned chopped tomatoes, onions, peas and mushrooms.  I had some for lunch and there's still two big meals out of it.

I was a bit too achey to do much gardening today, but took myself out to hoik out the ancient and moss-covered lavender bushes in the bed at the top of the garden.  I just did one side (two bushes), and dug out all the gnarled root bundles of grass (hooray!), buttercups etc.  I will give it a more thorough going over tomorrow.  Yesterday I was edging and weeding/weeding/weeding the arc of gravel in front of the rhododendrons, and sweeping up a tree's worth of beech leaves from the lawn and by the back fence panels.  I've made good progress in several places in the garden this past few days. 

I tried to get back to my Heritage quilt blocks.  All I can say is, the instructions are screwed!  No way does the block fit together, so I have gone on line and downloaded instructions from someone who DOES know how an Ohio Star block should be cut and pieced and I will start over before I ruin too much fabric.  For the straightforward Ohio Star, you have no idea how relieved I was to read all the cut pieces were 5 1/2" when cut out.  No 4 7/8", cut in half and pieced etc . . . (and the row above 5 1/4" . . .  I know that Morning's Minion had it all worked out, but she's an expert quilt maker (I ain't!!)

I've been watching one of Neil Oliver's excellent talks about Ghosts. It's on Youtube and titled Power Politics, Premonitions and Heartbreak. I really enjoyed watching it, learning about Seers, Premonitions and the like and then he took us to Culloden and what people have experienced there.  Very good viewing.

Well, my beautiful petite grand-daughter is a year old today.  Happy Birthday Rosie, my gorgeous girl.  I wish my car was on the road so I could have visited, but I will see her on Sunday, when they come over and Gabby visits, and we all go out for a Mother's Day lunch at the Seven Stars Inn at  Aberedw.  I'm looking forward to that.

So, nothing exciting to babble on about but it's so good to have sunshine and birdsong, and to be able to sit outside with my book and a cuppa.

Family and friends

First of all, Sue in Suffolk asked for the link to the eye test I did, so HERE IT IS.  It is 100 pictures long though, as they count each picture as a percentage.  It made my eyes tired by the end.

I had a lovely visit from Tam and Rosie yesterday and they took me for a quick next week top-up shop in Tesco.  I will confess that I got a bigger tub of ice cream!  The Kelly's Cornish Honeycomb ice cream was on a special offer and I had several spoonfuls last night with strawberries.  Still failed on the cheese though - no Edam, no plain Wensleydale or Caerphilly on offer.  As long as you want 3 dozen different brands of Cheddar though, you're OK.  Rosie was a delight but a busy bee now, toddling about and walking the length of the room!

The shop with the fabrics in which I pictured yesterday, was Booths in Hay-on-Wye.   Primarily a huge bookshop but its crafts end seems to be expanding which is great by me.  It's nice to browse, though none of the crafts books was that tempting this time.  

It was nice to wander round my favourite town, and have a word with friends.  I see the shop of one of them has now been taken over by someone else, and the interesting antiques and studio pottery have gone, and replaced by this.

I liked the china with the hares on and thought it might be Emma Bridgwater but picked up a mug and no stamp on the bottom and it felt light and breakable.  

An interesting little corner.  I don't know if this shop will "make it" as I think rents are high and winter is dead in Hay, apart from market day when it livens up a bit.  People seem to think Hay is THE place to sell but tbh, it's a bit like smoke and mirrors.  The shops all have a very good look but prices are high here and times are hard.

Well, I did a load of housework and tidying before Tam came - including another frontal lobotomy on the Dyson, which keeps blocking up. I can rest on my laurels for a couple of days now.  I had to have a big tidy up in the living room before Rosie arrived, so books have been tidied away and all my sewing stuff removed! 

My friend Pam came round with plants for me just before Tam left.  I have two clumps copper grasses, a big clump of pink hardy Geranium, some Dahlia tubers, and lots of Rudbeckia, which will go at the back of the bank as it is tall and spreads.  We had a good natter and watched a couple of Monty Don's Big Dreams, Small Spaces programmes on Youtube.  She went home with a pile of my gardening magazines to get ideas for her garden from.  

I had another 3 or 4 hours out in the garden on Saturday, (oh my aching back!) and dug through all the chippings by the low wall, to remove dozens and dozens of wild strawberries.  They spread so and these plants weren't as pickable as the ones up on the bank.  It looks much tidier now.  I also weeded about 6 feet of the long border.  Plus potting on well-grown small Rose Campions I overwintered in the greenhouse and gave Pam some when she came.  We plan to visit local gardens open to the public this spring and summer under the Powys National Garden Scheme.  

Right. nearly 5 a.m. now.  I'm down because I got too hot in bed so the winter duck down duvet will have to be changed for the summer one today.  I will probably have to walk into town and back today as Boots have informed me that my prescription is ready. Gardening on the agenda too of course. I need to start some more seeds and plant some of Pam's donations, grass-weed on the bank and put down cardboard and bark chippings.

Sarah in Sussex, haven't heard from you for a while.  I hope you and S are OK.  Or are you on holiday - I know you had one planned?

Testing my brain

 I am here, honest, but in finding some new brain games to keep the old grey cells active, I did a colour and vision test, out of interest.  Gosh I thought, this is going on and on and then realized there were a 100 pictures to work through!!!  Anyway, I persevered as I wanted to know the answer, and got 86%, which makes me one of only 5.4% of the participants to do this well.  Not bad at my age, but when I had my eyes "deep tested" last year, she did say my eyes were in good condition and I had no macular degenation. I still needed stronger reading glasses though.  It's not that long ago (5 years at most) when I could read the tiniest printing on food labels.  Not any more!

Guess where I was last week then . . .

Anyway, it got me away from playing Car Escape for a bit, as that is really addictive - I guess it rewards your dopamine levels.  Hence me wanting to get away from that and into brain training - short term memory especially.

Back tomorrow, when hopefully my lower back will have forgiven today's hard work in the garden!  

Oh, good start to the day as I sold an old but good sack truck I no longer needed.  A pleased seller AND a pleased customer.

Talk about MINIATURE!!

 

I got my Asda order delivered today.  I wondered what the delivery man meant when he said I showed great restraint with my ice cream - until I unpacked the crate and found this DIDDY carton!  50g.  And I thought I was getting a special offer bargain!! Ah well, I shall have to exercise restraint to make it last more than three mouthfuls! The bowl is a standard breakfast bowl - NOT a mixing bowl, btw!!

I have been busy outside again today, and dug a hole on one side of the bank for the Dwarf Aster I was given by my friend Chris a couple of months back.  Then I set to and began weeding that area as grass was beginning to take over.  Three hours later . . . plus I did some more moss and grass removal in front of the stables.  

I gave myself a proper lunch hour, and sat in the sun with a new book (Come Hell or High Water by JD Kirk).  Then I took myself off for a cross country walk, along part of the Viaduct (long distance? trackway).  Anyway, it's down our track, turn left and up across the fields to the old church, and then back home via the lanes.  Photos:

Through the copse, across the stream and that tallest of the fir trees edges my top triangle paddock (the orchard).

I sat on a warm bank and ate a Peppermint Aero . . .

The view across the next field.  Rhayader and the Elan valley are about 15 miles beyond those hills.

My home is off to the left once you get down the steep hill.

I stopped to chat to the lass who was in the lambing pens. She had 3 sets of triplets! Mums were going to be able to feed them themselves too -

no need for one to be bottle fed as is often the case.  The mums here were blue-faced Leicesters.  I noticed some Texels and Suffolks in one of their other fields though.

Final photo.  I was glad to get home and rest :)

Tea tonight was a "bungit" - a chopped onion, a very small pack of Aldi minced beef, a grated carrot, a small grated potato, long grain rice, a hefty sprinkling of medium curry powder, and some Oxo stock.  Very tasty and enough for 3 meals.

A lovely spring day

 I have made the most of it.  Some sitting outside in the sun with a good book, listening to the birds and feeling very relaxed.  Then I did some pottering around in the yard - tidying up weed-filled planters and replanting them with Dahlias, Freesias, Nasturtiums etc.  All with labels or I will forget what I planted.  It was 15 deg. today and will be 19 tomorrow, then some rain in the offing.

This is a "before" photo from an area behind the greenhouse which was ignored last year.  Now I will clear it back to scrubbed cobbles again.  I made good progress on it yesterday.

A neighbour dropped me down at the garage and I picked up the car (it's the clutch, and they can't do it until 31st March). I managed to limp home with it via a swift cat-food shop at Co-op, though I had put an order in for an Asda delivery tomorrow as I can't get my grocery shop done in Llandod.

Above and below: The river Irfon on my walk back from the garage yesterday.

Below: Up the hill a bit, a glimpse of the lovely Caer Beris hotel (and ancient castle site).  There is a big holiday cabins site there too.

Sheep and lambs a little further on.

From today's walk.

Then I went for a walk - not that far, about a mile and a half, but I stopped half way on a sun-warmed log and looked across at the hills, and listened to birds again (Jays and Woodpeckers being noisy).  When I came home I started bread dough for a fresh oven-baked loaf (that's cooking now). 

I sat in the living room and read more of my book and suddenly felt really tired. I laid on the sofa and was out like alight for 40 mins.  All that fresh air I think.

Ajloun Castle

 The new header photo was taken from the road up to the Castle, which is something like 3,500 feet above sea level.  Again, the missing photos have photos from this castle with them.  I have borrowed this top one from Enjoy Jordan Travel Agency.  Please visit the link to see more. As a change from Crusader castles, this was built in the 12th Century by Muslims to protect the area from being overrun by Crusader forces.

Another Link here which will show you various internal and external photos.

Here's a rather Disneyesque AI image of what the castle looked like in its heyday.

A view from the top - there were cable cars running across our view but you can't see them here.  The castle had clearly been restored, but not to the exacting standards we are used to in the UK.

My overwhelming thought, as we climbed the very wide staircases through the building, was how weak it would be to defend.  We are used to seeing narrow, defendable stairways, and curtain walls surrounding the bailey, with murder holes and a portcullis in the gatehouse.  (That said I think this did have a portcullis and murder holes).  The spiral staircases inside Welsh castles could be defended by one man, a right handed chap with a sword.  Here - 100s of armed men could have overcome it in short shrift once the main entrance was overwhelmed.  Mind you, with the castle being so high up, the Crusaders wouldn't have had much element of surprise!

My journal says (sorry to repeat):  "Ajloun castle after lunch - 3,500 feet above sea level.  Lots of trees in this area.  Another rebuilt castle - stairways seemed impossibly wide to repel raiders.  Fabulous views and some cute castle cats!  A good, if small, museum with some Byzantine glass, pottery, small carved stone door etc."

My photos from phone of museum exhibits.

Various pipes.

Amazing Byzantine glass. Byzantine period stretched between 330 and  1343.

2 pots from Tell Abu sarbat.

Amazing carved stone door.

A hard-to-decipher stone.

Yes, yet another mosaic :)

A quern made from rock.  I imagine the resultant flour would have been quite gritty.

Back to normal.  Rosie, looking subdued (due a sleep - she slept for more than 2 hours) and I yesterday, having some granny and baby time.

I will have problems next week though.  Car, it turns out, needs a new clutch.  Unfortunately that can't be done for a fortnight.  Other garages in the area say mid or end of April!  So as I have to be at Tam's next Monday to babysit again, I will just have to not drive it until next Monday and then go steadily.  Getting into first gear when I start up of a morning is the worst bit.  Then it eases.  

I had a pleasant walk home from the garage this morning, and then later up the road to my friend's to get car advice from her husband, so past 10K steps today from that.