A relaxing day

Today was the last day we had to work manning the shop where we have our Unit, as from today we no longer have a Unit there.  Time tends to go very slowly when you are there, and in the winter it is pretty chilly, so we have no sorrows over leaving!  Anyway, today I finished one book I was reading and began another, started on some x-stitch - just a little project sent to me by my cousin (it was one belonging to her Aunt (or g. Aunt) Ethel, from Gibralta if I remember rightly).  Anyway, it was a rose and bought on a visit to Mottisfont Gardens near Romsey in Hampshire, and long-term followers of this blog will remember that I went there with my best friend Tricia in the summer before she died of Cancer.  So this little x-stitch has a special poignancy for me.

I got wet in the rain when I went for bread not long after we arrived - I should have spotted the HUGE black clouds heading our way.  I did linger in one of the charity shops, looking for a skein of embroidery floss to whip the edge of the x-stitch project and although I didn't find any, I did spot a lovely nearly-finished needlepoint cushion front with the wools, chart etc and bought that for £3 and a lovely holly-green scallop-edged damask tablecloth (brand new) for £2.  That will look lovely over an undercloth on one of my tables at a Fair.

I dried out beautifully later when I went for a walk with my camera and took lots of photos at St Dingat's Church in Llandovery.  I went out again after that as I had seen some lovely juicy blackberries hanging over a wall and they were too much of a temptation to ignore!

There is probably an entire post which could be written about this man, Sir John Gardner Wilkinson.  For the moment you will have to content yourself with THIS LINK or this one, and here is Wikipedia's take on him.  Obviously a fascinating man.

He certainly had quite the grandest tomb in the churchyard - or at any rate, the longest epitaph, as there were some rather smart angels too . . .

Nest Pryse-Rice was born in 1896 and died in 1921.  Her mother Margaret was President of Carmarthen-shire Red Cross and Nest nursed at the Auxiliary Hospital in Llandovery and then the Nannau Hospital for Officers at Dolgellau throughout the years of the First World War.  She was only 25 when she died.

Her mother's gravestone.

Quite a novel burial memorial in the form of a bird-bath (?!) set rather like a Neolithic burial chamber.  One of the Pryse-Rice family.  Then, below, even more practical, a sundial  memorial . . .

The family lived at Llywn-y-Brain and the "Rice" part of their name shows a connection between the Pryses of that estate an the Rice family of Dinefwr.

At one stage (late Victorian times) there was a fashion to have coffin-shaped slabs over the actual grave.  I remember seeing similar ones in a Llanstephan churchyard.

But the ones that pull at your heart strings are the tiny children's coffin-shaped stones . . .

And this poor little chap, only 10 months old . . .

St Dingat's Church, Llandovery.

My veg plot - pre-rain

I took these photos last week, when everything was crying out for life-giving rain.  We have managed (just about) re-using bath water, washing up water, drips and drabs here and there, and some still coming at a few drips a minute from the hose connected to the pipe of the old holding tank on Next Door's Land (to which we have water rights still).  On Friday we had some rain, yesterday LOTS more and today it has rained pretty well non-stop.

In fact, on Friday night we had a bit of a thunderstorm in the middle of the night and torrential rain fell.  Unfortunately, we also had a power outage and it knocked out our tv.  We hope it may possibly be mended.  Otherwise the replacement is a hole in our budget we could do without!  In the meantime, we are using this little laptop to watch programmes on when we finally settle down of an evening, and I got to watch the racing on it yesterday afternoon - I had been looking forward to that.  Now I expect the veg will go mad this next week - but so also will the weeds - the lawn (which used to be grazed by our horses) to the N of the house is already sprouting a new crop of Dock which we will try and eradicate.  We will need to call the mowing man out to cut it all next week, before it needs Next Door with the topper!

Peas and beans of various persuasions in big tubs and producing well for us.  Looking forward to the first pickings soon.

One of the Courgette plants (I have two) and there are two Ridge Cucumbers by them - I picked the first Cucumber today.

The veg plot finally got dug over (thank you Dennis with the rotovator) and it's just this near end I still have to tackle but there is buried pipework there so it's a digging over with a trowel job.

R A I N!!  Hooray. It is a novelty at the moment but come the middle of winter I will be sick of it and praying for a good summer again I am sure!!

A recent day out in Hay-on-Wye

Some recent photos from a walk around Hay.  Most are self-explanatory.  The house part of the Castle is currently undergoing restoration (I bet that will cost a pretty penny), so you can't walk past it or in the grounds.

I can recommend Barbara Erskine's novel, Lady of Hay, which is a wonderful read and will drag you into the early part of Hay's history - although the castle then was on the motte and bailey by the church (back of the Livestock market) not this one.

I have several of these lovely baskets, the smallest of which I use for bits of shopping, and the larger ones for craft bits and pieces.  One had all my quilting bits to take on a Wednesday for my class.  These are being sold at the old Cheese Market.

These lovely house plants are on offer in our friend Kath's shop.  She has a selection of period ceramics and glass too.

Something I'd not noticed before - details of plaster design at the top of a pediment.

This is the Butcher's, which has a notice telling you exactly which farms the meats on offer were sourced at.  They make lovely pies too.

The Greengrocers.  I love visiting this shop in the autumn, when all sorts of unusual varieties of local apples are on offer.

Clouds - but no rain.  This has happened a lot recently, but last night we had a thunderstorm and heavy rain for a little while.  Now it is raining again and tomorrow it is meant to pour all day. We hope so - we may risk a deeper bath if so - at the moment it is about 2 inches of water and after the bath, it is used to flush the upstairs toilet . . .  Any left over water when we have been out for the day, goes to water the young orchard or the vegetables.

When our kids were small, this would have been called a "hairy house"!!

The view from the top of the car park.

Have a lovely weekend.

Craft trail photos in full, plus the missing photos!

Here are the photos I took yesterday in our little corner of the Towy Craft Trail.  Our patchwork teacher had an exhibition of her work and ours in the Chapel meeting room at Llanfynydd.  3 of us from her class were working on quilts.  This is one of Alex's many lovely pieces . . .  The quilts and runners on the walls were made by Alex and her pupils.  There is a corner of my little Twisted Pinwheel table runner behind Michelle's lovely hand-dyed-with-Indigo quilt - originally a sheet, dyed and then cut and pieces into a duvet cover. Anyway enjoy . . .

Missing Patchwork Photos now, including one of my table runner in full at the end:

Then across the road to what used to be one of the village pubs now home to a ceramic craftswoman,  Hilary Coole.

Examples of Hilary's unusual work, and interspersed, those of Olwen Thomas..  

Missing photos :

This is the view of the steep-sided valley at Llanfynydd.  That would take some climbing - you'd need to be like a mountain goat!!

I have a busy day ahead, so enjoy the photos.  I am a few days behind with my outings, so will try and put those up in the next few days.