Where have all the blackberries gone?

When we were down in Dorset and Somerset recently, I couldn't help but notice masses of huge juicy blackberries beside the roads and in hedgerows.  My fingers were itching to get picking but the best ones were beside the motorway.

Back here in Wales, we will be lucky to get any sort of picking.  I can practically count on the fingers of one hand the number of ripe blackberries I have seen.  September might give us some sort of picking but it will be one of those years when any blackberry, however squishy or small will be welcome.  I am glad I still have several pounds in the freezer from last year.  We have had quite a cold dry summer (until August's rain) and lots of flowers never came to anything, just a mass of dried stems in the hedgerow, or else they never got pollinated because they flowered when we had days and days of rain.  Still, it looks like a good year for elderberries and I am hoping I can find some sloes after there being none last year.  Again, there were plenty in Somerset, but too early to pick them.  I have no chance of having Crab Apples locally now either - I noticed recently that the lovely old (100 yrs or so) crab apple tree I used to rely on for wine and jelly making, had been CHOPPED DOWN and Gary-the-Digger was in the field ripping out the stump.  I don't know what is happening in that field - unless they have planning permission for houses or something.  What a waste of a lovely tree.

I have been playing catch-up this week, but it wasn't until this morning that I got a chance to do anything with the soft fruit languishing in my fridge, so now I have cooked up blueberries, rhubarb (with preserved ginger) and I am going to make a cake with a punnet of strawberries.

Out in the garden the autumn Tidy Up continues, and I got 4 barrowloads of overgrowth from around the wildlife pond.  That desperately needs cleaning out a bit as there is a foot of leaves in the bottom and hardly any depth of water on top.  I will sort that next month, before things start hibernating in there.

Tomorrow I am going to have a lesson in rag rug making, so I am very excited about that.  As Autumn approaches, I always feel my craft-loving side return.

Yesterday we spent all day at a local auction, learning about collectable Chinese porcelain and china and jade, and how valuable it is (much of it was bought by Chinese bidders in the room or on the Internet.)

However, things are very quiet at the Unit and I can't help thinking that even if I had Ming or Qing or perhaps Zing(!) dynasty ceramics, even they would stay in the display cabinet!!!

August walk around Colomendy and thoughts on suburbia

Another busy week over.  Our eldest daughter Tam and her partner Zane came to stay.  I wish I could report that we had wall to wall sunshine, but it was nearer wall to wall rain after Tuesday was over. Fortunately they had a couple of dry days to start the week and went down to Tenby, Manorbier, and Pembrokeshire, camped overnight, and enjoyed some walking and beach pursuits.

We hadn't met Zane until now, so I think we were as nervous as he was, but he was soon just like one of the family.  After all the heartbreak in recent years it was so good to hear Tam laughing again, and obviously happy and well-suited with such a lovely, gentle, thoughtful, responsible and caring young man.




It was Zane who suggested we take advantage of a break in the weather and have a walk on Saturday afternoon, so we did the three mile walk around Colomendy.  Many of you have seen similar photos before, but the views are still wonderful!

Looking across at the Black Mountain, misty under rain-filled clouds.

Looking back up our neighbouring valley which like ours, heads towards Brechfa.

A lovely old farmhouse which is now derelict and going "back to nature".

Looking back down the Towy Valley.

The road ahead.  It's a heck of a climb, coming up the other way!

View above Alt-y-ferin Nurseries, looking across the Towy valley.

The other side of the lane, looking back towards Whitemill down the TowyValley.

A view across the fields towards Llanfynydd, on the other side of the Cothi valley.

The Italianate tower is all that remains of the once-fabulous Pantglas mansion.  It is now surrounded by Timeshare log cabins.

Well, Tam and Zane have gone back home now, so the house seems very quiet without them and no more games of Scrabble or cards for a while.  

Yesterday we were up early (4 a.m. after both sleeping very badly - I had been awake since 12.50 a.m.) to drive across the Severn to do a Militaria Fair just outside of Bristol, one which we had never done before but was apparently normally a really good fair for sellers.  The weather was horrendous - heavy rain, and lots of motorway spray.  I had to overtake a heavy (about the only one about at that time of the morning) on a bend on the motorway where there were only two lanes, and had a panic attack whilst trying to pass him.  It is a long time since I had one and can only put it down to the lack of sleep, but I had to just grit my teefs and get on with it.  Let's hope I won't have another blip like that for a long time.  

We set up our stand at the Militaria fair, which was in a Leisure centre.  I don't know whether it was the fact it was a holiday time, or the weather had put people off, or what, but there was a very low footfall and no-one did well.  One chap was saying last Fair he had taken over £2,000 and this time he had taken just £40, which pretty well summed it up for all of us.  We took £26 and had outlays of over three times that . . .  However a Journalist from one of the Militaria magazines came round and took a couple of photos of some interesting and unusual pieces we had for sale and these will appear in his magazine in due course.

 I had plenty of time to watch the people on the gym machinery in the gallery which overlooked the hall where we were.  Some people (slim girls in particular) were very fit and ran and ran on the treadmills.  Others were less fit and lurched about, and many more just walked (personally I wouldn't pay to walk or run on a machine, I would just get on and DO it outside.)  Others were working a sort of upper-arm roller - I don't know what it is called but it was like peddling with your hands!  I have found out the name of another - the elliptical cross trainer - which looked like torture - you had bars that you moved backwards and forwards in time with treading on foot-sized pedals with a built-in resistance.  Hmmm.  As all us - mainly pensioners - were packing away our stalls, and then carrying it out to the car park, I couldn't help thinking that some exercise comes free . . .

THEN we tried to get home.  It was pouring with rain and it we went the motorway route, it would mean a lot more spray and I couldn't face that, and it was also more difficult to change drivers - that meant coming off at a service station whenever we swopped.  So we decided to come home via Gloucester and the Forest of Dean, and were planning to head to the A38 via a couple of B roads, which was all very well except that The Authorities seem determined to make you go places via the M4 or M5, and we drove round for 3/4 hour trying to get across to the A38 and at one point were heading right into Bristol (but I will blame my OH for that as he made a wrong decision at a V junction when we only had VERY local place names which weren't on my map.)  As we drove around suburbia, where there were houses so cheek by jowl, many with shared driveways, we said no way could we live in suburbia again.  I think we have spent so many years in the wilderness here that we can't do that sort of cheek by jowl living, however convenient it is.  Not us at all.  A period house in a cathedral city would be considered at a pinch, but not the suburbs.  We'd look like the Beverley Hillbillies!!!

Eventually we gave up and took the M5 up to J12 and onto familiar roads again.  What a long day though. Now we have to restock the Unit, but things are very quiet there and seem to have been since February (although last month was slightly more rewarding).  It seems to be the same for many of the other Unit holders there, so it's not just us or what we are selling.  

If it stays dry today, I am back out with the Autumn Tidy Up in the garden.

Memories of a Spike-Islander

No photos with this, but I will give a link to the name which will show one.  I grew up in Southampton, although the area I lived in still had plenty of wild bits and was close to the eastern edge of the town, so we were just a 10 minute walk from where the countryside proper began.

Spike Island was the name given to an area of common land - widely used by the Botany Bay road gypsies for tethering their horses when I was a lass - at the end of Botany Bay road, where it led onto Millers Pond (more of that later).  It got its name because it was apparently where the convicts were kept in the early 19th C before being transported to Australia.  The spike part of the name comes from them being chained to spikes in the ground to stop their escape.  You can see how Botany Bay road got its name too.

These memories have come about from conversations recently with another Spike Islander, so I am back to around 10 years old in my head!

Anyway, I guess I am a Spike Islander still, though a long way from home now.  When I was growing up there, children still roamed around in small friendship groups (boys usually in small usually friendly gangs).  When we were at Secondary school we walked for absolute miles - out as far as Hedge End and Botley, down to the Solent at Western Shore, and then on to Netley sometimes.   Even when I was only 8 though I can remember catching the bus to Woolston to change my library books and buy a tuppeny bag of boiled sweets from the very well stocked shop next door to it.  My teefs are living proof of this!

The house I lived in had been the brickwork manager's house, and the old brickworks was still there and in business when I was young.  The trackway down to it was in a gully behind our garden. Sholing was an area where there had been several brickworks, and prior to those, gravel pits, and there was much common land here before it was built on, largely from 1900 onwards.

When the brickworks closed down, it became our playground.  The other side of the track you climbed steeply up onto a field which had one side gouged out to provide clay for the bricks.  At the bottom was a pond beloved of wildlife, and a smaller pond which we called the Wall of Death. We used to run around this, a couple of feet above the water level and never fell in.  The secret was in running fast enough that you had a good grip on the edge.  Of course, we didn't let on to those outside our group, and can remember a few duckings - usually of the "drippier" children in our area.

The boys were always building rafts with left over planks of wood and barrels, but I can remember one occasion when they began to sink and we, the feeble girls, had to Rescue them by hauling on a mooring rope tied to the raft and we were the heroines of the hour!

Then there was Flamingo Marsh.  This was a rather damp area to the right of the Wall of Death.  Here, with the earliest plastic shopping bags tied over our shoes, we would walk, looking for Sundew plants to annoy with a piece of grass.  If you jumped, when you landed there would be a suitably impressive heaving of the marsh a few yards away, and so the whole boggy area must have been literally floating.  Fortunately we only ever got "booties" rather than disappearing from sight.

Then there was the machinery which remained from the brick making process.  Our favourite was a sort of gigantic mincing machine, with spade lugs around a central roller.  Of course, we would stand on the spade lugs and get the roller  to turn, never for a moment considering if you lost your footing you could have your leg trapped beneath and splintered in moments . . .

We learned to run very fast down in the brickworks too, as there were always goats tethered down here, although I can only actually remember Billy goats, and of course they sported a good set of horns and although they were tethered, we would dare one another to get close enough to stroke the goat (our mothers must have despaired!)  If we weren't running away from the goats, we were running away from the boys - on one memorable occasion my very flakey throwing (of a brick, naturally!) actually got its target and with a huge bellow of pain and anger, my target flew towards me like a bull elephant.  Fortunately I was skinny and nimble and managed to outrun him, but I had to keep out of his way for a good week after that.

On another occasion I was the victim of a well-aimed (or not!) flint which hit me on the side of the head.  It didn't hurt particularly, but when I put my hand up it came away covered in blood and I was terrified and ran home to my mum,.  Of course, head wounds always seem to bleed a lot but everyone was terribly impressed at the time, both with my blood and Alan Burgess's accuracy . . .

Talking of blood, and returning to Botany Bay and Miller's Pond, we used to go down to the pond to mooch about and in bored moments would stick our arm in to catch leeches.  Yes, you did read that properly, leeches.  They were a sort of sludgy green and maroon in colour and didn't take long to attach themselves to your skin and get stuck in.  I never seemed to have any ill-effects from them, though you would think it was not exactly "safe practice"!!!

A busy time

I have been meaning to try and do a blog post for this past week, but as we had our daughter T and her boyfriend coming to stay, I wanted to try and get the house clean and orderly and that took far longer than anticipated!

Anyway, when I was searching for something on line recently, I happened upon a listing for this lovely book.  It is just up my street - though I have no time for creative sewing at the moment, although that should change with the arrival of autumn.  I like embroidered works with lots of detail, and the beautiful embroidery and embellishment on Victorian and later crazy quilts.  An excellent book with excellent stitching guides.

When I was shopping in town today, I came across this lovely baking book in The Works.  At £20 off the original price I was tempted beyond endurance!  I want to cook just about everything in it, which is always a good sign.

However, my baking efforts this week have been nearly disastrous.  I have put it down to nerves at meeting Z for the first time, and first of all I mucked up a sort of upside-down Eve's pudding - though in my defence I think it was the method given for the topping, which turned out a bit like fruitless rock cakes!  I began to make a Blackberry and Apple cake from the same book (one I have used before and had many a successful cake), but because I wasn't concentrating properly I didn't line the tin, only greased it well, and needless to say when I turned it out half the cake stayed in the pan, so it became a 2nd pudding!

I don't know what I was worrying about, as Z is an easy-going young man, and he and T make a lovely couple.   They're off camping down in Pembrokeshire now, but we have a walk up to Llyn-y-Fan Fach planned for their return.  I think I am as unfit as it is possible to be to tackle the steady mile and a half climb up to the lake as I've hardly walked all year. It's a devil of a walk for me as the gradual climb is relentless - I prefer a steeper climb and then some level bits so I can catch my breath. Let's hope we have some more fine weather this week anyway. Photos in due course.

Anyway, G is home overnight at the end of the week, so we will all have a wonderful 24 hours together.  If only D were here too.

That's it - our holiday for the year is over!

Well, that's it for another year.  Our do-it-in-a-day go away holiday.  We had sold a chest of drawers we won't be taking with us when we are able to downsize and needed to deliver it to a friend in deepest Dorset.  We set off Saturday morning, and had a lovely visit with her and her family, looking over their new house (much to do - reminds me of when we first came here, 28 years ago).  I will respect her privacy by not showing any photos, but believe me, it is a lovely spot, and I want her orchard!!

We spent Saturday night at a camp site in Cheddar.  Very convenient - you could walk up into the town, BUT boy was it noisy.  I had forgotten quite how noisy it is when you are in a tent and can hear the least thing.  Let alone passing traffic (the nearby road turned into Le Mans after dark), the barrage of Fireworks in a field close to the site, followed by the Disco with the most awful music (I could have enjoyed 60s or 70s stuff!), then drunken revellers with loud voices returning to their tents and talking outside for ages, then a late returning car passing our tent. Not to mention people snoring, yappy dogs barking etc.   This would have been just about bearable had there not been an extremely loud church clock striking EVERY quarter throughout day and night.  We were extremely bleary-eyed after that, I can tell you!

Of course, we couldn't leave the area without going down Cheddar Gorge (and we had to drive up it in order to come down again.)  We stopped several times for me to take photos.  They are a bit hit and miss because I was so tired, but you get the general idea.  It is hard to imagine that it was once the most immense cave which lost its roof . . .

This cave entrance (crawling in!) was close to the road and some work had been done on it recently to clear debris.  I'm not sure whether this was done by potholers or archaeologists.

There were feral goats, and some Soay sheep grazing the steep valley sides.  A perfect location for them.

As you can see, nature has made the most of what is available and slippered itself into every nook and cranny!

Well, we had stayed at Cheddar because we had heard there was a HUGE car boot sale there every Sunday (along with market stalls too).  Of course, that was a temptation too great to pass by (much as I wanted to spend the night down on the Moor and have my fill of Dartmoor for the year.)  Had we had a better night's sleep we could still have had the day down there, but it was not to be.

Anyway, the car boot sale WAS huge, and we spent three hours walking round, buying some nice pieces for the Unit, and just generally relaxing.  We found a little cafe that did a good cup of Earl Grey, which please my OH.  We had started the day (at 5 a.m.) on very basic rations!  Home-made Banana flapjacks, but no hot cuppa.

Then it was time for home.  We didn't linger because we were both so tired.  We got back indoors mid-afternoon, which hadn't been our original intention, but at least the cats were glad to see us early (not that they had starved as a neighbour had been down to feed them).  Now it's back to normal and a huge clean up before T and her boyfriend arrive at the weekend.

Hoping against hope - house hunting in Herefordshire

There's a lot of "H"s there.  A bit like "In Hertfordshire Hurricanes Hardly ever Happen"!  You will have to indulge me - or should that be Humour?!

Yesterday we set off to view two properties in the area between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye.  No, we haven't got a buyer yet, but felt it was a good idea to check out two of the possibles on our list.  A friend has got an offer on her house and has been rushing round viewing properties, but faces losing her buyer as the property she has offered on has a vendor who also hasn't gone out looking yet.  I suppose there are two schools of thought, but we are in the camp that feels you should be able to move quickly if necessary.

I persuaded K to stop near Bwlch at the head of the Usk Valley so I could take some photos.  I've taken them there before, but couldn't resist the views.

It's a little further out than we ideally want to be, but it's tempting to consider properties this side of Abergavenny . . .

The fields lay dreaming . . .

We were early at the first house, so drove beyond it to the nearest village to see what it had to offer.  I had only seen the village on Google-earth, but it was every bit as pretty in reality.  A quiet, pleasant place with a pub, but not much else.

The house was one which, on screen, I had picked up on a lovely peaceful atmosphere.  Yes, it is a good deal smaller than our house, but suited us on all sorts of levels.  It was light and homely, with French windows out of the kitchen to the wrap-around garden (I've always wanted French windows!) It had an Aga-style cooker which provided cooking, heating and hot water (perfect). It had a small greenhouse and room for a polytunnel, and a big double garage for K's workshop/storage.  Two wood-burning stoves, and a master bedroom with a double aspect and en-suite.  Lots of boxes ticked. I was amazed to see a copy of a book about Edward Thomas on the coffee table and in the next room, scanned their bookshelves for more - which there were - and I had to be dragged from the room before I sat down and started browsing them!  So - we shall see what transpires.  A miracle may happen to send a buyer here for our house . . .

Anyway, our viewings on the two properties were mid-day and 2.30 so we had even more time to kill before the next viewing 2 miles up the road.  So we drove into Fownhope and stopped for a pub lunch, which was excellent.  Near the pub was this pretty cottage - it would do nicely but were it on the market, would probably be above our budget.

Although we ate slowly, we still had time to kill so after a walk around the village we drove up past the next cottage to get our bearings, and took some photos from the top of the hill.

Looking back at the village.

This was the view across the valley from above the next cottage, looking over at apple orchards.  It was a sublime spot, but unfortunately not the right place for us, as no outside storage and a steep flight of steps which although OK in the normal run of things, would have not been such fun when packing/unpacking for a Fleamarket or Antiques fair . . .  A shame as the garden had quite a few established apple and plum trees, something I always look for.

A glimpse of the lovely cottage.  Someone will fall in love soon I am sure.

Summer is passing so swiftly and there is more than a touch of Autumn in the air now, especially when it is a cold wet morning as it is today.  The red in the hedgetop hawthorn growth and sycamores and the Scarlet Herb Robert has passed and the predominant colours of the verges are pinky purple and lilac and cream from Willowherbs,  Knapweed, Thistles, Meadow Cranesbill, Purple Vetch, foaming Meadowsweet and tall Umbellifers of every description.

A breath of sea air

As you will have seen from the change of header photo, we headed for the nearest bit of beach earlier in the week.  Our nearest beach is either at Llansteffan or opposite at Ferryside.  Both have good clean sandy beaches.  One of the first things we saw was this upended jellyfish.  It was interesting to see what it looked like underneath - 6 central bits, and then 12 external divisions and 12 arms . . .  I think it is probably a Moon Jellyfish.

Here on the beach, looking across the estuary mouth of the River Towy, towards Pendine in the foreground, and Rhossili Downs in the distance, which is where I clambered a year ago with daughter Tam and my friend Deb.  I couldn't manage it at the moment as I have scarcely walked all summer (though I did do a walk today and surprised myself by getting up our steep hill with just one stop.)

Rounding the point past the castle, and looking across Scott's Bay towards the last spike of land on the Laugharne side.

Looking up at Llansteffan Castle.  Neither of us could face the prospect of climbing up there, and we settled for a beach stroll rounded off with sitting on a bench with an ice cream.

The trees are bent sideways by the wind, and grow nearly to the beach.

The retreating tide left some pretty patterns in the sand.

The clouds were starting to stack up as we looked back up the Towy estuary.  In 1971 and 1972 I stayed with a penpal who lived in a cottage up on the far hillside.  I thought it was so beautiful in Carmarthenshire and it was the main reason we ended up here!  She had to move, but the odd thing is our eldest daughter's best friend lived next door to my penpal's cottage. . . . a few years on of course.

Iscoed Mansion - or the remains of it - snuggled into the hillside.  General Picton lived there.  Sadly it was destryed by fire and is now just a lofty ruin.

More clouds arriving over the cockle beds.

Looking back towards the cottages which fringe the beach, with a lovely house on the hillside which reminds me of the ones in the Puddle Lane childrens' books my girls used to have, back in the day . . . Gosh - that's just brought back some memories . . .  Old Mr Gotobed, The Gruffle and the Griffle and many more!

One last look up the beach, and grandad is doing well with the kite-flying.