November blues

November is a dreary month, and even though we still have plenty of leaves on the trees as it has been so mild, the colour seems to be steadily disappearing from the countryside.  A rainy day brings a monotone bleakness to the landscape.  I need some colour therapy I think.

The photo is part of the design on an embroidered cushion cover I bought at the weekend.  The lady who sewed them was VERY skilled with her needle. 

This one I can just about bear to part with, but the other one was a showstopper in terms of embroidery skills, and will be staying with me.

And a close up . . .

We found these at last week's car boot sale, for just £1 each. 

This beautiful vintage Welsh wool blanket came in at a bit less than we might have paid at auction:

And the reverse:

Sad to relate, the latest chest infection has resisted two lots of anti biotics - it was greatly helped in its cause by the Doctor who knew I had a chest infection, but made me wait for the sputum test results before giving any anti-biotics (yeah - I'm popping a-b's for FUN).  As it happened, I had to go to the emergency out of hours doctor on a weekend because I was feeling so ill.  By then, it had really got a hold.  Now I am on some fairly heavy-duty a-b's, which I hope and pray will work though I am just on a short course, and have to see the Doctor again on Tuesday.  It WILL be the same Doctor though, which is a relief, as I see a different one each time and they don't look at my notes properly to see how long this has been going on.  Sorry to moan, but I am so fed up with being ill and having to "rest".  I am usually an active person and would like the choice of whether to rest or not.  The fact I am giving up the demon drink (Diet Coke) is not helping my cause . . .

I just don't have any energy or motivation to do anything much this week, although I am trying to plod on with quilt-making.  I am making better progress with the embroidery of the 3/4 finished tablecloth I bought back in the summer, truth be told, as it is just two colours, and one stitch (stem stitch).  I've nearly finished it now, although it will need a good wash as a Certain Cat (Theo I think) with Very Muddy Paws walked all over it . . .

He is a bright little cat - a thorough sea-going hooligan at times - but very affectionate.  If I am about, he tries to be Big and Bad when he's outside and the stray tom is about, but the tom (Ghengis Khan, a washed-out beigey-tabby) sometimes hides in wait for him and nabs him, then I hear Theo yelling for help and he hurtles in through the cat flap like the devil incarnate is on his tail!  Just lately he has really made me laugh though, as he has turned around and waited for the tom to follow him through the cat flap (not something I encourage!) and as his face appears, Theo whacks the cat flap with his paw and gets his revenge as it wallops Ghenghis in the whiskers!  I wish I could video it, as it is just SO funny.

I had hoped to share some Thomas Hardy poetry with you, and some London social history mutterings, and various other things which have taken my interest, but they will have to wait.

Home made Mincemeat

Before you start making your mincemeat, make sure you have a cat to supervise you . . .  Banshee in this case.

Begin by assembling your ingredients.  I normally start making mincemeat with the first windfalls, back in August, but I forgot this year, and so I have got the scabby old apples from the £1 boxful we bought a few weeks back (and which got overlooked because I have been buying my favourites, Russetts, instead.  Peel, core and chop.

I start by putting them into one of my earthenware jars, layering with spices, sugar and dried fruit.

The apricots are snipped up small with scissors.  I decided to add the little packet of dried fruit we got from Lidl too, as that has dried cranberries in it.  

Unfortunately, half way thhrough I realized I'd forgotten the spices (Nutmeg, Cinnamon and Cloves) so I had to tip out all the fruit into a bowl, and combine with the spices.  Then I decided to add the zest and juice of a large orange.  The smell was DIVINE . . .

This will keep, without suet, for a year or more in a cool place (not the fridge).  You can use it within a month or so of making, but it improves with keeping.  The original recipe came from Farmhouse Fare, and I make it every year without fail.  Bon appetit . . .

A morning in the kitchen

Or should that be Notes from a Domestic Goddess? !!!

 

I spent the first part of the morning blog-hopping.  For quite a long time actually, but hey-ho, suitably impressed by a Bacon and Egg Pie over on Anglesey Allsorts' blog, I set to and made one for my menfolk, with some subtle differences.  No tomatoes (they don't "do" tomatoes), no grated Courgette sneaked in (though I still have some to use up from the garden), and instead I Mandolin-sliced potato very thinly and laid it in layers with chopped bacon, and a sprinkling of cheese, and topped it with three free range eggs before putting another cheese pastry lid on it.  This is how it came out of the oven (above), and below are a couple of the layerings:

I had some cheesy pastry left over, and a single portion of Chinese Mince from the other day (which got its name from the half a packet of Chinese stir fry mix which needed using up and got combined with the mince, and onions, tin of chopped tomatoes etc), so I made two pasties . . .

The lovely golden colour is partly the cheese in theh pastry and partly the egg glaze I used.

I was on a roll by now, and as I had fresh yeast in the fridge (they give it away free at Tesco) I made a Cottage Loaf.  This really took me back to my childhood, when I would go to the corner shop for my mum, get her the Cottage Loaf, and by the time it got home, the wonderfully burnt knob on the top would be inside my tummy!  This one over-prooved a bit as the kitchen was warm from baking and I made the mistake of turning my back on it . . .  Tastes good anyway.

I am haunted by apples at the moment, so yesterday and today I have tackled the most urgent ones (bruised or split) and cooked them up.  Of course, while I had the oven on, what better thing to cook than . . . a deep dish Apple Pie in the lovely green dish which I found in TKMaxx this summer, and which is an exact match for the lovely big green mixing jug I was treated to when we were in Hay-on-Wye in July.

So, having worked, now I shall play, and clear the table to get my quilt blocks assembled.  I wish I could show you them, but they are destined for my daughters, who come on here . . .

After the Storm

Well, after all the hype for the Big One - Storm that is - and after going round putting things away, under cover and battening down the hatches - it was a non-event here.  Instead of sweeping across our part of Wales it turned right, up the Channel, and sweapt across Britain with its skirts around Cardiff, rather than Carmarthen.  Phew.  It claimed 5 lives, including a 17 year old girl at the threshold of her adult life.  Life seems so unfair but perhaps it is destiny.  Who can say?

The photo taken across the paddock corner was Before the Storm, when we had some weather approaching (a gale and a half and heavy rain) and there was that peculiar yellowy storm light.

"Some" cats have taken up their winter quarters already, and don't give a hoot about the weather outside . . .  Here is Alfie, who has decided that the big shopping bag containing quilting material and bits and bobs, makes the best bed . . . though they all know they are not "meant" to go up on the table, they do the moment my back is turned:

Here - well known for her most peculiar choices of places to sleep - is Banshee, who thinks a box of Earl Grey teabags is the place to be!

I have been busy taking my ease, and getting better, and decided as my brain had gone walkabouts and piecing patchwork blocks was beyond it, I would do some of the repairs which had been sidelined all summer.  First, an old (1900ish) narrow loom quilt, which had been torn on the bottom and needed the torn bit removing, and a new hem done.

Here was a little indulgence from eBay, and full of fabulous quilts and ideas.

A while ago I found this little tray cloth, with some unsewn bits, at a car boot sale, so I took pity on it and brought it home.  I finally sat down with it yesterday and sewed the last few leaves and stems.  I am contemplating turning it into a cushion front, to make it more useful.

I began working on this last night.  It is a large tablecloth with a gorgeous pattern on it in just these two colours, orange and deep emerald.  It is 3/4 finished, but then the old lady who was doing it became ill and was never able to finish it.  I promised her daughter I would finish the embroidery, which I will, but then it will probably go on my Fleamarket stall.

It's lovely, but I know I wouldn't use it here.  I have a lot of smaller cloths which get used over little tables and this one is too big for that and too small for the big tabbles we have.

I wish I could say, here's one I did earlier, but no - this is a tablecloth I came across in my travels and will be listed on eBay later today.

We had a stroll along by the river yesterday afternoon, now my legs seem to be working again!  Water levels are dropping, but it is still pretty fierce.

Having mastered a fiddly recipe yesterday without too much trouble (Spiced Pear Bakewell Tart), I think my cognitive powers may now be restored too, so I am off downstairs to my sewing machine and the star quilt . . .

Today is Dylan Thomas's birthday

The view from Laugharne Castle across the Estuary -  a view that Dylan Marlais Thomas knew every ripple, sandbbar, pool and shadow of.  He was born today, 27th October, 1914, at No. 5 Cwmdonkin Drive in Swansea, and died, aged just 39, on the 9th November 1953, in New York. 2014 will be the centenary of his birth so I imagine there will be special celebrations in our part of Wales.  His biography is well-covered on Wikipedia . . . LINK

Poem in October

By Dylan Thomas
 

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood   

      And the mussel pooled and the heron

                  Priested shore

            The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall   

            Myself to set foot

                  That second

      In the still sleeping town and set forth.

      My birthday began with the water-

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name   

      Above the farms and the white horses

                  And I rose   

            In rainy autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road

            Over the border

                  And the gates

      Of the town closed as the town awoke.

      A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling   

      Blackbirds and the sun of October

                  Summery

            On the hill’s shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly   

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened   

            To the rain wringing

                  Wind blow cold

      In the wood faraway under me.

      Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail   

      With its horns through mist and the castle   

                  Brown as owls

            But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales   

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.   

            There could I marvel

                  My birthday

      Away but the weather turned around.

      It turned away from the blithe country

And down the other air and the blue altered sky   

      Streamed again a wonder of summer

                  With apples

            Pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother   

            Through the parables

                  Of sun light

      And the legends of the green chapels

      And the twice told fields of infancy

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.   

      These were the woods the river and sea

                  Where a boy

            In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy   

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

            And the mystery

                  Sang alive

      Still in the water and singingbirds.

      And there could I marvel my birthday

Away but the weather turned around. And the true   

      Joy of the long dead child sang burning

                  In the sun.

            It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon   

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.   

            O may my heart’s truth

                  Still be sung

      On this high hill in a year’s turning.

Such a beautiful poem.  Sometimes he wrote so lyrically and the magic of his words is beyond compare, but other of his poems seem unfathomable to me.  We never studied him at school, nor was his work included in the A-level equivalent I did, or I might have understood him more.  So today I shall just have to think of his brief life and wonder to what heights he might have risen had he joined the Temperance Society . . . . 

The village of Laugharne, where Dylan and Caitlan Thomas lived for some years and where the poet was buried.

 HERE  the great Richard Burton reads the first voice in Under Milk Wood.  It gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.


“A tiny dingle is Milk Wood
By Golden Grove ‘neath Grongar,
But let me choose and oh! I should
Love all my life and longer

To stroll among our trees and stray
In Goosegog Lane, on Donkey Down,
And hear the Dewi sing all day,
And never, never leave the town.”

You learn something new every day.  Until I was listening to Richard Burton's rendition of Under Milk Wood just now,  I never knew I lived so close to Milk Wood - or indeed, that it was a real place.  Golden Grove 'neath Grongar (hill) is in the Towy Valley close by us here.  Well well.  Now I must seek out Milk Wood . . .

The little tidal stream at the edge of the car park at Laugharne. 

Wild Weather on the Way

Autumn is well and truly with us now.  These fronds of bracken have been turning colour this past week, and on the bottom road there is more which is now daffodil-yellow in hue.  We have had a very wet week - rain every day, some of it incredibly heavy - so much so that when we have been driving we have chosen to pull off the road and wait for it to ease a little.  Monsoon rain, my husband tells me, and you get heavy rain like this with a warm front from the South-West. 

Needless to say, our river soon rose in spate - 4 feet in as many hourse - and soon covered the rocks on the bend by the caravan.  These pictures were taken on Tuesday.

Beneath the bridge, a tree with Y-shaped branches had already snagged up and was catching more debris as it passed.

Above and below, I was trying to show how choppy the water was - rearing white horses as it passed over rocks and pretty fast too - about 15 knots according to my husband.

The beach leaves are turning to Werther's Originals and Christmas Gold Coins overnight now.

This was the best choppy picture, unfortunately focus was on the leaves rather than the waves!

I am hoping that this short video from my camera shows you a little bit of the force and speed of the river.

Now we are waiting for the promised hurricane tomorrow night, and battening down the hatches here.  Keep safe everyone.

Cenarth and the stone of Curcagnus, an Early Christian Monument

Walking up from the river in Cenarth, you pass this pretty wee cottage with its garden full of Cosmos, still happily flowering.

Up the little hill and past the pub with its coracle on the wall.

Originally made from animal skins, stretched over a wooden framework of Ash or Willow, more modern coracles have a canvas covering, covered with tar or bitumen.  They would have been used in Britain long before the Romans arrived, and are still used in Wales upon three rivers - the Taf, the Teifi and the Towy.  Until late Victorian times they were in regular use upon the River Severn at Iron-Bridge, to avoid the toll on the famous road bridge.  More information can be found HERE.  There is a National Coracle Museum just across the road from the pub, but we didn't go there on this occasion.

Instead we made our way uphill to the Church of St Llawdogg.  Terra asked if it is still in use and I can reply in the affirmative.

Its great age as a religious site is suggested by the circle of yew trees, and the curcilinear churchyard.  It is situated just 100m away from the motte of Parc-y-domen.

This Medieval font dates from the late 12th - early 13th C and has faces around the bowl (5 in total), and these reminded me of the ancient Iron Age tricephallic stones (there is one inCarmarthen Museum in fact).  Its original site was St Tysilio's church, Llandisiliogogo.  The design is described as wave moulding with 4 human masks in relief.  There are some other photos HERE.
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Moving things around seems to have been a habit in this area, as the wonderful Early Christian Monument in the churchyard - known as Maenchlochog 1 - was originally recorded (many miles away) as being at Llandeilo Church, where it was only 400m or so north-west of the church, close by Temple Druid Farm.  Nancy Edwards, in her Corpus of Early Inscribed Stones and Stone Scuptures in Wales, says that one source suggested it had been found 'at no great distance from a very large old camp'.  This was written down in 1776.  The 'old camp' gave both Bwlch y Clawdd and Temple Druid their names, although little other than a crop mark survives today.  However, inside this 'camp' there was a Neolithic chambered tomb (long gone) and two possible prehistoric standing stones. Perhaps this stone may have formed part of the Neolithic tomb or approach.

It is inscribed with the letters: CVRCAGNI FILIANDAGELLI and dated late 5th/first half of the 6th century.

This is translated as being: 'of Curcagnus son of Andagellus'.  Nancy Edwards suggests that this language is from the Irish Period 7 and the names are linked with other Llandeilo stones, including one with ANDAGELLIMACUCAVETI  and Ogham inscription on it. 

Her suggestion is that the ending of 'agni' suggests that Curcagni was probably an Irishman, late 5th/early 6th C, when the Irish aristocracy were resident in West Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.  For a much more detailed and scholarly analysis, and comparison stones, consult Nancy Edwards' tome on this topic!

And sideways on, to give you a chance to read it!

Just down from the church is this ancient Alehouse which is on the site of the alehouse originally built by members of the monastic cell set up by St Llawddog.  We must remember that in those days, ale was brewed for something safe to drink, water often being contaminated.

 St Llawddog's details I have finally run to earth via the National Library of Wales' Dictionary of Welsh Biographies:

LLAWDDOG , or LLEUDDAD , saint ( fl. 600? ), is said to have been the son of Dingad ab Nudd Hael , king of Bryn Buga (i.e. Usk ), and Tefrian or Tonwy , daughter of Lleuddyn Lwyddog . Few details are known about his life, but tradition maintains that he worked many miracles. He appears to have forsaken his father's kingdom in order to live the life of a religious recluse with his brother BAGLAN in Caernarvonshire . His later years are linked with the isle of Bardsey . He was chosen abbot of the island's religious community , and is said to have ended his days there. A Welsh ‘ Life of S. Llawddog ’ is preserved in N.L.W. Llanst. MS. 34 , of the late 16th cent. , and an early 18th cent. copy is to be found in Llanst. MS. 104 . The churches of Cenarth , Penboyr , and Llanllawddog in Carmarthenshire , and Cilgerran in Pembrokeshire were all originally dedicated to Llawddog . His memory is also perpetuated in the local topography of the places so named, in the form Lleuddad , in parts of the Llŷn peninsula . His feast-day is variously given as 15 Jan. , 21 Jan. , or 10 Aug.

Other research suggests that the discrete placement of churches dedicated to St Llawddog suggest the cult of a local saint (yet as elsewhere, such clusters were disrupted by the re-dedication of churches to more "fashionable"  - less "Celtic" - saints by Norman intervention.  Cilgerran - the closest church also dedicated to St Llawddog, became rededicated to St Lawrence and after half a millennia, it was associated with the original saint again.

But enough - I am off enjoying myself learning, and most of you will be shaking your heads and  telling me to keep taking the tablets!!!!