smiles . . .

I have just had a silly thought as to the picture below - it's a TREE SNEEZE!!!

Just off to the car boot sale now, so I will post properly later.

Just a trick of the light?

I've just blown up this photo to look at the view and remember the day, and was surprised to see that the left-hand tree has a light-anomaly going up the trunk. It looks like the skirts of a ghosty!! Then I looked again and there are three little knobbles at the top which look for all the world just like a nose and two close-set eyes! I think that a strong ray of sunshine just cut across my photo. . . .

Monday's walk - Part II

View along the Towy Valley - Paxton's Tower (top of hill, leftish) and Dryslwyn Castle (middle).

I was flattered when these sheep came hurtling towards me, bleating, and I thought I must look like a Person Who Is Nice To Sheep. Then they raced past - they had noticed the REAL farmer approaching in his pick-up with their feed!

The steps up through the woods.

This tree conveys movement - looks like it is late for a party and is running, dragging its skirts behind it!

Above and below - there is something so beautiful about trees in winter. The parkland contains many ancient specimens - even these are several hundred years old and as I walked back across the park I noticed that the biggest were all recorded and had little metal tags stapled to their trunks.


There are many bats to be found in Carmarthenshire. They happily fly into our house should be we negligent enough to leave a window open at dusk. This chart shows some of the species that have been recorded.

Isn't this lovely? I went and sat for a while on the bench you can just see in the picture.

A little of the history of the castle.

As you can see, it was built on an almost impregnable spot - well, from this side anyway! It's nearly a sheer drop to the river valley below.

The Towy Valley looks very bleached by the winter weather, but the green will soon return.

Looking mostly northwards between the towers.

This is definitely a candidate for the double-click, as it's the only way you will see the deer. Yup - those specks grazing in the Deer Park are . . . deer. Fallow Deer. A couple of years ago, my daughter (eldest) and I were involved in an Archaeological Dig in this Deer Park, but our spot sadly isn't in sight in this picture.

I was trying to show the deep rock-cut ditch beside the castle wall - NOT a moat, as they would never have gotten water up this high! As I contemplated it, I was thinking of the weeks and months of work excavating something like this must have taken. I think I shall stop complaining about my aching back just from gardening!

Walking back across the fields of the parkland towards Llandyfeisant Church.

Monday's walk, part I

A left-over photo from the Green Castle Woods walk showing beautiful sulphur-yellow lichen on a young tree.

I can see the sea! View from the top, near Horeb x-roads, showing the "bump" topped by Llansteffan Castle, and the sea beyond it. look at the back of the photo, in the middle, and you will see a stepped bit. That's it.

Panning a little further West. Taken on Monday on route to Brechfa for the Jumbo Oats.

At about this point my son started sighing heavily as I had stopped the car several times for "photo opportunities". This is looking towards Abergorlech, hidden in the valley bottom. The edges of Brechfa Forest are on the left.

A very beige picture of the countryside around the steep little lane down into Brechfa.

The icicle tree!! I stopped on a VERY steep hill to take this. Think that the farmer must (as many of his fellow-farmers do in this neck of the woods) have run a alkathene pipe across the road and hanging over tree branches to get water to the fields t'other side of the lane and it has a leak . . .


First flowers of Saxifraga oppositifolia (Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage). This was growing on the side of the path into Dinefwr Park. I had to go to Llandeilo, so after dropping my son off, I parked up and walked to the castle.

View across the beautiful parkland towards Dinefwr Castle.

Empty belltower of Llandyfeisant church. It is set in a little hollow, surrounded by a yew grove, and with a stream pouring out of the hillside. I have always had the feeling that it was a sacred grove and well, before it was Christianized. It of course served the Big House (Dinefwr castle) as their place of worship.


The little church looks so forlorn, now it is becoming overgrown with ivy and moss. I don't know when it was last in use, but when we first came here it was open to visitors, but now the gates are barred.


A sad memorial to Rachel Davies, who died on her 17th birthday . . .

One of the smaller windows.

A very "green" roof in all senses!

Corner of the churchyard with snowdrops.
On Monday the weather was so wonderful (sunny but cold . . .) and I had to drop our son off in Llandeilo, so I parked up and walked across the park to Dinefwr Castle. This is part I of the walk, ending at Llandyfaelog Church, where I sat and took notes for "pomes" - have worked on the poetry since getting home, but not finished yet.

Green castle walk

Sunday morning was frosty with a chilly wind, but the sun was shining, which was the main thing. I woke at 5.30 a.m. so came down and baked a half and half Spelt loaf, and yet another apple concoction for my menfolk. This one is stewed apple, sprinkled with some frozen mixed berries which were on special offer at the supermarket a few weeks ago. OH doesn't do sweet anything, so the tartness of the crumble was just right. I had run out of Jumbo oats (we collect a big sack today) and so I used a bowlful of Dorset muesli to add to the crumble mix.


I am still working my way through the 30 lb box of cooking apples we bought a couple of weeks back for just £5.





We had shopping to get, but started the day with a short walk in Green Castle Woods, on the Llansteffan road out of Carmarthen. I was hoping for a better view of the castle ruins, which are only vaguely visible from the road as you drive past - and then only if you are the passenger! Sadly you cannot get near to take photographs as it is on private land, so the only photos I got were of romantic - and distant - ruins . . .

A little of the history of the place would not go amiss, however, and for this I am relying heavily (entirely in fact!) on Francis Jones' "Historic Carmarthenshire Homes and their Families", a book originally purchased as a necessity as our house figures in it.

Possibly built on an earlier fortified mound, its earliest name was Castel Moel ("moel" = dry, bare hill), although by 1435 it was also known as Green Castle and the duality of name survives to this day. The ruins stand on a bluff overlooking the Towy and once must have been a large impressive later Medieval manor house - and although called a castle, was never actually one. (Although it is believed that this L-shaped first floor hall house originally had crenellations and there was certainly a tall stair turret adjoining the main part of the house). The Reed (or Rede) family were the first-known owners, dating from the early 15th century, and local bardic poet Lewys Glyn Cothi (who stayed at our house in fact, being friendly with the Lloyds) sang the praises of the Reeds. In 1624 the entire estate passed out of the family to a rich Bristol merchant, Humphrey Browne and his heiress Mary married into the Vaughan family of Golden Grove. She must literally have been a child bride as she died without issue aged just 18! In 1674, Lord Vaughan sold the estate to Richard Brett of London and the history of the Castle sadly involves it being sold onwards to increasingly disinterested owners who spent their lives living in England . . . It was ruinous from Elizabethan times onwards.


An even more distant view of the ruins of the house. Presumably this had been the stair turret.


It made a real change to be able to walk through woodland. Something we took for granted when we lived in England, within a short drive of the New Forest.



A vague view of Carmarthen in the distance. Believe me, you're not missing much. In recent years it has changed from busy Market town to mini-Swansea . . .


The week has flown by, but I was Keeping Busy, so not that surprising I suppose. Yesterday I worked myself to a standstill, sweeping the yard and clearing up leaves and bits of degraded concrete which the frosts and snow of winter have seen out (NEVER employ a navvy called Shane . . .) I dry-swept it, then I wet-swept it. Then I dug and heaved a wheelbarrow full of muck heap uphill to the strawberry patch which was cleared and weeded last week. I now have two rows of young (self-runnered) plantlets in, and watered, and as there was a hard frost forecast, I put them to bed beneath a plastic cloche I bought last year in Lidls. I plan to get the other two rows planted today.


Finally, do you remember the BIG pot we bought at Builth Antiques Fair last Autumn? Well, OH did a brilliant lid for it using two old bread boards (a pound apiece at a car boot sale). The smaller one is out of sight inside and stops the lid falling off. This now contains my bread flour.

Wordless Sunday - a trawl through the archives