117 days ago
The old orchard at the Welsh Hovel sits between our back garden and the river and contains four very old apple trees. There were five but the floods did for one of them a year or so ago. The new orchard containing about thirty trees of which just over a third are apples or crab apples is four years old and the newest clutch of apple trees at the top of the vegetable patch can be seen HERE. But there is a fourth group of trees planted last year by myself and my pal C.
155 days ago
It is still 215 days away but preparations for THE investor event of the year, ShareStock, are well underway with the first seven main stage speakers, the Welsh choir and Chef Vijay already booked in. You can now book your place at my 1650 built home on the banks of the river Dee HERE
396 days ago
Yesterday afternoon the Dee hit 8.98 metres, 34 centimetres off its stated all time high in 2001. At that point the local measuring station stopped taking measurements leaving us having to guess which way the waters were heading. Actually I think the river was higher last February but the NRW website is just wrong. But as you can see below the waters were high. The waters were in the farmyard, in our back garden about a yard from the steps, and if you left the farmyard and went into the fields the waters were everywhere.
673 days ago
As I write, the snow, which has fallen for the past two nights, exposing my son for the seventh time in his seven years on this planet to something cultists said he’d never see, is melting and the flood waters here on the river Dee in North Wales are actually receding. But still my fields are flooded as you can see HERE. More importantly we now have data on reservoir levels in the United Utilities region which includes this part of Wales. This data is now the highlight of my week and again shows what tosh the global warming cultists in the mainstream media GroupThink were talking last summer.
748 days ago
I gather that in England drought orders are set to remain in 2023 but here in North Wales there is no shortage of water. As you might gather from the picture below, the River Dee is rising and the rain is still beating down. There is now a small stream running down the lane to the hovel and through the farmyard towards the river. It is my apple orchard, the older of the two, which sits on the river bank and will be the first to be flooded if the water rises by another five foot or so which it might well do.
1010 days ago
Back with Joshua from school I prepared to finish off a long piece on how our Government lies to us via a pliant press. At that point I started to hear a large helicopter hovering overhead. For a minute I thought the cops had taken a lesson from that fascist Trudeau and were coming for me. But no it was a Police helicopter and living here by the river Dee, sadly, I knew what it meant.
1054 days ago
Most of the furthest of our fields is under water for about half the year. A good quarter of the second and largest of our fields is in a similar way. But we were just about able to walk along the edges of both fields between the marsh and the river itself today. The Dee is high, right at the top of the bank on this,the Welsh, side. Over among the infidels on the English side, it has already spread into the fields.
1305 days ago
As ever, my training walks for Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks start the same way. I am aware that the actual walk is now just five weeks away and it will be a gruelling 34 miles with a 6 AM kick off at Winchester Cathedral. But I must finish the walk and ensure my fellow rogue bloggers finish too. Woodlarks urgently needs us to raise £50,000 to ensure its survival and so please do donate HERE.
1390 days ago
While the Mrs enjoyed a late morning snooze, something that as a public sector worker she is well accustomed to, Joshua and I went walking along the River Dee where, as you can see below, the waters are rising again. The walk we did a week ago on the English side is now impossible due to flooding.
1397 days ago
If you were to stick to the banks of the river Dee, I guess the castle is only c300 yards away. But that is not possible – one has to head up the lane and then down another, rather muddy, path to reach the ruin of what was once a great fortress. The stones from here were bought by the Duke of Westminster to build his pile down the road in the 1670s, the fortress itself having been largely destroyed after a Civil war siege. Almost certainly, stones from the castle were also used in building the Welsh Hovel.
1419 days ago
The smaller Peppa Pig wellies contain the feet of four-year-old Joshua. The larger wellies were a late Christmas present to myself and meant that we were able to go on a decent New Year’s Day walk together up the River Dee on the Welsh side heading towards Chester. Walking with your son does not spread Covid in the way that sledging might in the world of mad Mark Drakeford, our dear leader here in Wales.
1548 days ago
I am sure that you can remember those so very dry summers of a few years ago when the BBC, the Guardian and most of the deadwood press brought you pictures of dry and parched river beds.“You’d better get used to it” we were all warned, notably by that smug bastard Rogger Harrabin of the Beeb, “This is going to happen more and more because of global warming.” Hmmmm…
1620 days ago
I already have one orchard at the Welsh Hovel. You have seen it numerous times, underwater, as it runs along the banks of the River Dee behind the formal lawn and the farmyard. The trees there produce vast numbers of cooking apples and, as you can see in the first couple of photos, we will have another glut this year. With five or six trees, if anyone fancies some of these apples, and wants to pop by, be my guest. However I have now spent a lot of time planting new fruit trees.
1693 days ago
So far the Betsi Cadwalldr health district seems to have been relatively unaffected by the Coronavirus. But there have been deaths around here in North Wales and there are many more folks who have caught Covid 19 and survived. In order to boost my immune system to improve my odds if I do catch it, I take Joshua for a walk each day first over our fields and then further on along the River Dee on the Welsh side and heading downstream.
1739 days ago
I discussed the flooding of the River Dee at the Welsh Hovel earlier with photos HERE. I drive Joshua to his nursery in England ver a 700 year old bridge about three quarters of a mile downstream from our farm. The photos below are from the English side of the bridge. The first two look upstream towards the hovel and, yes, those are our fields underwater. The final three are from the other side of the Bridge.
1746 days ago
Power was restored to the whole village late afternoon. Good news thought I: light, power, internet all I need now is to turn on the heating and I can be warm too. And thus the cats and I retreated from an upstairs bedroom with two duvets on the bed to turn on the gas.
2019 days ago
In two weeks time I shall be at, or around the 18 mile lunch break point in the 33 Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks walk with 11 others. As soon as today’s podcast is loaded I am off on a training walk from the Welsh Hovel along the River Dee, switching after three quarters of a mile to the English side. There will be photos later. As you consicder that PLEASE DONATE TO ROGUE BLOGGERS FOR WOODLARKS TODAY HERE. In the podcast I discuss the desparation of Neil Woodford and the bad choices he is being forced to make as a result.
