December the 18th

A flock of sheep came past our kitchen window yesterday, trotting one after the other in the direction all the other sheep were heading. The farmer waved at us from the comfort of the 4x4 as they passed (two shepherds were herding on foot). I believe they were from Castell, the farm closest to our east face. Joe and I met the female farmer (farmer’s wife, I suppose, but wouldn’t want to malign her status) while out for a walk; she had two border collies so Joe and I stopped for ‘collie chat’. She told me they have a couple of hundred sheep, but the flock marching past Rhos Hill amounted to about fifty; all plump, well-woolled ewes; in lamb, I think. They are now happily grazing in the field on the west side of our far bank – the grass is thicker and greener than the fields they’ve left. A nice early Christmas present for pregnant mums.

Slowly, our extension is growing. It's already got a roof and I've got the photo to prove it!

It is still, at times, nice enough to work in the garden, but our jobs at the moment are heavy and damp and I venture out less than Jim. My jobs are to dig two further veg patches for spring use, and to shift the massive pile of dug-up stones. This is a non-ergonomic chore, but unavoidable; we dug the stones up in the north-west of the field, carted them to the growing pile in the south-east and left them there...because at the time we didn’t know where some of them were going. Since then, we’ve successfully paved the polytunnel with small stones, although most of those came out of the soil when we dug up the polytunnel! Now, however, we’re creating a base coat of stones for the garage driveway and the path that will lead around the side of the garage, drawing a line at the top of the halfmoon of lawned terrace I’ve now completed. Not that it's seeded yet, I’ll wait till the spring for that. The stone pile is understandably muddy, so before laying my path, I have to wash all the stones – otherwise there would be little point in having laid the weedproof liner.

Jim’s job is to use his new shredder and diminish the massive heap of tiny twigs from the 9 felled trees. But he’s doubly lucky; not only is his job less heavy and definitely less wet, he’s burning the bits of twig that are too big to shred and too crap to keep as kindling; so not only is he not panting as he works, he’s got his own personal fire. Luckily, I’ve also got the excuse of staying in on drizzly days; I have a book to finish writing and students to advise.

In the run up to the festive season, the social life round here really heats up. Moving backwards; last night we went to Jackie and John’s for a delightful party where we got re-acquainted with Ann, who keeps donkeys who help her in her work with troubled children and the elderly and her husband Emyr, who farms beef. We met John's mum Pat who writes poems, and dad Dave who is a retired engineer, and their neighbours. 

This week we’ve graced the Rhydlewis coffee morning, where we met people from the gardening club and chatted to a couple who live towards Brynhoffnant; David and his German wife Barbara. Tuesday was the gardening club dinner at the Ship in Llangrannog, that lovely little cove that Joe and I explored in the summer. No one was very enamoured of the food, though, especially Mia, who at 87 always looks turned-out as a Stella McCartney model (if not so elfin) and used to be a senior sister at Carmarthen hospital. ‘This turkey is like rubber,’ she complained, ‘and the carrots are raw.’ She was right; the chef had forgot that ‘bite’ doesn’t mean ‘loose a tooth’. ‘And this pudding is nothing special.’ But pubs see punters coming at Xmas; they can serve up rubbish with a cracker and everyone’s too drunk to care. Except Mia, who gave the waiter a look that would have withered a junior nurse.

Before that, Jill came over to lunch and we all went to Jenny’s. She lives just ½ mile from us, so it was nice to see her house, which, like ours, overlooks the valley; just a slightly different view. While there, we brought home the templates we’d need to be secretary of the gardening club. All we need to do now is start being secretary! And we had our final storytelling day, with a lovely party of food and delicious punch that Elsyllt brought, and five wonderful stories from her five students, including Jill’s sad tale of a leprechaun, Jim’s story of The Fox and the Sword of Light, and mine...the Night Visitors...which started out life as a libretto. And previous to that, a week or so back, we were at Mara Freeman's house in Maeslyn, just a mile from us, for a lovely workshop about angels, that Theolyn Cortens held there. Good time of year for angels.

Today we’re off to Bristol to see all the Dobunni crowd for the winter solstice celebration (bit early, it’s actually the morning of the 22^nd), and to also deliver pressies to Gail and family and Maggie and Lew, who have kindly agreed to take us in for the night.

Then the big push comes. On the 22^nd, we’re at the drop-inn party at Theolyn’ house in Newcastle Emlyn, Joe will hopefully be with us by xmas eve for a warm and happy few days, and Becky and Mark arrive on the 27^th, just in time for Jill’s wonderful Midwinter Party. Weeee!

Last night, on the way back from the party, we passed through an ice storm. Hail, sleet and snow pour down, creating, in the headlights, a white screen that obliterated our vision. As we drove away from Llanybydder, the roads were white with new-driven snow. But by the time we reached home, there was no snow to be seen, and today, the sun is bright and low over the valley. Apparently, the Lampeter area is a microclimate and constantly has worse weather than we do, closer to Cardigan Bay and further from the Cambrians. Not trying to sound smug or anything, but yes, the sun is streaming, warm, through our windows....

OMG; it's November!

If I’ve not been very active on this blog of late, that’s not because there’s nothing to tell! On the contrary, we haven’t had time, it feels, to draw breath, let along write about Rhos Hill.

The field looks a bit like a bombsite at the moment; someone came and laid a garage base for us and we asked them to pile up the topsoil, which they duly did. We came behind with spade, rake and wheelbarrow and are now in the process of levelling it out as a grassed terrace. We built the terrace wall from thick beech logs; hopefully they will do their job as well as a stone wall...it’s a bit of an experiment...like most of the stuff we’re doing around here. My original plan was to lay grass by using turves lifted from the beds we’re digging in the kitchen garden area, but once I’d looked at my pile of lumpy, weedy, stony turves and back at all the effort I’d taken to rake the new lawn flat, I changed my mind and bought some grass seed. Now I’ve got to get it down before the frosts set in. I can’t wait for my new lawn...for those of you who last summer had the joy of witnessing me fall off my patio chair during lunch (even before the wine!) will know why.

Meanwhile, Jim is sorting through the pile of branches left by the Big Beech Cull in the summer. As he pulls them out of the tangle that looks like the sort of thicket the Prince had to hack his way through to find Sleeping Beauty, he’s piling them so neatly that this pile now resembles a 15’ interwoven fence. Seems a shame he didn’t pile them somewhere a fence was needed, but a woman can’t ask for everything. Well – I can ask – in fact I can compile a list, which reads like this;

       i.          build log store

      ii.          Make wooden labels and paint them white for next season’s kitchen garden

     iii.          clear out shed, clean and put everything back...neatly

     iv.          dig two new beds and manure them

      v.          bring geraniums in and create cuttings.

     vi.          put up greenhouse

   vii.          lay garage drive...it’s so nice to watch a busy retireree.

We’ve had some lovely days round here; warm, sunny, and filled with the cries of the red kites and the song of the robins. Every so often, the sky darkens momentarily as the starlings take flight, swooping low in a cloud of thousands; if I look up, it seems to take minutes for them to pass. As they swirl round they seem to form huge black commas against the clouds.

We’ve got our early onions in garlic and some first broad  beans, which are already peeking up; I tried my level best to prevent them being eaten by mice by covering them with both fleece (to keep them snug) and netting. Seems to have worked. The carrots and parsnips are thriving. There are brassicas for spring inside and out, and in the polytunnel the curly kale is almost ready to eat, and the salad leaves remain delicious...we’ve had some whopping radishes. Jim planted broad beans and peas as an experiment...it’s right between seasons, really, but we’re hoping they’ll be fooled...they have certainly flowered, but whether this will set to pods, is anyone’s guess. We’ll keep you posted.

We've got a fruit cage already to go, with blueberry and rasberry plants ready for it, and finally our stone circle is in pride of place in the back garden, guarded by fairies and hares.

Lyn and Len, friends from the gardening club who live close to the Preseli Hills, have given us a bounty of perennials, including a lovely Charles de Mills rose, a massive spread of London Pride and a cotoneaster tree with duel coloured leaves. Most of the plants have been heeled in; I’m still not sure where my flower beds will be, but once we’ve levelled and seeded this fantastic new lawn, I’ll have a better idea. In the meantime five varieties of sweet pea are in pots; there’s another load ready and waiting to be planted up in early spring. That way, we should get a fairly perpetual showing of one of my favourite flowers. The gardening club gave us 6 tulips each for a spring bulb competition (shades of reception class at school). We planted them up using different techniques; one pot had all the trimmings, including bulb fibre, food and vermiculite. The other had bog-standard Rhos hill soil (although certainly not from a bog!). We put them in the polytunnel and the following day, one of the pots was on its side and one of the bulbs had a chunk nibbled from it. Mice we’re thinking...(hoping!). Interestingly, it was the one in the standard soil. So now we’re a bulb down...no chance of winning, but we’ve moved them to the shed, which is metal, and so, presumably will keep the little squeakers out.

Lyn also gave me cuttings of her Himalayan Coriander, which looks nothing like the Mediterranean type; the leaves are oval and sharply pointed and have a tang of lemon. I put these little stalks in a glass of water and was amazed to find they shot long, healthy roots. They’re doing well on my kitchen windowsill.

Next week, the garage goes up. Sadly, it won’t immediately have a driveway, so no car can enter its portals, but it will store the petrol mower, etc. We’ll keep it empty for the builders until the extension is complete.  And building work for the extension (which has eye-wateringly almost doubled in cost), should be underway by the end of the month...with the weather setting in, we’re not expecting much to be done by Christmas, and can’t see it being finished before late spring. But, it will be done, and then you’ll all be able to come and stay...together!

I’ve finally discovered a good swimming pool, taken me long enough, I know, but then gardening is the new gym. Tiefy Evens, our neighbouring farmer, showed me the one he uses in Cenarth; pool, gym, sauna, jaccuzi, steam room...but oddly...no hairdryers in the ladies changing rooms. Hey ho...who needs hairdryers in Wales...bound to rain as soon as you leave!

Last week we met some new friends for a birthday celebration; John and Jackie who live towards Lampeter and are pagans. It was a blast, their do; we had a great time in the Cwmann Tavern where the food is yummy; we’re looking forward to seeing them here next Saturday.

Middle of September (already!)

Finally, Becki and Mark (in a rather nice 2010 Volvo), came rolling round the bend and into our layby. First time they’d seen Rhos Hill, but then we both moved countries at the same time; Becki to Antibes and us to Ceredigion. 

I’m so glad they both like our cottage...in fact Becki said it was the cosiest, friendliest house she’d ever been in (that was what you said, wasn’t it Bex?). We showed them to their cosy bedroom and then served them roast chicken (Mark rubbing his hands in glee) and salad/new spuds from the garden.  It was the following morning, once it was light, that they saw the garden, and were able to admire the view from Rhos Hill. Then Jim dragged them over to the field so that they could see the polytunnel. It is absolutely bursting with food now, the leeks and lettuce are shooting up, and the brasiccas look good too. The new potatoes are looking wonderfully healthy – like show specimens. They’ll be ready way before Christmas, but there are two outdoor rows that will be a little slower and probably be dug up in December. Meanwhile, we’ve got our Japanese and red onions in, and one bulb of garlic in a pot.  

Mark had a hankering to see Cardigan Bay, so we took them to Poppit Sands by way of Newcastle Emlyn, where we had lunch in the Bunch of Grapes. There we met the two men who take away our rubbish...very intimate relationship! and one of them runs the building supplies yard down the road from the pub – as usual the Tiefy network worked well and we were soon being offered a discount. 

Later on, we ate at La Calabria, where we bumped into Tiefy Evens, the man who runs the nearest farm to Rhos Hill in the direction of Rhydlewis. The following day, after Mark and Becki had gone, he came round to our house and invited us to take a look at his farm. This was the first farm we’d walked around since arriving and it was very educational...especially the marvellous conversions he’d done on a couple of barns, which now look utterly Country Homes and, in fact, are B&Bs...our closest.

Tiefy has 400 milking cows and also specializes in pork; he breeds only the local Welsh Pig, an almost white animal. We saw several sows suckling big litters and got quite excited about one day putting a couple of weaners at the bottom of the  field. Meanwhile, next week, the man who will lay the base for the garage is bringing is equipment and materials, so it’s all systems go for the next stage in the game.

It was lovely having Mark and Becki here, but we will see them again very shortly; we’re going over to Antibes on the 23^rd September for the long weekend, to celebrate a trio of birthdays; Joe’s, Bex’s and Mark’s dad’s big zero. 

Beginning of September

As autumn encroaches by being alternatively hot-cold-warm-blowy, I’ve been turning to herbal remedies. Up to now, apart from the odd pot of spearmint tea, we haven’t done anything further than pour through our herbal handbooks, which range from James Wang to Anne Franklin to beautifully illustrated old herbals. But when I went down with a gastric flu-type bug (8 days after Jim retired under the duvet and didn’t reappear until he was better) it took me three miserable days to recover. Of course, I found it impossible to stay in bed, and instead made Jim’s life even more of a misery by moaning all over the sofa. 

As I reached convalescence,I took a steady walk round the garden and gathered a bowlful of different tonic herbs; dandelion, nasturtium leaf and nettle to cleanse the system, lady’s mantle, which is very gentle on it, lemon balm and rosemary to boost the mind and fennel, along with some root ginger from the salad box, to settle the stomach. I made a tea which lasted all day and actually tasted...great! Call it co-incidence, but that awful, bone-achy, trembly feeling that was the last of the flu disappeared as I drank it by the cupful.

I’ve also made my first small batch of hawthorn syrup, which is specifically known to steady the heart and lower B.P. I’m on hypertensives, and won’t be giving those up for a while, but I decided to take no medications when I had the flu (would have brought them up...sorry...to much info...), but the syrup was easy to digest and tastes of blackberries sprinkled with sugar. (honest!) It also looks a treat; just like a syrup for kid’s coughs might. To make it, I'd boiled washed hawthorn berries in their weight of water and mashed, allowed to rest, then strained and added sugar to boil to a syrup. What I should have taken - as soon as I realized Jim was ill - was echinacea, but we haven’t got round to planting it yet! Even as a tablet, it works best if you take it when bugs threaten...that tickle at the back of the throat. It’s a great zapper and works best if it’s not taken long term. I also read that elderberry works a treat as a bug zapper, if taken in the same way...what an excellent excuse for making and drinking wine. 

       

We met the wine judge when we went to the Llanddarog Show last week. We were down in that area because that is where we have found a small joiners who make windows and doors from solid oak, and wanted to view their products. But the show was so lovely...simple joys, like trying to throw the ruby ball through the hole, and trying to manoeuvre a massive tractor around a maze. As always, there were sweet little dogs refusing to walk around their ring, and proud little ponies, only too happy to trot around theirs. There were cattle being led by lads who hardly came up to their horns and pens of persil-white sheep, each breed with a different but equally comical face. 
It was in the refreshments tent that, we met the judge of the homemade wine section. He was an older fellow who had made country wines all his life. His tip for enjoying them was...take your time...look for clarity. But he also recommended that the drinker should not think of them as a substitute for a bottle from Tesco's, or they were bound to be disappointed (come to think of it, I'm often disappointed by the bottle from Tesco's...), but rather, a totally different drink experience. He was now soaking up a cup of tea and piece of cake to help the results of his judging, before being driven home by his son!

I thought up a simple solution to the problem of the travellers of Dale Farm. Instead of throwing them out and then trying to rehouse them peace meal, they could offer them the price of the land they bought plus the sort of ‘sweetener’ people get when they need to be rehoused because the motorway is going to plough through their semi. I know the council do not have to do this, but it would cost less and get rid of the problem without involving angry protest and possible police injury. Travellers like to stick together, but they’re dreadful at doing the socially civil citizen thing. What they are good at is freedom...handing them a good enough wad of money might encourage them to move on peacefully, if tackled diplomatically. I won't move down the argument any further...of course, it would be sensible if they spent their jackpot of living close together legally and without bothering the neigbours, but that's almost entering fairlyland thinking. I'd be interested in other people's views on this.

I don’t want to stand on any side of the argument. I should agree decidedly with those who are saying that if you don’t go through planning permission for your house, you are living there illegally...end of story. Jim and I are in the middle of applying for planning, and the idea of going ahead with an extension without doing so is preposterous...isn’t it?  Yet, in the early days of house-hunting, knowing that a house in the middle of a big garden was financially impossible anywhere in our own area, we did toy with building our own house on a purchased plot. It soon became clear that land with PP was almost as much as houses with big gardens...and buying land without PP was a massive risk...as these travellers have discovered. We saw a couple of little ‘log cabin’ type houses on acres of land where PP hadn't been granted but the residents had an address and were not being harassed...yet. We also thought about buying a field where we could have erected a static caravan. On your own land, you can live for a short while, to tend necessary livestock, such as chickens. But you have to prove that your business will fail (so it has to be a business!) before you can even apply to build residential status on agricultural land. The idea was tempting, like most cock-eyed dreams are. If we had done it, would we have been any better than the travellers? And would we have been safe? As is now clear, councils usually get round to tearing down buildings they haven’t told people they can put up in the first place. 

I’m up and about again now, by the way. And I’ve almost finished my second crime novel. So if anyone would like to read the completed draft, all they have to do is say, and they will find an attachment in their email box before they can say...knife...

August

For most of this month, it’s been around 75 degrees in Wales.

Well, all right, in our garden it’s been around 75 degrees.

Well, all right, in our polytunnel it’s been around 75 degrees.

Yes, the polytunnel, bravely erected by Jim and Joe, has taken on a life of its own. The tomato plants went in first, and immediately started to fruit up. The sweetcorn seedlings, which looked very sad in their pot, have shot up to twice their size. A row of radish seeds came up and leafed within 48 hours of sewing. On the other side of the tunnel, there are large areas of onion, leek and beetroot seedlings, bought as tiny seedlings and now already looking established.

And, in its own little pot, a lemon plant is just beginning to sprout from the pips Sue and I brought home from Italy; they’re Amalfi Lemons, massive and so sweet they are edible...the Italians love them sprinkled with olive oil and salt.

Truth is, the plants think they are in Italy...and when I enter the tunnel, it feels as if I am, too!

We’re hoping to use the tunnel to extend our growing season – planting summer foods early in spring and later for autumn/winter consumption – and for extending our growing range. We’re trying melon seeds (from a melon we first ate) for a start. We plan to use the suspended rails that run along the polytunnel to support the melons. Chilli peppers are also in, although they may not do well, planted now, even in the warmth.

We’re hoping to dedicate one smaller bed to strawberries, but there’s a dilemma; the gardening books recommend that you don’t plant straws in the warm until they’ve experienced some frost. We were planning to buy an outer of around 30 plants this autumn, but now we’re wondering if there is any point in buying early if we have to leave them outside...and if we do, should we transplant into soil or leave in their pots? Has anyone got any answers?

I was watching telly last night. Claire Balding was trying to overcome her fear of bats on Countryfile. I was watching the bats, when I thought...what am I doing? I went outside. There was a fantastic golden sunset in the east of our land; the sun would be going down over the Cardigan coast. The barley opposite our house has been cut now, but the stalks glowed like a field of gold leaf in the low sunlight. And there, dashing and flitting in and out of the trees across our field, were the bats! Two tiny pipistrelles, their wings flapping like hummingbirds, and swooping close enough for me to see the fur and their plump little bodies. I could hear an owl hoot in the distance, and the dogs had started their ‘starlight barking’ towards Rhydlewis. There was a tranquillity around me that made my heart feel at ease.

And, to put the gold hat on it, by the time I got back in, Claire Baldwin had disappeared for the evening.

First week in August

As our removal men (you remember Dumb and even Dumber...)were unloading the garden stuff from the van packed with our every worldly artifact, they came upon eight canvas shopping bags; each one holding a single stone.

‘Bringing the Mendips with you?’ they said, pointedly, hefting them across the grass.

I just nodded. I didn’t think they’d appreciate knowing that they were actually carrying a sacred stone circle from our house in Bristol to our new country cottage.

Ancient history tells us that thousands of years ago, stones were taken from the Preseli hills in west Wales to southern England to form a sacred circle. But now, for the first time in history, we claim to have reversed the process...almost.

Each stone, no higher than our knees, was careful loosened from the soil and marked in felt tip with the position it had held. The area was smudged and cleared and suddenly, that little circle of lawn felt quite empty and ordinary.

All the magic was in those eight Tesco bags - the most important item of our house packing. We’d had worked in this circle for ten years, and we wanted to take that energy with us, if we possible could. We had squeezed groups of up to twenty druids into our little stone ring to celebrate the wheel of the year. My favourite memory, I think, was a Beltaine ritual which invoked the Lady of Elphame, who beckoned us into fairyland. Some of the rituals we’d held were solely for Ovates, summoning some powerful energies. We’d worked in groups of three or four, sometimes concentrating on a single aspect of a person’s inner life. One ritual I remember well, was for a friend who needed to give up smoking. But most often, we’d worked as a pair of Ovates, or alone, spontaneously when the need arose.

Now we have moved from a city suburb to a country cottage and swapped a small town garden for half an acre. We are already eating our own potatoes, salad and broad beans...but the stones waited patiently inside their canvas bags.

The magic of west Wales feels all around us, as if we’ve arrived inside a year-long ceremony to the Earth. Our morning devotion is to watch the sun burn the mist off the valley, and our evening mediation is to sit while pipistrelles dodge around us. We honour this land with the eerie cry of a red kite, and the spiralling song of the lark in the field next to us. And we greet the goddess every time we go out to work on our garden, touching the growing plants and separating the stones from the dug tilth. 

We’re exploring the locality. I’ve talked to the committed people who resurrected Castell Henllys and walked the country paths with Claire and Branwen, and noting the flowers and trees that grow most happily in this soil. While Branwen was staying, we found Pentre Ivan in the Preseli hills, a huge dolmen that stirred our spirit. We’ve walked our own boundaries and - independently and on the same night - dreamed of the god and goddess of the land. But we still have not re-erected the stone circle. 

Finally, we’ve chosen its site...a triangle of land enclosed by high beeches, where any passing walker cannot view us. It’s dim and cool between the trees and the ground is shaded, perfect for bluebells, snowdrops, aconites, lily of the valley, trefoils, violets, foxgloves and other wild plants. Two fairy statues now guard the entrance; placed there to attract the more etherial variety. A verdigris hare stands at the far point to welcome our own power animals. Between these, the firepit is ready for action. But the stones are sleeping...waiting, I think, to be woken into new life.

Branwen found a young badger on the road by our house, moments after it had bounced off a car bumper. It lies in the first grave we’ve dug on our land, planted up with sweet smelling herbs, under the big slab of slate that the last owners erected in the paddock. We hope its soul rests peacefully. 
           We moved a step further when Simon and Hen came to stay. The evening before they left, we gathered some of the stones from digging the garden and built a fire pit. We lit a fire as dusk fell, and sat in front of it with our drinks, telling stories and singing songs and generally sharing our lives with each other. We've known Simon for some time, but this was the first time I'd met Hen properly, having missed her wedding because I was with Bill for the last time. She is (look away, Henrietta) a deeply lovely person, full of calm intelligence and bursting with fun. 

        Eventually, the fire had burnt into a bright ring and we were able to start cooking our BBQ. It was at that point it came on to rain. But the beeches above us formed such a thick arch that we didn't really get very wet, and the fire continued to cook our food. Even so, I'm rather glad we were surrounded by the trees because the local might have thought us very odd indeed, eating burnt sausage by torchlight in a downpour. 

          So the firepit that forms the central space of any modern sacred circle worth its salt, is now in place. But the stones are still in their bags! Maybe they lie fallow among the bursting life of our garden because, while we badly needed them in Bristol, we don't yet need them here. In Hengrove, every neighbour had bricked and concreted over almost all their outdoor space, people rushed past without nodding the time of day, and the bird song had to battle to be heard against a constant roar of traffic, . When we stool within our circle, we could block all that out, allow our minds to be drawn into the spirit places. Here in Ceredigion, our minds are naturally close to those places.

I think we will know when it is time to begin. It will be when we are drawn to start our ritual work in this place. Then the powers of the quarters will be called and the  lady and lord of the land, who we dreamed of on our arrival, will be invoked. 

When the time is perfect, our tiny ritual stone circle will be re-born into the magical realm of Wales. But at this moment, it is the land that calls to us, rather than our own recreation of it.

18th July

Ronald Hutton recently asked Jim...when going home to Rhos Hill, where do you cross the Tiefi?  We thought that was a very good question; the Tiefi (pronounced like ivy with a t) runs from the Cambrian hills to the east of us, and can be spotted running from the Lampeter area all the way to Newcastle Emlyn  then onwards into the bay of Cardigan. We must cross it at some juncture when driving from the M4 to home. But where? As far as we can tell, we cross it at the Llandysul bypass, but although we can see this on the map, we can't see it as we drive. Perhaps there is a conduit under the road.


We know where we cross it at Newcastle Emlyn, the river winds around the ruins of the castle then under the bridge we take home.

We traced some of the river when Claire Peacock came to stay. She stayed for three nights, which was a magnificent chance to discover more about the area. I was glad of the company because Jim was staying with his aunt, Dot, while she was in the very last stages of her fight against cancer.


 Claire is an old nursing friend of mine (not that old, of course) and she loves gardening so she was quite a welcome kind of guest, weeding flower beds and digging vegetable beds, so huge thanks to Claire. We did enjoyed Newcastle Emlyn, tracing the river around the ruins of the castle, where it runs in a loop forming a natural moat. We also went to the Cenarth Falls, where the coracle centre is, on the way to Cardigan and Poppet Sands.The border between Camarthenshire and Ceredigion runs entirely along the Tiefy, and so, as you cross the bridge at Cenarth, you move from one county to another. The Welsh seem to have a particular affinity with their rivers...everywhere we go, they have called their houses, there businesses, their pubs and cafes, their villages and towns, after rivers. Note that, next time you talk about Abergevenny, Aberystwyth, or even Cardigan, because it's Welsh name is Aberteify.


Once we’d had our fill of the Teifi in all its aspects, we found Castell Henllys, a reconstructed iron age fort with several roundhouses and people sitting around fires in Celtic costume. It's well worth a visit, especially the Celtic herb garden.

After Claire left, the weekend passed traumatically and we both felt exhausted at the end of it. We were invited to a wedding party, but for me, it was the wedding that never was. Simon and Henrietta were getting married at the Guild Hall in Bath, and then having their party at Dick Willows, a cider farm and garden centre with a lovely cafe; we’d eaten there before.  We were really looking forward to it, as Simon and Henrietta were getting wed in Indian dress and the food was going to be traditionally prepared Valencian paellas. On the way there, we dropped in to see Bill, my cousin. He’s was Frenchay hospital after breaking his hip. He fractured his neck of femur in Southmead hospital, having gone in for a simple routine procedure. We arrived to find him extremely ill, after contracting the Norovirus in the ward after his operation.  I have to say I was upset by what I found. The ward was so short of staff; one nurse walked off the ward sick while we were there. He’d been isolated in a side ward because of his infection, he was left for long periods, confused and semi comatose.  As a huge coincidence, Claire’s partner, Steffan (yes, he is from Wales), works on the ward that Bill was on...although I’m certainly not blaming him for the way things were. Jim went on to the wedding party to deliver our gift and send our apologies and he had a great time for a few hours. He came back and we decided to stay the night, so that we could care for Bill for a little longer. He only lost his wife two years ago. She was my Godmother, but he looked after her for almost 40 years as she got progressively worse with rheumatoid arthritis, so I felt it was particularly cruel that this had happened to him only 18 months later.

Bill died on Monday, so I’m very glad we stayed with him. Jim’s aunt Dot died last Tuesday; so we have two funerals to get through in the next week or so.  We feel a little shaken up by these events, but Branwen (our adopted granddaughter) is coming to stay this weekend, and I know she’ll cheer us up. We may even try tracing the Teifi again!

June the 28th

Now, we are fully-fledged and paid-up members of the Rhydlewis Gardening Club, people drop in and see us, wave and hoot as they pass us by, and generally keep an eye on our garden from a distance.

               ‘I see you’ve taken down some trees,’ they all said (one after the other), when went to Norwood Gardens for an evening out. I hadn’t thought before...because the trees behind our house are gone, we can see out, right over the beautiful landscape. But it also means people can see in...and the back of the house is the most unsightly area of our garden, full of stones and boulders, a wrecked base for an old extension, uneven and unmown grass and a tarped pile of logs.

               Norwood House, 15 minutes away from Rhos Hill, was an interesting place. Only 6 acres in length, it was bought a few years ago by a man who was head gardener at a much bigger house and gardens in the south. He built a gravel path the entire length (700 feet), and from this central walkway,  created many varied microgardens. This makes a visit there very interesting for people who have smaller plots, because he’s developed, and is developing, a series of ideas and inspirations for the gardener, who can directly use his landscaping and planting schemes. Each garden had a colour or sculptural theme and I loved the way a person could gain individual inspiration and ideas.

It’s always very nice to visit the huge gardens for a day, but 10 acres of rhododendrons can hardly be a copied in a 30ft town garden.

               The owner, Crispin, was a man after our own heart; nothing goes to waste. He uses the rocks he digs from the soil (know how that feels!) to build retaining walls and keeps the smaller pebbles to line paths. He carved old pallet boards and used them for fencing. He saved the turves he raised to make flowerbeds and turned them into raised banks to section some of the gardens and in one case to form a little hill as part of a garden’s design. He even found a length of marine rope, ten metres long and as thick as his wrist, on a beach, hauling it home in his car and using it to create wonderful undulating effect along a boundary.

This is exactly what we plan to do ourselves (to the beach! to the beach!). Our pile of stones from the polytunnel dig is massive, and now I’m collecting stones from the second bed, which is still in the process of development, but I’ve already got some more lettuce seedling in. (We are living on lettuce. We shall soon grow white fluffy tails). I’m separating these stones in buckets; tiny and middle sized stay in the buckets ready to become the path inside the polytunnel; larger ones go on the pile ready for Joe’s dry stone wall.

 We have so much wood, we’ll never want for pea sticks or bean poles or rustic trellis. The big, flat discs from the trunks might make attractive flowerbed retainers. The fencing that ran along the middle of the field can be used to retain the hens when we get them, and their posts were commandeered for Joe’s steps. We’re making our own bank to prevent run-off etc from Gino’s field, using the turves of grass we slice off. We’ve become proficient in getting them off leaving as much soil as possible and sometimes manage to take away huge pieces, up to 2½ feet square. As we move them, they feel like animal pelts...the fur of the land.

This autumn, we’ll take our first cuttings to propagate, and collect the seed heads. And I’ve already tried my first go at taking mistletoe seeds from my own plant on the mountain ash in Fanshawe Road and rubbing them into the tiny cuts on the bark of our ash trees. You never know.

Afterwards, we ate in the local pub, and we particularly met Lyn and Len, who have just retired from running an open garden themselves, concentrating on plants from abroad. They’ve now retired and moved to the Preseli hills, quite near the dolman – we’re see their house at the next meeting. There wasn’t much they didn’t know about plants and gardening, which made us both feel like complete beginners, but, although there is a wealth of knowledge inside the club, there are also people like us, some with a bit of land, some with only a cottage garden, but all keen to work outside in the glorious Welsh air where the red kites call.

So, yes, we’re paid-up members now, and cemented this fact by winning the raffle. We never win raffles! And honestly, the two china mugs will come in really handy.

             

Felling the Trees

As druids, we are not going to like taking down trees, but for the last few days, four hard-working tree surgeons in lumberjack shirts (of course) have been working on our land. They were here to carry out the agreement we had to fell some trees and some heavy branches on other trees that had become a danger to traffic and to the windows of our house.

Watching the trees go was amazing though. The lads clambered high into the branches, right up above the eaves of the house, and took them down safely with ropes and the howl of their saws.

It is quite upsetting to see their scarred remains now at the edge on one small part of the garden, but there are some great positives. Firstly, light and sun are now able to come into the garden, something the land and plants have been longing for. Secondly, we still have almost fifty trees surrounding our land. Thirdly, we won't be liable if a limb comes down in the road after a gale. Fourthly, they won't be coming through our new extension windows, either! Fifthly (nearly finished) we have the most gigantic pile of logs, neatly sawed and under a tarp, waiting to be used in our lovely new wood burning stove. By the time we get it, they will have weathered nicely. And finally we have now got an interrupted view of the landscape. For a while, we sat in the late evening sun watching half a dozen red kites wheel in the sky, crying in their spine-chilling high-pitched wail.

Magic.

Beginning of (flaming) June

The 1^st of June

The first spell of dry, hot weather, and the hay harvest has begun, with every farmer in our area sharing equipment in order to get their hay safely in. Gino, of ice cream and rescue tractor fame,  was one of the first to get going. In the 10 acre field at the bottom of our paddocks, the hay was cut over a week ago. It lay, exposed to the warm sun for a day, and then, at around four-thirty one afternoon, with a flurry of shouts and tractor roars, the hay-making gang arrived, parking their van in the centre not far from where we were tilling our own soil. The first piece of machinery to arrive was shaped like a spiky Ferris wheel. This shook and sifted the cut grass into tall thin rows. The gang leader did a lot of shouting at this point; clearly he wanted the rows just how they should be. Once the Ferris wheel had done its job, the tractors arrived; one pulling the box-like machine that would suck the hay up and spit it out of high funnel; one pulling a massive, open-topped crate. The two aligned and moved slowly over the field, pouring a continual stream of hay into the crates. One by one, the crates were towed out of the field, replaced by new, empty ones, ready to be filled. 

Within two hours the field was shorn. They had finished well before the sun had set.  For the next week, while the sun has burned down on us here, the farmers have been sharing the work of a successful hay harvest. I remember that Julius Caesar, in his famous treatise on the Britains (as he found them...Celts, we were then, Celts, are who live round me now...) stated that...they have two harvests, one in midsummer, one in later summer...This is very likely the hay and corn harvests. Although, through the centuries, the methods of collection have changed, become more streamline, the need for a barn of hay has not. The cows still need their winter fodder.

The field now looks like a skinhead whose number one went a bit wrong – a thin and patchy layer of green on brown. Today the birds arrived, attracted in hundreds by the exposed invertebrates. The crows arrived first; murders of them. Then the birds of prey caught on. Despite the food being a very scant feast, they wanted a piece of the action. Red kites and buzzards are much bigger than crows, but the crows attacked with venom; cawing loudly, flapping blackly and nose-diving on the larger birds until they gave up and soared away like the kings of the high sky that they are, until their wheeling cry could barely be heard. Then the gulls arrived. They were just as keen to share the meal, and, it seemed, a little more determined than the birds of prey. But the crows were not going to be beaten by a load of fisher-birds. They worked together, using our ash tree as a watchtower and runway, rising in squads into the air and attacking the gulls with what seemed like relish and resolve. Caws and shrieks filled the air.

Finally, there seemed to be a sort of truce. The field rises in the centre, a little hill. The gulls settled on the far side of the rise; the crows on the near side. It reminded me of a chess board. Jim used to teach the children to play chess by telling them to think of the board as a battleground that rose in the centre, so that the Grand old Duke York’s men might march up and down. Now, here were the black crows and the white gulls, eying each other in the lull of battle as they tackled the one-day  growth of field stubble.

The last three days have been incredibly hot; a true start to flaming June. We’ve had to layer on the sunblock as we worked. Our first vegetable plot is finished; a motley collection of seeds and seedlings lie in tidy rows. We’re so proud of it. We gaze on it like a mother on her sleeping baby and water it like it is suckling milk. Now we’ve started on the polytunnel, marking out the 4 by 8 metre site and lifting the turf. The kites are still squealing and soaring  above us in a glass-blue sky.

 .

End of May

By the middle of May, a flurry of visitors started arriving. First were Jill and Ostara. Jill lives near Llandeilo, so she’s practically a neighbour. She gave us our first lesson on the country network; she knew so many people around our neck of the woods, including the lady who runs the gardening club and the people who run workshops in St Dogmaels, just outside Cardigan. Jill and Ostara have promised to come to a writing workshop, if I hold one there. Austin has popped in to see us already and told us all about his life before retiring to Rhydlewis.

We spent a wonderful day with Jill, on the 26th, first seeing her gorgeous cottage in Trap, right in the shadow of the castle, and then motoring off to wander round the Botanical Gardens of Wales in rapture. This is well worth a visit; it’s a little mini Eden Project, with a tropical house house and a non-tropical ‘Mediterranean house’ although there are plants there from every temperate band of warm country around the world. But for me, the ‘double walled garden’ was the biggest treat; I loved the layout of the vegetable plots and the selection of plants that might actually grow in our garden, too. Jill is an authority on dogs; she could tell us everything we needed to know about them while we walked her own German Shepherd and little labrador around her garden. We'll be back for further help when we finally decide to get a poochie!

Ana and Branwen, coming a little further from the Gower, arrived a few days later. Branwen seemed particularly enchanted by the cottage, she stepped into it and kept repeating...it’s lovely, oh, it’s lovely! The following Saturday, Gary and Gail came for lunch. They were motoring up to Aberystwyth with one of their two girls (Jolie) and Jolie’s friend, Amber, to holiday with Gail’s entire family; 18 of them on one caravan park. It was so good to see them again, and while she was further north, she wrote me a fabulous letter which took me an entire pot of coffee to read...thanks so much Gail. 

On Sunday, Sue and Nick travelled up from Bristol and it was really good to see them, especially as I owed Sue a lot of money for the holiday we’re having in July...Sorrento here we come! This was a memorable occasion because it was the first time w'ed eaten al fresco, in a garden loaded with sunlight. The lawn is a little sloping though, and we made sure the visitors had the least wonky chairs...it also mean they had the delightful surprise of watching me tip my chair over and land sprawling of the ground.

Sadly our first overnight visitors were unable to make it; my cousins Glenys and Geoff, were going to stop on the way to the Holyhead ferry, but they are going through the dreadful trauma of selling their house...I do know how they feel, having just experienced what lawyers and vendees can do to you... But we are a good halfway house for such a journey from Bristol; so take note of that! I’m please to say that everyone who has seen Rhoshill are almost (almost!) as enchanted as Branwen, and tell us we’ve made a good choice. Well, we know that anyway.

Be warned if you pop in on the hop; Rosie and Ludwig and Jim's relations Tom and Margaret both left things behind...a pullover and a dog bowl respectively. 

And thanks to Lew and Maggie, who put us up when we came back to Bristol for a druid meeting. It was good to see them, and compare cottage garden notes.