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.