Car repairs

I had to take my car for major repair work on the engine today, over at Hay on Wye.
I got up early and drove to Hay through a glorious morning and arrived at 9 am. The garage gave me a courtesy car and said my car would be ready after lunch.

I decided to have  breakfast and a wander around Hay, then head to Crickhowell and Bookish.














The road to Crickhowell passes by Tretower Castle which I have never visited, so I stopped and had a good look around.

 It was very warm outside and I was grateful for the cool shade inside

Beautiful interiors

While I was at Tretower I got a text that my car would take longer than planned and would be ready at 5 pm, so I decided to have a late lunch in Crickhowell.

I had a leisurely lunch, walked around Crickhowell Castle and then drove slowly back along the spectacularly beautiful road back to Hay. It was the most fabulous sunny day and the air was crystal clear. I was lucky enough to see a load of Red Kites wheeling and tumbling in the sky over the mountains.

Car fixed, for a good price and drove home to sort out the chickens and do some more preserving.

And so it begins :)

This is one day's worth of pickings from the polytunnel

 
Ready for freezing

Dehydrator down from the loft and ready to roll :)

I do love tomatoes

Trip to Goodrich Castle

Civil engineering :)

Our trench arch septic tank soak away system developed a bit of a blockage in one of the arms. This is what takes the liquids from our sewerage system and drains it underground so it slowly perculates into the soil under the wood where it is rendered harmless and useful. The blockage wasn't serious, but when you have a JCB why not fix it asap?

Digging out the trench - very tight in amongst the trees and I acted as banksperson to Compostman driving the JCB ( I do drive it as well!)

Uncovering the trench under the protective slabs

Clearing the blockage and then putting it all back together

Probably would have cost us a few thousand pound to get this done AND they would have wanted to clear fell the trees to get to it. So good that we can sort stuff like this out for ourselves :)

Wales day 4

 We set off after breakfast to a nearby Shire Horse attraction as both of us love horses. It was a really good place, despite the dreadful weather.

Gentle giants
















We had a bouncy wet ride around the farm in this carriage :)

We then decided to go and try to find a stone circle we had visited the last time we were in this part of Wales. Despite driving rain and low cloud I had a look at the OS map and identified where I thought it might be

And we found it!

You can see how very very wet it was :(

At this point we were drenched despite waterproofs and boots so headed back to the hotel.

Unfortunately that evening Compostgirl developed a very upset tum and we had to go home the next day a day early. Shame, both because she was ill and because as the weather turned absolutely glorious for the rest of the week.