Unsuitable for Vehicles

 I have been intending to explore this walk ever since we first saw it on the map.  I left it too late to do it in its entirety (about 5 miles), so drove to the end of it and parked up and just had a short, but fairly demanding walk today.

As you can see, the heading was correct.  Mind you, there were tyre-tracks - in some places a tractor, in others probably a quad bike. It was quite a steep climb for the first half of the walk, but then without climbing, you don't get nice views.

And it kept on climbing.  My legs and lungs needed the exercise though.

Views in all directions.

Light levels were low as it was gone 4 p.m. when I started my walk.  I needed a break after doing all the sashing on a small quilt for a friend.

I can't find out anything about this fire-torn building.  It just shows as a small square on the map, and no report of a fire if I Google one in Builth area. No obvious fireplace or staircase - just a single story building that someone must have lived in.

Above and below: another interesting tree trunk, this one being an oak.

Welsh for Public Footpath.  This cuts across the fields towards Hillview estate.  I turned around shortly after this.

Sun on the distant hills.

A bank of Periwinkles included:

A little lonely Violet.  It was good to get out and put all the horrors of what is unfolding in the Ukraine in a box in the back of my head.  Those poor families.

Making the most of a dry day

 Phew, that's been a busy week. We had a lovely time with my cousin and her  husband visited us on Tuesday,  but I've been sleeping badly and setting my alarm all week as I was expecting the Plumber to come - yes, the one who isn't good at communication, so I didn't know when to expect him, especially as he said he would be here Monday or Tuesday first thing - then no show. I was relying on him to replace the water filter, and then change the UV water bulb. (Can't do the former job as not strong enough to turn the stop cock off or on).  I made sure I had a couple of the water filters in, but was convinced that the glass UV water bulb I could see on top of the cupboard was the new one we bought as a spare last year.  Imagine my horror when the Plumber turned up on Thursday morning, fitted it (oh dear, I had to look away, hairy bums NOT a good view before breakfast - or any time of day come to that!) and then the system wasn't working!  I had to pay him his £40 and say goodbye with the knowledge that we were now stuck with the very job I was desperate to avoid.  Keith and I had a big falling out after he said he thought I knew that he and Tam had changed the bulb last year.  If I had remembered that, surely I would have bought a new one when I was buying I was getting the filters?  Oooh, I was SO ANGRY.  £40 for nothing and still the job I was trying to avoid to be done.  Anyway, we had to go and get the replacement (£73 please) and Tam is going to fit it when she comes on Tuesday (when our son Danny will be here too).  Mind you, the chap at the shop showed me how to do it so I have a bit more confidence now, as no water needs to be turned off and I had a practice so know how to do it now.

I have been wanting a good walk all week, but life and the weather have got in the way.  Today the weather was kinder and after Keith had had a short walk on the flat in town, off I went, setting my sights slightly further afield and did the 3 mile circular walk from the house, across the fields.  It's a route I've shared before but I tried to take photos from different angles.

The sun was fickle and didn't last long but at least it was dry.

The bark on this tree looked almost reptilian .  Still trying to work out the species - the branches looked quite like a birch but of course younger trees have smooth papery light coloured bark. So, this is a lot more elderly, but a Silver Birch nevertheless.

An alternative round-the-block walk passing this farm goes through fields, across a stream, and up a currently-passable trackway which will be knee-deep in nettles in a few weeks, so impassable by May.

At the church I had a wander round the churchyard, and was hoping to get in as I had been told where the key was but alas, it was not there and a stout padlock stopped entry.

    Tomorrow the weather is set to be fairly miserable I believe, so I shall be sewing the little child's memory quilt.

Revisiting a day out in Bredwardine from this day in 2015

 

Back in 2015, it had been a Malvern Antiques Fair Day. We met up with some friends and bought a few things, and then on the way home, decided to stop off in Bredwardine, which is between Hereford and the turning off for Clyro and Hay-on-Wye.

Standing by the lych gate, this was the view north-westwards, across the ploughed fields and browning Hazel catkins.  It was far prettier than my photo allows it.

There was an apple orchard (cider apples) just beside the church, and looking across it to the steeply rising hillsides, dotted with houses, I was reminded of the view from the edge of Florence, this time in 2014.

Another view across the valley, to the left of the one above.

I loved this orchard - old trees which were smothered with Mistletoe.  I can't wait for blossom-time to come round so I can take some heart-lifting photos of the blooms.

The massive font is carved from one enormous piece of stone.  It dates from the 12th C, and is very simple in form.  The Herefordshire school of Romanesque Sculpture had no sway here.  If you are interested by that term, check out Kilpeck Church, Herefordshire, which is a magnificent example. The link is well worth checking out.  However, it does have one motif in common with Kilpeck (and other churches) which is a Sheela-na-Gig over a blocked doorway, see photo lower down.

The beautiful stained glass windows behind the Altar. Whilst some of the stonework in the fabric of the external building is Norman, at its heart lies the remains of a Saxon church .

Above, the tomb of the Knight Walter Baskerville which lies to the right of the Altar.

To the left of the Altar lies Sir Roger Vaughan, who died defending Henry V at Agincourt in 1415.  Sadly, he was later defaced - doubtless in the time of the Civil War.

The Rev. Francis Kilvert was the Vicar here back in 1877 - 1879, when he died aged just 38, some three weeks after marrying, from what was generally considered to be Peritonitis.  More about him later but here is a quick insight.

On this update, I managed to find a photo of Rev. Kilvert's grave at Bredwardine.  He was much-loved by his parishioners, especially at Clyro where he was for several years.

Over a blocked doorway is an intriguing carving, possibly 12th C.  The right hand figure looks very like a monkey, but some consider it to be like a Sheelah-naa-gig - though not obviously so in the normal way! The left hand figure looks to me to be rather like a bird-headed man, such as  you find on some Pictish stones.

Kilvert called this door "the Devil's door" . . . and elsewhere it is mentioned that this is a half-human figure with its tongue out (like the Devil in a similar representation at Hereford cathedral, some 12 miles away).  The other figure is considered to be a woman with a "fanciful head-dress" and two clear nude breasts, and could be Luxuria - connected with the vice of Lust.  See LINK.

Such a peaceful view.

Looking ahead

 Apart from exponential increases in heating oil and fuel, I have read that cooking oil (evidenced already in marg prices as it is used in the manufacture) and flour will also be in short supply.  I had thought of a trip to Hay market tomorrow to stock up on the Wessex Mill Oats 'n' Bran bread flour I use regularly, then worked out it would cost £5 in fuel. I decided to order my bread flour on-line, including a 10 Kg sack of strong white bread flour.  So I should be OK for a good few months, and then we will know which way the wind is blowing.

The really SENSIBLE thing to do would be to encourage farmers in the UK to increase their output so we can be more self-sufficient and import less - and stop paying them to rewild their farms. Or for blocks to be put in place to prevent good farmland being sold off for giant companies offsetting their carbon emissions by planting non-native trees.  For heaven's sake, where is the sense in that when we teeter on the brink of what could be WW3?  It is too early to predict (if such a thing were possible) what the fallout of the war in Ukraine will be, and how long it will last, so best to do a bit of "prepping" - though not to the extent that many people do it.  We are just stocking up the larder as and when, and with fresh vegetables,  I will grow what I can here as it is so much nicer and convenient and fresher.  It will be a while before my orchard is productive to any degree, but I have a friend with two apple trees!!

Yesterday's Pizza - I had 1/4 of it for my evening meal, and the other 3 pieces were wrapped and frozen.  It's SO tasty - the topping is courgette, onion, red pepper, chestnut mushrooms and a tin of tomatoes, cooked up and thickened, and then topped with lots of grated Cheddar.

A double Primula of the deepest red (Ena Harkness rose red) which I just HAD to have last week when I was at the nursery near Crossgates.  Which reminds me, I must get my bundle of raspberry canes planted today.

My indulgence after some good Ebay sales.  It's about the inscription at Llanlleonfel Church, Garth where I was the other day.  This afternoon's reading -after I've planted my raspberry canes.

I even remembered to phone Age Cymru for help with filling out the Attendance Allowance forms.  Onwards and upwards.

Feeling out of kilter

 I am sat here with a cup of tea, having just caught up with the final Great Pottery Throwdown Programme and missing it already.   I have enjoyed it so much and the final competitors seemed like old friends.  I'm not surprised AJ won as they had skills right across the board.  My couple of pieces of pottery made a few years back look a bit pathetic!

Today one of my cousins, S, and her husband came to visit again.  We met up last year when they were staying in Pembrokeshire too.  It's lovely to keep in touch with my family.  I set to and made a Lemon Drizzle cake at breakfast time, then made a pizza as an alternative at lunchtime, but gosh, they arrived laden with a fabulous cold feast and I won't need to cook all week now!

    The out of kilter feeling is worry over the mountainous rise in the cost of living - I needed Stork marg for baking this morning and a SMALL pack was £1.80!  OK, it was in Co-op who are always dearer, but heck, the spreadable butter type stuff was eye-wateringly expensive - a large Lurpack was £5.85!!! A pound of butter would have been £3.30 by comparison . . .  Think I will be stocking up on cooking oil as much of that comes from Ukraine apparently.  Flour will be something else going through the roof.  I've stocked up but need more room for storage.

    We are having to pay motorway prices for fuel here in town - diesel is 169.9 pence per litre - about £10 a gallon now, so we shan't be going far and on sunny mornings I may walk into town and back (2 miles each way) for the daily paper, anything small and light we have run out of.  I could do with the waist-reducing exercise but it is uphill most of the way home!

    I ordered heating oil yesterday and they wouldn't quote a price.  Delivery will be in 2 -3 weeks and we will just have to accept it is what it is, but Keith's illness makes him feel the cold more.  I will have to cocoon him in blankets, quilts and a hotty botty.

    Then you watch the news about Ukraine and we have NO problems compared with the poor people who are being bombarded, murdered and their homes blown to smithereens.  Praying seems futile . . . It's starting to feel like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have just ridden into view.

A morning out

 

SPICY DORSET APPLE CAKE

4 oz/115 g butter or margarine

4 oz/115 g caster or brown sugar

8 oz/225 g flour, S-R or "adjusted" (whatever THAT is!)

1 1/2 teaspoons mixed spice (or a mixture to your choice)

1 lb/ .5 Kg cooking apples (a good way of mopping up the fallers)

3 oz/85g dried fruit (currents, sultanas, cranberries etc)

2 eggs

Rub the margarine and the flour together.  Add the spices, sugar, and peeled/cored/chopped apples, and the beaten eggs.  Put the mixture in a large cake tin (10 inch/25 cm round or 8 inch/20 cm square) and bake at Gas Mark 6/200 deg. C/400 deg. F) for 35 -45 mins.  The large amount of apple makes the cake a little fragile, so leave in the tin for 5 minutes or more before removing.  If you do not have a large cake tin, use two smaller ones and reduce the cooking time a little.

Here's an extract from a lovely poem from William Barnes (the Dorset poet), dated 1835: "Father Come Home" where it mentions an earlier Dorset apple cake (which just had bits of apple stuck into it):

Your supper's nearly ready.  I've a-got

Some teaties here a-doen in the pot;

I wish wi' all my heart I had some meat.

I got a little ceake too, here, a-beaken o'n

Upon the vier.  'Tis done by this time though

He's nice an' moist; vor when I were-a meakin o'n

I stuck some bits ov apple in the dough.

I've put the recipe up before, but here it is for any newcomers.

Yesterday we had a drive down to Llandeilo to go to our friend Brita's Antiques Fair, and catch up with old friends.  It was lovely to have a natter and wander round looking for anything different.

Inside it was very busy, and this was the only photo I managed to get - with someone walking into shot just as I took it! Anyway, it was nice to have a break from our four walls, though just walking down from the car park had Keith tired out and we had to abandon a plan we had for a surprise visit on old friends near where we used to live.  Keith couldn't manage more than a dozen steps up towards the church on the way back as it was slightly uphill and the tiny bit of energy he'd had had gone.  Such things are so fleeting.  He has to wait a full three months before having a blood test to see how the thyroxine is working - a whole 7 weeks to go.

    Tam and her boyfriend came today to help move the furniture back into our bedroom, and put some of the books back into her bookshelf, plus sorting out cookery stuff to take back with them.  It was lovely to see them.

    However, when I sat down and watched an Escape to the Country, it was from Devon, and it made me feel very low to realize house values there mean it is forever beyond our budget, especially post-Covid.  It's something like £482K for a fairly ordinary detached house now.  Of course, this is our final home, but I still held on to a little bit of hope that we could somehow get magicked down there in time for the Last Orders!  Isn't it silly?  But I am quite choked now.