658 days ago
I start with a meeting at the Ha Ha earlier. As each day passes more details are inked in for ShareStock 2023 on September 23rd. More details and ticket booking is HERE. Then onto Kefi Gold & Copper (KEFI), Caracal Gold (GCAT), Vast Resources (VAST), Argo Blockchain (ARB) and then poor Gary Newman and the effect of those poisonous spiders he kissed from Suriname and Audioboom (BOOM)
674 days ago
The pictures below show the elevated lawn and Ha Ha and the fields this morning at the Welsh Hovel. As you can see it snowed last night, there is about half an inch on the ground. And the fields are completely flooded. It is a wonderful view and shows my flood defences holding firm. But it prompts two thoughts.
687 days ago
Listeners to my bearcasts on Shareprophets know that I am set to plague the press office of United Utilities with obscure enquiries about reservoir levels here in North Wales. Here in the Dee valley the waters are rising as they always do at this time of year and always have done with or without the global warming spoof. The apple orchard in photo one is now underwater but I plugged holes in the small levee last year and so the waters are yet to get to the base of the new elevated lawn and Ha Ha I built. And that structure is holding back the waters in the fields, now all underwater, so protecting the barns. So far so good and according to plan.
933 days ago
The role of my son and heir who will, I hope, see these trees at their maximum height was to hold the stakes as I whacked them into the ground with my new toy, a fencing rammer. One tree is at the far edge of the upper field next to the graveyard, the other, almost, at the other corner of the field, just above the line of the Ha Ha.I am aware that I need to cut back the grass around the saplings to make sure they grow and that is a job for this week. But two more trees are now planted to delight local innumerate celeb Ms Eleanor Farr.
1002 days ago
The flood waters are now more or less static at c9 metres down at the bridge so that is high but not at record levels. Here at the Welsh Hovel the first three photos are from the garden. Inlast year’s record high floods the waters reached right up to the back doorstep. This time they are merely in the bottom reaches of the lawn but they stretch for miles.
1026 days ago
As we used lime mortar, the pink stuff between the Sandstone will eventually, it being Wales, dry and turn almost white. What I could really do with is a week long dry spell so that the last puddle disappears from the lawn and we can then level it off, filling in the slight dips that allowed two puddles to form, And then we can level out the barn side bank at the front of this picture with earth lapping round the edge of the steps so that they are invisible from either end and grass over the remain bit of the construction. There are some weeds to remove with poison, a bit of reseeding on the river side of the lawn and we are there. Next up…
1034 days ago
By next week I shall have the finished product to show you but for the past two weeks, we have been making the steps that will lead one to the huge grass lawn ending with a Ha Ha we have built here in Wales.
1136 days ago
Actually, I had not given it much thought which I feel rather ashamed about. I was aware that today was the day but the last 48 hours of childcare have been rather manic and I just want to get to the end of this day without another crisis. My baby daughter Jaya is still not well enough to go to nursery but I was meant to be relieved at one O’Clock today. However..
1191 days ago
We are getting there! What you can see below has cost a fortune but it will soon be a thing of great beauty and behind it the listed barns are also having a makeover.
1256 days ago
I have now had a chance to quiz brick pointer Johnny about the snake he spotted here at the Welsh Hovel. Johnny said he had never seen a snake in real life before so, after it hissed at him then slithered away, he gave pursuit. Only after work on Saturday did he go on the internet to find out what sort of snake it was.
1281 days ago
The other side of the barns is the farmyard, this side is the Ha Ha side. When we arrived, along the whole of this side were metal and asbestos sheds in a fairly dangerous state of collapse, built on hideous concrete slabs of various colours. They are all gone but some of the barns were still dressed in thick paint as you can see below. But now they are not. There is still some paint dust on the walls but a good day of Welsh rain will see to that. The next step is repointing and brick repair, new guttering, windows and doors and we are there…
1282 days ago
On one side of the farmyard at the Welsh Hovel lies a scrap metal skip, full to the top with more than three tonnes of iron. On the other side is the pile of sandstone blocks pictured below, many already hewn into shape. All were retrieved from the nettle and bramble covered large earth mounds that once separated our fields from the paddock where we have created the mound which will end with a Ha Ha. Suffice to say, we also removed vast amounts of plastic, tyres, asbestos and other horrors for safe and legal removal.
1295 days ago
Thanks to one of the daft in-bred snitches here in Holt, the last village in Wales, folks like teenmage mutant curtain twitcher Abi Lancelotte, at some stage some pen pushing jobsworth from Natural Resource Wales will be visiting us here at the Welsh Hovel. Pictured below is the work underway and what he or she will find. I make no apologies if the pen pusher is one of the other 108 genders and is offended by being referred to only as he or she.
1300 days ago
Am I becoming paranoid or is this my way of coping with the snitch culture in Holt near Wrexham? Anyhow, today, having checked the wind direction to ensure that any smoke headed to the open fields on the other side of the river Dee in England not towards any twitching curtains here in the rain sodden, second world, post industrial principality, we set off a big bonfire at the end of the large Ha Ha and flood defence being constructed.
1311 days ago
The concrete bases, where asbestos clad sheds once stood in the area formerly known as the jungle, have now been ripped up with the concrete lying at the bottom of what will be the Ha Ha. And with big planks salvaged from inside the big green barn, the snake barn, which – pro tem – stops one seeing the house from the garden, two small vegetable patches have been created. Yesterday, being a non nursery day for Joshua, we went gardening.
1321 days ago
It has been two or three weeks since I showed you the before shots on the massive works underway behind the barns which form the farmyard behind the Welsh Hovel. As you can see below, we have made real progress.
1327 days ago
As I continue to work on reclaiming the fields around the Welsh Hovel, the list of buried horrors grows. I have already spent almost £5,000 clearing this place of asbestos in barns, in sheds and where I have found it buried by the previous owner in various places. I am almost there. But now to the tyres and to the folly of Wrexham Council and every other local authority in Britain.
1332 days ago
I start with news at the Welsh Hovel notably on the Ha Ha. More photos on a range of developments later. Then I have a quiz question for you before going onto detailed discussions on: Conduity Capital (CCAP) which I mistakenly call Continuity Capital throughout, St James House (SJH), Wildcat Petroleum (WCAT) and Verditek (VDTK) with an explicit come clean challenge for another fine upstanding ex Tory MP.
1348 days ago
In today’s podcast I mention my planned Ha Ha then cover market madness, all the signs, Path Investments (PATH), Fast Forward (FFWD) and Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX). And thanks for understanding about yesterday’s DOS attack.
1350 days ago
I thought that Robert and his team, who do the big jobs on the land here at the Welsh Hovel, would laugh at my idea of creating a huge lawn and Ha Ha. But I had been kept awake at night working out in my head how it could be done. And to my surprise they did not laugh. It was viewed as creative. Objection after objection of logistic issues were raised but each one was dealt with so we will go ahead. You may ask what is a Ha Ha? The Mrs did.
