290 days ago
Gosh how the wind howled last night. It seems to rush down the lane to the Welsh Hovel and the first bedroom it heads past is the one where the Mrs and I sleep, when not being disturbed by one of the cats sheltering from the storm. Maybe we hear it a bit more loudly than others as there is part of the end wall in out bedroom which is a bricked up window tax window and so the wall is thin at that point.
317 days ago
The Met Office keeps on telling us all how jolly warm it is as a result of global warming. I have covered how its numbers are bodged and unreliable before but I can say without lying that, here in North East Wales, I feel bloody cold. It is, after all winter, so no climate change there. While the Mrs and my son Joshua are enjoying the Indian sunshine for another few days, the cats myself and little Jaya are really feeling it as the temperature, with wind chill, falls to zero
463 days ago
One of my jobs last week concerned what was almost the last of the asbestos which was almost everywhere when we arrived four years ago. Buried just underground in the fields, just dumped in the long grass, on sheds, and on the roof of three porches, it was everywhere.
484 days ago
I am waiting for the village facebook page to have another two minute hate against me for taking down the 1950s iron shed known as the snake barn. “It was part of my childhood, it’s Welsh cultural history, bloody newcomers, it was so much better with the previous owners, blah, blah, blah.” bleats some in-bred sheep shagger. It is callled the snake barn becuase in it I stored some of the vast amounts of asbestos the previous owners had squirrelled away in the sheds and fields here and I want to keep my kids away from that. But now the barn has gone and that means that you can actually see our gorgeous 1600s listed farmhouse as you walk down the lane to our home.
1122 days ago
Fellow Woodlarks walker Robert tries to shame me with a photo of an impressive woodpile at his place. Now I know that size isn’t everything but after some hard work yesterday which even Joshua got involved with, our bigger logs have been split and the pile here in Wales grows as you can see below.
1228 days ago
I refer not to the photo but to another matter. The photo is included because it is amazingly sweet. Even a hard-hearted old chap like me can be sentimental.
1267 days ago
The area that was once the jungle runs about 60 yards from the back of the snake barn (a huge, green, iron shed whose days are numbered) gently uphill alongside the lane down to the Welsh Hovel. It is about 30 yards wide. And it is now really starting to take shape as you can see below. We start at the bottom, behind the snake barn looking up what is a gradual slope. The biggest tree, about half of the way up, is a pear tree. On this side of it, the only things planted right now on the main patch are 15 chilli, hot pepper and sweet pepper plants in a row next to the cloches which have only just come off.
