Tour of Wales Day 4 - up and around and home through the rain

Up and was greeted by Suki, Ginger, Sue and LH with tea and breakfast - a very good breakfast I might add! LH had to go and do some work but Sue showed me around their place which was a bit of an odd experience, as I knew it quite well from her blog, but also didn't know it at all as it was my first real life visit.

loved this poster in the kitchen area

Apparently I demanded a tour so off we set to have a look around.

Fabulous polytunnel area in construction

Amazing views wherever I turned to look
-

  This is Chicken World

 

lots of lovely hens and a very kindly cockrel there :)

Sue in her shed. I have serious shed envy!

The Oak tree planks, seasoning


So much hard work and planning is going into their home and it is great to see it all coming together after reading about it on their blog :) I was so impressed by what they are achieving :)

I had a great time with Sue and her LH but I finally set off at lunchtime to head for home. I had wanted to see John Grey from Going Gently on my way back home but when I telephoned him he was just going out the door to lunch with family, so it was not to be. Shame but maybe next time I am in the area John!

A selfie of me just before I set off from Sue's house. I look very relaxed and happy :)

Unfortunately the weather on Bank Holiday Monday was appalling and my journey home was very wet and miserable. I had hoped to to stop off and look around Llangollen but it was really misty and wet so I decided I would just drive home. It took me five hours to get home and it was a horrible journey

It felt good to be back home, although I really really did enjoy my adventure :)


Sue blogged about my visit here

A blogging birthday and a giveaway

I have been doing a bit of spring cleaning of this blog today; updating lists; making sure the review page is up to date and generally having a tidy up. One of the things I also did was to re read some of my past posts for the month of February and it was interesting to see what I was up to and thinking about several years ago.

I also realised that it is 7 years ago today that I started this blog :) Predictably my first few posts were about nest boxes, organic gardening and my local farmers market, along with photos of Compost Mansions under snow :)

There was also a post about why I am called Compostwoman, which featured Master Composting, Garden Organic and a lot of stuff about making compost :) Oh what a surprise!

And here I am, 7 years, 1290 posts and a lot of pageviews and visitors later. I am still writing about local food, organic growing, hens, compost, gardening, wildlife, teaching, crafts, food, compost, animals, renovating Compost Mansions, growing veg, daily life - not much has changed over the years (except I have got older and have more gray hairs and Compostgirl is now a teenager!)

Since I started blogging we have started keeping chickens again, we have gained and lost beloved pets and done a lot of work on the house and grounds. In the last 7 years amongst other things I have also trained as a Forest School Leader, an Adult Education Teacher, a Master Gardener, been nominated for a number of awards, become a Love Food Hate Waste cookery demonstrator and a hens@home mentor (phew, after all that training no wonder I feel so tired all the time!) All of this has allowed me to widen what I do in my volunteering roles and Environmental Education business and I hope I have helped lots of adults and children to have fun and be more sustainable in their daily lives.

I also hope I have helped some of you, readers of this blog, in some small way, with gardening, hen keeping or cooking advice or just by sharing my small triumphs and tragedies.  At the very least I hope I have sometimes amused you with my antics :)



So in honour of my blogging birthday and to thank all of you, my lovely readers, I am going to have a giveaway!

Leave me a comment below and next week I will draw out a name and send who ever is drawn a little surprise present - possibly something home made, possibly something I have been sent to review but it will be nice, I promise.

Good luck!

Meet the newest member of our cat family.

Meet Gizzie, the newest member of our cat family .

She belongs to Babs at Little Terraced House, who put out a plea for help on her blog a couple of days ago.

Those who follow Little Terraced House will know that things have been very hard for them all, with a sick grandchild the other side of the World, and lots of other issues to contend with. Life has not been kind to them recently.

Babs and I are fellow Master Composters and, although we had only met in real life once before, I could see how desperate she was to re home their beloved cat before they left (at very short notice) to return to Australia .

So after discussing it with Compostman and Compostgirl, we offered to help and now have the care of lovely Gizzie.

Babs and your lovely OH - we will do our very best to look after her well. She is an absolute darling - although the other cats do NOT agree at the moment!

A royal visit

I had a lovely visitor today; fellow blogger Meanqueen called in on her way back home from visiting Glastonbury and Bath.


She arrived about noon and stayed for lunch and a natter.

She admired the various animals

 and cuddled the guinea pig girls,

We ate lunch, we chatted, we looked around the garden, we chatted, we met the hens, we chatted, we walked down into the wood where we sat down and chatted some more. I think you get the picture? We did a LOT of talking and discussed lots of different things. We also ate a fair bit :-)

Compostman took the photos and we both immediately started thinking about what we would say!

Typical, for those of us who blog, to immediately think about words and pictures to describe our meeting up.

Meanqueen is a lovely lady and absolutely fascinating company. I really enjoyed meeting her - and she gave me one of her lovely handmade bags! I was so pleased :-)