Mending

Cecilia Hewett this is using a Graham Hewett mushroom! And yarn from a huge bundle bought from a charity shop, has provided many mends.

Trolls

 Just in case any of the detractors who have messaged about my post that we were using our AGA on Christmas Day, wonder why we turned it on? 

 (although, you don't seem to have bothered actually reading my post, or thinking, before you commented.)

I'm just very grateful that

We have an Aga in the first place (came with the house, we didn't install it) 

We have an Aga to use.

(It's oil fired, because we are rural, so no mains gas, as is very common in rural communities, so we have no choice but to pay for oil. If we can't, we go cold.)

, and the house came with an oil tank supplying the house, (as most rural houses do around here, only source of heating/hot water, unless there is a wood burner or fire place) , APART from the solar thermal tubes and Pv we have installed) 

We can afford to buy (within a reasonable list) food that needs an Aga to be cooked in.

(Yes, we have pensions, by working in well paid jobs which we worked very hard to get the qualifications to be employed to do, and a house we scrimped and saved to pay off our mortgage) 

We can afford to run the AGA for a few days, (we have the AGA have pensions, yada yada yada.)

We've never had a foreign holiday, have only flown twice (as part of our jobs ) abroad. 

I'm sorry that who ever youse are, are offended by us living within OUR means, and utilising a tool that exists in our kitchen/household, to make our lives more comfortable for a few days.

Shame on you for not leaving comments on my original post, instead emailing or messaging me on other SM platforms. You can just Fuck Off.

Happy Christmas!

 Happy Christmas from all at Compost Mansions

Happy Aga day!

 Compostman has been calculating.

He has done the calculations, as have I, and despite the Aga costing ~£8 for a day of cooking and heating water etc for tomorrow, putting it on tonight, using it for slow roasting the Ribs of Beef, hot cooking the Roast Spuds and Yorkshires, cooking all the veg, reheating the Christmas pud, making hot drinks, AND heating the core of the house and bathroom, providing constant hot water AND drying endless loads of washing over it (that I haven't been able to do due to wet /cold weather)

Still means putting it on is actually MORE cost effective *this one occasion* than using Electric for cooking /oil fired boiler for heating and hot water/wood burner for heating. We get little benefit from Pv or Solar at this time of year. 

So, Back to being an Aga Christmas Day (it does cook stuff SO well, we used to use it a lot in Winter/Spring in our first decade here until we really cut down on oil consumption)

Cosy night by the fire.

Hurrah! Woodburner kicking out heat, cats on sofa, now watching His Dark Materials in UHD on iplayer.

Watched the excellent "Saving Mr Banks" film earlier (along with the Victoria Coren Mitchell programme on PJ Travers, just before, which was very good)

#toocoldoutside

Rural noise pollution!

Lovely Muntjac deer, I love that you live in our wood.

 I love that you showed us your fawn last year.

But PLEASE just stop with the barking!

#Iwanttogotosleep

#ruralliving

FiLiA Cardiff 2022

On lunch break at FiLiA, listening to Womens Health Physio Elaine Miller (aka GussetGrippers)

Funny, rude, honest, educational .

Then next day listening to the fabulous Hibo Wardere talking about #FGM and @E_NotMutilate #FiLiA2022.

So sad, and anger making.

This whole weekend in Cardiff has been inspirational.

Sunset/Moonrise tonight.

Moonrise.

And Geese.

Autumn harvest, and more groundworks.

 

Last of the tomatoes from the polytunnel

And getting towards the last of the beans ( thank goodness!)

Yet more apples. Not a brilliant year, tbh. See

This is putting a pipe from the pool into the main bypass pipe,  to divert the pool level, so it doesn't overflow in heavy rain.

Wales day 5, then homeward bound

Came home from Wales on Saturday, after some time spent at a couple of glorious Pembrokeshire beaches.

First time I've actually gone on the beach at Newgale! It's somewhere I always drive through on my way to St David's, or Trefin, so this time I decided to take the coast road back and explore a bit.

I ate my packed lunch looking out on this glorious view.

Of course the weather turned beautiful, the day I went home. 

Ah well, I had a much needed break.

Post COVID I'm still rather weak , but being in Wales, as always made me feel much better!

Wales day 4

Met office got the forecast spot on today.

Wet, wetter, wettest.

Went to see Jane and Pat, drove for an hour through rain and low cloud to get to their farm.

Had a great couple of hours drinking tea and catching up. 

Left lovely friends, rain had stopped, so risked going back to hostel via Gors Fawr stone circle.

Sunshine! And no more rain. But it was v v soggy underfoot.

Still, all worth it .

Wales day 3

Good day today, with fine weather, after a wild and wet night.

To Fishguard for a watch of the ferry terminal and the seagulls.

Newport beach for a paddle and poking around in rock pools.

Then Castell Henllys. 

Excellent chat with the two archaeology team members on duty in the Chieftain round house.

Weirdly, there was a couple in there, who turned out to be from Ledbury, then they went away and another totally unrelated couple came in, they, too came from Ledbury!

Finally, to Pentre Ifan, where I had the place all to myself. Bliss.

Wales day 2

A very short break in the rain and overcast gloom. Still lovely to be here in Trefin. 

Carreg Sampson chambered cairn, with lovely sea in the background.

Trip to Wales

Long day today driving across Wales.

Hunting for a Stone Circle , Carn Llechart, in horizontal rain. I found some of it, but then the weather closed in and I abandoned my search 

 I then drove through Mynydd y Betws , a spectacular   huge windfarm  

Road over the top of Betws Mynydd was v v interesting. At one point I was driving up a hill, with only the tips of the turbine blades just visible over the top of the hill. Surreal.

Then arriving at Newgale to watch the Sun set, over the sea.

Then on to The Old School House at Trefin

Good to be back in Wales.

Stayed last night at the Dragon in Crickhowell, excellent place to stay, really good food (and very gluten friendly for me!) but with a VERY narrow entry to the car park!

Major groundworks pts 2, 3 and 4.

More earthmoving and diggering.

Flattening the area between the Wood and the pool, this making the pool a bit smaller (it's totally dry at the moment, being a seasonal rain filled pool)

This work went on end of August through to mid September.

RIP Tom Puss.

Found Tom had gone out for a morning walk in the sunshine, and had curled up and died by the garage door.

We had taken him to the Vets on Fri because he seemed a bit off colour and  breathless, and were told to bring him back on Tuesday for exploratory tests.

Tom hated going to the Vets and was still very distressed last night. 

It looks like he had a heart attack.

Words cannot express how heartbroken we all are, so I'm not going to even try.

Rest in peace, beloved puss

Major ground works PT 1

After a rough couple of years with fairly major ill health scares, we have finally come round to recognising that there are some jobs we can no longer do with ease, and are finally employing people to do the hard work we used to be able to do. 

And some jobs, that we paid for many years ago, need re doing. 

One of these was the gravel drive. We had this done by an excellent local contractor more than 12 years ago

We have never used any chemicals on this place, so we don't spray weeds. We kept the weeds out of the gravel drive for many years by hand weeding, flame weeding and raking, but over the last few years it's got weedier and weedier, until, quite frankly, it looked an eyesore as you drove into the garden. 

So, we employed an another excellent local contractor to come and remove and redo the gravel drive, laying down heavyweight geotextile, then a crushed, compacted stone layer, then top gravel. 

What a difference! It looks fabulous! Mat and Luke, who did this work during the hottest week of the year so far, were amazing.

They are coming back to do more groundworks in a few weeks, so watch this space. 

Perseids, Full Moon and a Glow worm.

Sitting outside,  looking towards where the Perseids will appear in the night sky,  listening to the warm breeze in the trees and waiting for the moon to rise over the top of Moors Wood.

And saw a Glow worm! We used to have lots ads of them when we first moved here, but haven't seen any for years. So excited!

COVID, again.

Oh dear, I've caught COVID, again.

Presumably from Compostgirl's Graduation ceremony last week.

Feel pretty awful, tbh.

Hope Compostman and Compostgirl dont get it 🤞

Hay Festival events.

Compostman and I went to Hay! 

We saw Bill Bailey (who is, as always, so so fabulous!) 

and later in the week Rich Hall, who is very funny indeed.

It felt very very odd to be out , in crowds, but we coped 😀

Full Moon and Nightingales

Sitting on the patio, watching the Full Moon rising over Moors Wood, and listening to 5 (possibly 6?) nightingales singing from somewhere on our land, and several more responding from further up the lane.

Bliss

 #spring #Birdsong #nightingale

Happy birthday to me

Birthday trip out to look at some Bluebells, not the ones growing in our wood but on the Herefordshire side of the Malvern Hills. Beautiful day.

Then back home to Giant chocolate, almond and pecan brownie birthday cake, made by Ian. 

Yum! 

(I decided not to use 60 candles, just reused the ones from Ian's 70th cake last week ☺️)

Full Moon and a grumpy hedgehog

Full Moon and the Sour Cherry in full bloom, still covered in bees.

And then a Hedgehog grumbled at me in the barn.

#spring

Love..

Cats on the sofa.

Yin/Yang 

Happy birthday, Compostman!

Ian's 70th birthday today, first sighting of a Swallow here and first Nightingale song heard in our wood.

Memorable day.

Daffodils

We have had an icy N wind here for the last few days (unusual for us, our winds usually come from the SW)

 The daffodils took quite a battering.

Just picked 100 flattened ones from the front garden, alone.

Think I'm going to need more vases. There are a lot more daffodils in the rest of the (3/4 acre) garden.

Spring.

Spent today tidying up around the Compost bins, then in the polytunnel tidying and sorting and sowing a few seeds, finally now too dark to see to sow seeds 20:10 (but at 19.50 I could!)

Listening to Bird Evening Chorus winding down, a Tawny Owl pair calling to each other and a Vixen yipping in our Wood.

And we have a hedgehog in the barn , so I gave him/her some food, and we also have a bat hanging from a beam, which I left well alone.

Bliss.

Tax return woes and can't go to Spell Songs concert.

Oh blast, realised I *still* have to do a tax return. Thought I no longer had to, any more.

But I do.

Ah well, that's tomorrow afternoon taken up, now I can no longer go to Spell Songs in Birmingham, as I can't leave Ian alone for that long.