gutters

Looking Forward

Going Batty in Wales23 Comments

In November I was debating what goals to set myself for 2026. Those for 2025 which I reviewed in my previous post had been helpful and I want to go on exploring local places (But hopefully not Hospitals!), trying new ways of growing and new plants, making different meals and sitting down to enjoy them and marking the 8 pagan / Celtic Festivals. But I didn’t want to add more of that type of aim. When I was learning Welsh the tutor spoke of asking an elderly neighbour how she was and her reply was Cadw Mynd, Cadw Mynd – Keeping Going, Keeping Going. I concluded that that would be my goal for this coming year.

After all I am in the middle of the redesign of the veg patch and when I finish that, including building a fruit cage, there will be only another acre or so of garden to do! And as I get more tree saplings the new Woodland which I started in memory of John will continue to need planting and the paths will keep on needing clearing. Then there is the knitting for Gaza – both my own knitting for the refugees and the encouraging of others to do the same. And I am still a Trustee of Dyfed Permaculture Farm which means attending meetings and workdays if I can, plus sometimes work in between researching or setting out ideas for discussion. And I am a director of the company my daughter set up with the money from her divorce which owns a student flat in Falmouth. At the moment that requires very little from me but it may demand more in the future. The kitchen needs redecorating too if I can manage it. Surely that is enough. No need to add any more.

Then Danny and Helene left and I started to reclaim the workshop which I had invited him to use and he had taken over more and more. In doing that I realised it needed another major declutter. I did it a few years ago but was still unsure what I would feel I wanted to take on in the way of repairs and maintenance and so which tools and materials I would use. Well now I am pretty sure I know what I want to keep but also what I want to add – like a big sturdy bench all along the South wall. And guess what? I have another big project! But at least it is a rainy day one.

Then the gutters fell off. I have paid a very nice handyman to cut away all the rot and redo the timber and plastic and put up new gutters re-routing some of them. I will be paying someone else to pressure wash the walls so that I can repaint the concrete render, at least all the high up stuff, while the scaffolding is up. Which means that has to be done by March or I will be charged extra by the scaffolders but it can only be done in dry weather with no risk of frost. Hmmm.

My eldest Grandchild, my son’s daughter, now lives in China and has got engaged to a Chinese airline pilot so it is unlikely she will be returning to the UK to live. As she is in her late 20’s she plans to start a family soon and has asked me to use a website called Remento to record, on video, answers to various prompts she has chosen. When she asked if I would be willing I thought how much I wish I knew more about my grandparents. Both my Dad’s parents died before I was born and my Mother’s mother died when I was 2 months old. I have a photo of my maternal grandmother holding me at my Christening but of course never knew her or spoke to her. My Mum’s father was bedridden until he died when I was 8 so I hardly knew him either. So I agreed to do the recording and my son paid for a camera to go on my computer and Laura helped me set it up. Remento will send me one prompt each week but I can do them in batches if I prefer. Each recording is at most 30 minutes but I want to do it properly so there is time thinking about the prompt and what I want to say. Not a huge project but another one to add to the list.

Way back before Covid I contacted the local Council’s footpath Officer because I wanted to see if I could find an off-road circular walk I could do with the dogs without having to drive somewhere first. He was very helpful and printed off for me copies of bits of the ‘Definitive Map’ which is the legal record of Public Rights of Way. There are quite a few near here but most are overgrown and crossed by barbed wire fences because they are rarely used and where there were wooden bridges over the river those had gone. Between one thing and another I didn’t do much about most of them. I am not a good map reader and it was hard to work where the path should be if it had become invisible. But I did use one section which ran through 3 fields until the farmer put a chain on the gate. There was no real reason for the chain – there was a working bolt to keep the gate closed and he didn’t ever put cattle in those fields. When he realised I was undoing it and putting it back as we left (but not necessarily quite the same way) he started making it tighter and tighter until I had to climb the gate and lean all my weight on it from the inside to be able to undo it. So I contacted the Officer again and he had a letter sent to the farmer explaining that he had to allow access. But my query and the ensuing conversation prompted him to send one of his team to survey the paths around here and quite by chance I met her when I was walking the dogs. She was lovely and reckons it would be fairly easy to re-open most of them but the footpaths team rely on local volunteers to do the work – did I know anyone else who might be interested in using them and putting in some effort? Well, I had been asked by one chap who has recently moved in if there were any good dog walks and Laura is up for it. As it was me who started all this I think I have to get involved and do some of the work. Whoops! Another project! I have downloaded the Ordnance Survey App which the surveyor was using so that is a start.

I started to feel overwhelmed! But I have decided I just need to go back to Cadw Mynd, Cadw Mynd, and keep nibbling away at them all. There is a Permaculture Principle which I find very useful and reassuring – Start where you are, Use what you have, Do what you can. The first 2 are fine, the third may turn out to be ‘ not much’!

I will try to update you all from time to time.

Too Much Weather!

Going Batty in Wales22 Comments

We have had a succession of storms and each has brought disruption to this cottage in a remote part of SW Wales.

At the beginning of the month heavy rain caused a lot of flooding in the area. My friend Lindy’s house is near a river and the lowest part of her garden floods a couple of times most winters but this time it reached the concrete plinth on which her house stands and she moved her car to higher ground and packed a bag in case she had to evacuate. Luckily the rain eased and her house was not inundated. My stream was high but the bank on the other side is lower than on mine so it will always flood away from me. It did mean that for a couple of days I didn’t go out because of flooding on the roads.

A night of torrential rain a week or so later proved too much for the sagging gutters on the back house which my son and I planned to deal with in the Spring. I awoke to find the whole lot had peeled off taking the plastic fascia with them and were lying on the ground. I began the task of finding someone to put new ones up and luckily for me Lindy was able to recommend someone who had done some work on her roof recently. The job will involve scaffolding so it makes sense to repaint the wall whilst I can have good access.

The following weekend my Grandson, Sean, was coming to see me as he had to attend a course in Cardiff for his work mid-week and realised he could visit me and work from ‘home’ on the Monday before the course started on the Tuesday. He doesn’t drive so set off from Luton on the Saturday morning by train and I was to pick him up from Whitland at 5pm. He messaged me at lunchtime – more downpours had caused flooding all over the country so trains had been cancelled, delayed and re-routed – he would let me know when he got as far as Cardiff where he had to change trains and give me his revised arrival time. At 5pm he got to Cardiff Central and discovered that the earliest he could get to Whitland was 9pm and probably would be even later. He gave up and found a hotel for the night. After more delays on the Sunday he finally reached Whitland at 3:15pm! It was lovely to see him and be able to spend time catching up but I felt so sorry for his very frustrating journey!

Then on the Wednesday, whilst he was on the course, it started to snow and by Thursday I was snowed in. One of the disadvantages of living at the bottom of a valley is that whilst I am sheltered from the worst of the wind there is a steep hill to climb to get out whichever way I turn so it doesn’t take a lot of snow to make leaving impossible. We had a few brief power cuts but nothing too long so I was able to keep warm, cook and have light. But as the snow started to melt and slide off the roof the gutters on the front started to sag and pull down that fascia too. So I decided I would have to have the whole lot done! The scaffolding will go up right round the house tomorrow and the work should be done by Christmas – as long as the weather permits Mike to work.

Yesterday afternoon I drove into Carmarthen and as I was navigating Tesco’s car park the heavens opened – again! Getting into a bay was nerve wracking because all the car windows were streaming with water. Once I was safely parked I sat inside the car hoping it was just a very heavy shower and it sounded as if someone was chucking buckets of water on the roof.

As I was sitting there I realised that in olden times such a sequence of terrible weather would have been seen as signs of divine displeasure. We would all have been searching our consciences for the sinfulness which was the cause, repenting like mad and making offerings to appease God / the gods. Of course most of us know that we have abused nature and ‘upset’ it and that is what is causing the increasingly violent weather without needing a Prophet, Shaman or Wise man to tell us. But instead of repenting and changing our ways we grumble and increase our pressure on the planet. And instead of making sacrifices, sliding our smart TV or iPad or whatever into one of the liminal places as an offering or ritually burning them to send smoke signals to Heaven, we take them to the tip and ‘treat ourselves’ to a new, upgraded one on Black Friday. Progress?