My major project while I was house-sitting in Moelfre was to make sense of the area that is to become the forest garden. A forest garden is not, as I first thought, a garden in a woodland clearing, but a garden which grows in a similar way to a woodland, with tall trees bearing edible fruits (apples, pears, nuts, etc), underplanted with bush fruits (black- and red-currant, gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries) and then lower growing plants (strawberries, rhubarb, etc). There are already fruit trees, gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes and raspberry canes, as well as some rhubarb crowns, in this part of the garden, but everywhere is overrun with raspberry suckers and quite a few of the bushes have got very straggly, so I was on a mission to clear away all the tangle, see what needed pruning and tie in the raspberry canes that remained.
I worked in the garden nearly every day for several hours and, after a couple of days the site began to look quite different. Once the raspberry suckers had been removed from each area it became obvious that, what I had first thought were randomly planted bushes, were actually laid out in rows with paths between. A lot of the bushes had grown into each other and picking the fruit would be difficult, so I cut out a lot of old wood and trimmed back the overgrown branches to try and create a more open cup-shaped bush that was distinct from its neighbour, without leaving Dawn and Tony without any fruiting stems for next year!
All this digging up of raspberry suckers and trimming back of the blackcurrants and gooseberries was creating a lot of bonfire material (secretly, this was my main reason for tackling the job in the first place – but don't tell Dawn and Tony!). However, the old bonfire site was deemed to be too near to the new and improved wooden lodge in the centre of the garden, to have open fires any more, so there was an old oil drum there to be used as an incinerator. Incinerators are boring! Most of the burning takes place out of sight and they need constant attention, plus all the material has to be cut to a certain size so that it doesn't wedge itself across the diameter and cause a firebreak. After struggling with it for a day, the realisation dawned that I was creating burnable material faster than I could burn it, so I went in search of a new bonfire site.
It didn't take long to locate a good site as there was already a heap of twigs and bramble cuttings there just asking to be set fire to. In fact, this heap had been there for the last three years and had been annoying me for some time so, after checking it for small furry, sleeping creatures, I set fire to it. It was quite some distance uphill from where I was working so I had to drag most of the cuttings, in big bundles, up to the fire which was hard going but worth it, I thought. I kept the fire going for three days, by banking it up with muddy grass and weeds at the end of each day, and by the end I could push a wheelbarrow of cuttings and weeds uphill and barely get out of breath!
As a final job in the forest garden I trimmed back the semi-circular conifer hedge that acts as a wind break for the fruit bushes. Again, this created a lot more burnable material but I'd run out of time so just had to rake up the trimmings and leave them in a tidy heap for Dawn to burn up later in the incinerator. Hopefully, it will be a more productive and easily-accessed area next year and I look forward to sampling the blackcurrant and gooseberry wines that result!
Once Dawn and Tony had returned from Brittany I felt able to take a day off. It was a beautiful autumn day and destined to be one of the last warm days, so I set off to drive to Llangollen to have a good look round, as it had been raining the last time that Dawn and I had gone there. First of all I drove to the nearest agricultural suppliers and invested in some really waterproof outer wear – trousers and jackets in standard farm-issue green (it doesn't show the sh*t!), as my next job is a farm sit in Cornwall where I will have to check the sheep whatever the weather. I then took the scenic route to Llangollen, heading off towards Bala before turning northwards to Corwen and back round eastwards to Llangollen. Just before Corwen I saw a sign to the ancient church of Melangell and, as Dawn had talked about taking me there but we'd never got round to it, I decided to pay a visit. The road to Pennant Melangell is a tiny single-track road and it winds on for miles further and further up a beautiful valley in the Berwyn Mountains, and peters out into a track just past the church.
The church is a shrine dedicated to Saint Melangell and this is her story:
One day in the 7th Century, Brochwel, Prince of Powys, was out hunting in the valley with his men and hounds. They were chasing hares and were after one particular hare when it disappeared into a bramble thicket. On pushing their way through the brambles they found a young woman praying, and the hare had taken refuge under her cloak. The huntsmen urged the dogs forward but they fled, howling, and would not pursue the hare further. Prince Brochwel was very impressed by the young woman and asked who she was. It transpired that her name was Melangell and she had fled to this remote valley, from Ireland, to escape an arranged marriage and so dedicate her life to God. The prince then made the whole valley over to Melangell to live in peacefully for the rest of her life, and she founded a small religious community there and was its first Abbess – she is still the patron saint of hares.
I love these wonderful Welsh tales, there are so many of them, and each one seems to have some truth within it but, because they have been told over and over again by travelling storytellers, they have gained an aura of magic and mystery that adds to their charm – how did she get from Ireland to a remote mountain valley on the eastern edge of Wales? Does it really matter? Part of me wants to know, as it must have been a hazardous journey to undertake as a young girl, alone, but a part of me wants to think that perhaps she was carried across the sea and placed here by a benevolent dragon or a mighty wizard, or a great wind, conjured by God, to save her from a loveless marriage.
However, the site that the church occupies is truly beautiful and there has been a Christian church here for 1200 years, although the sacred site is much, much older being circular and ringed with yew trees, some of which are estimated to be over 2000 years old. The actual church is interesting, too as it seems to represent a mixture of faiths: it is, nominally, part of the Church in Wales, which is the Anglican church but, with the shrine, containing Melangell's bones, placed in the centre of the Chancel, many statues decorating niches and candles to light for people, it seems almost Catholic, but there is also a large slab of slate lying on the floor of the Chancel next to the shrine on which there are more pagan offerings, and beautiful sculptures of hares decorate the sides of the Nave – clearly there is something for everyone here, if you can brave the narrow road and suicidal pheasants! Apparently, people make pilgrimage here from all over the world.
After this unexpected detour, I eventually found my way to Llangollen, where I looked around the pretty town, which seems to have had its heyday somewhere at the end of the Victorian/beginning of the Edwardian period judging by the majority of the architecture, and eventually got drawn to the canal, as was inevitable, I suppose. When I had puffed my way up the steep slope to the wharf I discovered that the next horse-drawn boat excursion was due to depart within twenty minutes, and would last about forty-five minutes – I had just enough time before lunch, so I indulged myself. There weren't many takers for the excursion as it was an autumn weekday, outside the school holidays, and this added to the experience as it was quiet enough to hear the horse's hooves clopping on the towpath and the gentle splashing as the boat glided silently through the water. Because the canal only starts about a mile from the wharf and is fed from a waterfall on the river, it is still flowing, like a river, along the stretch that we traversed, which meant that the water was beautifully clear and full of fish! Of course, because there is no engine noise, the fish aren't disturbed by the passage of the boat and large shoals swam alongside us – I even saw some pinkish-coloured eels! However, much as I like canals, I don't think that I would want to be horse-drawn for too long as it takes ages to get anywhere – I don't think we went more than half-a-mile and back in that forty-five minutes!
I treated myself to a rather tasty, but rather expensive, 'light lunch' in Gales Wine Bar consisting of smoked mackerel, anchovies and pickles served with crusty bread – well, I thought I should continue the fishy theme – all washed down with a small glass of merlot, which was a mistake as I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep somewhere rather than driving the twenty-odd miles back to Moelfre – that's what happens when you break your own rules, I never normally drink alcohol in the middle of the day, for that precise reason!
Within a couple of days of this lovely outing, the temperature plummeted, the rain rained and the wind
blew – benign autumn days had become a thing of the past, and I was heading south once more.
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