I'm fed up with being ill

This new bug goes on and on.  My throat/chest are better but I still have the temperature - I am cold, aching and after only sleeping 3 1/2 hours on Sunday night, absolutely shattered.  I start to feel normal, do something (Madley car boot sale on Sunday was perhaps NOT a good idea as I walked 20,000 steps that day) and then wham, I am back on the sofa, and yesterday saw the addition of the heated blanket as I was shivering so.  Although I got there to be early, I wasn't and joined a long slow queue of traffic to get on the field and by the time I got into the boot sale, the lady selling the nice plants only had vegetables and a couple of perennials left.  I bought a Rose Campion from her (Lychnis coronaria, the sort with nice grey foliage) for £5, and elsewhere in the bootsale, a HUGE Lupin just bursting into flower (£7) and a scented-leaf Hardy Geranium - the sort I had masses of  at Ynyswen, which I separated, potted up and made good money at £1 a pot.  It just spread and spread!  There was NOTHING to buy at the car boot though - it was all used clothing, crappy bricabrac, tools and oily bits of stuff from garages, and pink plastic toys.  As it's 35 miles away, I shan't bother to go again.  I came back via Peterchurch and noticed some plants outside a house which offers them, and they were in aid of a Ukrainian charity, so I stopped and bought the three enormous pots of a pink Hardy Geranium on offer.  £3 each!  There must have been nearly half a bag of compost used to pot them up.  They are about 2 feet high so should establish very easily.

Bluebells . . .

Yesterday I lay on the sofa for a nap.  Unfortunately this did not go down well with the Pippi kitten. Three times (with good gaps inbetween to allow me to just drop off again) and she would leap on me from the back of the sofa, landing heavily on my ribs, with a big Pippi yowl for good measure.  She clearly did NOT approve of me not being awake and alert to her needs . . .

Today is put the rubbish out day (up the end of our track) and Keith has a Dr's appt, so I have to keep going for 3 hours before I can collapse in a heap.  

The photos of the Aquilegias.  Top one is the HUGE wild one here.  Bottom one came from Ynyswen with me.  Quite a difference in size.  I am saying the top one is wild - it came through when I took the membrane up, but perhaps it is just a very old-fashioned type? Never seen its like before anyway.

I now have two churches to do posts about - you will have to be patient . . .  Brain not in residence.

Right, the rubbish calls . . .

Aquilegias and kittens

Where a few Aquilegia seeds may have been strewn last year.  I have plenty cast around up on the bank too, but for the moment, we just have the lovely and HUGE wild ones, which came through after the hedge was hoiked out. (Photo below).

Now that the doors are left open, the challenge for Pippi to be the other side of one has diminished! They love it up on the bank and come and go as they please now.  Lulu still not as adventurous as little sis though.

This is I think a wildling Aquilegia - I certainly never planted it - and it is half the size of the wild one beside it in the bottom triangle.  I will get seeds - the colour is the darkest I have seen, such a deep purple-almost-black.

More of the ones I bought with me - I am delighted that the pink and yellow one survived and indeed has flourished.  I love the striped petals this year - a first again for me.

A naturalized Foxglove by the French windows, very creamy and slowly deepening to pink.

I've never had Azaleas in any of my gardens until here.  This was swamped by the variegated Holly behind it last year, so I gave that a good pruning and have been rewarded this year.  There are some gaps in the new bed I made last year - winter took no prisoners.  But I can look forward to some shopping trips to fill the gaps :)

Well, I am poorly as a poorly thing here today.  Keith woke me around 5.30, pottering around in the bathroom.  I thought he was getting up, so I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed - only to find he'd gone BACK to bed!  Anyway, I couldn't do anything before I'd had painkillers (Ibuprofen is the only thing to help) and believe me, I knew the moment they were wearing off and was counting the minutes until I could have some more.  No gardening today - everything hurt SO much this morning, all the muscles I'd used when gardening just a bit yesterday.  So a resting day with a book.  I began the day by watching most of Far From the Madding Crowd which I recorded the other evening.  It's not Keith's sort of film, so I settled down to enjoy it.  They changed the story line a bit - Bathsheba is shown tending the grave of poor Fanny Robbins and her child - in the book, the mention of the grave was that it was under a gargoyle, which poured rainwater down onto it . . .  I had a lovely think back on our Dorset days, and going to Thomas Hardy's cottage where, would you believe, some of my Ynyswen Aquilegias are growing.  I fell into conversation with one of the Guides there (at the time I was hoping we would move back to Dorset, and I could become a Guide too).  Anyway,  seeing there were Aquilegias growing in the lovely garden, I offered to and sent seeds.  I love that I have a connection with his childhood home.

Another weekendwhen Keith is struggling too - low BP, infection not really responding to AB's, medication not really working because of him being ill.  He sat in the sun by the French window for a bit and then it was difficult trying to get him off the chair, and to turn in tiny stuttering steps, to go back across the room with his stroller.  We are back to that again -a real retrograde step . . .

Have a lovely weekend all. Hopefully will feel a bit brighter tomorrow and can finally get around to the photos of the church (St Edmund's I think) at Crickhowell.

The fly-hunting season has officially started . . .

 

and my lovely 1970s vine leaves flour jar paid the price . . .and for once it wasn't the naughty little St Trinian's kitten Pippi, it was Lulu - she's a bit stouter and obviously had the weight to push this onto the floor - she will have been sitting on the lid, which they are both wont to do.  I doubt I will ever find another one like it, but I'll be happy just to find a replacement that I like.  

    Today I am feeling better - I had a walk up the hill and took some wild flower photos, and have put the plants I bought on Tuesday into the oval bed I can see from the back of the kitchen.  They look lovely, especially the pinky Scabious.  Still a couple of gaps to be filled, but there will be pleasure in choosing the right plants, to flower later in the year.  

    Keith is coughing better - until he was on the antibiotics he couldn't cough properly at all.  He has walked up and down the kitchen a couple of times today too.  It's a week until we see the Dr regarding his blood pressure treatment though.  

    Today I heard a Cuckoo - I just seem to hear one a year, and just that once.  I have only ever seen one once too, that was on the marshes across the River Frome from the Granary eatery in Wareham.  I guess it was looking for a Reed Warbler's nest to lay its egg in.  How the birds we took for granted in our youth - in my mind's eye I am seeing here fields and fields spangled with Peewits (Lapwings).  Now they are rare - Red-listed - due to changes in farming practice.

    

Lady's Bedstraw

Hawthorn Blossom which we always just called "May" and my mum forbade me to bring it in the house and she considered it unlucky.  She probably didn't connect it with the crown of thorns worn by Christ, but I think that is why is is considered of ill omen.

Germander Speedwell.

Finally . . . this has been doing my head in as I try to remember what I learned in my Paleography course (one term only) in 1996 . . .

You get the idea - some words I can read reasonably easily but others!  Took me ages just to work out the word Plymouth in the first line!! Anyway, I have managed quite a lengthy list of annuitants and will tackle page 2 tomorrow, when my brain is functioning again.  The will is dated 1810 and is from my Adams family line.

Crickhowell Castle and some of its history

 I am not feeling my best again today - did the grocery shopping yesterday morning, got home and suddenly felt quite unwell.  In the night my lungs felt like they were brewing a chest infection.  Jury still out on that but some crap being coughed up.  Sorry, if TMI!

I cannot go out and garden and oversee kittens, so we have opened the French windows and they are coming and going as they please and Pippi is much closer to home.  Phew.

Firstly, a photo of the remains of Crickhowell Castle.  It was originally a wooden edifice (as they all were when the Normans began controlling Wales), built around 1121.  The name of Robert Turberville is linked with its building.  Around 1242 the castle began to be rebuilt in stone, the instigator of this work being Sir Grimbald Pauncefote who had married the Turberville heiress Sybil.  On a tourist board in the car park, it mentions Lady Sybil cutting off her hand and sending it in payment as a ransom in order to free her husband (who had been captured when on Crusade).  But perhaps all is not as it seems, as this wonderful blog which I've just discovered explores.  I hope that the blog owner does not mind my linking to their blog.  The Turbervilles (John) also had land holdings in Dorset, and are linked with Bere Regis.  If you know your Thomas Hardy, you will remember that Tess of the D'Urbervilles was also descended from them . . . on paper anyway!

Sker House, almost on the beach near Porthcawl, also has links with the later Turberville family, and a Jenkin Turberville lived there in the 16th C. 

All Turbervilles are descended from Sir Payne de Turberville who came from France in 1066 at the time of the Norman conquest.

Here is a LINK to more information about the castle.

I had a little perambulation around the town, and came across this little tower on a side street, but I don't know its significance.

Then we turned left to look down the street.  This reminded me of Chagford.

I couldn't resist a photo of these beautiful flowers in the flower shop window.  We went into a nearby charity shop and I found a woollen jumper for me and a man's down jacket, so 2 good bargains were had!

A view over the rooftops looking N-W.  I think this is Table Mountain.

Heading West down this little side-street, which led . . . .

. . . . to the Church.  This is St. Edmund's Church, which was built by (or caused to be built and funded by) Lady Sybil Pauncefote - she and Sir Grimwald are both buried here. I'll do a post about that tomorrow.

 

The Bear Hotel, once a coaching inn, as you can see, dates back to 1432 in its history.  It was one of four overnight stops on the route from London to West Wales (and on to Ireland).   In summer it as the most amazing display of hanging baskets.  The whole town does, come to that. 

Finally, the road home.  This is the A40 and that crenallated gatehouse is where Keith would dearly love to live!

Oh, and before I forget, Crickhowell get its name from the Iron Age hillfort above the town, Crug Hywel, on top of Table Mountain.  Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) - 880 - 950 - died as king of much of Wales.  By 920 he was the sole king of Seisyllwg and then established the Kingdom of Deheubarth.  Eventually he controlled all of Wales from Prestatyn to Pembroke.

This was growing in a wall edging the path on the way to the castle.  It's Ivy Leaved Toadflax - I first spotted this growing on a Dorset walk in Swanage, more than half a lifetime ago.  More wild flowers tomorrow.

Down time - off to the Bluebell Woods

 

It was warm and sunny on Saturday, so I tucked a poorly Keith up in front of the tv and set off for Crickhowell and the Bluebell woods.  A bit disappointing this year as the light wasn't good to bring up the colour of them and they looked a bit wishy-washy.

Anyway, off to Dr's shortly, to check for chest infection brewing with Keith.  He's better than he was but can't clear his chest properly and sounds awful.  Must go - have just heard Pippi exiting the cat flap!  Back later . . .

Friday roundup and a new-to-me book

 

Having delved very deeply into the Plymouth of the 1820s onwards last week, I just couldn't resist this book which has great illustrations, and has shown me what it was like for my 3 x g. grandparents etc living there.  At £5.99 including postage, it didn't exactly break the bank either.

This is Pin(s) Lane.  I just adore those two little cottages on the end.  Long ago demolished because they were doubtless barely habitable inside, they just have such character and would have been known to my folks.  Victorian historian Richard Nosworthy Worth wrote, in 1890,  "the most interesting domestic buildings still left in Plymouth are in Pins Lane".  He described these as having the only surviving example in the town of what he called the "ancient arrangement of cellar and solar", 'the cellar here being accessed through the door at street level and the solar being a reference to the upper room.'

'High Street was one of the three principal streets of the mediaeval town of Sutton, as Plymouth was once known.  The Market cross was believed to have stood at the top, and every Thursday market stalls were set up and trading took place.  The cross would have been erected sometime after 27th January 1254, which is when Henry III signed a grant, allowing Sutton to hold a market.'  Some of my relatives were there for a time in the 1800s and very much so in Higher Street, which one one of Plymouth's older thoroughfares.  'It had grand old buildings, and it ran into Lower Street, which was narrower and horribly crowded - at one time over 500 people lived there in fewer than 30 houses!'

Another area where they lived was St Andrews, and this was one of the oldest streets in Old Plymouth.  Almost within living memory there were wonderful examples of Tudor and even more ancient buildings but of course  they were eventually deemed unsanitory and demolished.  Some on the other side of the road survived, including the Merchant's House, which I visited many many years ago on a coach trip.  I can remember, the higher you climbed in the house, the wonkier the  floors were - a game of marbles would have been quite out of the question!!

Most of my folk seemed to have lived in Old Town, when mentioned in censuses and voting lists. At one time the houses were all thatched, but this would have been mid-18th C.  At one time just one long street with no side streets, it began to change early in the 19th C, when a Market was added, and then other side roads.

This lovely building was in Catherine Street and was completed in 1630 and originally was to help house the industrious poor - a sort of workhouse.  "Setting the poore on worke".  It developed over the centuries into a "convenient Almshouse" or "Hospital of Orphans."   It eventually ended up as a "nest of vagabonds"! and is now beneath the New Guildhall and Municipal buildings.

Sadly, the ancient houses which weren't knocked down in the way of progress, were lost to Enemy bombing in WWII. (Southampton city centre suffered similarly - both were important ports).

Anyway, I am almost back to normal now, and hoping that Keith won't be very bad with this.  He is walking a little better today but his medication doesn't work as it should because of the illness and his legs have been in spasm today.  Anyway, at least he has an appetite - I lost mine completely for several days.  I am going to tuck him up in front of the tv and escape for 2 hrs to go to a talk given by the local Heritage Society.  I need to have some "me time".

More work in the garden today, and progress is being made with the weeds.  I've done about 15 feet along the base of the stone wall which is beside the pond and supports the path around it.  Hoiking out grass, moss, lots of dead beech leaves and spent beech mast, broken beech twigs and ivy.  Tomorrow I must plant the plants I have bought recently and carry on with putting the contents of one side of the big wooden compost containers as a base for my first raised bed.

Have a good weekend all.

I need a day out, but Keith's poorly

 But it won't be today.  Keith has the Parkinson's nurse and the car is booked in for new rear tyres.  I plan to get out in the garden now my legs are functioning properly again.  I made some progress yesterday, and bought some young tomato plants too, so those have been potted on and I FINALLY have 4 trays of runner beans started off (Scarlet Emperor, which are what I always grow).  To my great relief, the chap came to cut the grass yesterday.  I had been looking at it and was about to take the strimmer to it, the lawn had gotten that long.  The Forest of Sycamores growing in the front lawn has now been cut down and I can look out of my kitchen window at neat lawn instead of grass waving in the breeze and lots of tiny Field Wood Rush.  Today I will tidy the edges and do more weeding . . .

Lawns cut, Azalea about to flower, and the Flag Irises in the pond have put on a growth spurt too. Today's job, apart from edging the lawn, is to tackle the grass to the right of the Azaelea, which should NOT be there!

Yellow is the colour of spring here - LOTS of flowers on the Tree Peony this year - I didn't touch it last winter, just let all the foliage drop off.  The stupid gardener (the one who charged £60 to cut the lawn!) cut all the shrubs back in the autumn and spoilt them for flowering the next year . . . Note, yellow Potentilla in front too - and Little Whale.

As you can see, it was evening before I remembered to take the photos.

This is Pippi polishing the glass door for me. She and Lulu get shut in the Library whilst we have our meals or else we have a kitten-on-plate scenario!  The paddling paws are accompanied by aggrieved yowling!  She is HUNGRY she insists . . . hmmm.  

This is the brim of my winter hat.  Apparently you fold it over and knit into the cap to get an invisible edge.  Hmmm - that will call for concentration!  I'm enjoying knitting again anyway, which is a positive.

Lulu out to kill the mat!

    They are now going out in the garden daily, gradually for longer.  Lulu keeps close by me, and I can concentrate on gardening knowing she won't go far.  Pippi is another matter - whilst she doesn't zoom straight out the gate now, she is an Explorer and I daren't take my eyes off her or she will disappear from sight.  We now have yowling at the cat flap, as she just wants to be out enjoying the world, and who can blame her?  I gave up with the harness, as she HATED it and when she saw me coming with it, would hide where I couldn't reach her.  If I did manage to get it on her, she would slink along, belly close to ground - she was NOT happy.  

    Keith is poorly - having slowly developed what can only be my flu bug as he's not been anywhere to catch anything.  I worry about him as he finds it difficult to get the breath to blow his nose properly, let alone cough, and his lungs are congested.  I was steaming him over a bowl of hot water first thing.  

    I have had a change of medication for my BP - diuretics now.  The other tablets made my ankles and feet swell, especially as I wasn't able to move around much this past week with my enfeebled legs. As I have always had very slim ankles, this is not a good thing to suddenly have them puffy.

    I managed to walk to my neighbour's and back with some magazines for her (she's currently on crutches following a fall with her old horse, who stumbled).  It's about 3/4 mile for the trip, but uphill most of the way there, so a challenge to weakened muscles, but I made it. I was glad to get home and rest up though.

    Right, my St Trinian's kitten is yowling to go out again . . .