mountainear

In which Herman invades Wales.

2012-02-06T12:52:00.001Z

Let me introduce Herman - Herman the friendship Cake:

So far not a thing of beauty, more a suppurating mass with a name. Crikey, an anthropomorphic cake.

What a novelty. Except I have been here, Herman-wise, before - in something like like 1983 when even then being the recipient of a Herman was something of a curse. The cake equivalent of chain mail. And we all know what to do with chain letters don't we? We commit them to the bin pronto. But this is not words on paper - this is a bubbling spluttering mix, plopping away in its prescribed 'big bowl' under its 'tea towel'. It's alive and needs to be nurtured. Fed for heaven's sake.

He'll sit on my work top for the next 9 days, presumably getting bigger and bubblier until he's subdivided - 3 portions to give away and one for me to mix up and bake with apple, dried fruit and spices on day 10.

I've politely turned down all recent offers from friends bearing little pots of the gloopy starter but yesterday there was no escape; a kind woman with an tinge of desperation in her eyes ~~pressed~~ forced an ice cream carton full of it into my hands. It looks as if everyone else in Shropshire has erm, had their cake and eaten it too.

Friendship cakes have done the rounds before of course. In the 60s and the 80s (when I remember them) and now, after yet another 20 year gap. Is this a regular cycle - and where do they go in the intervening years?

For me the best news is that Herman and his like have yet to infiltrate the village of Leighton on the other, Welsh side, of the hill. He might be welcome there. Ha! I have put feelers out already and indeed my lovely neighbour has expressed interest in having a portion.

If I don't kill him first.

Edited to add... a little later that same day

Herman had hardly settled his new 'big bowl' on my worktop when, with a baying and barking of the family dogs, a friend arrived a the door with a neatly cling-filmed, gloop-filled basin. Ah, this must be Herman No.2. What's a girl to do but to introduce the two mixes? Frankly it's a bit like putting two lots of strange hens together - better done under cover of darkness when neither realise the other is there until dawn's early light. I expect in the morning Hermans 1 and 2 will be the best of friends and bubbling away harmoniously. Please form orderly queues if you would like a portion. There will now be PLENTY.

Oh no it isn't...

2012-01-30T12:26:00.002Z

It's that time of year again. Yep, YFC drama competition time. This year the theme is pantomime and I am amazed to think that I've been involved long enough to think 'Oh no, not again.' (Panto, I can assure you is not my favourite genre.) Chirbury and Marton have chosen 'Jack and the Beanstalk'.

So. We know when we will be be on stage in Whitchurch; 17th February, a date a little too close for comfort. These young people certainly enjoy a white knuckle ride.How I wish we had a little longer to tease the very best out of them.

Come on, tell me the few essentials of a good pantomime. Whatever the individual storyline good will always triumph over evil. Kings, queens, nobles, evil henchmen, stereotypical simpletons, villagers and poor, beautiful and virtuous young girls rub shoulders in Pantoland. The Principal boy will always woo and win the Principal girl. The principal boy is always girl and there's always a Dame, another role for the cross dresser. As tradition demands our Dame is a stubbly chinned bloke.

There will be curious farm animals - a two-piece cow or horse. This is Daisy, deflated so-to-speak, sans actors.

We've had a few read-throughs but scripts are still much in evidence. 'Learn your words' we plead.

Come to think of it - we have yet to have a rehearsal with the whole cast present. 'Everyone must be there next time' we insist, more in hope than expectation.

Actually I will be the one who won't be there. I have other plans - even if they only involve being in the room next door. In the meantime there is the usual incongruous collection of props to assemble; cowbell, bag of gold/beans, buckets, baskets and feather duster. Not my kind of shopping I'm afraid.

Oh, they need a hen too....and if one can't be borrowed or made from papier mâché it has been suggested that I could find a compliant bird with thespian tendencies from my hen pen. Strewth! I think not. An afternoon covering a wire frame with paste and paper would be infinitely preferable. Non?

The Sheep

2012-01-24T14:37:00.001Z

I have a sheep. Actually it's not really mine - I sort of have it on loan.

At the end of last summer there were a dozen sheep on our field, usefully munching their way around and keeping the grass down for us. They were 'killer ewes' - the aged, barren and toothless or the ones whose previous lambing had been over-difficult and wouldn't go to the ram again. There's quite a good market for them, probably for processed foods and the like. Kebabs maybe. Mostly they looked a sorry bunch.

They soon learned that my bucket of layers' pellets was tasty enough and I soon learned to keep out of the way of this greedy mob at hen feeding time. Never underestimate the pushiness of a ewe who thinks she is hungry. One of them in particular had gold medals in persistence.

The time came for them to go and the big blue cattle truck arrived to take them away for slaughter. My little flock was gathered from the field to be loaded - and the words I shouldn't have spoken escaped my lips: 'Please can I keep that one? That one there with the pretty face?'

To my surprise H and J agreed. A few moments later the wrong sheep was trotting back to the field. 'It's the wrong one!' I squeaked. With only a little phaffing about, the right sheep was hauled off the lorry and she too went trotting back. 'Coffin dodgers' muttered Carl.

So. The Sheep and The Other Sheep live on the field - but only for the time being because the day will surely come when they will have to go. This one comes running for a handful of sheep nuts and offers its ears for a scratch. Her charms have beguiled me - though common sense tells me her wiles are mostly to do with cupboard love. Here she is, below, tasting the zipper on my gilet.

I've broken my No.1 Rule - don't get over-fond, taken in by a pretty face. (That would hold true for many relationships perhaps!) This way sadness lies.

Rule No.2 - no names - still applies though. She is 'The Sheep'.

I got sunshine...

2012-01-13T22:56:00.001Z

In the words of the fab Temptations* from way back in '65:

'I got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it's cold outside, I got the month of May...'

Me? I got oranges. I got liquid gold. I making marmalade.

There's not much new to say about this, my annual fruity task. Squeeze, pare, slice, bubble, boil and pot. The tedium of preparation...sigh...puts all but the most enthusiastic off. I put the cauldron on annually. It's not so much about a supply of marmalade that will last the year - for me it's about delighting the senses. This is a thing which has to be done.

A bag of oranges - such a vibrant cheering colour when all is grey outdoors.

Scent too; breathe in - the house (maybe even the whole of the small mountain kingdom) is redolent of bitter orange. Reach out, touch something. Sticky. Everything. Just why is there marmalade on my ear lobe?

So, we now have enough jars on at the shelf and a few to spare. A good feeling.

*Promise me you'll click the link - it's as feel-good a thing as marmalade! The suits and shoes are pretty good too.

Pan and er, Pan

2012-01-10T16:39:00.002Z

The Glam Ass shoved a copy of The Times under my nose. His expression implied that the country was going to the dogs - if indeed it hadn't already been there, done that and was now proudly sporting the t shirt.

'Just what's that all about?' he grumped, stabbing his finger on a quarter page ad. 'Can you understand it?'

I looked and well, no, I couldn't.

'I can understand the words but what the **** is the picture all about?' he continued. I could foresee one of those whingey conversations ensuing in which he proposed that in its glory days advertising was creative and made sense but now it was just gratuitous clap-trap etc etc etc and I would disagree and talk about different mores for different generations. Blah, blah.We would go round in circles until some other snippet caught his eye and we set off on a minor rant yet again.

The offending ad is for a mobile phone provider - as it is not in front of me now their name escapes me. That's how good it was. Not.

Yes, the words are perfectly understandable but the picture is a little bizarre; a bucolic landscape with an ugly hooved and horned man dressed in a cricket sweater, and obviously in thrall to a sweet little hovering fairy. Are we missing an allusion here?

'Is is meant to be Pan?' the GA asked. 'Why? Why's he wearing a cricket sweater?'

I nod sympathetically. I dunno. I get asked a lot of questions like this and experience has proved that it's wisest not to get too embroiled. It's generally not worth wasting energy on. Perhaps I had switched off anyway - at the mention of the word 'Pan' my brain's hyper-efficient search engine was churning away and seconds later a few lines from a song last heard in the early 70's popped into my head. This was without even trying.

'how will I say where I end
or where you begin
how will I say, what shall I play
shall it be you or the wild wind
as Pan with the unsane eyes
or with the wild horns
or when I am crowned with the paper crown
or with the crown of thorns '

This is a snippet from the Incredible String Band's 'Queen of Love' - I won't bore you with it all. There is much in the same vein as it lasts a whole 8.06 minutes. I suspect I was quite a fan of theirs though the vinyl is long gone. Seen written out and after a gap of nearly 40 years it does seem like vapid unfathomable tosh, but back in those heady days however, how profound and mystic.

I am of course immediately transported back to then, to summer days in north Oxfordshire when the sun was always shining and if it rained, what the heck - we got wet and danced in it.

Enough of this - a more scholarly person might have come up with references to classical Greece rather than a season of peace and love. None of which answers any of the questions posed by the Glam Ass or satisfies my passing curiosity about the relationship between Pan and a fairy.

Am I missing a trick somewhere? Enlightenment welcome.

Out of curiosity I've just gone and looked at the ad again. The provider is O2. I've googled O2. Our goat-legged friend and his fairy are there as well. More mysteriously the goat-legged one, still in his cricket sweater, also offers fantastic tariffs and deals from a speedboat...to a squirrel.

Worse still, I now feel an 'ear-worm' coming on.

I start the year with a sploosh...

2012-01-04T11:30:00.003Z

I didn't know I'd got an 'under-tray'. I do now.

It turns out that it was this 'under-tray' which made such a dreadful crunching noise as I came out of the flood down by the Mill turn. (No visions of Ursula Andress stalking sexily from the waves please - just a silver Audi emerging noisily from a large muddy puddle.)

As I drove on something scraunched on the road underneath me. Ooo err...not a good noise. It was a bit silly to go through the flood really - anything could have been in the water just waiting to knock cobs of my motor. I parked up at the Village Hall and tentatively knelt down (not wanting to get my knees wet) to see if I could spot the damage. And indeed I could. A large bit of rigid black plastic hanging down. B****r. Looks there will be no driving this home. More damned expense. Sigh.

On going through the water this 'under-tray', which in effect covers the car's undercarriage, had scooped up gallons of muddy water which being so heavy (we all know that a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter don't we?) tore away the weedy plastic fixings which hold the tray in place and the whole caboodle collapsed.

The Glam Ass (bless 'im) came to the rescue and after a bit of grumbling and a bit of thought suggested I raise the height of the car. This particular model has the ability to raise itself at the push of a button to cope with different sorts of terrain. Clever huh? Why didn't I think of that?

It did the trick and I was able to proceed carefully back through the flood to our very best motor mechanic who has the necessary ramp and big screwdriver. It will be fixed sooner or later but for the time being I shall be driving the pick-up. This means no drive to Yorkshire on Friday for an aged aunt's funeral, but that is another story.

Please be warned - you too may have an 'under-tray' - do not mix with deep water.

New Year

2012-01-01T21:38:00.000Z

Family and friends have visited - I've been indulged beyond belief with presents, fed to bursting, laughed and cried. I've enjoyed every minute of your company. Thank you all so much. Can we do it again next year?

My twinkly Christmas tree still glistens in the corner; so pretty...but oh dear, there is the faintest whiff of stale spruce which I will not be able to tolerate for much longer. The party's over, we've turned the corner of the year and it is time to move on.

New Year's day then in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan.....wet and mild; a stark but benevolent landscape, surprisingly green. Isn't it rather beautiful? If those trees were lace on a gown of green they would surely be the talk of the town.

After drought conditions prevailed for a large part of 2011 we now find ourselves saturated. The little lane under our window runs with water like a stream and the trudge to the hens is a slip-slidey affair.

Which of course doesn't bother the Naughtiest Sheep, seen here with our dog Wilson, the most handsome bull terrier in Trelystan. (Both wish to be on the other side of a closed gate...neither appreciating that the world is not hugely different whichever side one is on.)

The Naughty Sheep has no trouble, sharp hoofed as she is, manoeuvring the slippy bank to the hen pen - and nudging my hen food bucket as she goes. Ever hopeful.

Thus it was, sheep and bucket at my side we went up at dusk this evening and stood awhile.

Over in the dark conifers of Badnage Wood an owl hooted. (Oh joyous sound! We haven't heard owls for ages.) The sky was clear and, as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, a bright small moon and star upon star upon star appeared; a delicious panoply indeed.

The Plough, that most familiar of constellations, lay over the Wood - on its back looking as a plough should look.

It is a constant. There will be something very wrong if it is not there tomorrow. For all the changes that we hope a new year will bring there are always things which should remain the same. Love, health, hope and happiness. Peace too.

I wish you all these things for 2012 - we are together under the same sky.

Wot kind of fule gets excited about a boiler?

2011-11-28T11:48:00.001Z

Don't answer that....

This sleek beast is our new boiler. It cost the same as our first house did in 1975. Gulp.

Over the course of the last 6 years our fuel bills have risen astronomically - each time the LPG tanker refills our gas tank we have to go and have a lie down to get over the shock of the bill. That bill for gas last year came to nearly 1/3 of the cost of that same house in 1975. Gulp indeed.

We've spent a lot of time mulling over those facts - thermostats have been turned down, log burners lit and vests tucked in in order to save burning gas. We know that the house is insulated to a high spec - (don't like to think what it would be like if it were not) - and we'd like to think that we are not too profligate energy-wise but the bills were getting a bit hard to stomach.

The Glam Ass investigated sustainable alternatives - alternatives which, if we'd had the benefit of a crystal ball, we should have installed when we built 7 years ago. Hindsight is a wonderful thing is it not?

His first proposal was a log burning 'furnace'. This was not top of my list as it looked as if it needed too much stoking and poking and daily attention - the sort of contraption that attracts the male of the species. Don't men like fires? There must be an inner stoker in every bloke. Me, I'd go for something that ran on fairy dust and could be maintained by giving it a passing thought once a year - a sort of girly thing with a cute little pink button or two to press....

I digress.

For expert advice we consulted Llani Solar, renewable heating specialists who had fitted a couple of solar panels for us a few years ago. They are obviously in business to make a living but their remit does seem to be a profound belief in renewables and in providing the best service for their customers. There was no hard sell - no pressure to buy the biggest, the shiniest or the most expensive. Instead there was advice to wait until the right boiler became available and to wait until we could take advantage of any government grants coming on stream. So we waited - with only a bit of a nudge to remind them that we were still keen and committed. Last week their recommended system arrived and with quiet efficiency was installed - the transition from money-burning to wood-burning almost seamless. Well done Llani Solar.

Our new boiler burns pelleted wood - which seems easy enough. One loads the hopper with as many as necessary and those pellets trickle through to burn as the boiler calls for them. We receive a grant of £950 for installing it and a generous annual payback under the Renewable Heat Incentive. We hope to have covered our initial outlay in approximately 4 years. Fuel, in the form of pellets is half the cost of LPG. Sounds pretty good to me.

Time will tell I suppose. We've had a particularly mild November (unlike this time last year) but I imagine cold weather will hit us sooner or later. Excuse me while I go and turn up the thermostat a notch or too. Warmth. Bliss.

In which we do Nature Watch

2011-11-10T22:37:00.001Z

It's not just an inner city* street you know. This is a wild life habitat. We are on safari.

Hmm. Believe that and you will believe anything.

We are half an hour early for a funeral and lucky enough to find the only parking place in Withington. Having little else to do we scrutinise our surroundings. In fact I suspect that the residents of this multi-occupied semi probably think we are undercover cops on a stake-out. I can't think which cop duo we might be. (The Glam Ass is a bit too beardy for Cagney and Lacey and I can't imagine Holmes and Watson in a Mancunian side street...)

Sleuth-wise we are a bit obvious - the Glam Ass is quite animated and there's me with the car window down pointing my phone in lieu of a camera and squeaking 'Ooooh look! There it is - how cute!'

If you click on the picture and zoom in onto the second bin from the left you will hone in on a ~~cute~~ pixellated rat. It was having a great time, rambling through the bin bags, furtling about, ducking down when passers by passed and coming up for air every now and then. Hello ratty! See how its little whiskers bristle!

Just a bit to the right is a blue bin and this had a load of old chips to offer. Magpies soared in and swung out, grabbing a beakful of chips as they went. What a feast for these busy handsome opportunists.

So. Our mini-survey indicates that a few square metres of a built up area has arguably as much wildlife as acres of Welsh mountain side. Reassuring? I think so.

Having said that all the cattle which graze in a fairly free range manner in the fields around us have today been taken to their winter quarters. Except some seem to have been left behind and they are making one helluva noise on the other side of the wall to me right now. It sounds pretty wild out there.

* The residents of Withington would probably argue that it isn't 'inner city', maybe more of a suburb.

Little Digger

2011-11-04T17:50:00.000Z

Here's Little Digger driven today by Adrian - driver extraordinaire and all round good guy.

Little Digger was hero of the hour yesterday in a slithery incident involving a slope, a tractor and a trailer - nothing to do with us I'm glad to say as the rescue mission took over 3 hours in pitch black and pouring rain. Little Digger dug out a bank and helped with his long and flexible arm to hold the trailer back and prevent further slipping and expensive damage. Three cheers for it - or is it him?

Today its back to work as usual - and spreading out the heap of Criggion scalpings which have lain in my path for nearly a fortnight now, making each hen keeping expedition a task of Himalayan proportions.

I'm beginning to wonder if I might have a story along the lines of Thomas the Tank Engine in the making here? A series? Film rights?

Today Trelystan, tomorrow the world.

Madonna, Child and Goldfinch

2011-11-01T18:05:00.003Z

The Glam Ass wanted to learn the art of guilding. Being the man he is he wanted to Do It Properly; no short cuts, no cheap imitations....

The vehicle for his learning was icon painting which I've mentioned previously. For almost 4 years he has driven up to Chester on a Sunday to join a class held in the Stanley Palace. It's a time consuming process and each stage has its own skills and complications; from preparing the ground of multi-layered gesso to painting in egg tempura - an art in itself to those of us more familiar with the plasticity of oils and acrylics. Then the gold leafing itself; applying sheets of fine and precious metal so delicate that a breath can blow them away.

And this is his latest piece - which took my breath away when he unwrapped it this weekend. 'Madonna, Child and Goldfinch':

The Goldfinch in art comes with a history; the ornithologist Herbert Friedman traced no fewer than 486 devotional pictures containing the Goldfinch attributed to 254 artists, 214 of them Italian. The little bird is said to symbolise the Passion and also Redemption. A folk tradition has it that the red marking on the bird's head came from Christ's blood on the day of the Crucifixion.

Isn't it beautiful?

In which we do our bit to help the Greek economy

2011-10-30T21:54:00.000Z

Shall I? Shan't I?

...buy Butternut Squash that is.

Well YES! I notice the country of origin on the label is Greece and put it in my basket straightaway. What else can I do to support the lovely people of Paxos who have made us so welcome over the years?

What's there not to like about this nobbly vegetable - the colour of sunshine inside?

A slurp of the ancestral Maple Syrup (see previous post) and a dab of butter, seasoning to taste and into the oven alongside the roasting chicken it goes.

....Wonder how many Butternut squash I will have to buy before I am entitled to a free Greek island.

Pheasants - nil,

2011-10-25T14:28:00.001Z

...Chester - erm, 6

I don't think we're particularly proud of that.

I wish he'd concentrate on hunting out all the photos I've inadvertently deleted from iPhoto. Not as bad as it seems as I do tend to squirrel the good 'uns away as I go on - but even so....I'm pretty cross with myself right now. Waaaaaiilllll!!!!

Well known phrases and sayings - No. 9

2011-10-20T16:25:00.000Z

Make do and Mend.

These are straitened times indeed - and however much I would like a shiny new fridge I'm just going to have to have the old one repaired. Just like we always did in the olden days.

A visit from Mr Whirlpool and his lad and now it is as good as new - or will be next week when the engineer remembers to bring the spare part for the ice-maker. He did replace the compressor fan though so now instead or a noise like a helicopter hovering in the corner there is a gentle and livable-with hum. Sorted. And did I mention 'shiny'? Well Mr Whirlpool had just the thing; a stainless steel polishing kit - mine for only a staggering sum. After he's polished half a door and showed me the erm, staggering results, how could I refuse? So now with a little elbow grease I will, once again, have the working fridge of my dreams.

Why though do I not feel a cozy satisfied glow at having saved myself something like 800 smackers but instead come over all disgruntled that some miniscule parts out of grubby cardboard boxes should cost me in excess of £200?

Next week I will tackle the issue of the broken food processor lid. To glue or not to glue? That is the question.

Talking of questions - just how like Cointreau will my newly made Orange Liqueur be? Will it be a good substitute?

'Not very.' I hear you mutter at the back - and I am inclined to agree.

But never mind, it's a cheering thing to make on a grey old day. A bit like bottling sunshine.

Margaret H kindly copied out her recipe for me so I do feel I must give it a go. Gin (Tanner's finest Hereford Dry), sugar and citrus zest to be shaken daily for 3 weeks. I don't think it is going to be something to be glugged copiously - a bit like Cointreau in that respect - but sipped genteely in a ladylike manner. I wonder if it would make a good long drink with tonic and clinking cubes of ice.

Ah yes, ice cubes. Roll on next Thursday when Mr Whirlpool promises to call with another grubby cardboard carton. Perhaps I'll feel a bit better about the mending process then.

Flights

2011-10-19T16:59:00.004Z

Trust me - that little blob hovering top-left of the picture is a hot air balloon. In the interests of a better composition I have cut off the landscape below so you can't tell that it is passing over an unprepossessing industrial estate on the outskirts of Welshpool and heading at the whim of the wind who knows where.

Saturday morning in the small mountain kingdom was gorgeous. Blue sky as above; warm and balmy, an archetypal autumn day. Good to be alive etc.

The Glam Ass and I head off to Welshpool which lies perhaps 4 miles to the west. We see as we begin to drop down off the Long Mountain that the Severn Valley is full of mist. This isn't unusual - we often are bathed in sunshine while the valleys below us on either side are fog-bound. It's actually quite pretty today; ribbons of fine pale cloud hang above the meandering river - a gauzy drifting film.

What's that? Over there....'Oh look! It's a balloon!' But not one, or two or three or four. I count 13, some of them so low I think they must be almost touching roofs and trees. But no, they float over the town and northwards rising to go over the hill called the Rhallt. A small plane coming into Welshpool 'airport' (yes, folks we have one of those but easyJet haven't found it yet) is mightily confused and fortunately is able to do circuit after circuit until its path is clear to land.

What a wonderful day to travel by balloon - I am most envious.....until I spot that the pilot above is not in a basket - he or she seems to be suspended in some sort of harness. Oooo er! I'm not that brave.

The sky stays blue - it's a day to spend in the garden. Over in Badnage Wood there's a lot of bird activity. A Jay squawks occasionally, a couple or three Buzzards soar over the trees mewing to each other. Then Ravens, big and black as night fly up out of the conifers, their cries metallic barking 'gronks'. They roll and tumble acrobatically in the sky; dropping, twisting and rising in unison. Such a joyous display - such dancing partners.

I am reminded of the birds on Willow Pattern ware:

Imagine if you can black birds against a blue sky instead of 'blue' birds on a white jug...

The jug is the ancestral milk jug which graced the breakfast tables of my childhood and was filled with fresh milk brought in a can from the dairy down the road. Milk bottles on the table were 'common' and came later anyway. But that is another story.

In which we do Harvest Suppers

2011-10-12T17:11:00.004Z

I don't think that I could have ever described my mother as parsimonious; in many ways she was a most generous person who enjoyed her share of the finer things in life - but she was from Yorkshire and the product of a tough upbringing in the post World War I slump. Education took her away from the drudgery and toil of a scrubby small farm on the outskirts of a manufacturing town. She worked and worked to earn whatever came her way, money that key to comfort, was too hard-won by to be lightly thrown away. The phrase 'if I do owt for nowt, I do it for m'sen' was unspoken but pretty close to the truth.

It must then have been a source of some relief to her (again unspoken) that the date of the Harvest Festival service in the parish church of Wroxton St Mary in 1975 was Sunday October 5th.

Why would this be? The date of my wedding was Saturday the 4th and the church would be bedecked with a sumptuous array of autumn goodness - carrots, chrysanths and cabbage, turnips, spuds and mega-marrows - for the service on the following day. There would be no need for wedding flowers. I would walk down the aisle to seasonal munificence. My bridesmaid and I would be permitted a small posy apiece however. I chose white freesias - though now think I would perhaps have enjoyed a walk down the aisle with a bouquet of various herbs.

I remember those massed carrots and turnips as well as I remember the service itself - the abundant veg and the burnished wood of the medieval rood screen we stood nervously in front of. The smell was wonderful too of course - this was a marriage made in a greengrocers shop with overtones of beeswax polish.

Fast forward - 36 years down the line and my thoughts go back to that harvest festival (glossing over the suburban years in between where harvest gifts were tins of soup and beans). While we remember it's our wedding anniversary we're also well aware that this is the Harvest Festival season in these parts. Each village holds it's own - a service followed by a meal and an auction of goods; the good Lord is thanked, the belly filled and with the auctioneer's encouragement our purses opened and emptied.

A good auctioneer makes all the difference - after years of experience at the the local lifestock mart, Carl at Marton and Malcolm up here in Trelystan can give the professionals a run for their money and their audience a laugh or two.

Such a mountain of produce to buy - and we come home from each Supper with fresh fruit and vegetables.

Back home we sit and look at our haul - we have potatoes and mighty onions, carrots, honey and lemon curd.

What to do with that bag of pears though? They're hard as the proverbial hobs of hell. Neither of us are particularly inclined to munch away at them.

Let's experiment - chicken drumsticks and a dab of butter on a bed of peeled and cored pears. Go to the back of the fridge and unearth the jar of maple syrup (which really does need eating up soonish). A slosh or a drool of that, season with salt and black pepper and into the oven it goes.

Have to admit it tasted pretty good with sweet corn and green beans - and as there are still plenty of pears left it's something we'll be eating again.

On feeling slightly spooked

2011-09-13T21:32:00.001Z

To be honest with you I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

Very little rattles me. Give me a chopped off finger, some blood, some gore...creaking floorboards or a spooky ol' graveyard on All Hallows Eve and I'll laugh in the face of fear....but I'm not very happy about the big old tree that's lying up there in the orchard. The tree that toppled only yesterday.

I have my big bright torch and the ability to say boo to a goose but there are still shivers going up my spine as I walk to the field to shut hens in. An unfamiliar shape up there to my left. The big tipped-up root is horrid, the gnarled tangle of snapped branches and vastness of its dark girth is heavy and foreboding....ye gods it could rise up and roar at me. I would not be surprised if it did. I am spooked.

I'm not and never have been a 'tree-hugger' - yet have always afforded them respect none-the-less. There are vague memories of my father telling me what a bad thing it was to carve into the bark - would that be paring into the tree's very soul I wonder now? His words? 'They don't like it.' Whatever. The 5 year old me took his advice on board and have never knowingly done an unkind thing to a tree. I've come to understand the reverence that ancient man felt towards these leviathans of forest and hill - what powerful symbols of longevity and permanence they must have seemed.

The fallen tree's neighbour will be felled next week; having taken advice we believe it is too dangerous to leave standing. I also have a curious feeling that without its life's partner it will fade and die quickly anyway. We will see this as an opportunity to replant - undoubtably for future generations.

Tomorrow I shall go up into the orchard and stroke the bark a bit. I'll say goodbye - ask 'Please, don't frighten me in the dark anymore. It will be OK old beech tree - this is the next part of your journey. The Glam Ass will be persuaded to make something from your timber. In that you will live on. '

And there will of course be other trees.

Timbahhhhh!

2011-09-12T10:31:00.000Z

Well that's that then. A tremendous gust of wind, a crack, a woosh and a graceful flop into the orchard and the Big Beech Tree is gone. Gone as in not standing next to its partner aka the Small Beech Tree anymore; but definitely not gone in terms of 'a lot to be cleared away'.....

I suppose I must count myself lucky that it didn't land on my head - I'd stopped before going down the garden, waiting for the gusts to pass before I went under the big sycamores which line our dingle. We've always counted ourselves lucky to have these Beeches, these mature monsters - maybe I'm not so sure now. We've been trying to estimate their age - probably well in excess of 150 years. (Wikipedia tells me they have a typical lifespan of 150 - 200 years.) I'd like to think these two were planted around the time of the enclosures which took place here in the 1840s.

About 18 months ago we noticed abundant fungal growth at their roots - and the death knell began to toll. Looking at the remains of the root which is now revealed it is a wonder that the tree has stood as long as it did.

On the plus side the tree missed the bench, fence and gas tank but unfortunately squashed some of the fruit trees in the orchard - there are plums and apples scattered everywhere. The Glam Ass points out that firewood won't be a problem for the next few years.

So, a dramatic start to the week. A bit sad really - particularly as we now think the other tree is equally vulnerable and will have to go too....

I'm off to crack on with my jam making activities; when life sends you lemons, make ~~lemonade~~ plum jam.

Greengage summer

2011-09-04T13:17:00.005Z

As a child I could never see what my mother liked about greengages. She would sigh with delight at the prospect. In truth she sighed with delight over very little. The county of Yorkshire, white cats and poultry are the three things which come to mind after a bit of thought. That she approved of this humble little plum is quite something.

To my suspicious child's eye they looked nasty sour things. I didn't like green boiled sweets either - and still don't. Unnatural things.

Ah, but now show me a greengage and I'll jump through hoops; stretch up through a scratchy hedge to pick the very last one off the tree - all the while cursing the man who planted fruit trees amongst Hawthorn...

Perhaps not the most elegant of fruit but so, so sweet. The soft ripe flesh melts to honeyed juice.

Simply gorgeous.

Strangers in the night

2011-09-01T21:19:00.004Z

Hen shutting in time. Gird the loins, wellie-boot up, grab the torch.

What's the light up there in the field? Perhaps it's the lad from next door with his dad and his torch. Nope. It's Pete and Abby (who?), lost on their circular walk from a - b.

By the light of our combined torches we find where we are on their map. Lost. That's where - 'cept I'm not. I know exactly where I am.

We discuss the options of where they want to be - most of which would be better in the clear light of day. They don't want to go by the lanes (no way!) so I point them in the direction of the gaps in hedges and the half hidden signs and wish them well as they stumble off into the darkness.

We say our goodnights- and exchange our names. Pete adds that it's great to walk like this. The night is cool and clean and quiet. Indeed it is.

I plod back to the hen pens in the field to drop the pop'oles on birds which acknowledge my passing visit with some sotto voce hen-talk. In a sort of mini experimental tribute to my just-met walking friends I switch off the torch and, giving my eyes a moment or two to adjust to the darkness, make my way tentatively back to the house through the garden.

The night is soft indeed, with not a sough of wind. Gentle, gentle. Over by the church across the field, from the hidden slopes of Trelystan Dingle I hear the muted yelp of a fox. Behind me in the dark conifers of Badnage Wood is the whispery whoot of a tawny owl. Oh, this is pretty good; the cries of the night; the scent of the garden, green, earth and sweet peas.

I know why you walk by night Pete and Abby. You have each other and the wonderfulness of the great Out There. Hope you got home safely.

'A' is for Autumn.

2011-08-30T14:23:00.004Z

...and 'B' is for Brrr....but for heaven's sake it's still only August.

That's what the calendar says but it does seem chilly and autumnal here...something about the tiredness of foliage and the cool dankness of the morning air. Leaves are changing colour - horsechestnut and hazel in particular are already tinged with russet and gold.

So here I am anticipating an evening in front of a roaring log burner with a snoring bull terrier at my feet. We've noticed that the light levels have dropped. Last evening it was dark at 8.30. Sigh. Where has my summer gone?

There are compensations; our trees are laden with fruit; apples and pears and plums in variety. The local hedgerows (at least those which haven't been 'brushed' to within an inch of their lives) promise a rich harvest of blackberry and sloe. This bounty is due to a frost-free spring of course - anyone remember those balmy and unnatural April days which gave way to a cool damp May?

We've noticed large groups of swallows gathering and hope they are not on their way back to Africa already - the second brood from the nest in the field shelter has only fledged in the last day or so. I hope they get strong enough to make that remarkable journey south.

I find myself wondering as we had December's snow in November, May's weather in April and now this early autumn, have the seasons become so distorted that we'll find ourselves knee-deep in snow in October. That isn't a thought I'm going to dwell on.

I shall go and pick blackberries instead.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum*

2011-08-22T16:25:00.002Z

'Tickets? £1.00 for adults, children 50p. Come on in - please do. ' I announce at the sniff of a visitor...

...and worth every penny I add, sotto voce, to myself.

My inability to say 'no' or my hyper-inclination to volunteer for all and sundry finds me on Saturday afternoon as Custodian at the Old Bell Museum in Montgomery. This is like putting a child in charge of a sweetshop.

The Old Bell is the loveliest little museum you can imagine, focussed on the past of this county town and its immediate environs. I've been as a visitor a couple of times previously and each time found more of interest. How tantalising it will be to remain behind my desk knowing what treasures lie in the rooms beyond.

Fortunately I am taking over from an experienced hand who has successfully unlocked, un-alarmed and remembered to slide the little slidey thing which announces to the world that the museum is OPEN. I gather that as this is not the busiest visitor attraction in the county I can probably look forward to an untroubled afternoon.

I settle into my Custodian's chair and survey my domain. I have two rolls of tickets. (Proper museum-y jobs don't you think?)

There is a desk with a CCTV screen, a file of instructions, a record book and an important piece of paper on which I must note with 'five barred gates' the number of adult and child visitors and publications sold....all to be added up at the end of the date. My greatest fear is not outbreak of fire, rowdy or light-fingered visitors. No, it is making the books balance at 5.00pm. I see a column of figures and begin to tremble.

I read the file of instructions for custodians and welcome my first visitors - the first of many as it turns out - enough to make the afternoon pass at a reasonable and interesting pace. I have little time to twiddle my fingers. I'm a bit restricted to the reception area but while it's quiet I open a few drawers; the Custodian's perogative perhaps. I am reminded of visiting No.10 Downing Street to find that tucked behind that famous front door were dusters and polishes. So much for the panoply of state.

This multi-drawed chest must have come from a seed merchant but now seems to hold a stash of light bulbs.

Feel a bit off colour? Can I recommend a course of Dayus's celebrated alternative 'General Condition Balls'?

Visitors were all most complimentary - and nobody asked really difficult questions. A couple were clearly moved by the room which exhibits artefacts from the Workhouse at Forden (a.k.a. The House of Industry) - none more so than the mother who was accompanied by her husband and teenaged son. He was deaf and perhaps autistic. He would have been she reflected, in years gone by, incarcerated somewhere like that. This room has in it the story of Blind May - Hannah Thomas - who, blind, deaf and dumb was sent to live at the workhouse at Caersws at 4 years old - and transferred to Forden where she lived until her death at the age of 89. It is the most poignant story. We must count our blessings.

The clock on the Town Hall just up the street eventually rang 5 and as the last 'dong' died away the long case clock in the the museum's reception chimed the hour too. Time to slide the slidey thing to its CLOSED position and bolt the doors. The museum's curator arrived and kindly volunteered to close up for me....but left me to 'balance the books'.

What a relief it was to find everything tallied. Phew.

*With apologies to Kate Atkinson.

Tumbleweed and cobwebs....

2011-08-21T09:39:00.004Z

Just why is it so difficult to difficult to get down to work again after a holiday - albeit a blogging one? It's been ~~a month and a week~~ six weeks since I last shuffled down the echoing corridors of my blog world. There has been the usual round of summer things here - same old, same old - and perhaps my reluctance to post has been a fear of going, boringly, over old ground. There is though a 'ruck' of stuff cluttering up the desktop of my lovely Mac; pictures for posts that never were.....

Where to start then? Where was I? I'll be brief.

Ah yes. Wasps. Well we haven't seen once since. And this is a good thing.

Sweet peas? Actually they've come good at least 3 weeks later than in previous years. Gorgeous of course; bowls, vases, jugs and glasses of them fill the house. They have a short life but a heavenly scented one.

My seeds are from Thompson and Morgan and probably 'Fragrantissima'. These however are not like any 'Fragrantissima' I've grown before; the petals are speckled and blotched. Remember what it was like, back in the day, when all the lovely coloured bits of Plasticine got mixed together? A muddy amalgam which still moulded but looked bleugh. These sweet peas are like that. A friend down the road tells me that hers are much the same. Perhaps it is a local blight.

However, the brashness of the 'hot' border does not disappoint. This picture is at least 10 days out of date and Helleniums in red and orange now provide extra fire.

In the vegetable garden we've harvested peas by the bushel - those we can't eat as young and succulent petit pois we've frozen or converted into pea and ham soup. (I get huge satisfaction in stocking freezer and larder in preparation for the the winter months ahead.) Red and white currants have been jellied and raspberries savoured with cream.

As usual we look for things to do with courgettes. So far we have managed to eat/or give away our crop but we are fighting a losing battle. The blasted things grow at such a prodigious rate. Common sense tells me that probably 2 plants would suffice. I will have forgotten that bit of wisdom by spring of next year when sturdy little seedlings look too good to be consigned to the plant sale or compost heap.

I notice this morning that the vegetable garden, though still productive, begins to look tired and old; its freshness gone. As fruit swells and ripens - in abundance thanks to the frost-free spring I detect a slide into autumn. Sigh.

This little cherub caught my eye.

I should remember which Shropshire church it came out of but will hazard a guess at St John the Baptist in Mainstone; a building sweet and humble, sheltered from the elements by surrounding hills and at the end of a seemingly endless narrow lane. My feelings on religion - particularly the organised variety - I shall keep to myself lest I offend. (Shall we put some of my feelings down to childhood experience?) I seem to have been in a number of similar churches this summer - mostly as a curious onlooker wearing my 'nosy' hat. Almost without exception I found simplicity and serenity, both loved and neglected in equal measure; the scent of artlessy arranged garden flowers vying with dust and mould. I've no desire to worship (though if poked with a sharp enough stick I will go and sing hymns) but would fight till my end to keep them as places of stillness in our landscape. 'Nuff said.

Some hymn singing yielded these words from 'How Great Thou Art':

I ponder the small mountain kingdom in late summer; the land ripe and fruitful, a patchwork of greens and gold - a cornucopia of things 'bright and beautiful'.

Then sings my soul.

Garden invaders.

2011-07-07T21:34:00.003Z

I stood on the step yesterday, leaned against the door jamb and viewed the gorgeous green-ness of the great outdoors. All was drippy wet, but fair play (as they say round here) it did smell good. The garden looked lush and abundant too - if only a little floppy on account of the rain. I like this generous fulsome look though....

To my left is an unsatisfying rose; mostly vigourous stem and leaf. When it does bother to flower (once a year) it's not a particularly interesting one either. I give over contemplating raindrops and think about the logistics of uprooting the rose. I think thick stems and thorns - lots of digging, pain and misery. My eye travels from its roots and up the wall assessing the scale of the project.

What's that? I wonder why the wall has developed a curious bulge - almost as if someone has got behind the stonework and blown it out like a bubble-gum bubble about to go pop. Nah. As if! Just as if!

See what I mean - there in the centre of my picture? Behind the evil unattractive rose? A stone bubble? Should I get a stick and poke it perhaps?

Hmm. Perhaps not. It turns out to be a wasps' nest. Barely a metre from my door and about as big as a rugby ball. Eeeek! Sorry wasp lovers - but this nest is going to have to go. I appreciate these stripey b******s have their place in the scheme of things but it's not going to be within an arm's length of my kitchen door.

Tomorrow ~~I shall be donning my protective clothing and setting about it with something lethal~~ the pest control man will be coming from Welshpool.

PS For a truly great wasp extermination tale read this. Just glad I didn't know about it at the time.

Edited to add:
Well, our exterminator arrived and partly out of cowardice the Glam Ass was sent to Make Sure He Did It Properly. Afraid of wasps? Moi? You bet. Really I just didn't want to go out in the rain.

What a hero - our man just cut the nest away, tossed it in the back of his van, puffed a little noxious dust in, trousered a hefty wad and drove off in the direction of Craven Arms. No protective clothing. No whinging. Job done. Am happy to recommend his services.

Shouldn't have to chase a sunset....

2011-07-01T22:22:00.000Z

'Run' I say - shout even - to the Glam Ass who is idly pulling up weeds in the orchard. 'Run - get the camera. Quick, quick, quick!' (Some speed is needed because I know from experience how quickly the sky will change - so I'm not just being bossy.)

Bless 'im. He does just that, runs, and before my eyes the prettiest sunset unfolds and I do my best to make some pictures. Click, click.

Shame about the shanty-town appearance of my poultry empire...

Moments - perhaps only seconds - later the rosy sky becomes greyer

...and then greyer still as if a cobweb caul has been thrown over the small mountain kingdom.

Shut the hens in. Stand in the dew-wet grass. Breathe in. And out. How still it is up here. How absolutely perfect. I could squeak with delight.

A lone buzzard soars above Badnage Wood - a distant mew then silence. A swallow swoops to catch a last insect. Somewhere over there - way over there - a tractor works on. These short nights of summer make for long working days and silage must be cut.

So glad I caught this evening's sky.

Thug.

2011-06-22T10:53:00.002Z

Once upon a time I bought a sweet little hardy geranium. A pretty thing in a tiny pot. It did look cute planted in the sunny border at the front of the house alongside some furry Stachys and under the white Iris which grows so well there. I was a bit worried that it might be overwhelmed by both but no, it's held its own and as you can see the three plants are a pleasant combination in early summer.

I haven't a clue what its name is - the label disappeared long ago*. Unfortunate this, as the same label might have given me a clue about its ultimate size and habit. Three years after planting it I conclude that ruthlessness must be part of its genetic make-up. Titchy it may be but its size belies its audacity and aggressiveness. This geranium takes no prisoners, engulfing all before it. I am thinking it is the botanic equivalent of Hitler or Napoleon.

The pretty froth of delicate purple flowers atop a mound of mid-green leaves gives way to seed heads balanced on lanky straggling stems. The minute seeds scatter with the slightest movement and wherever they fall they germinate. There are now geraniums spreading far across the garden. It is without doubt a successful plant - except when a plant is where you don't want it to be it becomes a weed.

I summoned up my own ruthless gene. I would hack back, cut down, pull up, cull and otherwise beat it into submission.....but when I looked out of the window Mr and Mrs Bullfinch (rare visitors in these parts) and their 4 newly fledged chicks were feasting on the seeds, hunkered down amongst those same straggly stems having the best picnic of their lives.

Can I take food out of the beaks of baby birds? Can I heck.

*PS If anyone knows its name I'd love to know.

Are we nearly there yet?

2011-06-20T15:56:00.002Z

Are we nearly there yet?

Ye Gods! We've been there and have come back again. Incredible but true.

Where? Same old, same old - Paxos. South of Corfu. Ionian Sea. East of Italy, west of mainland Greece.

This one was a bit special though; in celebration of a Significant Birthday we tagged on 3 days sailing. The Glam Ass has had a long-held ambition to sail into the small harbour at Loggos. Over the years he has sat on our terrace, or glass in hand at a taverna, and watched sailboats big and small sail in and sail out again. His wish to be on board was almost tangible.

A big birthday approaches and I know he would never have forgiven me if I threw a surprise party (we have a pact to never, ever do this to one another) and the question of how to mark it taxes my brain. A plan slowly evolves....a few days afloat could be easily arranged and this dream realised. We can do this. We will do this.......and before we knew it we are climbing aboard a 41ft yacht in Gouvia Marina in Corfu.

Let's gloss over the hell that is Manchester's Terminal 3, the necessary evil that is Easy Jet and the indulged and howling infant that made the first 40 minutes of our flight such purgatory.
Teleportation should be a research priority. Non?

We'll imagine we've been beamed down into sunny Corfu - which actually is enjoying a brief shower of rain as we step out of the taxi. Sigh. The boat is found, groceries bought and stowed. We make ourselves at home below decks.

I marvel at how many home comforts can be fitted into such a small space. (That's the same small place that is going to become very claustrophobic.) We have a double berth, wardrobes, our own shower and 'head' - that's boating speak for toilet. I am instructed in the art of flushing the said head, although pumping and draining would be a more accurate description of this process. I get the hang of it eventually. After 3 days.

The marina is ram-jam full of yachts and cruisers of all shapes and sizes - I'm in an alien world here which has its own language and looks incredibly complicated. Look at all those ropes for a start.

Here's the Glam Ass - on board at last.

No point in hanging about admiring the plumbing and the rigging - off we go. We head southwards along the coast of Corfu - seeing our eventual destination, Paxos, in the the far distance. We then turn east and over the Ionian to mainland Greece where will moor overnight at Plataria.

We had the most affable skipper - a Greek called Thomas. Over the next few days he tells us a little of his story - and it is an amazing one. A Paxiot, raised amongst his family's olive trees and lacking any sailing skills, he bought a small wooden boat advertised for sale in Athens. Somehow he managed to sail it home. Aged 28 he set off around the world in this same boat - a journey which took him to some of the most remote and exotic places imaginable. It would be 18 years before he set foot on Paxos again. He returned to take over the family house and land 8 years ago - joined by the woman who is now his wife and whom he had met firstly in Spain and then lived with in Brazil. That boat now stands on a trailer amongst his olive trees. It looks a small and fragile thing to take on the might of the oceans.

Here's breakfast on board/ The GA looks slightly more chilled:

Next stop Sivota:

...and Parga:

Ah, Parga. How many times have we sat in Paxos, looking across at the mainland at night seeing twinkling lights in the far distance? How many times have we wondered just what was it like over there? Well now we know. Unfortunately the place with the twinkling lights was not Parga but some other little community. We got it wrong. Parga was on the itinerary anyway. We concluded it was not worth the detour; two resort-y bays separated by an ancient Turkish fort on a steep hill and a cluster of souvenir shops, tavernas and restaurants. The marina was unwelcoming - we moored alongside a rusting, capsized ferry - and the trudge to buy some provisions took us along a neglected rubbish strewn track. Thomas would not leave the boat for fear we were robbed. But hey! Pull up the gangplank, crack open a beer and experiment with cooking in the galley.

Finally we head out across the Ionian again, leaving the mainland's dusty hillsides for the olive covered island of Paxos. A strong wind in the wrong direction brought us into Gaios by motor power - so that dream of coming into Loggos under sail has still not been realised.

A week on land followed - although my body seemed to think for several days that it was still at sea. Not an unpleasant sensation by any means. Just curious - as if the rhythm of the water had entered my soul. Sailing was OK, too much phaffing about for my liking. I'll settle for dry land.

Paxos remains as hospitable as ever; there's a quirky side to life but that's part of the charm. The hoik in the price of most things is less charming. So, so expensive. A 13% tax on food seems iniquitous. The 'Greek in the street' seems very angry indeed about the state of affairs and are quite clear about who and what is to blame.

We lounged in the sun. We walked and swam, ate and drank, recharged the batteries. Here's a miscellany of images from our travels:

And now we are home in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan. The grass is knee high, weeds abound and whatever bit my arms while I gardened yesterday was twice as savage as anything I met in Greece. Otherwise everything is reassuringly the same.

The bottom line

2011-05-27T10:02:00.000Z

Click away now if you think this one's going to be about the sort of underwear that sucks the wobbly bits in and presents a slender profile. Marks and Spencer can help you out there. Off you go.

Ditto if you're looking for pastoral diversions in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan, a vista of trees and flowers, fluttering blue tits, woolly lambs or ploughs and muck spreaders - but bear those images in mind.

Me? I've still got my campaigning head on and this post continues in that vein.

Yesterday's Times newspaper had a small supplement which attracted my eye because on its cover was a sexily backlit pylon. It might be relevant so I read on. It wasn't quite advertising and I'm not sure it was editorial either. Titled 'Mapping British Business Utilities' it addressed some of the issues concerning the development, management and economics facing the nation's utility companies.

What came home to roost - and I don't begin to understand the economics of it - is that it all comes down to pushing figures - figures of mind-boggling enormity - around on a spread sheet. I ponder that it's all somewhat anonymous and abstract. The number crunching could be done with concepts or colours instead of energy and water perhaps.

Oh, and don't forget the undercurrent of political ambition either. The quite laudable policy of moving towards a greater proportion of renewable energy must be achieved at all costs by our political and financial masters with barely a nod to the impact on local communities.

A small thought comes into my head; Gloucester's lines from Act 4 of King Lear: 'As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods....'

Quite.

A rebel with a cause.

2011-05-25T14:50:00.001Z

A natural rebel? Me? Nah. Anything for a quiet time - which generally means 'put up or shut up'.

Sometimes though, something rattles the cage. Wind farms, pylons...and the flawed policies of our so-called leaders.

Yesterday saw us join a 1,000+ other like-minded folk march in protest to the Senedd in Cardiff. The Senedd is the home of the National Assembly of Wales but, as I am told by its website, it belongs to us - the people. It is 'the main centre for democracy and devolution in Wales' and I think we all have that at the back of our minds when we stand on the steps of the building with our banners and placards. We hope that our elected representatives will listen to what we, the people who put them in office, have to say.

We have the banner - which you have seen strapped to Eddie's best field gate in the previous post.

On Monday night we had the banner lashed to two broomsticks - held aloft it looked good, Good, GOOD!!!! Unfortunately a somewhat twitchy Cardiff police told us sticks and wooden placards would not be allowed (boo!) and we had to carry it without. Flappy banner = less impact methinks. We should have ignored the 'advice' as most other people did - the police presence was minimal. (There seemed to be about 3 officers and a work-experience girl.)

We were there with people from Shropshire in support of those from across the border in Montgomeryshire, our joint campaign starting with the threat of sub-stations and pylons and moving onto tackle the root of the problem - upland windfarms and the Assembly's adoption of TAN8 - the policy document which identifies areas of Wales where large-scale wind farms are to be encouraged, so called Strategic Search Areas.

The joining of forces has been the great part of this campaign. The National Grid's Consultation Response form asks us to 'vote' for the route we would like to see the power corridor take. We obviously would not want in in our valley so we'll vote for it to go in somebody else's shall we? How unpleasant is that, pitting community against community, maybe family against family. No, we're in this together - like the Musketeers. 'All for one and one for all'.

So we stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the Assembly building; young and old from all walks of life, schoolchildren, babes in arms and a couple of dogs. We raised our banners and placards with their simple messages - all different but all saying in essence the same thing. I snapped some of our Marton group.

Gathered together we sang - nothing like an old-fashioned protest song with a catchy refrain is there? I'd rather hoped to hear a snatch of Bob Dylan in celebration of his 70th birthday, which was yesterday too. 'Blowing in the Wind' would have been appropriate.

We listened to speakers from the various local campaigns; welcomed with whoops and cheers the sore-footed walkers who had walked the 100 plus miles from Welshpool to Cardiff in protest; applauded the young children who presented squares of upland turf to Assembly Members and listened as their clear, piping voices read, one in Welsh, one in English, their wish that this gift symbolising the hills of Montgomeryshire should be a treasured one.

We listened to politicians from across the political spectrum pledge their support for a review of TAN8 and for a moratorium on the building of any more wind farms until that happens. Hurrah! This gathering outside the Senedd is the largest of its kind to have taken place here in in the life of that building, admittedly a short time, but even so...) so perhaps they were noticing that the people - the quiet unassuming people of Montgomeryshire - were not to be ignored or walked over and that there is a moral duty to represent their views. Can and will our representatives in Cardiff prevent Westminster playing the winning hand in the end? Will party lines and policy prove stronger than pledges made on home ground? We will see. Call me a cynic but the politician is a slippery beast.

Our drive down took us through Montgomeryshire and Breconshire - stunningly beautiful countryside of soaring hills and verdant valleys where ancient deciduous woodlands run down to gurgling streams. It's a peaceful land. Sheep safely graze.

It's hilly and underpopulated too - but that doesn't seem much of an argument for desecrating a national treasure does it?

Accessorised

2011-05-19T21:34:00.000Z

I'm flickin' and clickin' around the internets. A bit of this and bit of that; some news here, some politicking there. Gardening, cooking, crafts, families...lives and their minutiae. Folks I've got to know - others I would like to - slender threads I don't want to let go of yet...and this is, of course, the best record keeping I've managed yet. However, on the home front things have slipped a bit...

Give or take a day or two it's a month since fingers hit keys and made a post. (Hmm...has anyone noticed.) I do like a good image so visualise the past 30 days as a mountain of missed bloggo-tunities.

In brief we've had:

6 weeks without rain. Then rain. Beetroot seed have taken 6 weeks to germinate. Weeds? Hah. Little stops them does it? Ergo there has been much weeding. There has been much gardening done in general. Planting, sowing, mowing, lifting and shifting. My hands are a mess, my back aches but the urge to tease this plot into shape does not go away.

Baby birds hatching - yes, that little nest was finally filled to bursting with muscular fledglings. The next day they were gone.

Another ex-swallow found - showing evidence of serious sucking - dead, in Chester's bed. I like to think, as suggested previously that he found it in the garden - in fact it may well have met its end crashing into a window - and he merely retrieved it and gave it a good lick en route. He just looked at me with his toffee coloured eyes as if to say 'And?' If only they could talk.

We've had visitors, many of them. Yep. Definitely like visitors. They come, bringing news and views from elsewhere - wine, flowers and plants too. We do much talking, freshen up our views and most importantly go out and show off this wonderful place we live in.

Which brings me neatly to the local campaign to keep our borderlands just so; an unspoiled stretch of countryside. The National Grid's proposal to connect planned mid Wales windfarms via a high voltage cable to an existing line between Oswestry and Shrewsbury has caused a furore hereabouts. There are 10 proposed 'corridors' in mid Wales and Shropshire - any one of which would be blighted if the cable were carried on 50m high pylons through it. The campaign has moved on from the initial 'not in our valley' to 'not anywhere'. No. No. No. No to pylons. No to windfarms. Rethink the flawed TAN8.

On Tuesday 24th May the people of Montgomeryshire and Shropshire will take their campaign to Cardiff to make their voices heard outside the Welsh Assembly building.

Maureen and I will take our banner down off Ed's gate, lash it to a couple of broomsticks and raise it high. The perfect accessory for a protest march. I've not done this sort of thing before but feel a determined streak coming on.

Power to the people then. But not on pylons.

The bad, the good and the ugly.

2011-04-21T17:30:00.000Z

A lone swallow was spotted yesterday morning sitting on the telegraph wires which cross the lane at the front of the barn. It was the first I'd seen up here and my impatience at the absence of this harbinger of spring was growing. It sat and preened while I watched, content now - if there is one there will be others.

I think later in the day a couple more were seen swooping down the dingle.

Much later a single swallow was found in Chester's bed. Dead. We surmise that it had flown in through the open stable door in the dusk, swooped low and into the maw of the damn dog. I guess he was only doing what any hunting dog does - it's in his job description. It was not harmed in any way, just a little sucked so perhaps the poor scrap died of fright.

I was indescribably saddened by this; all those miles from Africa, 'cross continents and oceans to die on reaching home. Damn your eyes and teeth Chester.

But there is better news:

The Trelystan orchid stands loud and proud. We have counted 4 plants but hope we will spot more amongst the grass in days to come. There's no reason why they shouldn't have survived the winter although I did wonder if they would be buried by the sludge and muck thrown to one side by the various people clearing the lane of snow in December. Now they only need to escape the predations of the various naughty lambs which persist in getting out of whichever field they are in. I don't think Powys Highways gang and the big scary mower will be around until later in the year.

The eggs in the nest in the previous post have hatched - and just when we were thinking that Mrs Bird had deserted the nest. This picture taken yesterday lunchtime shows two babes. This afternoon there are four chicks - so ugly that only their mother could love them. Horrid bulgy eyes. Eugh! How secretive the whole process has been - all the more incredible because the nest is in such a conspicuous place. The hunting dog has not however sniffed it out. Yet.

I would say the good outweighs the bad (I'm an incurable optimist). I have my eyes peeled for more swallows and the stable door is now shut. All will be well.

I 'heart' spring...

2011-04-14T16:57:00.000Z

Don't you just hate that phrase? Not the 'spring' bit but the 'heart'. Look a bit harder in your wingdings and dingbats and use the heart as it was meant to be used for heaven's sake:

For this we need to thank graphic designer Milton Glaser whose 1977 design - part of a campaign promoting New York State. It's a simple pictogram now familiar the world over and all too frequently bastardised. Sigh.

Anyway....I've digressed before even starting.

I ♥ SPRING

That's better is it not?

The spring thing is fantastic - in the course of a week leaves have uncurled and early blossom unfolded frothily. In the early morning before the world has woken and all is fresh and clean, I feel quite euphoric. My excitement is tangible and I want to be out there on the hill, filling my lungs with the clear damp air, surrounded by birdsong and green shoots. I can't think of a better place to be.

Birdies are nesting - some in less sensible places than others. This one is at waist height and clearly visible - a beautiful piece of work by Mr and Mrs Blackbird.

It's impossible to get a good picture of this little plum tree and its heart-like shape - too many distractions in the background. I hope we don't get any serious frosts because with blossom like this we could have a bumper harvest later in the year - and frost will, as they say literally nip that in the bud.

No swallows have yet been sighted in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan.

Underground, overground...

2011-04-12T22:07:00.001Z

...and nul points to anyone who adds the words 'Wombling free...'

...No, my mind is still preoccupied with pylons and the proposal from the National Grid to to run a high voltage line on a route through mid Wales to connect with an existing line in Shropshire. The said route could run from one of 2 hubs (sub-stations) - there are a choice of 10 'corridors'. I have said in an earlier post that we would be on 'purple south'. At the risk of repeating myself, pylons would be a big, big blot on our landscape with a huge impact not only aesthetically but on the local economy too. A route overground anywhere gets a resounding 'No'. 'Undergrounding' (note new verb) is not only preferred but essential.

Marton's public meeting last evening was packed, and Councillor Wynn Jones presentation clear and precise - I now feel able to view the scheme in its wider context, learning in 40 minutes more than I did from attending two National Grid 'roadshows'. This is good.

Councillor Jones patiently spelled out the planning and approval processes; labyrinthine and certainly costly. Somewhere and at sometime 'the man in the street', the voter, has elected representatives to make these decisions on their behalf. We are prey to policy. I begin to think that elections purport to give us what we want, but at the times in between there is no mechanism to let us register disapproval in quite the same way.

On-shore wind power is a good green notion (its efficacy remains unproven however) but the method of transmitting it, based on out-dated technology is surely flawed; if a bunch of people in a village hall out in the sticks can ask such searching questions and indeed suggest some highly technical solutions then where are its instigators the so-called experts coming from? Has it all been thought up on the back of an envelope?

My views and the views of local people at the meeting remain unchanged. No pylons anywhere. No way.

I wake in the night and haul myself over under the duvet's warmth to look out of the window and over the little triangle field. The night is clear, the air silky and cool. Stars are out. Silently, unspoiltly perfect.

Hope it's not too defeatist to think 'better make the most of it'...

13th April - edited to add:

On the evening before the meeting I was interviewed briefly by Radio Shropshire, who afterwards invited listeners to phone in with their comments about the issue. I finally got around to listening to my own interview (isn't the sound of one's own voice curious? I sound as if I've been on a regime of
20-a-day Capstan Full Strength cigs for 50 years...) and stayed listening long enough to hear the first and possibly only comment. Which was:

'Well they've got to go somewhere haven't they.' The caller's unspoken, but strong implication was that we shut up and put up. Grrr.

'A' is for April

2011-04-03T09:34:00.000Z

...and the first asparagus of the year!

Two little spears emerged a couple of weeks ago and after last week's mild, damp weather we noticed more little snouts pushing out of the ground. Yesterday I counted 17. It does seem very early to be harvesting new season's asparagus doesn't it? But hey! why not?

Of course these were the only two of a size to eat. The Glam Ass was sent down the garden with his demon asparagus knife to harvest them. He's a hunter-gatherer at heart.....

The previous day he had been fishing - for trout on Lake Clywedog - bringing home 2 beautiful fish. One for now and one for the freezer.

Our meal last night was trout and Hollandaise - a brilliant yellow from the yolks of eggs laid by our own hardworking hens - with the added bonus of a spear of asparagus each to dip into the sauce as well.

Excellent.

The prospect of pylons....

2011-03-30T11:05:00.001Z

I make no apologies for my love of this landscape - counting each day I spend under clear and unpolluted skies amongst these gently rolling hills, part of a companionable farming community, as a bonus. Some days my heart just soars with the joy of simply Being. Being here. Soppy perhaps, but no apologies. I tell you the truth. That's how it is.

Then from out of the blue - like an arrow to the heart - comes the proposal to run a power corridor through the Rea Valley to join the wind farms which clutter the Welsh uplands with an existing heavy duty national transmission network between Shrewsbury and Wrexham. Apparently it is just that at present, a proposal. The National Grid are currently carrying out 'a consultation' between two options - there are a choice of 2 routes. The one which affects the us (aka the Purple South corridor) also involves the construction of a sub-station about 6 miles away at Abermule - and we are not talking about some wires and a few small grey boxes behind an itsy fence here - we're talking 19 acres of full-on electrical horror. It will be a similar story for the other proposed route. It looks as if it's blighted here.....or blighted there.

The power could go underground or, most probably, take an overland route and be carried by pylons; monstrous pylons that are 50m tall and spaced at 350m intervals. The 'artist's impression' below shows how our landscape could be transformed by these monsters as the pass across the front of Stockton wood and over the roof of the Lowfield Inn. Awful. Awful. Awful.

Right at the top my header picture looks down on Marton from the Long Mountain. Marton lies in the path of this proposed Purple South Corrior. Just imagine a string of pylons running across the middle of this picture to see what there is to lose. It's a ghastly image that could be repeated the length of the valley.

The Rea Valley is an unsullied place of gently undulating arable land, bounded to the west by the slopes of the Long Mountain and to the east by the Stiperstones and Shropshire Hills - a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Small villages, Westbury, Worthen, Broxton, Aston Piggot and Aston Rogers and Marton are strung like beads on a necklace along the B road which winds its way along the valley bottom. To the west are Asterley, Pontesbury and Minsterley and perched on the hill, Snailbeach and Stiperstones - add to the mix numerous small hamlets and outlying farms. Stand anywhere and it would be hard not to be in awe of this splendid landscape.

It's a green place in spring - hedges of hazel, frothy hawthorn and twining honeysuckle, verges of primroses, stitchwort and violet line narrow lanes and tracks. And lambs. And bird song. And blossom. The gold of summer's harvest becomes russet as the valley's many trees turn orange then red. Autumn brings brown ploughland. Hardly inspiring, but each thing in its turn.) Winter brings a strange melancholy when fog hugs the valley bottom - exhilaration too when an exquisite hoar frost catches morning's first light.

I could give you statistics about flora and fauna - we have that in abundance. Listed buildings and historic sites - yep, we have those too, aplenty.

It seems to me to be the least appropriate place to route pylons - a brainless proposition. We are being 'consulted' by the the National Grid - whose information bus manned by articulate unemotional young people towing the party line but telling us little we want to hear - will visit all the communities who may be affected. We will stare sadly at the maps and look up to the hills. We will all fill in our consultation feed back forms.

We will certainly sign the 'No Pylons in Rea Valley' petition organised locally. If you feel this issue will affect you please visit www.nopylonsinreavalley.co.uk and add your voice to the protest. This is not something to be taken lying down. There is opposition and there will continue to be opposition. My hackles have risen.

I pray that this consultation process is actually meaningful and not just a rubber stamping exercise. Cynic? Moi?

Fish. Feet. Fun?

2011-03-24T22:35:00.000Z

Some days you does gardening and other days you just puts your feet in a tank and fish nibble 'em. Curious bliss - an unexpected and tickly mid-morning pleasure. Possibly the most fun you can have with most of your clothes on....what a sybaritic experience this 'fish spa' is.

Little Garra Rufa fish rush to suck off one's dead skin (yeucky concept) in a tank of warm and filtered water (no worries there folks!) The world around us may crumble financially, tsumanis devastate and no-fly zones be enforced, but here in this little corner of Shropshire's county town we can be blissfully unaware for 30 minutes at least.

They gave me a loyalty card - in the fond hope I'd come back often enough to earn an extra 'Express Tootsie treatment'. I do hope I can. Afterwards my feet felt soft as well as gently nibbled - I was walking on air - my sense of well-being enhanced no doubt by a: another day of sunshine which had me squeaking with joy on the drive over the Long Mountain and b: by a visit to the wonderful Michelle and Gavin at Toni and Guy who changed my haystack hair into something more soignée. A feel-good day.

I may as well make the most of this because I think there may well be more serious things on the horizon - those things being National Grid Pylons. Sigh.

There's always something isn't there? More of this anon. Perhaps.

Frogs, lambs and snowdrops

2011-03-23T22:58:00.000Z

Has air got a colour?

Yes indeed. Of course it has. Today I breathed green - the colour of early spring - and how good it was.

Another fabulous day of wall-to-wall sunshine - far too good for March really - and the prospect of more to come. The Glam Ass says he feels as if he's caught the sun on the top of his head. (It did look a little pink.) Those of you who know the GA, and today's weather, will not be at all surprised.

We have frogs, doing what frogs do......in abundance. A huge rudeness of spawn.

There are lambs too - here a muddled heap of orphans jostling for the sunniest spot in the barn over at Fir House. Can you make out which head or tail of belongs to which lamb? The numbering continues to mystify. This little creche had squiggles, lines, hearts and symbols in place of numerals - courtesy of a visiting Dutch vet on a work placement.

Perhaps she was just 'thinking outside the box' - after all, being orphaned, these little fellas didn't need pairing up with a mother and could just enjoy a bit of body art for its own sake.

We were over at Fir House to dig up snowdrops - with permission of course - to increase our own meagre planting. The farm at Fir House is probably as old as this over here at Lower House. The old house is now gone having been demolished post foot and mouth and replaced with a sturdy modern barn. There's not much left to suggest that someone once lived here ..... only a tumbledown outside toilet nearby, choked by twining briars, with a gaping door hanging askew and a busted seat over a chaos of muck and grassy dust. It stands - or stood - on the edge of a steep, tree-hung dingle (all the better to drain, erm, stuff away perhaps). The precipitous dingle must have once been the farm's household midden where alongside all the regular garbage somebody must once have tossed a snowdrop bulb or two. They have since multiplied and now, at this time of year, are a white carpet of flowers which blooms largely unseen in this hidden spot. How many years did it take for them to grow like this? I really don't know. 100? 200 perhaps?

To reach the snowdrop clad bottom we must stumble down though the trash of ages; that's bottles, odd shoes, broken plates and crocks and all. I find myself getting distracted from the task in hand, ie getting snowdrops, and becoming more interested in bleach and shampoo bottles discarded circa 1975. The 'good stuff' I surmise, must be hidden deep....but then wonder if there is ever 'good stuff' to be found on a refuse heap. Good rubbish is something of an oxymoron.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to concentrate on the job in hand - there were many hazards; broken glass, spiky brambles and the vertiginous slope. But hey! we made it and the Glam Ass didn't curse too much as we skittered downwards. The snowdrops, which carpet the lower dingle's sides and bottom, were not too difficult to dig up, but carrying the heavy buckets up the dingle afterwards was v. hard work. Job done we struggled, puffing and panting, to the top, eventually flinging our buckets of snowdrops 'in the green' over a fence and following them out into the morning's sunshine. Phew.

The Glam Ass got busy planting and hopefully we'll see the results of his work in twelve months time. I'm struggling to get my head round planning for next spring when this one has not quite happened yet.

Here's the garden as of 23rd March 2011. Yep, mainly brown. However, the asparagus bed in the foreground has 3 spears appearing already - and no matter how many times we earth them up they strive ever upwards towards the sun. There are green things in the green house. Today I saw a bat. My heart beats a little faster at these signs of the year's unfolding.

Spring Equinox and some garden thoughts

2011-03-20T10:54:00.000Z

Today, March 20th, marks the Vernal Equinox - the point of the early year when day and night are of equal length and explained thus:

'The March equinox is the movement when the sun crosses the true celestial equator – or the line in the sky above the earth’s equator – from south to north, around March 20 (or March 21) of each year. At that time, day and night are balanced to nearly 12 hours each all over the world and the earth’s axis of rotation is perpendicular to the line connecting the centers of the earth and the sun.
In gyroscopic motion, the earth’s rotational axis migrates in a slow circle based as a consequence of the moon’s pull on a nonspherical earth. This nearly uniform motion causes the position of the equinoxes to move backwards along the ecliptic in a period of about 25,725 years.'

Hmm. It's the sort of explanation that makes me wish I had concentrated more in school. Even now I feel my brain going walkabout at the very thought of things scientific. I am not proud of this.

My diary puts it rather more succinctly: 'First day of Spring', and yes, that's my sort of definition. I think all I need to know is, that from now until the summer solstice in June, the days will be getting longer - and as importantly, warmer. Hurrah for that.

The past week has been fine though - any frost (and there have been a succession of frosty mornings) has quickly melted away and sunshine has followed. We'll gloss over the few days when fog crept up the dingle and hung low and dank like a re-run of November weather. Frost may remind us not to get too complacent but buds are swelling and birds are singing ever earlier in the morning and at dusk.

I've been giving the garden a bit of a spring-clean and doing some of the jobs which should have been done in the autumn. The long bitter winter has taken its toll and there are many gaps where plants have been lost. However, I shall see this as an opportunity. I don't suppose that the same will apply to weeds - they will survive come what may. I hauled out buttercups by the bucketful yesterday and know that lurking underground are the horrid white roots of bindweed just waiting until my back is turned. Bastards.

So it's time for some major replanting. This morning I have got out my big book of good ideas for planting combinations. All very inspiring - beautiful photographs of borders at the peak of perfection. Colour, tone and texture to aspire to and be inspired by. I know the theory.

The trouble seems to be that my garden doesn't. Like some cantankerous old aunt it knows what it likes, and it likes what it knows - and the 'thrivers' and survivors are not necessarily the plants I wish to plant exclusively. Dog roses, hardy geraniums (particularly Bevan's Variety), Nepeta Six Hills Giant, Viburnam tinus and, curiously, Angelica just love it here and push and shove weaker specimens out. I love them too, but in moderation.

I am writing a list. It will be tempered with the knowledge that the cissies of the plant world will not be included. It will probably be a long one. Much money will inevitably change hands. I will wish I had shares in the Dingle and Derwen.

I shall buy and plant hopefully. This is after all a time of year filled with such promise.

This week. The highlights?

2011-03-14T11:53:00.002Z

Where was I? Ah yes, being irritated by an inept tourist attraction. No point in chundering on about that though. Time and tide waits for no man.....onto the next best thing.

Wednesday, and it's Chirbury and Marton YFC's presentation of 'Never mind the Bullcocks' in Marton Village Hall. Below we have, in rehearsal, Harry as Mrs Isabel End and Christopher as sleazeball quiz show host Mr Hugh Jazz. Make sure you let those names roll off your tongues for full YFC comedic impact. How we laughed.

By some miracle after all comes good. The cast and back stage crew were brilliant and got a fantastic reception on home ground. In the entertainment competition at Whitchurch they were up against some pretty stiff opposition and failed to catch the adjudicators' eyes. They are quite a small club and if they want to enter the competition it usually means everybody must have a role in the production - whereas in a larger club it's possible to hold auditions and also to put on some big impressive set pieces with singers and dancers. Scale isn't an issue with C and M though - they get up there and give it their best. I admire them tremendously and am proud of each and every one of them. Producer Maureen and I may be tearing our hair out as The Big Day approaches but we are doing it with pride.

I must add that the Glam Ass's most splendid scoreboard was extremely good. Bonus points for the actor who could not only manipulate the numbers, but add them up correctly and remember her lines and cues as well.

Thursday

Heather brings us lambs. They are so tiny I think we might need a magnifying glass to spot them in our field. They come to us numbered to match their mothers. The numbering, usually sequential, is a little curious this year. One lamb and its mother each have a * sprayed on their sides. A ewe and twins are 00 and the other little 'family' have 2s. Where are ewe and lambs No. 1? I contemplate this and wonder if in fact the numbering system has this year been started using minus figures - I know there have been lambs at Fir House now for about a fortnight - and they have only just reached the pluses. I am considering the finer philosophical points of accounting for something that's very obviously there with the concept of something which isn't when it starts to rain so I go in for a cup of tea instead. The following day one of the No 2 lambs is not thriving and is taken back to the farm for a bit of tlc so we are one lamb down - that's the sort of 'minus' I can understand.

It is so good to have them again - and good too to see buds swelling on trees and shrubs. The hedge opposite the school in Leighton, an early variety of Hawthorn, was actually showing small green leaves.

Friday

A morning spent in the archives, nose down in a document of 1774 (about which more at another time). D and I emerge later to find - rather like latter day Rip Van Winkles - that the world has moved on without us. On entering the building we left behind a grey dull day, spent the next few hours immersed in 18th century Shropshire and on coming out blink in the sunshine of a 21st century spring afternoon. It's fantastic. Then a ride home over the Long Mountain. We do not meet a car for 8 miles. That's pretty good too.

...there has been a party too, food drink and celebration. Time to garden, get into the greenhouse and chivy seeds into sprouting and encourage seedlings to grow.

All stuff of no consequence really - just the reassuring daily round - a few delights, the certainty of spring following winter, clear skies and a waxing moon. A house on a hill, buds, bird song, friends and family.

I have been watching footage of the Japanese tsunami - in disbelief and with a lump in my throat. It is the stuff of nightmare - a terrifying force taking all in its path. Ships are on land, cars at sea, houses up-rooted, all a filthy swirling maelstrom of bobbing flotsam and jetsam. There is no where to run to. This is not the way things should be.

So today, a calm sunny Monday on the top of a low mountain, I am just counting my blessings. My life may be dreary and mundane but ~~sometimes~~ there is nothing wrong with that.

Well known phrases and sayings - No.8

2011-03-08T15:24:00.000Z

'It gets my goat'.

The ladies of Chirbury Art Group enjoy a good day out. It's been a while since the last trip so Mr Bowden's 26 seater has been booked for a Wednesday in May. They know where they want to go: The Wedgewood Museum and 'Site experience' at Stoke on Trent. It ticks all the boxes - art, fine craft, places to drink tea and eat cake - nothing to frighten the horses.

There's just a bit of fine tuning to be done on the programme betwixt pick up in Chirbury at 8.00am and the coo's of delight and amazement at Josiah W's wonderful artefacts to be had at the end of the journey.....

I consult the web site - and it's a very pretty web site. Its headline, over a picture of snowy trees, reads 'Worth the journey whatever the weather' which somehow plants the idea that it might not be. There's something about that phrase 'worth it' which implies hard work, worthy endeavour and grudging enjoyment. Maybe it's just me.

We've also heard rumours that it might be closed, or closure imminent - although the web site doesn't indicate this. A phone call should sort that out. The bookings lady eventually calls me back and I learn that while the factory tour - I guess this is the 'site experience' - is not open at present the Museum most certainly is and is well worth a visit. She'll send me a booking form for my group.

Going on for a month later the booking form arrives along with 2 other sheets of paper explaining the nuances of booking one's group in. It may be me again but nothing quite adds up... it's time to talk on the phone again....which is where my goat gets got, so to speak.....

The Bookings Office (if indeed there is one) has two lines, both open on weekdays between 10.00am and 4.00pm. I check my watch and key in the first number. A recorded message tells me the line is busy. Never mind I'll call back in a few moments. I repeat the exercise. Again. And again. I hold and press * to hold longer. I press * to hold again. The answering machine clicks in. I do not want the answering machine and inadvertently say 'bugger' and put the phone down. Whoops. This happens on both lines. Nearly ad infinitum. Hmm. They must be busy - which is v.good - but also v.odd. Can't believe they're that rushed off their feet this early on a Monday morning in early March. Can't believe nobody can be answering the phones - do they not want our business? No wonder this little corner of British industry is beleaguered.

10 minutes turns into half an hour, which in turn ticks its way towards the hour as I try in vain to speak to someone. What finally, well and truly gets my goat, is the recorded 'please hold, your call is important to us'.

What??? If it's so bloody important why don't you answer the @$!*ing! phone? Seethe, hiss and boo!

I calm down, call the the main reception number and ask to be put through to the Bookings Office. The very nice receptionist (who sounds like somebody's Nan) gave a shout out to somebody down the corridor - the same somebody who should have been answering their phones - and we're talking at last. Not that it was very helpful. It turns out I have last year's prices - which they will honour and no, she still didn't know if the factory would be open or not in May.

But why does the phrase 'it gets my goat' trip off my tongue at such ineptness, such lack of customer service? It essentially means to become extremely irritated. I do like this explanation:

'One of the most likely explanations behind “gets my goat” is also one of the more interesting - something which rarely happens when exploring the roots of common idioms. As early as the 1700s, goats were used as companion animals to help settle race horses, keeping the notoriously skittish animals relaxed. Taking a horse's pet goat away would have agitated and upset the animal, potentially influencing the outcome of a race.'

Seems plausible? Guess I'd get pretty stroppy if somebody took my favourite goat away.

Anyway, for goat fans, here's another picture:

Look what the sun's brought out...

2011-03-02T17:54:00.002Z

Isn't the secret heart of a crocus the loveliest thing?

As the clouds rolled back petals unfolded to embrace the sun - and what passing insect could resist those pollen-y parts? From a distance this seems to be just another white crocus but seen up close its petals are delicately lined in lilac.

Above our first daffodils - they may be Tête à Tête, refugees from pots and tubs. The natives, N. pseudonarcissus are still tucked in the grass, biding their time.

Dreamy, creamy primroses......as children we used to pull their heads off and sip the nectar. Now I prefer to leave them be.

And there's always someone isn't there? Got to be different....

Rock buns

2011-02-28T21:15:00.003Z

My lads had hollow legs. Back in the day that meant three squareish meals and a bit of supper; biscuits, pop, beer; later a kebab, some chips and start all over again. Bleugh, I feel f'lup already.

I'd bake sometimes - perhaps not as often as I would have liked - those things that my busy mother always seemed to be making. The kitchen at home was always filled with the sugary smells of baking - because for my mother nurturing meant feeding and my brothers and I were well fed. We were pressed to yet eat another slice of cake or just one more little tart - 'all full of good things' - things which in these body conscious days are regarded as the work of the devil! I guess this urge to press food - the benefits of peace - on her not insubstantial children may be the result of growing up in fairly impoverished times and then suffering the privations of war and its aftermath. The upshot was that I spent my teenage years and the next two decades trying to become less substantial (and it's a battle I have not won yet).

We'd have sponges and butterfly buns, shortbreads and flapjack, drop scones and always mince pies at Christmas. High days and holidays meant something more extravagant - a complex Batenburg or an exotic gateau (exotic for south Warwickshire in the 60s that is...)

Rock Buns - there were always Rock Buns. I was always a bit sneery about Rock Buns. No, make that very sneery about Rock Buns; but the more I think about it they were quick, cheap and easy fuel and when you have hollow legs to fill that's not a bad thing. Sometimes one must eat one's words as well.

Anyway today the biscuit tin was empty and the Glam Ass was out being an ironworker's helpmate and due home anytime, probably starving and cold, needing tea and sustenance. I rustled up Rock Buns. It seemed like a good homely idea. Could I remember the recipe? No way. The ancient Readers Digest 'Cookery Year' (given to me when I left work in 1977 on the cusp of motherhood) was very helpful. I seem to have lost the Rock Bun making mojo though - they're more dollops than craggy rocks.

Still, they taste OK. Do help yourselves. Tea's in the pot.

'All the Single Ladies'...

2011-02-22T11:18:00.001Z

It's February and drama competition time again. Here we have Chirbury and Marton YFC rehearsing their take on Beyonce's 'All the Single Ladies' as part of their 'entertainment'.

We seemed to get off to quite an early start this year and there were moments when things seemed to be going swimmingly, but now with only two days to go before they tread the boards in Whitchurch's unlovely Civic Hall chaos reigns. Maureen tells me they are ready for an audience. I think they should be locked in a room until lines are learned. Properly. I then remind myself that this isn't the RSC. Chill woman! And remember that Neurofen will ease that aching head.

I've had the usual eye-brow lifting shopping list; a big girl's blouse and tartan skirt for the mighty Harry T who plays Mrs Isabel End; an 'Applause' sign and one which reads 'Moo moo' to summon down 'the bull from above'. (Have I mentioned that the show is called 'Never Mind the Bullcocks'? )

The Glam.Ass has been persuaded to make a scoreboard (Did I mention it's a spoof of a TV Quiz?) and its manufacture is turning into a Production in its own right. It will be the star of the show...say no more. This morning's task is to make the numbers to go on it.

Much of the rest of life is put on hold for the duration of rehearsals - not that I've felt inclined to go outside and make a start on the myriad of garden jobs which are begging to be done. This month so far could be summed up with the words 'fog' and 'mud'. The ground is sodden and we have been in the clouds for 50% of the time. How I long to feel the sun on my back again.

These two turkeys made me smile though. Were they walking to Welshpool - they were certainly heading in that direction.

How like dinosaurs they are - thank goodness they are no bigger. The small Mountain Kingdom of Trelystan, twinned with Jurassic Park perhaps.

The joy of sox...

2011-02-13T22:58:00.002Z

Over the way at Fir House lambing has started. The snowdrops have at last come into flower and there are one or two primroses brave enough to break bud. Garlic, planted in the autumn, has come through - I have 4 neat rows and am inordinately pleased with myself.

The sun shone yesterday and I took myself to the Derwen. We are so lucky to have this most excellent garden centre (and its sister company, the Dingle Nursery) a 10 minute drive away. Their range of plants is fantastic, as it the staff's knowledge and enthusiasm. A big plus for me is that they have not - for the most part - deviated from their core business - that of selling plants. The perennials were shrouded in fleece but there were spring bulbs and polyanthus - those welcome dabs of colour; a few early flowering shrubs and plenty of seed potatoes too. I got the impression that the world of retail gardening is not roused from its winter slumbers. The benches which held herbs and small pots had been cleared, for refurbishment perhaps. A solitary Pole armed with a pair of secateurs was pruning roses; he nodded behind at his progress to date and gestured expansively and disconsolately at the work yet to be done - 20 or 30 mega-spiny climbers and the display gardens. Rather him than me.

I went and looked at the trees - and that's a triumph of hope over experience. At this time of year they are mostly a collection of dry brown sticks but it occurred to me that if you know what you want this is a really good time to look at their structure and choose a good one on that basis. I wanted a Tulip Tree, a Liriodendron tulipifera, and there was the tree of my dreams - sturdy and well-shaped. I bought it. It was destined to come home with me.

It didn't get planted today - the weather has been foul and sitting indoors has been far more appealing.

But what about the sox I hear you ask? And the joy?

Ah yes, the joy of sox - my winter projects. The nasty knitting has been cast aside yet again. (I notice that it is now at least 3 years since I started - with great enthusiasm I'll admit - this wrap-around cardigan.) The final piece, the tie/waist band, lies half-finished at the bottom of my knitting box, unwanted and unloved. My excuse is the beastly yarn which is horrible to hold and worse to work with.

But the sox have been great fun. After my initial 2 needle attempt I moved onto the real thing using 4 needles = no seams and sufficient interest and complexity to keep someone (me) with the attention span of a flea occupied.

We have sox 1:

....and sox 2:

Am not too sure why the stripes didn't work out the same on both. These are rather too redolent of the hippy stall on Welshpool Market for my liking.

Next up, sox 3:

Finally sox 4, a work in progress.

I must remember that these are meant to be worn - so far I've mostly shown them off.

On a miserable winter's day to sit with my wool and neat little bamboo needles, in front of the woodburner, glass of wine to hand and a gripping play on the radio has been a joy. What's there not to like about that?

Birthday Strudel

2011-02-06T14:48:00.012Z

The weather has been wild for the past three days - a warmish wind continues to roar in from the west bringing squalls of rain and leaden skies. The sap may be stirring in my veins at the thought of spring but I don't feel inclined to go out and garden when the wind's blowing me horizontal and rain's trickling down my neck. That's right, you've guessed correctly. I'm a fair weather gardener.

So what to do instead? Ironing? Nah. Defrost freezer? Nope. Clean grout in shower? I. Really. Can't. Be. Arsed. The guest rooms are gussied up and a sleeping bag has been found in readiness for our visiting sons and girlfriends; there's a chicken to go into the oven for supper and even the vegetables are prepped. Perhaps I shall make a comforting pudding - something too homely to justify the grander title of 'dessert'. Apple Crumble and custard perhaps, or Apple Pie. Into the corner of my brain reserved for ideas comes the notion of Apple Strudel. It's more complicated certainly than options a and b but like knitting socks on four needles it's the challenge of the thing that makes it so appealing. I have the time, the inclination and all the ingredients. Apple Strudel it is.

Firstly make a nice elastic dough - knead and pummel, pummel and knead. Then bish-bash, slap it down on the counter for 10 or so minutes until little bubbles can be seen. Let the dough rest. Rest yourself.

On a clean tea towel sprinkled with flour, roll the dough out as thinly as possible:

Now for the good bit: gently stretch the dough out with your fingers until it is as thin as tissue paper, taking care not to make too many holes. Tradition says that one should be able to read love letters though it. I did consider going to my old stash of love letters to prove this point but as a, they are from an old boyfriend, long departed, not the Glam Ass (who never wrote any anyway) and b, knowing I'd get totally involved in re-reading and trips down memory lane etc I decided that seeing the tea towel was good enough for me.

Gather the fillings. As well as sliced apple and a handful of breadcrumbs fried gently in butter there are walnuts and sultanas, lemon zest, sugar and cinnamon.

Brush the stretched dough with melted butter and spread the ingredients evenly as below:

Fold over the bottom edge, pick up the tea towel and roll all before you. Be amazed that is really does work!

Persuade it to go on a baking sheet without falling to pieces. Form into an open 'horse-shoe' shape and brush with butter:

Put into the oven at 190 degrees C for about 40 minutes. It smells heavenly while baking; hot and sweet and spicy. When out of the oven dredge with icing sugar. Serve hot or cold.

Our guests arrived, Harry and Sam, Dan and Katy. How lovely to see them all and hear their news and laughter. It is my birthday weekend too so there were gifts to enjoy; some pretty slippers, truffles, a bottle of pink champagne, homemade biscotti and a big bunch of white lilies:

For all of these and especially for your good company - many thanks.

We had a roast chicken dinner followed by Apple Strudel and cream. Hang on.....it got eaten before I could take that final shot. This is all there is left:

That miserable plateful is not going to tempt anybody into baking a Strudel is it? Don't leftovers always look so, well, leftoverish and sad?

PS If you need more apple inspiration hop over to north Wales for Elizabethm's Somerset Apple Cake. It's next on my list.

A bit of colour

2011-02-01T12:05:00.000Z

February at last! Or February already? Take your pick - I can't believe just how quickly the days pass, gobbling up my life.

Yesterday the thermometer was reading -6 degrees C and today - while I've not gone and looked - it must be at nearly in double figures. The sun on my back felt warm. Look at that beautiful blue sky:

Last spring we put in two Witch Hazels; this one is Hamamelis intermedia 'Jelena' and the yellow one below, H. intermedia 'Pallida'.

They come into their own at this time of year - from March to January one could only describe them as nondescript and boring. Right now Jelena is certainly worth close inspection with glowing, russet thread-like flowers while acidic Pallida is a bit more visible from a distance. Sadly neither of them seem to be particularly fragrant but the welcome splash of colour in a drab garden makes up for that.

The Dogwoods are rewarding too - I've clumps of the red-stemmed Cornus sibirica, olive stemmed C. sericea 'Flaviramea', black stemmed C.alba 'Kesselringii and the fiery C. 'Mid-winter Flame'. Again nothing to talk about for most of the year but right now they have bulked up into blocks of colour.

The multi-stemmed Birch are rewarding too - now they have grown big enough to have the glowing white bark which is their u.s.p.

Gardeners are such patient optimists. We put in insignificant little sticks, sit back and watch and wait. Then one spring - voila! We see those little twigs are doing what they were meant to do - they've grown into the shapes and forms we intended - and hurrah! there is the winter structure and colour we planned.

Now I must wait for the bulbs I planted with frozen fingers in the autumn to make their welcome appearance. No time to be still either, there's next early spring to be thought about - I've spotted a few gaps to be filled and some winter causalities have opened up other opportunities.

Can feel myself getting quite excited - the sap's definitely rising.

Singing for my supper

2011-01-30T12:04:00.000Z

Many, many years ago in a little tourist tat shop in north Yorkshire, tucked amongst the souvenir tea-towels and postcards of Pickering's somewhat limited attractions was a selection of little wooden plaques. They were basically crudely varnished and decorated slices of tree with the added bonus of a pithy aphorism. The one to hang above that low beam or lintel advised 'Duck or grouse!' and the one for the procrastinator read, of course, 'I must get a round tuit!'. The exclamation marks are obligatory.

The one that took my fancy - and why it attracted a small girl so much is a mystery - said 'Even a fish wouldn't get caught if it kept its mouth shut!' It obviously entered my soul because even now, some 50 years later it comes to mind. Frequently.

Last night was a case in point; if a couple of months ago when asked a question I'd said 'Nope', 'Can't', 'Won't', 'got other plans....sorry' and kept my trap shut I wouldn't have found myself, microphone in hand, doing a 5 minute spot at Marton's Burns Supper. Instead a feeble 'Erm, if I must - talk to me about it nearer the time' escaped from my lips and with it a silent wish that the probability of actually doing it would just go away. On the other hand, my questioner put a big tick in the box next to 'Response from the Ladies' and went off to order haggis. Job done.

Anyway it came to pass - I rustled up a few words, put them into some meaningful order and spent a couple of days practicing - the dogs being my uncritical audience. The Glam. Ass had a bit of a titter - which I took to be a Good Sign. There wasn't the faintest hope that I would memorise my mini address so the words were put on cards and I was set to go.

We fore-gathered and following the usual haggis-stabbing/Selkirk Grace/Immortal Memory palaver, we ate; generous platefuls of traditional Burns Supper scoff - haggis, neeps and tatties followed by very boozy trifle. A well fed audience is predisposed to be mellow methinks.

The Ladies were toasted, wittily but to my horror not quite as flatteringly as my carefully honed speech in response presupposed. Eeek! (Exclamation mark definitely in order here.) No time for re-writes now just the hope that I could manipulate the words I had got and not drop either the prompt cards or the microphone.

Then suddenly it's over and we're singing 'Auld Lang Syne' and a wee dram was most appropriate and very welcome. I was relieved to have said my piece - it wasn't such an ordeal after all - but in no way is that an invitiation to ask me to do it again.

The lips are zipped. Shut.

Outdoors.

2011-01-29T15:15:00.001Z

I'm rather obviously writing this indoors; outdoors being ever so slightly inhospitable still. The prospect of doing anything un-gloved, un-hatted and immobile out there is so unappealing.

About a week ago the temperature nudged up into double figures and the sun shone - admittedly there was much mud and wetness too but it did seem to herald an end to this interminable cold.

Hah! Fat chance of that. The big chill is back and with it the chore of schlepping buckets of water up to the poultry from the house. Not only have the water butts frozen up but the washers to their taps have been wrecked by the ice and the Glam Ass's attempts to replace them was complicated by a tap breaking as well. The repair job involved emptying the butt in question - so now we must wait for torrential rain to fill it up again. Back to carting water for me then.

Never mind - my seed order from Thompson and Morgan arrived at the end of last week; packets and packets of seed. Packets of such promise. Time to plan out what goes where too - this year I need to start a new chart of our raised beds which shows what has been planted in previous years. We're very keen on our crop rotation up here in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan; like should not follow like and some things need more muck than others. The Glam Ass has spruced up the labels for the beds and I will go and plant them when the soil has thawed sufficiently.

We're planting much the same things as usual - I shall continue to try and grow squash and will have another go at carrots. Carrots should be easy shouldn't they. Children get given carrot seed to grow. Sprinkle it in a drill and you're away. Fat chance round here - we are plagued with carrot fly. This year, having failed with plan A (mesh on a frame around and over the bed), plan B (growing carrots in tubs above the alleged height of a carrot fly), plan C (growing a c.fly resistant variety) and plan D (removing all thinnings carefully so as not to leave lovely carroty smelling leaves as an attractant), we shall try plan E - sowing later when the dratted carrot fly season is over. After that? Give up and go to Sainsburys perhaps.

I'm going to make room for some flowers too - I've been very inspired by Elizabethm's cutting garden - a couple of rows of fragrant sweet peas at the very least.

I've got itchy feet and itchy fingers - I want to be out there getting on with things. I think I should be able to sow some modules of onions under glass but everything else will have to wait. Sigh.

There are lambs down in the village at last - little scraps of things, bleeting for mum and milk. They're as promising to me as those packets of seed. New life at last. Spring will come.

Marmalade - part 2

2011-01-18T17:18:00.000Z

I shouldn't complain but there's an awful lot of it; 26 jars.

Making marmalade must be a bit like giving birth - an absolute pain of a process - after which one promises oneself Never, ever again. Then 12 months on, tempted by the bright fruits I forget what a bother it is too make and another day of my life is gone - what with all that squeezing, paring and slicing; the simmering for hours and then the nerve-wracking rolling boil and those 'will it/won't it' set moments - all those sticky spoonfuls cooling in saucers until at last the surface wrinkles and we can be sure of that elusive set. Phew. And then there is the washing up......industrial quantities of it.

Here are my 26 jars - I've been hyper efficient this year and labeled them up straight away. Usually my jams and jellies sit around for days, sometimes weeks, until I can summon up the enthusiasm to amend and print off some labels. New Year - new efficient me? I doubt it. More a case of them taking up a lot of space.

Guess what we'll be having for breakfast for the next 12 months?

A bag of sunshine on a windy day

2011-01-15T18:12:00.000Z

Up in the field just now at hen-shutting-in-time, with the job done (that's pop - 'oles shut and all potential sleepers on nests shifted unceremoniously) I switch off the torch and stand a while.

With my back towards the lights of the house and under a starless sky the darkness is broken only by distant lights far across the valley. The wind roars through the conifers of Badnage wood - furious gusts which I know are battering the trees this way and that. It's a pretty wild night although this wind from the west, fresh and clean against my face, is not a cold one.

The Glam. Ass. tells me that heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow - and indeed it is. I checked. I noticed at the same time that light snow is on the cards for Wednesday and temperatures down below zero again. Sigh. I knew it was too soon to be lulled into thoughts of spring.

Never mind. In the kitchen, in my best 'Bet Lynch style', leopard-skin shopping bag I have 4k of Spanish sunshine - Seville oranges. The marmalade season has come round again. Tomorrow I shall squeeze, pare and bubble up these fragrant fruits - the kitchen will smell of sugary orange heaven. Bliss.

Aren't those colours truly gorgeous? I really think they much reach the part of the brain which craves bright sunlight. Just what needed in these dark days.

White world again.

2011-01-07T22:43:00.000Z

Sometimes it can't be much fun being a hen can it? Like this morning. White over again.

As forecast, snow fell in the early hours - and because our bedroom window had blown open we woke to find a small snow drift on the window sill. Shut window, mop up and apply vest to self. Brr. Chilly indeed.

The roads were like glass and the ride down to Welshpool was a bit dodgy but it seems to be the sort of challenge that the Glam Ass enjoys. We do going-too-fast, trial skids and trial braking while I grit my teeth and hold on tight. There is a precipitous drop to the one side of the road down the Stubb. Best not to think about it. The words 'Don't do this!' only pass my lips once. I have the patience and nerve of a saint it seems.

It's raining gently now and the world is dripping gently. A relief.

Spooky

2011-01-06T22:40:00.003Z

On the Thursday before Christmas Shrewsbury was frantic with last minute shoppers - an extra frisson of excitement being the icy pavements and a biting wind. By some miracle I bought my bits and pieces with comparative ease and feeling rather smug thought I could afford a little 'me' time. Hmm. Where to go?

My usual haunts were out of the question; too full of dithering families trying to decide what to buy for auntie Nelly and there is only so much seasonal musak I can stomach. A new second hand bookshop was tempting - I could go and look at the Local History section at least - far better than the retail hell that was Christmas at Waterstones.......

What a sanctuary it proved to be - probably not a money spinner - but warm and empty, with comfy chairs and a gentle Baroque air to delight the ear.

I found this. Only £3.00. OK, not everyone's cup of tea but there will be something in these pages to raise an eyebrow, enlighten and entertain.

It's honestly interesting reading - some very familiar and half remembered things; things which we still do - and not know why (salt over shoulders, never give a knife as a gift, don't look at the moon through glass to name but three); things more curious and strange, sometimes cruel; things from a lost age of innocence or ignorance a long time ago. Ms Hole lists folklore traditions by the hundred, hardly pausing for punctuation or breath. I was glad to see our Holy Well at Rorrington got a mention.

I've been reading it in bed - and last night reached the section on 'Strange Visitors'. Scary stuff indeed; rites, howls, things of the dark side, apparitions of the ould Divil:

'Our mothers' mayd terrifie us with the ouglie devil, with horns on his head, fier in his mouth, a huge tayle in his breach, eies like basons, fangs like a boar, claws like a tiger, skin like a bear, and a voice roaring like a lion.'

Then there are wild hunts and baying spectral dogs...........and as I lie tucked under the duvet I hear from the hedge line beyond the little triangular field - JUST OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE - the sudden yelping bark of a fox. I freeze to my core in fright. (But fall asleep before I can dare a trip to the bathroom out of the safety of my bed.)

The cold old dark night still has the power to terrify it seems.

PS I have memories of long, night time car journeys listening to Joan Aiken's 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase', the empty desolation of Yorkshire's high moorland in the blackness outside our speeding car, and of our little boys snuggled on the back seat gripped by the tale....thinking, 'Please, oh please, I hope we don't break down now..."

The road ahead...

2011-01-03T22:19:00.001Z

We've put Christmas back in its box and launched a new decade. I enjoyed, briefly, the uniqueness of 1.1.11. The tree is down and I have an irresistible urge to fill the house with light and spring flowers. I optimistically had had my nose down in the garden today but didn't spy even the teeniest snout of a bulb. I thought the snowdrops might be about visible. Sigh. There's a way to go yet.

Resolutions. Hmm. I'm not much of a one for resolutions but have a stack of life improving aims instead:

The one involving 'cutting out biscuits' lasted until, erm, 10.30am on January 1st, when, due to overeating the night before (fab meal by the way) meant breakfast was given the elbow. Was I hungry or was I hungry? Bring on the custard creams.

The one involving glasses of wine lasted until about 6.30pm when the Glam Ass said convivially 'Fancy a glass of wine?' and I said, without pausing for breath, 'Yes. Why not?' It was good though.

The one where I take more exercise hasn't been tested yet but I do feel the need to be out there breathing cool fresh air. This aim may be achievable. I'll walk - walking far or fast isn't necessary; being and feeling part of our wonderful landscape is.

Tomorrow maybe? No, there is a hen house to clean out tomorrow. The day after perhaps? Well yes. Definitely. Maybe.

We'll see. There is a spider's web of lanes, tracks and paths on the Long Mountain to keep my feet busy in the coming months, stones to be unturned and voices heard. Romans at one end, Saxons at the other; tumulii, burial mounds and mottes in between.

I'm off to polish my best walking boots and look out the gaiters. Hope someone remembers to fire up the digital recorder.......

Seasonal doldrums

2010-12-29T22:10:00.000Z

Yesterday: slush and muck. The lanes ran with melt water.

Today? Still some grubby snow up here and a 'pratfall' on the vestiges of ice awaits the unwary. Our landscape is green again. I stood on the field today and looked around - much as I looked out 10 days ago at the snow covered hills. I knew green would be under the white stuff - how come it's such a surprise?

Everywhere looks battered and bruised and a little washed out. It's much the same indoors. The flotsam and jetsam of the holiday season covers every surface; fridge is full of little leftovers on plates, cards sit drunkenly and the mistletoe shrivels. Our guests have gone home.

We loll around indolently, feeling full and bored to tears by holiday television and its wall to wall crap furniture advertising. Maybe we should get out into the great outdoors which surrounds us....but frankly, seasonal inertia has set in; we can't be arsed. The Glam Ass retreats to his shed and I take up knitting. Ah, the joy of socks!

Our Lovely Presents have not yet found their final homes and sit around where they can be admired, stroked and pondered over. Give me a week and the loveliest little doggy doorstop will be stopping the bedroom window from banging. The chocolate panettone will be scoffed and the Yaktrax crampons will be firmly attached to the boots.

What's a girl to do with this though?

Yes, it's a stone axe head. Possibly about 4,000 years old, maybe 5,000. Blimey! I wasn't expecting one of those.

Next stop: New Year. Only 3 action packed days to go before then.

In which I see the moon...

2010-12-22T22:30:00.002Z

We are living in a magical marshmallow land where the mundane is topped with soft and bouncy snowy cushions. The ordinary becomes extraordinary masked by snow and ice.

I summon up sufficient layers of clothing, grab the camera and go out to greet the great outdoors. I'll regret it if I don't; I'll look back in July and think 'I can't believe the garden was ever white-over.' Sod's law has it that the camera battery gives out two snaps into my photo shoot. Pah!

I manage at least to photograph the wisteria outside the front door. Water had trickled drip on drip down the plant and made a fantastic cascade which ends on the outside light. Where the water has come from I don't know - the temperature this afternoon soared to a remarkable -3 degrees (not above freezing you note) - so arguably any water should not have been liquid. I know, I know. The photograph does not do it justice.

The effort of putting on all those layers of clothing should not be wasted so after stumping indoors to put the battery on charge I come back out to feed the hens; up on the field to throw corn and replace frozen water and, at the same time, yell obscenities to the small flock of starlings which have discovered easy pickings. Grr! Damn and blast you! Starlings, leave that food alone.

Later, much later, when the fires are lit and the lights on the Christmas tree sparkle I spy, through the glass of the garden room windows, a rosy glow in the east beyond Fir House. It is the rising moon, a huge moon of the rosiest red which soars, even as we watch, above the horizon. I know last night, the night of both solstice and eclipse, was the night to see the moon but tonight it is here for us. It is the fairly insignificant red dot in the picture below.

If it looks pretty special to me and mine, hung about with all our knowledge and technologies how much more so must it have been to our predecessors on this old hill. A thing of magic and mystery. The shivers I feel on my shoulders are sometimes not to do with the cold.

'Sing Choirs of Angels'

2010-12-20T21:51:00.003Z

We were 'at Home' yesterday - an event which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed a full house. When snow fell truly, madly and deeply on Saturday morning I think we knew our numbers would be depleted. This isn't a hill for the faint hearted. I am learning this.

No worries - in for a penny, in for pound. Wine, beers and juices were chilled in a snow-filled bin outside, meats were roasted, canapés assembled and warm mince pies amassed. Bring it on.

We missed those who could not join us and enjoyed the company of those who did. A huge thank you to John who scraped our lane clear of snow - making the last ½ mile a safer journey.

Towards the end of the evening just before the last of our guests drifted away the Carol Singers arrived - Chirbury and Marton Young Farmers. We coaxed them indoors ('Forget your boots, it's only a floor') to sing for us. Their young voices: gruff baritones, shy tenors and wispy sopranos - gave generous measure. 3 carols, all old favourites, sounded pretty good to me.

I love the idea - and I'm not going to be particularly articulate here - of the Christmas story being schlepped round the neighbourhood: I'm thinking Thomas Hardy and his Wessex tales, of mummers and of traditions which come from before-we-know-when; of reasons lost in the mists of time for going door to door to bring news in the depth of winter. All this out of darkness under twinkling lights and boughs of evergreens - we know not why. I have my mistletoe, that most curious of plants, hung on a beam.

I only really wanted to say - 'Thanks for carolling'. You made my day.

Same old. Same old.

2010-12-17T16:41:00.001Z

I stand up on the field shortly after 8.00am - hen-letting-out-time - and watch as another band of gritty snow bowls in from the north west. It is strangely bleakly beautiful up here at the end of the Long Mountain when the landscape is reduced to a palette of black and white and grey. The snow has muffled sound as well - there is the merest murmur of a breeze in the conifers of Badnage Wood and the urgent cackles of poultry that is in and wishes (so far) to be out.

I can spare a moment to stand and stare, take a photo or two before stuffing the camera back into a dusty pocket and getting on with the job in hand. I'm wrapped up nice and warm, thank you. Several mis-matched layers and pair of new warm wellies. Gloves, hat, scarf and wes'kit complete the ensemble. Thank goodness the style police can't make it as far as Trelystan.

There is every possibility though that if we make it out of Trelystan today even we won't make it back. A brief trip down to Welshpool in the pick-up is a hairy-scary ride on glassy roads - snow over ice. We are right to be fearful of the dreaded Leighton Bank - the road that gritters forget and where the sun never reaches. The Glam Ass is made of stern stuff and relishes a few slithers. Me? You know I'm an utter wimp and would have turned back long ago. Or is it more to do with men being the risk takers?

We reach Welshpool safely (hurrah!) and get the shopping. Gravity will take us downhill but will we be able to get enough traction to make the uphill journey? We come home via a different route which isn't too bad. Coming down our lane proves hazardous - which is why the afternoon sees Trelystan's gritting team (self and GA) raiding the grit heap and throwing said grit liberally on the sheet ice. Are we now part of the 'Big Society?

One of a flock of Field Fares looking fairly peeved in the morning's snow storm

The Christmas tree is up and dressed and sparkles in the corner - I'm going to sit in front of the stove, bask in its warmth, and enjoy a few quiet moments looking at the lights and their reflections.

Plenty to do -no time for sitting really. We have a 'bit of a do' on Sunday - will any of our guests be able to get here is the question?

Deer stalking....

2010-12-12T21:38:00.001Z

Tonight I need to rustle up a reindeer. To be more exact, the silhouette of a reindeer. M, down in the village, feels the need for a reindeer to grace the stage at next Saturday's 'Christmas-light-switch-on' fest.

Me? I feel that cutting out a silhouette is far preferable to making a 3D, life-size papier maché model when the clock is ticking, so have set about an in depth t'interweb search for a reindeer with a perfect profile. In secret though, even this is one reindeer too many at a busy time of year.

Here is my role model:

I came about him by a fairly circuitous route - full marks by the way if you recognise the source of this beastie. (Guilty, guilty, guilty..... but sometimes a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.....) Full marks to me for my devious means of capturing him too. Hey - this is deer stalking! Scaled up, cut out and with the judicious application of an illuminated red nose and we will have Rudolph.

Tomorrow I shall go armed with my drawing, soft leaded pencil and oodles of confidence and draw him up big-size.

Anyone out there any good with a jigsaw?

The trouble with snow

2010-12-03T21:41:00.001Z

Apologies for this. More white stuff. Seven days into snow-bound and my world has shrunk to 'getting in' and 'getting out'. We are in a little snow-cocoon which has narrow, slidey and dodgy lines to the wider world.

The truck and snow-drifts. Make a good name for a pub perhaps......

....and the lane looking west towards the Stiperstones - Bromlow Callow is the tiny black 'eyebrow' at the very top left of the picture.

The road is clear (ish) and with a little care it was possible today to go down the hill to Marton and thence to Bishop's Castle.

I quite like our special isolation up here - we did choose to live here so really shouldn't complain - but how ordinary it is down below.

I must remind myself to be very careful of what I wish for.........

And it's still only November

2010-11-30T16:32:00.000Z

I stood here not quite 12 months ago - in early January when we were snowed in. I photographed the same view under much the same conditions - how good it is to have another shot at it:

I like the hill's simple, elegant, bleak beauty under a tenebrous and snow laden sky. Tomorrow the quality of light will be different again. Another challenge.

The thermometer tells me it is warmer today but a brisk wind makes me think otherwise. If it's like Siberia in the shelter of the garden it is like double Siberia up on the hill where the hens live.

So glad I'm not a hen.......

White Wales

2010-11-28T23:26:00.000Z

Tonight? It's -7 degrees under the cat-slide and falling. Not the chilliest place in the country but cold enough thank you.

Clear blue skies today - but yesterday as above. Here we look west over the Severn Valley and across to the Welsh Mountains. (Powis Castle is almost dead centre.) Perhaps it is because we see this view in monochrome so rarely that this white world is so stunning. I stop the car. I gulp. Inhale. Take it all in and take a picture or two. Jeez, it's cold on the fingers.

The roads were like glass. On Friday I had chickened out completely and turned round - disgruntling the Glam Ass who seemed to relish the idea of a downhill roller-coaster ride. Turning back for home was the better option - either that or my passenger would find himself turfed out onto the side of the road. There are only so many barked 'Keep Your Foot off the Gas! - Don't Brake!' instructions a girl can take as the car, by the sheer force of gravity alone, slithers ever downwards........WTF am I supposed to do then!

I resort to being a weak and feeble woman - albeit a sensible one with all limbs and car intact. The GA reconciles himself to being without a newspaper.

The Council gritting lorry trundled by about an hour later.

In which I confront my inner Nigella

2010-11-25T17:56:00.000Z

Oh heck. The festive season looms and in its wake the prospect of entertaining and being entertained. Parties. Nights out in one's best bib and tucker; dressing up in something much smarter than the national dress of Trelystan - about which we will mention only the words, jeans, fleece and wellies.

'Smart' means a trip to the back of the wardrobe and revisiting some old favourites. Add a pretty top and my lovely pearls and all is usually well. We scrub up well round here.

Last night saw the first Christmas dinner - a gentle practice run for all those others which will certainly follow.

I sit at the dressing table, showered, dressed and perfumed, coaxing a strand of hair into place when the thought occurs that from this angle, and dressed like this - I'm wearing a low 'v'-necked cashmere sweater - there is something of the delectably generous Nigella Lawson about me. Perhaps it is the billowing embonpoint..... then I stand up and all illusions vanish. Perhaps it is something to do with her apparent statuesque height and my lack of it. Her body seems firmer somehow and I find myself wondering what erm, underpinnings she uses to keep it all in hand (so to speak).

I'll bet it's nothing like this grotesque ensemble to the left - which I've no wish to wear either. Eurgh! Some of these are even worse. Eurgh, eurgh, eurgh. Just imagine smelling of rubber for a start......

Anyway I breathe in and go out, hoping for the best. A good meal was eaten and afterwards I resolve that should I be offered 'seconds' over the next few weeks I shall conjure up the 'wonderful reducing corset' as a deterrent and politely decline. It might work.

In which I risk boring my dear readers.....

2010-11-22T22:30:00.000Z

Yes, we are still here - although arguably difficult to find this week - low cloud has shrouded the Long Mountain. We have been swathed in grey swirling dampness, shut in, remote and insular. Our world tightens to our field of vision. All sounds are muffled, dulled - but really all our senses are heightened; we taste this weather on our tongues, smell mud and muck and sniff; kick late autumn's dank leaves and 'burn' fingers on the freezing cold of gate or bucket.

At some point in the week there was a great moving of cattle - bringing them down off the fields and in for the winter. Although only 6 or 7 are visible here, trust me there were many more. Now we only have sheep.

A precious stone?
The Glam Ass, mooching through the dingle, climbs the fence and wanders up the stream. He finds a stone unlike any other stone hereabouts. It is lying in the bed of the stream. It is a thing of beauty. Brought home and caressed it sits in the hand as if were tailor-made. It could chip and hammer. We both so want it to be a neolithic tool.

We will dream on.

From the hen-houses on wheels:

One egg today. One. Better than none I suppose.

I've just counted up - and to my surprise there are 27 potential layers. That many. Crikey! How did that happen? (Thank you SBS for bringing me another 3 refugees!)

Of that 27, nine are point-of-lay which to my mind partly explains the low egg count. Of the others, well some are moulting having laid well this spring/summer and the remainder? Probably just unproductive slackers.

Eeek! Have just remembered - am collecting 2 young Blue Marans tomorrow to add to the flock. That will make 29 pot. layers then....Best not to tell the GA - he sees expensive food going in one end and nothing edible coming out of the other and questions are asked about the sense in keeping old birds that don't lay. I know, I know, quite agree etc but I'm a soft touch and prepared to give them a good retirement.

The night they broke the bank at ~~Monte Carlo~~ Marton
Marton's Village Hall's most recent fund raiser was a Casino Night - for which we received most generous sponsorship from local businesses. One of those sponsors, the son of a local feed merchant, (that's Will Barnes of Inspector Gadjo Trio, son of Nigel Barnes of Powys Leys...) gave his latest CD - which at the end of the evening I bid for and won. (Try the link.) Sat and listened last evening as we sat in front of the wood burner with our 2 snoring dogs - a bit incongruous; the sort of jazz best suited to smoke filled rooms. Felt fairly chilled anyway. Metaphorically speaking.

Nest Saturday there is a craft fair. Never a dull moment eh?

What's for supper?

2010-11-14T16:59:00.000Z

The nights draw in and the weather is damp and raw. Wild winds have blown the last leaves off the trees and the landscape is curiously light and spacious. I'm sure the novelty will soon wear off. We come in from the garden rubbing our hands to restore the circulation, sniffling in the welcoming warmth of the kitchen. Comfort food is called for - a warm nourishing rib-sticking stew is on the menu tonight.

The Glam Ass was dispatched to find the main ingredient - not an easy task as most people locally must have had the same idea - and with only one per animal supply was outstripping demand. No, no, no. Not a bull's pizzle - an oxtail.

Here the hunter (with the help of his own assistant, Chester) shows off his prize, which he tracked down in the chiller of Welshpool butcher's 'Rikki Lloyd'. He came out of the shop carrying something which could have been mistaken for a gift-wrapped shalalee.

What a curious thing it is when seen like this and not swinging at the rear end of a cow or packed neatly in a plastic tray - or even arranged artfully with potatoes and greens.

That's more like it - dusted with flour and ready to be cooked very gently with some flavoursome stock, vegetables, herbs and a glug of wine. Plenty of time to time to sit by the fire and read the newspaper while it cooks and the light falls outside. Hours in fact.

Something like 3 hours later it's ready to be scoffed - by which time of course we were so hungry that all thoughts of photographing the artfully arranged end result was forgotten. Readers, we ate it.

Games, candles, not worth the, etc.

2010-11-07T21:40:00.000Z

I spy kitchen chaos. I spy the Glam Ass making ver juice. What?

Green nasty sour stuff that's what. Its very name has a medieval ring to it.

In days gone by and places far away it was probably juice from unripe grapes but in Trelystan in the first week of November 2010 it's derived from crab apples from our neighbour's tree. In days gone by it was probably valued for its acidic and astringent qualities - but is now (apparently) having a bit of revival in modern kitchens. I blame celebrity chefs.

The GA has got out the amazingly-complicated-juicing-machine (I counted at least 6 demountable parts - none of which will go into the dishwasher....) and is thrashing a basket full of apples into submission. The resultant jus, strained through muslin, is foul. Absolutely foul. The work of the Devil.

Give me a squirt of lemon juice any day.

What, when...but where?

2010-11-04T16:24:00.002Z

We know 'what' - and as it's November 4th we'll take the 'when' for granted.

Yes, it's time for the Chirbury and Marton annual Bonfire Night bonfire again. Under cover of darkness last night an aggressive advertising campaign started on our lanes:

But 'where' is the question.

One would think with all these big 'arrers' it would be pretty obvious but I've neither stumbled across it or had to give way to a stream of tractors and trailers laden with brushwood, old timber and general farmyard detritus. A possible explanation is that it's not yet been built.

Still, there's just over 24 hours to go - plenty of time to put something the size of a 3 storey building together......

Normal. For Trelystan.

2010-11-02T17:55:00.001Z

You get up.

You think - 'Today I will do a, b and c'. Tra la.

I skip downstairs to start the day and discover something nasty on the floor of the utility room. Neither dog admits responsibility. I clear it up.

Off I go to let the hens out and find something even nastier seeping from the septic tank. I watch a, b and c disappear over the horizon. I let the Glam Ass eat his toast before breaking the news.

I would have thought, all things considered, that this was a good excuse to Get a Man In. But no. In no time at all my own man has donned his boiler suit, wellies and rubber gloves. The poorly hand is under at least 2 layers of protective clothing and he's off before my squeak of 'Watch that hand' reaches his ears. The inspection covers come off - slowly because screwdrivering is now quite difficult - and the problem can be assessed.

Adrian who has been helping us do some gardening while we have been a hand short comes over to look as well. What is it about a hole in the ground that arouses so much interest - even one as horrid as this?

I'm not going to go into detail here but Adrian volunteers to dig the tank out; grabbing the spade and getting stuck in without any cajouling or offers of vast sums of money. We watch in amazement. Bless him, bless him, bless him. The man is a saint. Or stupid.

I am dispatched to buy bags of pea gravel to bed down the leveled up chamber (technical stuff this - impressed?) It turns out that in a former life Adrian was a ground worker so what he doen't know about installing things like this isn't worth knowing.

The Glam Ass of course can't resist helping, injured hand or not - and this probably isn't a good idea. When I return The Hand is quite swollen from the exertion - but he's a happy man. Doing stuff again. Normal nearly.

Progress of a sort I think.

PS - He's just made an Ikea bookcase - no stopping him now!

Me and my shadow...

2010-10-31T22:48:00.001Z

He's doing alright is my Glam.Ass. That busted hand is healing well - another appointment with the consultant tomorrow and the wired-up finger will get 'unwired' next week. We make haste slowly - festina lente - which for a busy man is a difficult thing. The Shed and its myriad machines lie idle; wood is unsawn, screws unturned. Newspapers and small print are read in great detail, Google is scoured and the eBay and Amazon habits have gone into overdrive. Chester, the hunting dog and creature of habit especially when it comes to sleeping, is roused from his bed at more regular intervals to be taken down the dingle where there is much contemplative staring into the distance and mutterings of 'I'm bored' on the part of his master.

I have only to announce that I'm going for a paper and I suddenly have a companion on my outing so desperate is he for a change of scene. It seems that going somewhere - anywhere, even Welshpool - is quite an interesting proposition. (I suspect it will be a few weeks until the GA is driving again so I am the driver for the time being.) I've learned that we shop differently - I really don't like the day to day stuff. I'll buy in bulk for a week, a fortnight, a month, a year - anything to avoid the local Morrisons perhaps. I'm tempted to subscribe to the Times online too. The GA on the other hand prefers to buy daily, a bit here and a bit there. If he were on Mastermind his specialist subject could be Morrisons he's there so often. Me? I hate the bloody place.

But, needs must and we have to do some shopping on Saturday. I'm shopping with tomorrow, next week, the week after, next month, Christmas, next year in mind - my mind both a price comparison website and stock-control sheet. The Glam Ass is dutifully at my side - my shadow. He occasionally darts off returning with something completely off-list, but never mind. It's a good opportunity to get some serious household shopping done and the trolley soon fills up.

'Why have you got white chocolate?' he asks. White chocolate is to his mind an invention of the Devil - he prefers something bitterly dark himself.

'BECAUSE! JUST BECAUSE FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. WHY NOT? I WANT IT.' I reply in somewhat unnecessarily snappy tones - now fed up with the scrutiny every item in the trolley is getting. Stop asking stooopid questions. Just let me shop and get out of this supermarket hell. Grrrr.

White chocolate?

It's because I'm going to make vanilla and fresh berry mini cheesecakes. They are truly scrumptious and delectable - the tang of the fruit being the perfect foil to the rich sweetness of the chocolate-cream cheese mix. They must be tiny - in the recipe below they are baked in cupcake cases - I used little ramekins.

For 12 cheesecakes beat 500g of light cream cheese with 100g of caster sugar and gradually whisk in 3 large beaten eggs. The recipe above now adds vanilla seeds - I'm a cheapskate and use a drop of vanilla essence. In a small saucepan bring 175g double cream to the boil, bring off the heat and add 200g chopped white chocolate - let it melt thoroughly and give it a good stir. Mix the chocolate mixture and the cheese mixture together.

In the ramekins or paper cases scatter a few berries - I used raspberries and blueberries. Pour the cheesecake mix over the berries and bake in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes (130 degrees c.) They are cooked when set but soft in the middle - they should still be white. Cool and chill. Garnish with more berries and sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

Try not to eat too many at a sitting. They are the sort of things which make shadows more substantial.....

Sceptical? moi?

2010-10-24T22:24:00.001Z

Got a txt. Txt said:

'RKologists at chrch l'king 4 prince trelystan. RU interested?'

When I'd deciphered the message, the answer was a definite 'yes'. My loyal readers should know by now that I'm always on the q.v. for lumps and bumps in the landscape and that my boots kick every mole hill I come across in the hope of finding something turned up from below ground. Anything. Gold preferably - but I'd settle for iron, bronze, flint tools, nails, ring pulls, potsherds, tiles.....best I've done to date are remnants of clay pipes. Sigh. Could be worse I suppose - could be the scrumpled foil from fag packets.

Anyway, off I scarpered to our little church which stands alone on the edge of Badnage Wood. St Mary's occupies an ancient site - thus much is known and documented; the recorded history of the church goes back to the 11th century but the first use of the site is thought to be even earlier. Some medieval timber remains but the whole has been largely 'restored' by well meaning Victorian folk. This link to CPAT gives a good over view of what is has been established to date. Somewhere in this place is thought to be the burial place of Elystan Glodrydd, traditionally a founder of one the 5 royal tribes of Wales who died in one of the skirmishes which took place at this end of the Long Mountain about a thousand years ago. The name Tref Elistan - Trelystan reminds us of the connection.

Perhaps if I'd drawn breath before hopping in the car a few alarm bells might have started ringing. 'Prince Trelystan'? Archaeology, in a church on a Sunday? Hmm.

At the church our archaeologists turn out to be 3 men, sniffing and stamping their feet in the cold interior. They have dousing rods and the satisfied expression of men whose work here is done. The resting place of Prince Trelystan has been found and the extent of his injuries which may have caused his death established. 'Have you dug him up?' I asked in innocence - because the description of the body's injuries were so graphic. But no - the invisible world which biolocation reveals tells all - death by the sword, a broken leg bone......all without the lifting of a single stone.

Blimey.

My eyes are fairly poppin'. The floor is of ancient slate slabs (we had similar in our hovel) but those slabs differ in age - these dowsers can tell that some have been cut with iron tools and some with bronze - all to do with magnetic fields apparently detected by the minute - nay, invisible - traces of the metals left along the dressed edges. 5 other interments have been found around the perimeter of the church - all dating from before the medieval building was erected. An earlier building was then on the site - it would have been timber, wattle and daub and thatched. Dust from the straw thatch falls to the ground on either side of the supporting beams leaving a negative image - a ghostly presence on the now long-hidden medieval floor. The dowser - sorry, biolocator - holds a wisp of straw and strides forth, holding an unsophisticated metal rod in either hand, along the aisle of the present-day church. At regular intervals his rods cross indicating the position of a long gone beam given away by traces of dust beneath the modern floor.

'Can I have a go? Please, please???' I squeaked. I must try this.

Ooo-eeeer. It did it for me too as I walked tentatively, wisp of straw and bent coat hangers in hand, up the aisle. The rods crossed as I crossed the points where the experts had determined the beams to be. I didn't make them, they just swung into place. The Glam. Ass, who had come along for the ride, said my face was a picture.

We talk about things in the fields outside - and here, while I get a demonstration of the dowser's ability to detect bronze its explanation is not entirely convincing.

There is much talk of druids and henges, tunnels, processional ways and ceremony - all on the Church Field which rolls eastward down towards the place we now call home........at which point the Glam Ass says he will walk back over the fields and collect a few mushrooms. I think it all got a bit New-Age for him. For me too as well I think.

It is an ancient place, an old landscape which has been witness to occupation and turmoil for over two millennia at least and we can only speculate about what happened here before recorded time. What was it really like? I spend much time with wild imaginings and yet when presented with some tantalizing evidence still want tangible proof. Good old fashioned digging would suit me well.

In the meantime I'm off to rummage in the back of the wardrobe for a couple of those old fashioned metal clothes hangers which will may ideal impromptu dowsing rods. I've got 7.5 acres to criss-cross in search of something. I may be some time.

2010-10-19T16:34:00.000Z

Where's my blogging mojo gone?

Time and events have taken over - some stories are not mine to tell; while the Glam. Ass. somewhat cavalierly waved his bandaged and un-bandaged paw at the camera and said 'Go on, photograph this then' it didn't seem quite right. Too, too intrusive. I think it will suffice to say: 1. Don't argue with a circular saw and expect to win. 2. I am surprisingly unsqueamish and calm in a crisis and 3. He's doing very well, thank you.

The last two weeks have seen a lot of driving to and from the hospital in Shrewsbury and I suppose in the scale of things that's small beer. Today the splint was removed and with it came a tad more mobility for the GA. He is without most of a little finger but it continues to haunt him. The other fingers are mending and he is desperate to regain normal function; the stuff we take for granted - the miracle of co-ordination that is the human hand. I can hear him clettering the supper dishes (and my ear is cocked for a cack-handed crash) but it will take a while.

Enough of that and a few anodine observations instead.

The last of the summer's crops are ready to be gathered in. The little orchard has apples and pears and the are quince in abundance. I have my own harvest festival moment.

There is mince meat to be made - the kitchen fills with the scent of apples and spices. The recipe is from the sainted Delia's Christmas Collection.

The weather has been surprisingly good but on the day we visited Powis Castle the clouds descended around our ears. We walked amongst the autumn borders - still colourful with late flowering perennials. In a rather orderly orchard apples and pears hung heavily on old and closely pruned trees underplanted with low growing herbs, stachys and the ophiopogon nigrescens. It's such a neat garden; closely clipped grass, yew and topiary, borders contained by box hedging. I've visited in summer too and even when the season is at its most flamboyant there is barely a leaf out of place.

Only outside the garden can nature take hold; up in the faintly disheveled parkland that surrounds Powis, from midst the underbrush of bramble and bracken - out of the misty distance - came the roar of stags - an eerie sound which sent shivers up spines. Later in the day skeins of geese flew in, honking as they flapped across the valley where the Severn winds.

Today? The small mountain kingdom of Trelystan is washed in golden light right now, all aglow. We have yellow and red and russett. Great fluffy clouds scud across a blue sky. It looks as if there might be some warmth in the sun - don't be deceived - it's chilly out there.

Time to light the log burner and watch the flames.

The ride over the Long Mountain

2010-10-11T22:04:00.001Z

Some years ago I remember talking to a work-mate about their daily commute to work - it was something like 50 minutes each way. To me who lived a mere 5 minutes distant this seemed like a trudge too far. I could dart in and out, going from office to kitchen in something like 5 minutes. No, they said, it was not a problem. Quite the reverse in fact. The journey home in particular allowed time to unwind and to let the stresses of work slip away. The division between work and home was thus clearly defined. Stuff from 'there' could be kept there, home was a retreat and a haven reached through the motoring equivalent of whatever submariners have to pass through to get from in to out. I understand now....

An 'air-lock'. That's my ride home...a quick left turn off the main road, a bit of a climb through Westbury, Vennington and Vron Gate and onto the ribbon of road which follows the spine of the Long Mountain. It may or may not be a Roman road but I'll be bound that some Roman road building engineers took the measure of it en route from Forden Gaer to Wroxeter. They may though have settled on the less wild, low-lying land at the foot of the mountain's eastern slope and got their feet wet into the bargain.

It's an old, old place up here - older than Roman, it's height and panoramic views give it strategic clout and the one or two known burial mounds make it a place of some spiritual importance too. The Celts retreated to the west and it would be many years before the Normans claimed the valleys to the east. Perhaps the Long Mountain was a place for grazers, outsiders, waifs and strays, and those who could find safety in its dingles and clefts. I surmise. I am one of a long line of souls to be found wandering up here. There will be others after me.

These last few days, boxed every which way into confusion by my poor Glam Ass's injury, have led me to seek out the solitude of this high place. A slow drive along the narrow road - this morning with fog around my shoulders, landscape joyously and luminously aglow with the brilliance of the rising sun - has done much to clear my head. Stop to breathe the air. Go fast, go slow. Some days the landscape stretches forever and some days, like today, it is limited to a protective cocoon. There are sheep and the same old faces, trees and men twisted by the seasons - blown into shape by prevailing winds and fortune. There is familiarity and there are small changes. I note what I can. Feel calmer.

I will drive along there tomorrow too, unwinding as the road unwinds before me. A great ride home.

PS I would take photographs but you would only see a grey road, bent trees and grazing sheep. Maybe I shall do that one day and try and make it seem preferable to the lower, slicker route where some prat behind me is always intent on driving too close for comfort....

The trouble with biscuits.

2010-10-10T21:29:00.000Z

Imagine for a moment you are a biscuit manufacturer and you have a biscuit brand to sell. It is a biscuit aimed at the family market; a precursor of the chocolate finger perhaps. How would you describe them?

Let's try words like 'Choctastic!' 'Bite size biscuit covered in real milk chocolate', 'Yummy' and 'crunchy-scrumptious!'. Let's use images redolent of rich choco-creaminess......

Compare and contrast with the line that Crawfords came up with - CHOCOLATE TABLE biscuits - which turn out to be 'cigarette shaped biscuits covered with fine milk chocolate'. How sensibly descriptive is that?

Turn the tin round for more information:

'A Safe and Pleasant Confection for Children and Grown-ups'

Doesn't it sound rather like medicine?.......and 'Safe'? Safe? Safe biscuits?

What a peculiar bit of copy. What are the qualities of an unsafe biscuit? What kind of fool biscuit manufacturer would try to flog an unsafe biscuit to the unsuspecting public and thrive? Were there really people out there so suspicious that without those comforting words those cigarette shaped treats would be left on the shelf?

More questions than answers as usual and will file this tin in the 'Lost World' section of the study along with the book from my previous post.

PS My subsequent and minimal research (all 2 mins of it) indicates that biscuits can indeed be unsafe but still begs the question would we buy and eat them if in doing so we exposed ourselves to the dangers lurking in the biscuit tin? Don't dunk folks. Give custard creams a wide berth and remember Jaffa Cakes are deemed safest of all.

A lost world

2010-10-06T23:18:00.001Z

Back in the day the Corporation tip was a mountain of shite in the middle of a muddy field. You tentatively reversed your car up through the mud, opened the boot and threw out the bags of wallpaper strippings, brickbats and plaster dust. A crowd of hopeful no-hopers hung about waiting to pounce on whatever was being flung out. Could the DIY detritus from 40 H.M. Road it be stripped down to something of monetary value?

It was a little bit alarming to be descended on quite so enthusiastically. My father who had spend 3 years in the RAF in Algeria (we think dispatching cargoes of this and cargoes of that - another story here I think) spent enough time observing the local population to describe our opportunists as 'sand Arabs'. He must have had his reasons.

These days of course, tips have become 'Recycling Centres' - visions of bespoke and labelled skips standing on pristine concrete overseen by a hi-viz jacketed workforce who invariably have made themselves a cosy den in a bijou Portakabin. 'Elf 'n' safety reigns.

We toss our 'recycling' and minimal refuse in the appropriate places and push on. Where's the fun in that? But here in Potter's yard - Welshpool's state of the art recycling centre - there is always the lure of the bits and pieces put to one side for 'sand Arabs' like me to pick over. We not talking treasures here - mostly it's discarded car boot tat - la crême de la dross - but sometimes - just sometimes - a little gem turns up.

Look - I've found 'The Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers Directory (for Lancashire and adjoining Districts.) Pocket Edition. 1920'. A fab find indeed. Musty, dog-eared, the size of a large prayer book - documentary evidence of a lost world. I notice I have found it almost 90 years to the day from when its owner - A B Goss inscribed his purchase with a bold and florid hand.

Did I say 'lost world'? Well, the days when cotton was king in Lancashire are long gone - the textiles' trades have moved to the far east where labour is cheap. We just do thinking and drinking in those cotton towns these days.

My little book is, as it says on the cover, a Directory. There are entries for nearly 3,000 manufacturers. District by district mills are listed; listed by process and by product - it's a world of specialists; spinners, bleachers, fullers and finishers, cloth clippers, cloth raisers, dyers, finishers and sizers - pause for breath - doublers, flax, jute and hemp spinners, plush manufacturers, wool and worsted spinners, calico printers, sizers and slashers....what? What is a sizer and slasher? Raiser, stretcher and beetle finisher? Beetle finisher?

The Park Mill Spinning company in Bolton lists: '102,882 spindles, 20/110 twist (so far so good - I understand that bit), pin cop and doubling weft, bastard and full twist size, combed and carded mule, flyer-throstle and ring twist, ball and cheese warps, beams, bundles, comes and tube barrels...' I couldn't make that up.

The products are pretty esoteric too - such wonderful variety of woven materials, the names of which roll off the tongue; lenos, lappets and repps, jaconettes, alforgas, dobbies, jeanettes, dorias, sateens, royal ribs, poplins, pongees and gaberdines. Grandrills and pyjama cloths.....I want to recite this strange poetry, savour the half familiar terms...alhambra quilts.....swansdown....moleskin. Nankeen. Such a rich lexicon. Does anyone in the textile trade wherever it may now be, still use these terms?

Raw goods in from overseas, up the Ship Canal, from America and Egypt and out again to home and empire. 'Cotton Goods for the West African markets!' Not only did we rule the world - we clothed it, curtained its windows, sheeted its beds, clothed its tables and made linings for its overcoat pockets. My vivid imagination supplies a sound track of mill town noises - the thunder of looms and the clatter of clogs on cobbles - played out under smoky and tenebrous skies.

All gone now of course. The air is clean. Mills demolished and chimneys toppled and with them a way of life almost as remote and mysterious as that of the dinosaurs. My little book is perhaps the equivalent of fossilised remains.

Moon-owl-stars

2010-09-29T21:32:00.001Z

Pretty good the night, innit?

Crystal clear and chilly. Moon like an orange segment. Owl making tentative hoots from an awfully close old tree. The longer we look the more the sky seems to fill with stars. Suddenly it's silly with them.

Have some of those lonesome thoughts about the vast foreverness of our universe. Feel small, and as usual, very vulnerable about my shoulders.

Have a little shudder. Come in. Shut door.

Will go to bed, feel safe, and with the duvet wrapped tight watch the moon rise through an open window - and please, please, please let there be the music of owls as I drift towards sleep..

Rabbit in Mustard Sauce masterclass

2010-09-26T11:53:00.000Z

Another recipe from the Trelystan cookbook -following a little too quickly on the heels of Crab Apple Jelly perhaps. Don't worry, this isn't turning into a foodie blog - its more that the opportunity presented itself. Here in the small mountain kingdom we are having a fortnight of Not Buying Food/Eating Stuff from the Freezer. An icy parcel of meat turned out to be a rabbit when defrosted....

Oop north, on one of Stockport's mean streets lives DLB who's expressed a wish to cook rabbit in mustard sauce - presumably as his mother makes it. DLB - this one's for you.

First up, acquire your rabbit. No, no, no - not from that hutch in the neighbour's garden or 'pets at home. Try a decent butcher's or fishmonger's - Evans in Didsbury, the one on the Brow in Stockport or the fish market in the Arndale in Manchester. I've seen them for sale still in the fur in Ludlow - it's that sort of foodie place - but I'm not sure if rabbit skinning photographs would attract the right sort of reader. I suppose a rabbit will feed 3 hungry people - cook two and there will be some to heat up tomorrow....

Joint your rabbit. 2 x back legs, 2 x front legs. 1 bit in the middle - the saddle. Kidneys and heart are OK too. In an ovenproof casserole (I'm using the ancient and ancestral Le Creuset) sweat a chopped onion in a generous chunk of butter, 25 - 50gms. Mix a teaspoonful of English mustard with the best part of a jar of Dijon mustard. Dust your rabbit portions with seasoned flour. Pour two glasses of white wine.

Add the floured rabbit to the pan with the onions and brown gently.

Add the mustard mixture and a glass of wine - I'm adding about a tumbler full here. I'm drinking the other glass myself. It's a reasonable Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

Mix well. Add a bundle of herbs - parsley and thyme are good.

And put the lid on....

Leave to cook gently, barely bubbling for about 1¼ hours. I kept ours on the hob but you could put it in the oven at 170 degrees. Keep your eye on it - sometimes it sticks on the bottom and we don't want a sticky bottom do we? When it's about cooked add some double cream - about a wine glassful (70 - 100cl). If you like your sauce thicker take some of your seasoned flour - not much, about a dessert spoonful and mix with some of the cream to make a thin-ish paste. (Add cream to flour not the other way round). Stir this into the hot rabbit and keep stirring in with the rest of the cream to make a smooth sauce. Check seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Garnish with chopped parsley. Good with boiled potatoes, rice or crusty bread, green salad or a green veg.

Best of luck DLB.

More food for free

2010-09-24T21:31:00.000Z

Last Sunday we parked the truck in Tuffins car park and I pointed out the crab apple tree a couple of spaces away to the Glam.Ass. Absolutely laden. What gorgeous autumnal bounty.

I was back there yesterday - buying some of the drink for the Grand Opening of Marton's new Village Hall. There must have been some pretty wild weather between my two visits because the crab apples which were on the tree were now mostly on the ground.

What's a gal to do? Well, find a carrier bag that's what and start picking them up. I felt a bit conspicuous at first - grubbing around in the margins of the car park - but my inner exhibitionist took over I and thought 'what the heck - these are credit crunched times and this is food for free. I'm damned if the squirrels are getting it.'

I returned home with 8lbs of fruit, a bit of grit and gravel and a few old leaves - nothing that a quick wash and a good rolling boil wasn't going to sort out. Into the pan with just enough water to cover the fruit and a slow simmer until the apples 'fell'. Knackered, gnarly, nobbly fruits but ah! Such promise. Their fragrance fills the room.

Then it's time to call for assistance - ladler extrodinaire the Glam. Ass. transfers mushy fruit from pan to jelly bag to drip overnight. Do note how I insist my assistant wears a colour co-ordinated costume. (Oh look! In the picture below the Glam.Ass's pork pie has crept into the picture. What a poser it is!)

Add sugar - a bit too much but we'll gloss over my error - a short boil because these little fruits are high in pectin and are just desperate to set, skim and we have jelly. 14-and-a-bit jars of jewel-like crab apple jelly. Well done me.

Michaelmas Fair

2010-09-20T21:26:00.003Z

We arrived in time for the vehicle parade which kicks off the weekend's festivities. First up the tractors; the weird and wonderful, the remembered from one's childhood and the straight off the farm jobs (muck included).

This is Bishop's Castle, Shropshire staging its annual Michaelmas Fair - an event I would like to think has its roots in antiquity. The feast of Michaelmas has always been an important one, a day of Obligation, a quarter day when rents and accounts were due and a day marking the changing seasons with harvest over and darker days looming ahead. Traditionally goose was eaten at Michaelmas - lore has it to ensure wealth and prosperity in the year year ahead. Today though we grab a burger from a roadside stall. Good outdoor food, which when tucked into a soft bap and accompanied with sweet fried onions and lashings of sauce certainly fills a gap.

We watch the tractors and then vintage cars, tracing the progression from 'just like a stage coach' to 60s minis, Beetles and Campervans.

With the last motorbike - ridden nostalgically by a helmetless rider - there is a hiatus. The crowd is waiting for more. In the expectant hush a lone woman's voice from up the street cries 'They're coming!' We lean out into the road as one to see that Yes! indeed they are.

The steam engines, those mighty, mighty puffing, panting, roaring machines are in procession. They are coming. They are coming and the excitement is tangible. Dogs and small children are restrained and sometimes comforted in the face of these smoke belching leviathans. No Brasso has been spared - they are polished to perfection; such handsome beasts.

Then just to prove that size isn't everything the parade ends with smaller machines:

All the engines make their way back to the 'Steam Yard' where they park up for the afternoon.

Here there seems to be much beer and tinkering and buffing with oily rags. This little girl though would probably rather be somewhere else. Bless:

My eye is caught by the tractor badges and I spend a happy half hour clicking away at the graphics:

(Apologies in advance for the irritating cartoon critters - the perfectly lovely Slide which I have used for 2 or 3 years has found it neccesary to embed stupidness. Why Slide? Why?*) Click the little cross to get rid. Now.

There was a lot more to the Fair of course than old vehicles - live music and dance, exhibitions, food from local producers and crafts by local makers. Our £5.00 entry fee will let us in on both Saturday and Sunday - and I bet we would still not have seen everything. However by late afternoon on Friday we needed to get home to let our dogs out - the urgency of this underlined by the Glam Ass not taking up the offer of a ride on a steam engine!

Put it in your diaries for next September folks.

*PS I did ask the Slide people the 'Why?' question and was surprised to get a reply. Apparently the noxious cartoon is what pays for making Slide's photo posting a free service. Pah!

A week away

2010-09-15T17:09:00.002Z

Holiday feet and holiday lizard

It was so good to get away - and better still to arrive. Teleportation remains a fantastic idea and I hope and pray that some boffin will make it a reality before I have to sit on a Thomas Cook Airbus or set foot in Corfu airport again. If I want Paxiot sunshine and hospitality then both are a necessary evil. Sigh.

We stayed, as we have done many time before, in Loggos. We note small changes; a few more cars and higher prices and some of the older folk do not spend as much time in the village clicking their worry beads and sipping their Metaxa as they did in previous years, but essentially this little island is much the same. The islanders are warm and hospitable and even at the end of a busy season are welcoming as ever.

The harbour at Loggos - we stayed in part of the white building in the centre of the picture

We turn our faces to the sun and gently unwind - returning again and again means that there is no need to rush and explore to find new things - we know what is around most corners. I find when I get home that I have taken very few 'touristy' photographs of scenery and the picturesque landscape - my camera downloads a very odd selection of pictures which on reflection represent fleeting moments - the abstract interplay of light and shade, colour and form.

We are beguiled by frosty 'sea-glass' which we seek amongst the pebbles which rattle onto the little beach below our apartment. As once ubiquitous glass gives way to plastic 'sea-glass' becomes harder to find. Catch it while you can.

Wild colour combinations not to be tried at home - colour theory from art school days when art schools still taught colour theory. Somehow the Greek light is sympathetic to this counterpoint.

I play with sunsets:

and shadows:

We weren't the only ones to loll in the sunshine.

We listened to music too - an unexpected treat. Our stay coincided with the annual Paxos September Music Festival.

More Village Hall than Wigmore Hall perhaps.

It was only a little incongruous sitting in the old school house in Loggos listening to three of Walton's quirky Facade settings; Daphne, Through Gilded Trellises and Old Sir Faulk. Then Franck and Schubert too - a little more serious in tone. A young and talented string quartet, a pianist and soprano played to a receptive and mostly British audience while outside the Greek night provided symphonies of its own - the laughter and shrieks of youngsters playing football, the barking of a particularly lively mongrel and the waspy-buzzy whine of the scooters favoured by racy young men.

Then all too soon it's time for home again. A day in transit and we are back in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan. All is well. The grass has grown, courgettes have become marrows and the leaves of the Liquidambar are now more rusty than green. There's definitely and autumnal feel to the air and I am quick to cover my Grecian tan with a warm and fleecy jacket.

That's it for the foreseeable future then. Refreshed? I think so. Just as well when I look at the diary for the next couple of weeks......

In which I revisit The List

2010-09-03T22:05:00.000Z

We're off on our holidays soon and it occurs to me that whether one goes for a couple of days or a couple of months the amount of preparation is ridiculous, largely petty and has nothing to do with the duration of the stay. We're going for a week. To Paxos. Bring it on.

We have lists of things to do - see above. My list on the left, rambles, while that of the Glam.Ass. on the right is brief, achievable and succinct. You will notice that both 'Bag spuds' and 'fetch suitcases' have been crossed off; he may now loll around and read the newspaper.

Perhaps I should learn to delegate?

Droit de seigneur

2010-09-01T21:27:00.001Z

Up on the field, in the New-and-Improved-Hen-Pens, my small flock of poultry have settled down well on their new ground; clean land divided into 4 closely mown enclosures and surrounded by an electric fence. At present it is so neat and new it looks like an illustration from a poultry keeping book.

The loss of 5 birds earlier in the summer - and of an old Wynadotte bantam in particular - must have caused ructions in the various pecking orders because there was much sulking and moping until new regimes were established. However, as far as I can see things are now harmonious. There have been no more mysterious fatalities, the mites (touch wood) are in abeyance and egg production is reasonable for the time of year.

The chickens which hatched on June 5th are now 12 weeks old. The cockerels went elsewhere and the six pullets (3 Marrans and 3 Rhode Island Reds) are now living up on the field too. Pretty soon I hope to put them in their breed groups but for the time being they are living a happy chickeny life in their own pen. They are happy little things (if indeed a hen can be a happy little thing....) and so far life is one blissful, innocent adventure. Food, drink, scratching, sunshine. Tra-la!

......Ah, but lurking in the adjacent pen is the Rhode Island Red cockerel. An enormous randy bruiser who today took advantage of an open gate to go visiting and to erm, check out the girls next door.
His own dear wives live in fear and dread of his persistent attentions and I had visions of these chickens being trampled underfoot while he had his wicked way. He strutted his stuff, clucked alluringly, winked a wicked beady come-hither eye at these little virgins and moved in with the finesse of Cassanova.

'Oi!' A shout from me and he was put off his stroke, smoothed his feathers and bustled back home - reluctantly.

The beast.

Another miscellany

2010-08-29T17:10:00.001Z

Where to start?
There's nothing like a good 'to-do' list - not so much the list per se but that sense of achievement as each item receives its BIG tick when completed. My trouble is, as each job gets ticked off another is attached limpet-like onto the bottom. Didn't Sisyphus have a similar problem - only with rocks rather than the paltry minutiae of life?

So where to start indeed - with the major achievement by Wednesday morning of a desk clear of invitations and posters perhaps. This hiatus left me free to enjoy the company of a visiting friend and the chance for some catching up, gossip and girly shopping. We took ourselves to Ludlow on a day, weatherwise, that August should have been ashamed of. Rain was persistent and any views of our beautiful Shropshire hills were masked by a shroud of thick grey cloud. On the plus side and egged on by my style adviser I bought a dress for my holidays and was severely tempted by another.

On Thursday evening, suitably booted and suited, we went to the Young Farmers Charity Concert in the Big Top at Woodmoor. On Saturday night the 'tent' was to be used for the County Chairman's Ball and as usual the YFC made use of the venue to raise funds for various charities: the Meningitis Trust, The County Air Ambulance and the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute - all three being close to the home club's heart. The theme was 'loosely' Musicals and eleven clubs treated us to their own, mostly agricultural, versions of some familiar themes. I truly hope that before too long somebody puts Alberbury YFC's 'Billy Idiot' onto YouTube - I've checked and it's not there yet. The stars of the show? Chirbury and Marton of course with their raunchy reverse strip tease:

Phoar! Well done them

On Saturday we rather unexpectedly went flying. It's a long story but I 'won' the flight in an auction and have waited a year to arrange something with the pilot. Out of the blue he phoned at the end of the week and suggested Saturday morning. 'Yes please' I gabbled over the phone and was like a small child anticipating a birthday at the prospect. I've been before. I know what I'm in for, but could never tire of the vista that unfolds beneath me.

How wonderful this world is - it's that anyway - but at 1,000 feet the patchwork of fields in their late summer hues of gold and green and brown, the forests, moors and mountains of mid-Wales are utterly breathtaking. We spy winding ribbons of rivers and streams - we follow the Tanant in its lush green valley to its confluence with the Severn. We soar over mountains which are like molehills from our little plane. Vast empty tracts of upland are home only to sheep.

We headed for the coast but at Cader Idris the weather was so filthy that it was wiser not to go any further. No matter, we turned back eastwards to the border where Wales meets England - seeing familiar territory from a very different angle.

This is the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan:

Our home is slightly to the left of centre. The Long Mountain is in the foreground and falls away to the Severn valley. The Welsh mountains are in the distance beyond. Badnage Wood is the block of dark conifers slightly to the right of centre. It's worth a click to enlarge the picture to see just how magic here is. (Is that grammatical? Am I bovvered?)

Last night we didn't go to the Ball but went for drinks beforehand. The Big Top was ready for action. 1500 tickets sold and another couple of hundred guest expected to turn up at the door. Good job it was a big Big Top - that's a lot of people rocking and rolling in a field. Never ones to do anything by halves the YFs had installed dodgems and a Bucking Bronco thingey too. Hope they had a great time.

And today? The sun shone eventually. Spirits soared and instead of mowing the grass we went off down the lane and picked blackberries; food for free. Right now they are bubbling gently on the hob. I'll strain them overnight and tomorrow make jelly.

There we are then; two things to put on a list for tomorrow. Make jelly. Mow the lawn.

PS. Make that 3 - somebody has just phoned wanting some invitations.....

'Outdoor'

2010-08-23T15:53:00.001Z

Hmm, the eyechild can claim windows on Oxford Street - these ones for Gap earlier in the summer and some there now with 'a return to school theme'. Pretty good, yes?

Here in the shires his father and I have also done a bit of 'window dressing' - designing this archway in a field for the YFC's County Chairman's Ball which will be held this weekend in a Big Top. I suspect it's a bit of a traffic hazard as people keep slowing down to look, causing much braking by following cars. Fortunately we're too far away to hear the 'crump-crash-bang' of metal on metal and subsequent slanging match.

Apologies for the quality of the photograph - I'll have a word with the Glam Ass who hasn't reached the chapter on focussing in the camera manual yet. Sigh.

And clowns. Aren't they truly gross?

Grrr.

2010-08-19T20:58:00.002Z

Crikey. It makes you want to spit or, as a Yorkshire friend once said bitterly: 'it makes you want to write bum ont' wall.'

What's rattled her cage I hear you mutter?

~~Bloody computers that's what.~~ No, not computers per se - software.

My lovely wireless mouse (aka Mrs Cinnamon after a childhood pet - don't ask it's not that interesting) has been ailing and failing for a while. I undid her belly and tried a quick fix with sellotape but nope, that didn't do the trick. New and juicy batteries were supplied regularly but to no avail. Her little red light had lost its sparkle and it was time to put her into retirement in the big box of computer spares. Sob.

But let's see it as an opportunity and not a threat. We'll invest in a 'Magic Mouse'. Gulp. Apple know how to charge don't they? I order it from the Apple Store online and only afterwards have a thought. Hmm....I wonder if my operating system will support it. The short answer is 'no'. A quick call to a real and silver-tongued Irishman at the Apple Store tells me the solution is either to up grade my operating system or choose another mouse. I choose to upgrade. Well, we'd all still be sitting round in caves, grunting and mutually grooming if we never explored the dangerous and unknown future would we not? My lovely Irish salesman was keen to let me know that he would not pressure me in any way - and I believe that - his sales were not commission based. It was my damned choice and an upgrade it was.

The software was soon uploaded and I became the proud owner of Mac OS X 10.5.6. How bright and shiny my new operating system seems! The Magic Mouse, delivered in the same post and deliciously stylish and sleek, fails to be any more magic than my dear Mrs Cinnamon. Where is the promised scrolling and effortless shifting between pages? The mighty magnifying and reducing thingies - where are they? Humph. Blow this for a game of soldiers.....I rootle around various help desk and eventually discover that another upgrade is needed - to 10.5.8 - this time available for free.

Ah yes, at last the wonders of the Magic Mouse are revealed and late into the night I scroll up and down and across. I do 2 finger stroking up and two finger stroking down. I press 'control' and slide my finger down MM's silken back.....the image on my screen is enlarged horrifically.....I slide it in the other direction to make it small again. Then I go to bed.

Some time around 4.00am - that deep dark time when sleep can be elusive and thoughts loom large and oppressive I wondered, 'What else isn't going to work?........'

As it turned out, most things. On the plus side my screen was incredibly bright and optimistic looking. (Just as well because I have spent much of the day looking at it and engaging in fault diagnosing 'chat' with my new friends at Quark.) I do mean all day too; add that to yesterday's marathon upgrading and mouse work session and I have spent nearly 10 hours investigating the innards of my Mac. Validation codes, activation codes, serial numbers....I can't save...I can't print....I can print but only with a Quark demo template on every page. So it goes on, to say nothing of the printer which subsequently refused to speak to the computer and had to be teased and cajoled into some sort of relationship. We won't talk about the screen equivalent of post-it notes - 'Stickies' - wherein I jotted and noted all those passwords and codes and membership numbers.....gone...gone...gone. I expect there will be something else but I don't want to know about it right now.

How I wish these things came with some kind of warning along the lines of reinstall your printer software, be prepared to archive this and that, be afraid, do not expect anything to go to plan. But why shouldn't it? Why should all this be cloaked in mystery? Why can't I just put the stuff in and get workable stuff out? It's only a tool for heaven's sake.

Sob. Sigh. Sorry. Rant over.

The difference between boys and girls.

2010-08-18T16:18:00.001Z

I've just come back from blackberrying along the lane with our neighbours' son, aged 9.

While I dutifully picked - and anticipated pies and crumble with each berry that dropped into my bowl - my young helper soon lost interest.

He picked rose hips and elderberries which became missiles to lob at everything in sight. I cowered under a hail of small berries and innocent cows dozing in the sunshine were pelted with under-ripe hips. He described the possibility of stripping the leaves off a particularly vicious thorned briar and using it as a weapon. The very thought sent a shiver up my spine. He scrambled over gates, shouted at sheep and grubbed around in the hedge bottom occasionally emitting war-like yelps.

An excellent example of 'man the warrior' I think in contrast to my nurturing, berry gathering passivity.

PS He is really a very nice lad.

The way we were

2010-08-16T21:46:00.000Z

An interesting day out yesterday with Harry and Sam. We went to Acton Scott - which describes itself as 'an historic working farm'. You may remember it as the farm where the BBC's Victorian Farm series was filmed. It's the kind of place I like to visit; history and things to learn, farming and small furry creatures to coo over.

The weather was kind to us and we were treated to a day of sunshine which made traipsing round the various yards, barns, sties and hovels kinder on our rather un-Victorian footwear. Me? I was wearing some dainty French Sole ballerinas.

I'm not sure quite what led up to the opening of Acton Scott as a living museum but I suspect that while on other farms, post war, agriculture galloped along with farmers embracing new techniques in the race to increase yields and productivity, this estate remained firmly set in the past. It's glory days were definitely in the 19th century when I guess it was amongst those forerunners of new methods in mechanisation and husbandry. It was a bit of a brainwave on somebodies part to recognise that this time capsule was worth preserving - if only to remind us of the way things were.

I sort of remember places like this from my childhood; places where there was a stinking midden (we called it a muck 'eap) in the middle of the yard and a privy a few paces from the scullery door. Cold water, a slop sink, privations. Naming no names, and naming no places I've been there. It's worth noting but not worth revisiting for more than an afternoon. It was never as pretty as this either...there was always an evil chained dog and various rangy cats...

Look at this cool whitewashed dairy and it picturesque paraphernalia. Our childhood milk can was like the one on the left - our childhoods' a daily pattern of taking it down the hill to the dairy, leaving it on the slab and later, after some prompting or nagging picking it up, full, to bring it home again.

Little pigs - Tamworths - were curious and cute:

...and for these suckling pigs this is porcine heaven - mum looks blissed out too. Bless.

Finally a gratuitous pizza picture. We fired up the pizza oven and cooked up a feast. Don't you love the one in the shape of a heart? We did.

Serendipity

2010-08-11T22:03:00.000Z

Oh, what a beautiful morning. Much bodes well - the back doesn't ache, a crossword is completed all but three clues and the weather looks perfect for picking whinberries.

I brief the Glam.Ass; he is to go to Woodmoor in my stead to scale and draw out pictures of a performing seal and a jolly clown for the Young Farmers to paint. That is another story.

My fellow berry picker and I meet up at the village hall and drive on to the Bog Centre - and yes, there really are places in Shropshire called 'The Bog'. The Bog Visitor Centre, housed in an old school house is now something of an oasis in a wilderness, providing tea and buns, toilets, local knowledge and a little history in an area which is a magnet for walkers and holidaymakers alike. If you feel the need for a jar of SBS's pickles, more than likely you will find that too.

We'd foisted one of our books on them - and blow me, contrary to their expectations it had sold and blow me again, they wanted another. Today was a good opportunity to deliver it. We actually took two - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Time for a coffee too before we get out on the hill picking berries. The Bog has a number of items of local history on display - this was after all one of the centres of Shropshire's lead mining industry 100 years ago. We flick through bits of this and that, scan photographs, make mental notes...I pick up a file which holds copies of pages of a 'Day Book' - it looks like a simple ledger of jobs taken on, for whom and prices charged. It's a bit selective - I gather that the pages copied are only those which relate to the Bog area. No matter, it's something to look at. The original document was obviously beautifully written in a neat copperplate hand. That hand records mainly maintenance jobs; some building, joinery, groundworks and quite a lot of coffin making. Then a man worked days to earn a pittance I noted.

I flip through idly and a name catches my eye. Cross. And then I spy Marston - yet another family name. Then Cross again and again and again. And Swain. More pertinently S.Cross snr. and later Harriet Cross; that's great grandfather and great grandmother. Crosses in 1909 are builders and joiners (though I suspect they'll turn their hands to any trade) and it seems they are employed by the writer of this Day Book. They even worked on the building we are sitting in now.

It looks too as if Sam Cross, back in his native hills after a sojourn in Birmingham, builds himself a house - and that house may have had 2 storeys (there is a flight of stairs on his bill). I have a photograph taken in the early '20s of what I believe to be his house - a single storied thatched hovel - so I must now re-think that in light of what I've read today.

John Cross and Edward Marston (brother and step-brother I believe) bury their wives in oak coffins, embellished with brass and ormolu, six months apart. They are billed for shrouds too - costing 3/- and 5/6d respectively. Was one wife larger than the other perhaps - thus accounting for the extra half-crown cost.

I have found gold. This is treasure. Yes, I knew these people lived and worked hereabouts but I had all but given up hope of finding anything more than cold statistical references. This is putting flesh on bones. They are here. I have found them. A shivery sensation creeps up my spine - I feel surrounded by ghosts.

One of the final entries is to 'the representatives of the late Harriet Cross'. It is the bill for her coffin and shroud; a coffin of oak with electro-brass furniture and a 'best' shroud. She died on the 15th January and the bill was settled on the 28th. It was for £6. 10/-. She is my great-grandmother - a stern looking woman in my only photograph - and I now know more about her death than I do about her life.

(I doubt if most people will want a closer look - but if you do, a click should enlarge the pictures.)

We did eventually get whinberry picking - a short stroll up onto the heathered slopes of Black Rhadeley found an abundance of berries - easy picking today - and more than enough for a pie.

I'm looking forward to a slice already.

A church in a field

2010-08-06T21:44:00.001Z

Up on the field last evening at hen-shutting-in time I stood awhile in the gloaming. How sad to report that the nights do seem to be drawing in a little. As 9.30 approached there was still a little light left in the western sky though. The evening was still, damp and cool. Sheep, newly weaned lambs I think, which earlier that evening were flocked in a nearby field, bleating and bawling fit to burst moved out and grazed peacefully. How quiet it was.

My eye traveled across the fields to the little church of St Mary the Virgin which stands at the end of a grassed lane, sheltered by the conifers which bound Trelystan dingle. It's partly hidden by a number of ancient yews, huge beasts now, which grow to the south and west of the building. Through their dark foliage patches of the white painted building were visible. A low bell tower - or is it a steeple? - rose above the trees. In this scattered parish with no apparent centre we are not quite its nearest neighbour. It is a rare and precious small place. Old too. Very old.

Earlier in the day Doreen and I had been delving in the Archives. There's always something to find out isn't there? And one thing leads to another. I don't quite know at present what we are hoping to find out. I think we are looking for the known unknowns*. We adopt something of a scattergun approach - diving into whatever is available and hoping to hit 'pay dirt' - in my case that's the Churchwarden's Accounts from 1750 - 1851. It is exactly what it says it is: the accounts of the church kept by the churchwardens. There are no startling revelations, rather the prosaic and mundane records of maintenance and administration. Stone and slate, lats (sic) and lime for repairs are in perpetual motion. The nettles in the churchyard need cutting and surplices need washing. The stable (did we know there was a stable?) must be thatched. If there are horses then needs must provide - there is a 'horseblock' to maintain. We learn there was a gallery because fabric for curtains was bought. There is no gallery now, I wonder just where it was?

Where there is property there are boundaries which must be 'railed', gates which must be mended - as must doors and locks and keys. Somebody paid the glazier. Coal to heat the building was bought and hauled - the haulage could cost more than the price of the load.

We should not forget the purpose of this building - worship. There are prayer books to be bought and bindings repaired. Psalms must be sung - and the Psalm Singers paid. There are Prayers to be bought for the 'Fast'. Our Churchwardens must be 'initiated', the Apparitor visited and paid for his services - doing so entailing a significant journey in days of poor roads and unsophisticated transport. From here to Church Stretton today, in the Audi, I would allow myself perhaps 40 minutes. 250 years ago, how long? Who knows?

It was not an ostentatious place - and neither is it now - I suspect the Churchwardens' concerns are still the same too; keeping the fabric of the building in good repair with insufficient funds, always with one eye cocked for the higher authority of the 'big church' down the road.

Anything surprising? Yes indeed, one thing and delightfully so. A 'Dog Keeper' received payment on at least two occasions. A Dog Keeper? Hmm. Why was it necessary to keep a dog for a church in a field? I don't expect we'll ever know the answer to that - so that will be an 'unknown known' perhaps.

As an aside - and because I feel the need for a little illustration I'll add that the Churchwardens' Accounts for nearby Chirbury record a payments of 6d for keeping 'dogges out of church'. Dogs in, dogs out. What a world eh?

*In the words of Donald Rumsfeld: 'There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.' Quite.

A Good Listen

2010-08-04T21:40:00.000Z

When, a few years ago I started out on some renovation projects my first purchase - after the skip hire but before the wallpaper scraper - was a radio. It followed me round one flat and two houses becoming progressively more speckled with dabs of plaster and paint - an essential bit of kit. Woe betide anyone who turned the dial from Radio 4.....

I'd switch it on as I walked through the door and turn it off when I left. In between times I'd listen - and listen with the greatest pleasure to plays and stories. A virgin wall, a can of paint and a brush in the silence of an empty house, hanging onto a ladder with one hand but onto every word with my ears. Not going home until the story had ended, dragging out those brushfulls' of paint. Bliss. How I love to be read to.

I can't remember if I was read to as a child. Perhaps I was, that is surely something my father would have done. Miss Charles would read to us at school - I've a vague memory of Pilgrim's Progress - though suspect it was a special 'primary school edition' - it's hard to imagine it being the reading matter of choice for a coutry school in 1950s Warwickshire.. A play on the car radio can be a blessing to while away the miles. Who hasn't sat, late for a meeting, listening to the last few moments of some drama or other?

A short while ago the Glam Ass bought me an iTouch. Perfect. From the moment I fired it up and slid my finger across its seductive screen I was hooked - this sleek little gadget could be the repository of my secret world. What's there not to like? It stores pictures, notes, apps, music, movies and accesses the t'interweb. Download and store books too. Not just books to read - although that is possible - but books to listen to. What a good idea.

I now subscribe to audible, where for £7.99 per month I get a 'credit' which gets me a book. So far it's been fine and value for money. I download my book, sync the iTouch, put in the 'phones and listen away. There are other, free sources out there in the vastness of the www which I have not as yet explored. I have a feeling though that, if not audio books, then books for a 'reader' are the way that things are heading. Did I hear somewhere that Amazon's download sales for its 'Kindle' outsold traditional book sales recently?

Anyway - my book of the moment is Kathryn Stockett's 'The Help'. Nearly two-thirds of the way through now and I am hooked. Three voices for the three main characters narrate their stories. I am in the white/black world of Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s - not a good place for everyone - and I hear every word of a good and thought provoking story. This is gripping storytelling too - I am tempted nightly to listen just a little bit longer - I really care about what will happen next. (I do so hope Miss Hilly eventually gets her comeuppance....)

But what do I want to do? I want to flip the page to see how a name is spelled, check on something quickly, perhaps even flick forwards for a taste of what's to come - and that is not so easy without a visual reference. This is my only caveat. Perhaps I shall have to buy a real copy after all - it wouldn't be the first time.

Retail therapy

2010-07-31T10:45:00.001Z

Don't get me wrong - I'm not mired in the Slough of despond. Not by any means. I remain fairly chipper. Quite chipper anyway. The cream jug is still half full.

I can't help feeling though that a few days of sunshine would lift the spirits; the summer I can recall with certainty was on May 21st, 22nd and 23rd and it's been downhill since. The cooler, damper, more humid weather has made the garden grow for certain. This is a Good Thing. (See how even in the face of massive weed invasion and borders like the Mato Grosso I remain resolutely upbeat?) Our holiday is ages off as well....

And another thing: those bastard poultry mites can clear off. I've given eradication my best shot. I've blow-torched out the three houses and sprayed each 3 times as per the instructions on the container. I've begun a course of treatment for the birds which they are not being terribly cooperative about. I've itched and scratched, looked stupid in all sorts of hats, masks, overalls and gloves and still some buggers remain in the nooks and crannies. But ha! I know for a fact there are many thousands of thousands less. And this is A Good Thing too.

Retail therapy is called for. I believe it is a proven fact that shopping is good for you. Not the grocery/toilet paper/compost/petrol-for-lawnmower/new tyres sort of shopping but the uplifting feel-good sort involving frivolous things of utter gorgeousness. It's a bit limited round here but still possible. What did I come up with?

Here's my purchase: a scrumptious leather bag from Matt Fothergill's shop in Clun.

Soft and smooth, it smells divine - to me at least. We think the colour - it's not a brown or a grey or a black - is best described as 'dark elephant'.

The inside is soft and green, like a hawthorn hedge in spring. Lots of handy capacious pockets to hold life's essentials. I make a mental note to keep the detritus of till receipts, tissues and toffees that tend to lurk at the bottom of my bags to a minimum. This is a bag. Not a bin.

I also - and I will say this very, very, quietly because it is still July - bought a Christmas present. Quite a successful outing.

I'm off now to stroke it's lovely sides and inhale a bit of that new leather aroma. For medicinal purposes only.....ah, that's better. I feel quite restored.

Thought for the day:

2010-07-29T21:15:00.000Z

The pick-up has developed a disconcerting squeak. It would be impossible to arrive anywhere unannounced in it. The Glam Ass, spotting a quiet moment at Jack's Tyres in Welshpool, got it put on the ramp to see if he/they could spot the problem. (He/they could, but I've forgotten what it was.)

The usually chirpy Gary, obviously having a Bad Day, announced:

'If it's got tits or wheels it's trouble.'

Indeed.....

Lumps and bumps

2010-07-26T21:56:00.000Z

I'm curious.

The landscape's mysterious man-made lumps and bumps are tantalising. Silent clues to the past which I so wish could talk. Who built what? And why? What were their lives like? Who trudged, spat, shivered, loved, lived and died? Kids must have been kids....what games did they play? I just ache with wanting to know.

Doreen has beguiled a young archaeologist into giving us a conducted tour of a local Iron Age hill fort - the Beacon Ring.
I've cancelled all other engagements - this is a 'must do' opportunity.

The Beacon Ring is about a mile from where I live and a fairly significant landmark. Two huge masts which transmit television signals across mid-Wales dominate the site. They're quite useful - meaning we can always spot somewhere near home.

The earthwork is a fortified site built on the southern reaches of the Long Mountain, before Wales and England emerged as separate nations. We were all Britons then. To celebrate the Queen's coronation in 1953 it was someones inspired idea to plant the area - a well defined upland 'ring' with stunning views to east and west - with a mixture of Beech and Sequoia spelling out 'ER II'. That's commemorative, arboreal graffiti if you like, as if giving it a description makes this destructive planting of an Ancient Monument any more excusable. The detail is visible only from above of course. You can check it out on Google Earth.
Here is the view, looking north west over the Severn plain towards the Cambrian Mountains. Anyone approaching from this direction and intent on wreaking destruction would be out of breathe and good for nothing after the steep climb up the bank I think.

CPAT have now acquired the site and plan a study of the site which will involve not only archaeological investigation lasting decades but also the removal of trees and restoration of the land to more sympathetic use. Hurrah for them.

These lumps and bumps are so well defined but have apparently not been surveyed before although the site is quite well known - being allegedly the place where St Elystan/Edelstan (and who gave his name to Trelystan) died in battle around 1000AD and a place where many skirmishes must have taken place in those restless times. Hard to imagine now, as we stand and look out on the quiet landscape spread beneath us, and hear only the rustle of a faint breeze through those commemorative beech trees and the 'gronk' of Ravens dancing on the wing.

My imagination has already gone into overdrive. My mind's eye sees men lugging earth and stone to construct ditches and banks - with tools a modern builder would laugh at. I see battles and bitter winters when a wicked wind howls up the valley......but there would also be days like today where under summer skies we can amble slowly through knee length grass and pick sweet wild berries.....

Tell me more. Let there be treasure, something. Gold. Post holes. Anything.

Chicken stuff again (I really should get a life...)

2010-07-19T17:36:00.000Z

The chickens, now aged 6 weeks, are on the field at last. Hurrah. This is A Good Thing. The garage has been restored to garage-dom but not car storage and I must look at a dusty Audi outside the kitchen window for a bit longer. Quite a lot longer I suspect and this is Not A Good Thing.

Not a good picture I'm afraid - they are not in the least compliant about lining up neatly for the team photo. At present all 13 fit into the little house but at the rate they are growing they will need to move on soon. I have 7 cockerels still looking for a home. The picture below is of their father, a handsome chap.

Elsewhere in my poultry empire the dreaded red mites have come back to bite me and once again I am taking remedial action. Today I've cleared and blow-torched one house and tomorrow will apply some foul and lethal chemical to all surfaces, cracks and crevices. The prospect of doing this to the other two houses does not thrill - neither does the thought of catching and treating 22 uncooperative birds.

The mere thought is too itchy scratchy for words - having showered and put on clean clothes I'm switching off hen thoughts and thinking 'big glass of chilled white wine' instead. Cheers.

Pretty wonderful really isn't it?

2010-07-16T20:47:00.001Z

Anybody remember January? January when the snow was as deep as a dog in a dingle? In the bleak mid-winter indeed. I'd stand at the window in a room with the log burner roaring and stretch my imagination. Leaves, flowers and fruit; an impossible notion. Suffice then to be sheltered and dream. Would green and warm and frutiful ever happen?

It's been a long slow haul this year; a late spring and dry months since. I'm an impatient soul and find it hard to tick off the produce we have actually enjoyed to date. I have worked hard on the garden - I want to reap the benefits. In truth there has been much to enjoy already.

Today I picked beans, courgette, cucumber, raspberries and (as they would say in these parts) a ruck of basil. I feel as if summer's harvest is now coming in. This is how it should be.

That ruck of Basil - what a wonderful herb it is. We will have pasta with prawns and pesto tonight. A handful of basil, pine nuts and Parmesan; a little garlic and seasoning and a gloop of olive oil. Wish I could say I made like it an Italian matron and using pestle, mortar and muscle power. Nope, it's all whizzed up in the Magimix, seasoning adjusted and ready to serve. Plenty for tonight and plenty to stir into new potatoes or dip a bread stick into. Oh, what greedy souls we are.

Pretty good really. I count my blessings.

Drizzle....

2010-07-13T20:44:00.001Z

...it must be July. In Wales.

We're in the clouds tonight, up here on the top of the Long Mountain.

I may well be still thinking that we've only just got over a particularly bleak winter but in truth the past couple of months have been fantastic. I have the farmer's tan and the Birkenstock-ed feet to prove it. Rain has fallen infrequently and at night. That may be inconvenient in one respect - plants have needed watering - but has also meant we have spent much time outdoors. We've cooked outside quite a lot - and I realise that while I'm not too bothered about barbecued food I do love sitting in the garden, glass in hand, feeling the day ebb away. Things to see, hear and smell - late birds and bats dodge and dart over the dingle and the scent of lavender and dianthus hangs in the warm air. Occasionally the rustle of a breeze or the low of a distant beast breaks the silence. My thoughts turn to the end of the day when we are on Paxos - days which can hardly be described as busy for us visitors - but at twilight the buzzing of the little boats and motor bikes has stopped, the inky Ionian is still and stirred only by the slightest slap of water meeting the harbour wall. The lights of Loggos twinkle. All is well with my world......

....Back to the here and now - tonight I am on the top of a low mountain in Wales. At hen-shutting-in time I felt the prickle of wet against my face and watched mist wind over the dark face of Badnage Wood. It's in no way unpleasant, but rather fresh and clean.

We're in the process of moving the hens to different enclosures - in theory an easy task, but in reality a logistical nightmare involving temporary pens and much cursing on behalf of the Glam Ass. (Erecting 200m of electric poultry fencing with one's husband surely qualifies as grounds for divorce?) This complicates the shutting-in task, as does chasing a sheep and persuading the Rhode Island Reds that inside is a better bet than on the roof. (I have a theory that hens are so hard to herd because they have eyes on the side of their heads. Well? Have you a better one?)

Plenty of time then to appreciate the cool damp night as I stand in the field with my stick, alternately whupping the tops off thistles and nudging birds along. Not really enough rain to do much good at all in the garden. Those peas and beans really do need water.

Better be careful of what I wish for.....one can have too much of a good thing.

Later - Tuesday:

Well, the hens are now relocated - each in their own little enclosure, closely mown and surrounded by electric fence (though don't tell Mr Fox that until the battery is charged it isn't a threat). It looks like text book poultry keeping. I'm sending up silent prayers to whichever god is responsible for wheels on hen-houses; despite the gloomiest of the Glam Ass's predictions, which stretched to several day's worth of moaning, hauling a hen house behind the little yellow tractor was a walk in the park. We finished staking, stretching mesh and cable-tying at mid-day - and are still speaking. Call the divorce lawyers off.

Drizzle still embraces the Long Mountain. The air is still fresh and clean.

My contender for the most boring purchase of 2010

2010-07-07T09:50:00.000Z

£286.00!!! Splutter. Gulp. Gasp.

That nearly covers the cost of a flight to NYC. It's almost half a coveted iPad. It could be something yummy and stroke-ably lovely....sigh

....but is in fact 2 new tyres for my car. As thrilling a purchase as toilet cleaner, dishcloths or mouse traps. Gulp again.

A flat tyre warranted investigation at Jack's Tyres in Welshpool and investigation revealed both front tyres to be worn to a point of danger due to faulty tracking. A blow-out at any point and especially at speed, was apparently a real possibility. Even my small, fluffy and unmechanical brain knew this was not A Good Thing and that making good was going to cost money. We'll gloss over the fact that Jack's Tyres fitted the last set and might just have noticed that the aforesaid tracking wasn't right before letting me drive off.

The eponymous Jack rustled up the least expensive tyres he could find and one of his team of oily young men fitted them and adjusted the tracking. If these are 'mid-range' how much are the expensive ones? And who, apart from Arab Sheiks, can afford to buy them? And why?

Still, I'm safer now than I was 24 hours ago and as much as I resent coughing up nearly 300 smackers for something as unsexy as tyres I know it's preferable to ending up as a mess on the highway.

See what I mean? Surely one of the ugliest and unwantable objects possible.

A detour

2010-07-04T09:41:00.000Z

There I was, minding my own business in downtown Trelystan, pinning a poster to the 'village' noticeboard when I was hailed by an urgent looking and very lost lady.

Did I know where the pony-trekking centre was?

A quick think - and I swear that one could hear all the cogs whirring in my head - and erm, yes. I did.

Giving directions though was a different matter - this lady and the two excited girls giggling in the back of her car didn't seem up to taking extra information on board. They were late for a pony-trekking-party date. Late, late, late. It was all getting A Bit Too Much.

Would I take them there? Well I would but my car was seriously short of fuel and while I thought I might just about coast down the hill to Welshpool a 12 mile detour (and yes, these poor souls had gone round and round in so many circles that there were THAT far off target) wasn't possible.

Could I come with them - and she'd drive me back to my car?

So it was that I hopped into a car with three strangers and led them off down the lane which runs along the side of the Long Mountain - a lane so skinny, narrow and underused that one seems to be entering a lost world. We glide between long grass and wildflowers on the roadside and glimpse hidden bosky valleys through gaps in hedges hung with honeysuckle and roses. We agree the landscape is beautiful in these parts.

We found the pony trekking centre - which also had holiday cabins and an idyllic view over the Rea valley. The excited little girls rushed off to their pony-trekking-birthday-treat and their mother, good as her word dropped me back at my car. She was a lovely lady and I hope one day we'll meet again.

It was only afterwards when I started to think about the strangeness of this interlude that I wondered about the wisdom of disappearing to goodness-knows-where in a stranger's car. Not really from my point of view; she didn't fit the profile of the average axe murderer and I don't think I'm white slave material, but what about the two little girls and all those lectures about 'stranger danger'? What messages were given to them about caution and judicious behavior regarding strangers when mum whisks someone she has only met moments ago, off in her car? I hope she talks it through with them. Perhaps the message that not all strangers are potentially dangerous is a good one too.

Sweet peas

2010-06-30T22:01:00.001Z

Cold winter, late spring, dry spell - everything in the garden is slow. The spinach has bolted, something horrible has happened to 3 rows of garlic and 2 hens have decided that life is too much of a trial and have, inexplicably, gone to that great roost in the sky. Sigh.

Never mind. The sweet peas are twining skyward on their canes and today I picked my first stems; fragrant beauties.

And the world seems a brighter, righter place.

a trip 'oop north and other diversions

2010-06-27T10:51:00.001Z

It was late morning when I finally got going, having fiddled around at home so much I wondered if I really wanted to go at all. Up north that is. Of course I did - my spirit of adventure and sense of curiosity were just a bit sluggish on Thursday morning. The hardest bit of any journey I think is actually getting in the car and turning out of the drive.

Once on the road, on my own, on my own mini-break, euphoria set in. I was off, unencumbered, the world for 24 hours at least was my own personal oyster. No husband. No dogs. No hens. No garden. No blasted WI. No commitments. Don't get me wrong I love 'em all - it's just sometimes a gal needs time to breathe. Freeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Here are my snapshots:

The hills and fields of Wales slip away as I head north. Lanes become roads and roads become motorways. Traffic increases as I enter the suburbs and the once familiar landscape of south Manchester. I don't know why I have a feeling that everything will be different because I have not been here for a while. Things are essentially still the same.

John Lewis did not disappoint. How sad that what used to be (almost) my corner shop is now a treat. I stand and drool in front of the towel display. I touch and stroke fabrics. I try on extremely impractical clothes which mostly make me look like an overstuffed cushion or an old squishy sofa. I am amazed by all the 'stuff' - like a monkey with a piece of glass. The choice of 'stuff' is overwhelming and faced with such an array and the need for some credit card action, I eventually buy a pair of shoes and 3 lanterns for the nearly-finished 'hovel'.

My friend J, head of things artistic at a college in south Manchester, has invited me to her students' end of year show. It is most, most impressive. The work is technically accomplished and mature. Students are showing parents their displays and those parents are bursting with pride. The College has a new building which is also on display. It apparently cost £20 million and is superbly equipped; suites with banks of computers, a theatre, recording studios, dance studio, practice rooms and a library on the top floor with views across the city to the Pennines beyond. I do wonder how those of us educated in medieval gatehouses or Victorian mansions using only pen and paper ever made our way in the world.

After the exhibition when the last student, high on achievement, has been shooed out with its proud parent, and the doors locked we go off for a meal and a well deserved glass of wine. We go to Albert's - a big old Didsbury pub once known as the Barleycorn and now reincarnated as a hip and trendy eatery. Its insides have been gutted; lounge bars, snugs and vaults replaced by a vast open space filled with tables and chairs and lots of ambient light and sound. It's pretty busy too - those tables are mostly full inside and out. We opt to eat indoors. The food is good and arrives quickly. The wine is chilled and welcome. I notice that on our table at least the iPhone is very much in evidence. (They have been placed reverently on the table by their owners who caress them periodically.) It is very obviously the object de nos jours. There is much talk of Apps. I keep my crap-rubbish phone out of sight and secretly lust after a little Apple beauty. One of our number has an iPad which he ostentatiously flaunts, knowing, just knowing, that we all want one not-so-secretly. It is passed round the table for us, the Pad-less, to admire. I am reminded of back in the 80s how the early mobile phones - as big and heavy as car batteries - were also paraded as conspicuously; objects of one-up-manship.

I sleep in J's attic room, looking up at the stars through the skylight before I drop off. The night is not quiet and still. The traffic buzzes in the distance, a police car wails and there's one hell of a good party going on a couple of streets away.

The following morning after coffee and toast I take a nostalgic mooch around our old neighbourhood, resisting the temptation to knock on doors and do some catching up. I am a tad nostalgic for those good old days, sunny afternoons which won't come round again - especially now that Heaton Moor looks so much brighter and vibrant than when I arrived fresh from the country in 1971.

However, the future now calls and I have an appointment in the YFC marquee on the Shropshire County Showground in Shrewsbury. I must don my badge and judge class YF2 - the best mounted photograph of the County Chairman in Action. I hope I made the right choices - that phrase 'the judge's decision is final' has a wonderfully authoritative ring to it don't you think.

........

Did anyone click on my medieval link above? I knew I was going to see a picture of part of my old school but was quite surprised to see my form room when I was in VI b2 - looking considerably less shabby than it did when I was there. In retrospect I guess it was something of a privilege to be educated in such a quirky and historic building. I wonder if the winding stairway still pongs of the old lost property box which was always stuffed with grubby gym kit? I wonder if it found a buyer.

Bird dog and birds.

2010-06-23T09:15:00.001Z

Imagine. You've been bustled indoors while something interesting goes on outside. You have your nose pressed to the door the better to draw in those outdoor aromas; pongs of this and whiffs of that and.....................bird!

Your patience is rewarded when one of your Beloved People lets you out. With a leap and a bound you are on the case; no point in dithering. If you thought the words 'cartoon dog' were mentioned you would have heard correctly. You were bloody right too! There are birds! Let's get at 'em.

Sorry Chester, you and those chickens must stay on separate sides of the pen. No amount of text-book 'pointing' on your part will make me change my mind. I know they would be a tasty snack. Soft-centres too. You are a Pointer. Stick to pointing.

These are the chickens at just over two weeks old. How quickly they grow. They will need to be moved on from their 'tub' in the garage soon. Today was warm enough to bring them outside and let them see the outside world for the first time. I put them on the lawn in the dog crate, in the sun but with some dappled shade to retreat to. Quite an overwhelming experience for them I think. Sensory overload after a fortnight in a black tub under a warm red light. If they'd been under a broody hen she would have had them outdoors already, teaching them to peck and scratch. I am a poor substitute.

Their feathers are coming through and they are looking gawky. I wonder how many cockerels there are - it is a little too soon to tell from their appearance. One might expect 50:50, but with 13 birds that's never going to work out. Sod's law tells me that because I want hens there will be a predominance of males.

If you would like a cockerel in due course - please do speak up. They make excellent alarm clocks.

Longest day

2010-06-21T21:44:00.001Z

If you live in the land of the midnight sun this is all going to seem fairly inconsequential - but I still find evenings as light as this pretty magical.

I watched a thin red line on the horizon shortly after 4.00am this morning; dawn. It was light enough to see nothing was happening in the field under our window. Birds, beasts and people slept on. Me included.

The day rattled by - wall to wall sunshine. Places to go, people to see. Holes to dig, plants to plant. Stuff to do. Stuff not done. Sigh.

Now at 10.32pm it's only vaguely dark outside. I've watched flirty pink clouds jib from west to north; seen vapour trails from mile-high planes trace grey lines from north to south. In the west the sky is the palest clearest blue. Hens are reluctant to roost, daisies are luminous on the bank and somewhere in the distance a tractor driver makes a last cut of hay. There's a moon somewhere too. I can see my hand in front of my face, read the headlines in the newspaper - and if I wasn't so damned tired I'd go for a walk. Right. Now.

As it is I think I'll turn in - better make the most of what is probably the shortest night.