More musings from Moelfre

 


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.

Musings on Autumn

Ode to Autumn by John Keats (1795 -1821)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

I studied Keats at school and have never found a more eloquent description of Autumn, so thought I would share it with you.

I have recently read a book, 'The Morville Hours' by Katherine Swift and I can highly recommend it as a beautifully described, inspirational read. It is about the creation of her garden at the Morville Dower House in Shropshire, but is written in the style of a Book of Hours, a devotional text popular in Medieval times, however, this is not a religious book, but it is definitely a spiritual one. She compares the work in the garden through the year with the work in the countryside of Medieval times and talks about the seasons, the celebratory feasts and important Quarter Days and how the year was divided up using Saints Days and older feast days as markers. I drove through Morville on my way from Banbury to Oswestry on a beautiful, golden autumnal day and fully understood her love for the area.

This year the autumn has been very much how Keats describes it: we may not have very many thatched eaves around which to grow our vines, but some people have an even better option – the greenhouse! Here in Moelfre, on the borders of Powys and Shropshire, the young grape vine is beginning to take over in the greenhouse and was covered in bunches of small, sweet red grapes that I grazed whenever I was up in the garden. Jasper, the Miniature Schnauzer, is also partial to one or two and we would share a bunch between us. However, Dawn had other ideas and, before they went off to Brittany to do battle with their almost-a-cottage, we picked nearly all of the grapes (about 12 pounds), juiced them and made them into wine! Its a very pretty pale pink colour – I hope it eventually tastes as good as it looks and that I will be back here when its ready to drink!

The plum trees and the apple trees have had a particularly good year and the variety of plum that grows here near to the driveway is delicious – again, Jasper and I have to sample one or two on our way past but they are all too high for me to reach now. And there are still a few blackberries to be had, too. The vegetable plot has suffered from the long dry summer in some respects but has still produced lovely beetroot, onions, garlic, runner beans, carrots and courgettes. If the weather turns wet I have onions to plait into strings, beetroot and shallots to pickle and beans to prepare for the freezer, as well as apple chutney to make.

I love this time of year with all the produce coming to full ripeness and, although the nights are definitely drawing in and the weather is getting more chilly, I don't feel depressed by the imminence of winter - in the summer everything is all about being outside enjoying the warmth and the light, but at this time of year it feels right to be withdrawing inside, creating a little haven of warmth indoors to retreat to as the days shorten, knowing that all the fruits and vegetables are safely stored against the winter's chill and that they will see us through to Spring: jams and jellies, pickles and chutneys, cordials and wines, all echoing the warm flavours and colours of summer to cheer our souls on damp and dark winter days.

I love the smell of woodsmoke and bonfires hanging in the misty air, and the work of putting the garden to bed for the winter. Clearing and tidying things that got neglected in the frenzy of summer growth, putting away canes and netting, checking tools for signs of wear and tear and cleaning them with an oiled cloth before hanging them up in the shed, collecting firewood for the store and then, on walks around the gardens, finding sudden and surprising gems – a rhododendron having a final fling with large red flowers punctuating the air and tiny pink autumn cyclamen peeping shyly between a tangle of dead stalks and leaves. It serves as a reminder that life is still there and, like us, the plants are only retreating into a safe, warm place to sit out the winter and emerge again in Spring. The Seasons turn and the cycle of life continues, and each season has its place and its purpose.

Walks with Malin, and other canalside activities

The early morning towpath is chilly and in deep shade as Malin, the lurcher, and I make our way quietly past the moored boats. In some you can hear the first faint signs of morning life, but others are shuttered or curtained against the light and passing walkers. Up ahead of us a flotilla of ducks make ripples on the water as they search for food in the shallows, and a moorhen scrambles up the far bank, disturbed by our sudden appearance. Just past the boats there is a gap in the hedge and we burst through into a different world. The stubble field stretches out in bright sunshine, the heat from the soil already palpable beneath my dew-soaked feet; a huge, golden vista stretching away to a line of trees beyond the disused railway line, the only indication of its previous use being the black clinkers just below the thin grass surface which have been excavated by rabbits and badgers in places. As we emerge into this golden land a flock of rooks, startled by our sudden presence, lift into the air and flap away cawing indignantly – after all, we have just disturbed their breakfast, and as we move forward several rabbits dive for cover in the hedgerow and three partridge lift into the air right near my feet and fly fast and low across the stubble to alight further away and resume their feeding.


Round the perimeter of the field we walk, Malin questing in the hedge for rabbit smells and me just glorying in the huge expanse of Oxfordshire sky, the warmth of the late-summer sun and the wonder of all the world around me. I suddenly notice something jarringly out of place in this natural scene, a white ball, just a little smaller than a child's football. Feeling slightly indignant at such an intrusion into the beauty of the place I move forward and look more closely, it doesn't look like plastic, I reach out a finger and tentatively prod it, it is firm but spongy, and then the penny drops – its not a ball at all, but a giant puffball fungus. I haven't seen one of those for years, and I understand they're good to eat, but how long would it take one person to eat an entire puffball? Smiling to myself I move on down the hedgerow after Malin's retreating figure and notice just how many sloes and blackberries there are this year. At moments like these I yearn for my own kitchen so that I can make bramble jelly, blackberry and apple pies, blackberry vodka and sloe gin for Christmas. As it is I will probably pick some fruit and make the drinks for Christmas because they can travel in my car until I reach 'home' again in November without taking up too much room or coming to any harm.

We continue into the sheep field and are lucky this morning as they are all at the far end; Malin is terrified of sheep and panics if they are too close. I do wonder if, when she was a young dog, she was subjected to the old-fashioned method used to stop dogs chasing sheep. If a dog was a sheep chaser, the farmer would pen the dog up with a ewe and lamb and leave it for a while. Of course the ewe would protect her lamb by butting the dog repeatedly with her extremely hard head and the dog would learn quite quickly that sheep hurt! It was a brutal way to stop the problem but better than having your dog shot by an irate farmer for sheep worrying. Be that as it may, Malin hates going through the sheep field and is not much happier with the cows in the next field either. Mind you, I won't go in there with her if they're too close to the footpath because the youngsters can be quite frisky and see chasing Malin as a huge piece of fun!

As we complete our circuit I see the swallows sitting like musical notes on the fence at the side of the canal. They rise in ones and twos and go scooting along the canal, dipping down and drinking as they fly before hurling themselves back into the air and whirling over my head before settling again. It won't be long before they start to leave, but they go in dribs and drabs so that their departure is not too noticeable – perhaps they know how bereft we feel when they have gone for another season and try to leave us gently, not like the swifts who are around one minute and gone the next!

Safely back across the lock gates we can rest easy and have some well-deserved breakfast, before I set to and start my scone-baking of the day. I decided that, to give myself a definite structure to the day, and to take full advantage of passing trade, I would make and sell scones, cake and biscuits on the lock side. Phoebe quite often puts out the odd box of eggs and any surplus vegetables, but I decided scones were the way to go. I seemed to have hit on a good idea as most people, having come up the flight of five locks, tend to moor up and have a cup of tea, and what better to go with a cup of tea than fresh scones? News of my scones seemed to move up and down the canal as several people asked if there were any left if they saw me in the garden. I left an honesty box on a little table with the goodies and then left everyone to it – it seemed to work very well and I was usually sold out by mid-afternoon. Of course, the trade is very seasonal – six to eight weeks in the summer holidays but, if the weather is good this extends a bit longer as couples without children start to move up and down the system then. Every day I made plain, fruit and cheese scones and bagged them up in fours. Sometimes, if the mood took me, I would bake biscuits and cake to wrap up too, I made Lemon Drizzle cake thinking it would be everyone's favourite, but that and the Choc Chip cookies took several days to sell out, so I experimented with a tea bread recipe that my friend Sally had given me – I sold all nine slices by mid-afternoon and it was double the price I'd charged for the Lemon Drizzle because of the cost of the dried fruit! I did a different fruit cake recipe the next day and the same thing happened – I just couldn't keep up with demand. I would love to have done cream teas, but that is more of a tie and, with limited refrigerator space, it would be difficult to keep the cream fresh.


You meet some interesting people on the canal and, because the weather was so good for the majority of my stay, I was frequently out in the garden and could chat to people as they went through the lock:

There was Hunt, an American historian, who has had several non-fiction works published but was so captivated by the area around the Oxford Canal that he is planning and researching a bit of a 'bodice-ripper' based on the coming of the canal to the area in the late 1700s – I shall await its publication with some interest!

Then there was the guy I saw one day travelling on his own down the canal – he said he was in the music business and was enjoying the peace and quiet, but I forgot to ask what it was he actually did. A few days later I spotted him coming back up the canal and asked the question then – it turned out he sang with the BBC Chamber Choir and should have been appearing in one of the Proms that night, but had decided to play hooky and finish his holiday! I can't say I blame him – the weather was phenomenal at that point.

I got quite friendly with a couple who moored for a week on the stretch of canal between the cottage and the car park, so I passed them several times. Colin spent most of the week hand-painting the 'roses and castles' motifs on his boat and signwriting his boat's name. I asked if that was what he did for a living, but it was just a skill he had picked up along the way, as he and his wife had been holidaying on the canals for several years and now spent about nine months each year just cruising around the canal system.

One evening, as it was beginning to get dusk I heard a boat enter the lock which was quite unusual as most 'holidaymakers' like to be well clear of the locks before nightfall. However, the chap on this boat was no holidaymaker – he spends his time collecting and delivering boats for people all over the country and lives on his own boat somewhere up near Rugby. We chatted for a while as the lock filled up but he seemed in no particular hurry to open the gate and get on his way – I assume he doesn't get much chance to chat with people and it must be a solitary existence for most of the time. Eventually he went on his way, but only as far as the first mooring beyond the bridge as I passed the boat next morning when Malin and I took the air.

I also noticed that there were quite a lot of Americans (or Canadians – sorry my Canadian friends, I can never distinguish between the accents straight off) and Australians (or , possibly, New Zealanders) and I found this quite strange although I suppose there aren't such things as canals in their countries or, at least, not such narrow ones. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely which is more than could be said for some of the British families that I saw/heard come through the lock – they seemed to be finding it all very stressful, which seemed a terrible shame as it is not a cheap holiday option by any means.

Then there was Phoebe's friend, Jason, who lives on his boat and moves it up and down the canal periodically. Twice I helped him and a friend move the boat to different moorings, going through a couple of lock each time. He obviously didn't learn his lesson last year as he allowed me to steer the boat both times and in fact, on the second occasion I got to steer it into the lock while Jason was working the gates! Why is it that my brain has such difficulty working out which way to push the rudder to steer? I don't think it helps that a 64 foot canal boat takes quite a while to respond at the front to the rudder movements at the rear, so I would panic that I was doing it wrong. The Oxford Canal is probably not the easiest canal to learn on as it is a contour canal (i.e. it follows the contours of the land) so it doesn't have that many locks but it twists and turns all over the place, which is not easy if you're a novice steerer!

However, the person who made, what could have been a very solitary experience, much more fun was Phoebe's builder-cum-friend-cum-guardian angel, Eamon. He took me under his wing and invited me to the local hostelry a couple of times a week where he would drink 'diet' Guinness by the pint and I would quaff Stowford Press cider, by the half, whilst chatting to all manner of interesting folk who inhabited the bar. It was a lovely little pub (The Carpenters Arms at Lower Boddington) and they did the most wonderful Sunday roasts as I discovered when I treated myself on my birthday ( and several subsequent Sundays). They also made me feel very welcome and Kev would be pouring my cider as Eamon and I walked in the door. I took Phoebe there for a lunch on my last day there and to say Goodbye to them – Kev reckons he'll remember what I drink if I turn up again next year – perhaps I should come back and see?

The highlight of my stay was when Jeni came to see me for four days at the beginning of September and could share in all my goings-on. Unfortunately the weather was not brilliant, but we managed a little light gardening! (pickaxe and forks to try and dig up some burdocks, nettles and brambles at the end of the garden) and we also walked to Cropredy, had lunch at The Red Lion pub and walked back again and, on the day that it rained heavily, we went to Compton Verney House Art Gallery, on the road between Banbury and Stratford-upon-Avon, and spent the afternoon being 'cultural'. We also both went to the pub with Eamon and had supper with Jason on his boat. It was lovely to share the unique experience that Top Lock Cottage is, with someone else, as it is a very special place despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that it is completely 'off grid' and with no vehicular access.

I had a wonderful time!!

North Oxfordshire - a secret beauty

For the last few weeks (and for a few more yet to come) I have been in Oxfordshire. To be more precise I have been in the very northernmost part of Oxfordshire at a village called Claydon. What strikes me most about this area is how chocolate-box-perfect most of the villages are, but there are no tourists. In the Cotswolds any village that is at all attractive, with mellow stone houses with traditional stone tiled roofs, is almost always on the tourist route – you can't move in Bourton-on-the-Water or Broadway for coachloads of day trippers, and less accessible places like Lower and Upper Swell and Lower and Upper Slaughter have their fair share, but here on the Oxfordshire/ Warwickshire/Northamptonshire border all is blissfully quiet. Yet, the stone here is of a deep golden colour, there are thatched cottages galore, pretty churches, village greens with duck ponds and loads of historical interest (many of the major battles of the Civil War were fought in this area), so how have they managed to keep this knowledge from the masses? I think its about time they were made to share this beauty with everyone else.......so come on people, come on down!

For many years I knew that my sister, brother-in-law and associated friends used to go to a folk festival called Cropredy. In actual fact, Cropredy is the name of the village, about five miles from here, and the festival was actually called The Fairport Cropredy Convention. Anyone who has been a regular reader of my blog will know that for the last few years I have been invited along to join this merry band of revellers as they camp for the three days of the festival, and this year was no exception. The difference this year was that I was already in situ and didn't have to be collected from the Tesco car park at Stow-on-the-Wold as in previous years. I had already been at Top Lock, Claydon for a few days and that is only a few miles up the canal from Cropredy. So it was, that at 7.30am on Thursday 8th August I hefted my rucksack on to my back and strode off down the canal towpath. I'd hoped to thumb a lift on a passing narrow boat if I offered to help at the locks on the way, but there were no boats moving at that time of day, just the tantalising smell of frying bacon wafting on the breeze! It took me about an hour and a quarter to walk to Cropredy and I was certainly ready for breakfast when I got there, so it was just as well that camp had already been sorted and breakfast preparations were just beginning! We then ambled down into the village where everyone was congregating around the two village pubs as the entertainment didn't start until 4pm on the first day on the festival field. After a couple of glasses of cider quaffed whilst sitting in the sunshine, we ambled back, ate a picnic lunch at camp and headed for the field.

Now, most people think (if they think about it, at all) that because Fairport Convention are an electric folk group from the Sixties, then it stands to reason that their festival will be all about folk music – some traditional finger-in-the-ear songs, some sea shanties and a bit of electric folk thrown in for good measure. Of course, they would be very wrong. Headlining this year on Thursday night? Alice Cooper! He may be getting on a bit (well, aren't we all?) but, what a stage show! I went down to the front, or as near as I could get, and it was awesome! His act featured his pet boa constrictor, a guillotine, a strait jacket, a Frankenstein-style electronic machine which emitted smoke, sparks and loud noises and resulted in Alice turning into one of those gigantic puppets about fifteen feet tall. There was also fake blood, fake money and necklaces all thrown into the crowd, plus all of his classic hits. It was worth it just for that experience, but the next day we had The Levellers, who were incredible – their fiddle player did the best version I've ever heard of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia', and they were followed by 10CC to round off the day. Saturday saw the traditional Richard Digance spot and there were several excellent folk groups and duos before Fairport's three-hour evening slot where one of their surprise guests was Tom Robinson, so of course we all got to sing '2 4 6 8 Motorway' at the tops of our voices. For me it was the best Cropredy so far as not only was most of the music to my taste, but the weather was great and I slept really well due to the fact that my sister brought me a duvet instead of the sleeping bag I've struggled with the last few years - I just can't 'do' sleeping bags, I get all twisted round in them so I feel like I'm in a strait jacket.

The local paper reckoned there were 20,000 people at the festival and Cropredy is only a tiny village so it stretches their resources and their patience to the limit, but they do also benefit from the invasion. I have it on good authority (from one of the organisers) that the venue where we traditionally have a breakfast roll, before going our separate ways on the Sunday morning, made a profit of £6,500 over the three mornings that they served breakfasts, and this all goes to the church. There is another venue on the other side of the village at the school that also does breakfasts and one would assume that their profits were similar, plus of course both pubs host 'fringe' events and a lot of people go there. Once the festival-goers leave, the village quite quickly reverts to its usual tranquil beauty with only the narrow boat holidaymakers to shatter their peaceful lives!

According to the Canals and Waterways Trust guy that I was chatting to the other day, Top Lock Cottage is situated at 'the summit'. I look around me at the relatively flat countryside and wonder how I could be at the summit of anything but, apparently this is the highest point on the Oxford Canal and during dry weather in peak holiday times they have to quite frequently come up to the lock to let water through the system to feed the sections below on the way to Banbury and beyond. To the north of here is a stretch of sixteen miles with no locks and to the south there is the run of five locks of which Top Lock is the highest and then several more locks going down to Banbury. It is very amusing being situated at the top of a flight of five locks because, quite often, it is the first lock that some of the holiday makers have had to negotiate. I assume that they are shown a DVD before they are let loose on their own on the canals so there are lots of shouted commands to (a) the helmsman and (b) the lock workers. I have also noticed that it is nearly always the men steering the boats while their wives and children do the 'grunt work' of winding the paddles up and down to control the water flow and opening and closing the gates! As someone pointed out to me the other day, traditionally it was the woman who steered the boat and the men who manned the locks, so what happened?

During the four weeks that I have been here so far the resident swallows have raised their second batch of young. Phoebe says that each year less than ten swallows return and each year about forty leave. My nearest swallow 'neighbours' have nested in the shed where the garden tools and chicken food are kept, so I have been accessing it every day. At first I couldn't see anything in the nest tucked away up on a brick ledge, but over the last four weeks I have gradually seen the emergence of a couple of downy heads with bright yellow 'gapes' and then they emerged from the nest and sat on the ledge, shuffling backwards into the dark recess whenever I opened the door. Eventually, came the day when they emerged from the shed into daylight, or at least one of them emerged and I found the other one sitting on the shed floor looking a bit nonplussed as he couldn't get up high enough to make it through the tiny circular hole that Phoebe has cut in the door to allow their access and egress. After a few minutes spent moving the lawnmower, feed sacks and buckets, I eventually managed to corner the little chap and lift him back onto his ledge from where he promptly zoomed over my head and out the door. I don't know whether its the same little chap but for four consecutive days I had to rescue a youngster from the house, he flew in through the open front door and couldn't work out how to get back out again. What amazed me after my rather up-close-and-personal contact with them is how tiny swallows are – they seem to be all wing and very little body – how do they ever fly so far each year? At the moment the youngsters spend every evening practising their flying skills; dipping down into the canal for a drink before doing some high speed close formation flying over the fields whilst calling loudly to each other. They really are very special little birds and I always feel a thrill when I notice the first ones returning in the spring.

Also, along the canal, there are several mallard duck families at various stages of growth. Two of the females seem to have managed to raise seven ducklings each but another female has only three, much younger, offspring in tow, and I wonder if she lost her first brood and tried again? Before Phoebe went away we were walking, with a friend of hers, along the towpath when we noticed one family of ducks diving right down under the water and staying down for quite a few moments before bobbing back up again with what looked like pebbles in their beaks – it turned out that these were freshwater mussels and obviously a firm favourite as I saw them doing this on several different occasions. There is also a family of swans further along the canal, away from the locks. I think this is probably the same pair that lost all of their cygnets last year when they got trapped in a lock and drowned, perhaps they have learned to keep a safe distance this time. They certainly have three lovely cygnets at the moment, so hopefully they will bring them to maturity

I have another two weeks of living canal-side so will write another blog about my experiences later (hopefully with photos as I shall be back using WiFi by then).

Taking it easy in Cheltenham and Cwmbran

It was still really hot and sunny as I headed back across the Cotswolds to Cheltenham and the countryside looked more like the end of August than late July – all dried out and dusty. At this rate they will soon be combining the wheat – it looks as if it should be a good yield which will be good news for the farmers after last year's disastrous crop. Mum's garden had suffered quite badly as she has been unable to carry watering cans to all the plants that needed it, she has just concentrated on her many pots of geraniums, fuchsia, etc. I rigged up the hosepipe reel and gave the garden a good soaking for a couple of nights, but for some plants it was just too late and other plants had flowered quickly and set seed, so there was not as much colour in the borders as Mum would like. The trouble is that her garden soil is very sandy and drains quickly – even the grass looked in a sorry state. However, whilst I was there we had a few wet days and it was amazing to see how everything greened up again.

It was Mum's birthday on the Wednesday of the first week that I was back, so I treated her, and her friend Meg, to lunch at the local gastro-pub. Their lunchtime menu is very reasonable and both mum and I had the salmon fillet and salad, although mum also had a side order of crayfish to try (they were delicious). We didn't have a sweet as Meg invited us back to her house for Eton Mess which we ate sitting in her garden in the sunshine.

On Friday my aunt and uncle came over for the day to take Mum out for a birthday meal, so I got to visit The Royal twice in one week – I was not complaining! My aunty used to be a keen knitter and craftswoman but has been unable to do much in recent years so had started sorting out her vast stock of wool, some of which she brought for me to use. There was some gorgeous mohair and some colourful cotton yarns too, but I really loved the cones of silk yarn – I'm wondering if I can incorporate them into the Shetland fleece that I am hoping to spin soon?

On Sunday we drove to the small village of Guiting Power, where Meg's daughter, Debbie, lives and where they hold an annual music festival. The Sunday afternoon slot is usually jazz and Mum goes most years, as a continuation of her birthday celebrations. We all sat together under a gazebo and had a picnic lunch complete with paper serviettes and a jug of Pimms – how very civilised! I made a quiche to take and share and other people had brought marinaded chicken, various salads and a sherry trifle for dessert. It was a bit breezy on the playing field where the concert was held and several people had problems erecting their gazebos, but Debbie's husband is an expert of many years standing (plus he got onto the field early and avoided the worst of the wind).

Later in the afternoon I went and had a quick look in the church, which has two beautiful Norman doorways. You may be thinking that all this church visiting is down to some sort of spiritual revelation, but it is simply because I love the history contained within these buildings and the thought that for hundreds of years people have met there and celebrated their most important events. It feels to me as if some of that continuity is still held captive within the walls and whispers to me as I look around and read the memorial inscriptions.

On Monday, Mum and I drove to Cwmbran to visit my sort-of-aunty, Jen, in her new home. If you remember, I went to her old house last November to try and tidy up the garden prior to her putting it on the market, and whilst I was there we managed to get a quick look around the house that she has now bought. She had a lot of work done to it before she moved in and it now looks much lighter and more up-to-date. I slept in the smallest bedroom (which was still a good size) and had views up across Cwmbran to the mountains behind. I always think of Cwmbran as being a rather ugly town, and in some places it is, but you don't have to go far to find some beautiful scenery, and there are even hidden gems within the town. One such place is a segment of the old canal, bordered by some of the oldest cottages in the town, where the yellow water lilies grow so dense that a moorhen and her two chicks were crossing without getting their feet wet! Only a short distance away there are industrial estates and modern housing estates and the town centre, but here all was tranquil and some young lads were fishing just below the old lock as the water was alive with fish.

We had several trips out while we were there. One was to Tredegar House at Newport which is now being run by the National Trust, but had been a school that Jen attended when she was in her teens! The school had been run by nuns and the sumptuous drawing room, that we started the tour in, had been the chapel. The old Art Room had wonderful ceiling murals and paintings of classical figures on the wall panels. Jen said that when she was there all the nudes were covered over with black paper and she hadn't realised they were there! It must have been an incredible place to go to school, as all the rooms are huge and the grounds have a large pond and several enormous redwood trees. Apparently the house is one of the finest Restoration houses in Britain and boasts a dining room executed by Grinling Gibbons – the carved wooden panels are breathtaking. Some of the rooms are yet to be restored and look just as Jen remembers them when they were classrooms, but others have been restored to how they looked when the Morgan family still lived there. It will be interesting to go back in a few years time and see how things have progressed as the National Trust only took over custodianship less than two years ago from Newport Council. In the Orangery I discovered a shuffle board (like a large shove-halfpenny board) that was made for the house in the late 1600s and is made from one length of oak 42 feet long!

On another day we went to Caerleon, which was an old Roman settlement and port, and has an amphitheatre and a large barracks that can be easily seen in the grounds of the local school. However, Jen didn't take us there to see those, she took us to a small courtyard area which is not really obvious from the street, where there are a few shops and a cafe but also the most amazing collection of large woodcarvings. Some of them are of heads, others complete figures and the largest one is of a giant Welsh lovespoon carved from a complete tree. It was so large that I had to take two photographs to capture it all.

We stayed with Jen until Thursday afternoon and then I drove back to Cheltenham through the lovely Forest of Dean, and round the not-so-lovely Gloucester Ring Road! After a quiet weekend, it was all-change again as I dropped Mum at the railway station, where she caught a train to her friend in Paignton, and I then headed off in the opposite direction, to Oxfordshire.

You should never go back............

They say that you should never go back.........but sometimes you just have to, to see if you have made the right decision. So, at the beginning of July, at the beginning of the heatwave, I set off from Cheltenham bound for Somerset. To be more precise, I was headed to Draycott, and to be even more precise, I was heading for the home of my friend Grainne, situated just two houses away from my (rented out) cottage.

I had visited her back in May for a quick catch-up whilst farm-sitting near Bristol, and to see the amazing transformation that had occurred in her house: she has made a rather dated, dark and badly laid out bungalow into a stunning light and airy modern home with wide, sweeping views across the levels from Glastonbury Tor in the east to Steepholm in the west. To watch the sun setting over the Mendip Hills and reflecting on the distant sea and the nearer reservoir is truly awesome. I had volunteered, half jokingly at first, to come and 'WWOOF' for her to help transform the garden but, as it turned out, she was not quite ready for that, so the major push of the week was to paint the outside walls of the bungalow with masonry paint.

Unless you have been out of the country recently, you will know that we have had some very high temperatures and lots and lots of hot, sunny days and cloudless blue skies. These are beautiful to look at from inside an air-conditioned room, or to laze about in by a pool clutching a nice cold glass of Pimms, but …... painting a house? Actually, it wasn't too bad because, with a bit of forward planning, I could start painting in the shade and then follow the sun around the house, until we got to the last gable-end and had to spend part of the day in bright sunshine. Bearing in mind my 'Jeni-voice-of-conscience', I carefully anointed myself with Factor 30 sun lotion before venturing out and, bearing in mind my 'Karen-voice-of-conscience', I drank many glasses of water during the day!

I had a day off on the Wednesday and Jeni and I tackled a very overdue job: nine years ago Jeni graduated from Cardiff University and, knowing that she and her then-fiance were going to be in China for at least a year, she looked around for a storage facility in which to put their 'stuff'. Self-storage seemed to be very expensive so my husband and I came up with a brainwave – we would buy a Transit van. We eventually found one locally with one month's tax and one month's MOT, so we drove it to Wales, loaded up all their worldly possessions, drove it back and parked it in our field, where it has remained ever since, slowly rusting into the landscape! Wednesday was THE day that we had allocated to finally sort it out.

It was quite amazing that the van had remained water-tight all these years, but the only damage we found were a few items of clothing nibbled by mice and moths. We both found things that we'd forgotten we had (some of my stuff had taken up residence in there, after Rhys's belongings were removed) but we tried to be as objective as possible, although I have to admit that all soft, cuddly toys were saved. Jeni took away much of her stuff and I packed what I still wanted into the old touring caravan that I had almost forgotten that I owned! We were ably assisted during the long, swelteringly hot day, by Possum, the stable cat who, we worked out, has got to be nearly fifteen, but doesn't look her age. It was very gratifying that she made such a fuss of us as she doesn't go near 'strangers', so must have recognised us.

I did manage to catch up with two other friends of mine, and spent a lovely evening in their company, catching up on village gossip, hearing what their families were up to and drinking a very nice red wine in Mary's beautiful garden. It will probably be the last time I do that as she and her hubby are imminently re-locating to Devon. (I have already volunteered to 'WWOOF' for them!)

It felt very odd to be on my 'home patch' again. I remarked to Jeni that it was like being a ghost who has returned to haunt your old home only to find that things have changed slightly and no-one recognises or even sees you. Like being separated by a dimensional shift, somehow. One thing I did discover, though – I have no wish to return to my former home of thirty years. There are too many memories, some good, some bad, and I need to move on. Now that the Llanidloes cottages are beyond my reach, I wonder where I'll finally settle?

Having spent a week in Grainne's lovely house, enjoying her company and her cooking, I removed myself to the top of the Mendips to my good friends, Karen and Ade, who live at Binegar (it rhymes with vinegar).

I had agreed to help them in their garden, before the heatwave set in, but it proved almost impossible to work, at all! Karen and I made full use of our time, sitting in the shade and chatting, with the occasional foray into a shaded patch of garden to do something. Over the course of the week I did manage to sort a corner of the garden that had become a general dumping ground for old pots and wood that needed to be cut up for their log-burning stove, amongst other things, so felt that I had partially earned my bed and board!

Our shared history goes back a few years to when we worked side-by-side in the purchasing office of a large company, formerly based in Wells, Somerset. When they asked for volunteers to take redundancy, we both leapt at the chance of escape and, on our last day, skipped up the driveway with never a backward glance – that was nearly ten years ago, but we're still close friends even though I may only see her once or twice a year. As I've mentioned before, she does fantastic aromatherapy massages that kept me sane when we worked in our stressful jobs, and also cured me of my debilitating IBS symptoms. I took the opportunity to have one while I was staying there and it was really lovely to be able to completely relax afterwards and then retire to bed, rather than having to get up and drive home.

Again, I had the Wednesday as a day off, and Jeni and I went to Frome.......eventually! We meandered in a slightly drunken fashion across the Mendips in the vague direction of Frome, taking turnings at random. At one point we came to a T-junction which stated 'Holcombe Old Church only' to the left, so off we went. The church stood completely on its own in a peaceful wooded valley that could only be reached by driving through a farm yard. The churchyard was obviously still in use, but the church was locked, so we could only look at it from the outside. Judging by the rounded doorway, it was originally of Norman construction but had been altered over the years as it had arched windows and a carved stone angel above the porch. Suspecting that Holcombe might have been a plague village, I googled for more information later and found that this was so. The original village which had been located around the church had suffered terribly in the plague of the mid-1300s and had been buried and rebuilt about a mile away. It is also thought to be the source of the nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-ring of roses'. The family of Scott of the Antarctic have their family grave there as his father ran the local brewery in Holcombe and, although his remains are not there, Scott is commemorated on their family memorial.

We eventually got to Frome at about lunch time and made our way to an organic restaurant that we had been to some years ago. We then had a mooch about in the rather trendy Catherine Hill area before deciding that it was far too hot for window shopping and making our way back to the car. We were finished with Frome, but Frome was not finished with us! We took a different route out of town (the car was pointing in that direction) as I figured that if we turned left and then left again we would emerge somewhere near where we wanted to be. However, at the second left turn the road was closed, so we had to go on and turn left a few miles further on. Eventually Jeni and I realised, at almost the same moment, that we were now travelling on the original road but in the opposite direction! There were no other turnings off this road so we gaily sailed past our starting point and drove back through Frome and out the other side! We have no idea how we managed to achieve a 180 degree turn without realising it, but I did notice that for several miles virtually every turning was signposted to Frome!

We managed to break free of Frome's gravitational field and made our way back to Mells where we stopped for refreshment at a walled garden that we first visited about four years ago, when the lady had only recently taken it over. It had matured dramatically in that time and looked as if it had been like that for ever, including the formal, rectangular pond that she was just creating the first time we visited. The refreshments were lovely, but the plants were a tad expensive, I thought, but it was such a nice place to sit on a gorgeous summer afternoon (thewalledgardenatmells.co.uk)


In the evening Dave, Jeni and I went to the Somerset Waggon at Chilcompton and I had whitebait for supper, and half a pint of Stowford Press cider. Yum! It was great to spend some quality time with my children again – its one of the downsides of my nomadic lifestyle that I don't see them very often. On the Sunday afternoon we met up again and went to visit some mutual friends where a ridiculous water fight ensued using those Supersoaker water pistols and ending up with four young adults and two children, fully clothed, in a large paddling pool! Even though Ann and I claimed age as a let out we were still frequently fired upon by all parties, but managed to escape the paddling pool plunge! Sometimes its really wonderful to revert to childhood and forget that you're supposed to be 'grown-up'.

I also got to visit my step-daughter, Bess, and her little son, James, in their new home near Weston-super-Mare. She only moved in about six weeks ago so is still finding her feet and unpacking boxes, but it was lovely to see her again. I caught up with her briefly last year but I have not seen James since he was two (he will be six in a couple of week's time) and, of course, he didn't remember me at all. He kept asking if I was staying for a 'sleep-over'! Bless him!

On the Thursday Karen invited me to 'Crafternoon', where she meets up with a couple of friends for an afternoon of chat and craft. I took along my peg loom rug. Karen has also been bitten by the peg loom bug so she took hers, too, but we spent quite a lot of time sorting through some sheep fleeces that they had bought and sharing them out. We also went and picked up some alpaca fleeces that they were given for free. Alpaca fleece is quite different to sheep fleece as it resembles dog hair more closely and doesn't cling to itself in the same way that wool does. I think they are hoping to use some of it for rug-making – it was beautifully soft.

Realising that I would not have enough Jacobs fleece to complete my rug I, cheekily, contacted Geoff and Sally at Dundry and was invited to lunch. In the short time since I was last there, they have sadly lost their older (but not old) Labrador from suspected lung cancer. Sally and I shed a few tears together, but we couldn't be sad for long, because we were continually interrupted by Sampson, their eleven-week old Labrador puppy! They have always had golden labs and, generally, two together, for company, hence the prompt arrival of the youngster to keep Merlin company as he was pining for his friend. It wasn't altogether clear whether he appreciated his new 'friend', but he has only been in residence for two weeks, so they haven't bonded yet! I finally left there late in the afternoon and with the most beautiful Jacobs fleece in the back of my car – I now think I have more wool-related things in my car than anything else!

All too soon the week was over and I was packing up my car yet again. I have now got a two-week break with my Mum in Cheltenham before heading off into Oxfordshire for six weeks.

Gardening and Yoga in Moelfre

 From Llanidloes I travelled about 50 miles further north to Moelfre, near Oswestry. Again, this is a place I return to quite often but, unlike the recent Llanidloes experience, it is always somewhere that I feel welcomed and valued.

It was less than two months ago that I was here, but the difference in the garden is astonishing. At the beginning of May most of the herbaceous borders were virtually bare with large patches of earth visible, but now there are huge clumps of astrantia, geraniums (I counted at least ten different varieties), bistort, periwinkle and ligularia, plus several different sorts of variegated grass. The shrubs were in full leaf and many were flowering – there were two beautiful lace-cap hydrangeas in one area of the garden that used to be the 'white bed', and several rambling roses that were about to flower. I don't know half of the plants in the garden – I wish I could conjure up a plant expert to accompany me there as I am sure there are lots of really interesting and rare plants, shrubs and trees. A lot of the damage caused by the heavy snow falls in the winter is less obvious now and several conifers have been removed which has opened up the garden more and allowed light into areas that were always a little too shady before.

Unfortunately, the vegetable garden had not fared as well. The peas that I had planted out when I was here in May had been eaten down to stalks by the wood pigeons and the new seed I'd planted had failed to germinate. The runner beans had also failed to germinate in April and Tony suspects that the seed had got frosted, so one of my first jobs was to plant more beans in pots in the greenhouse. Most things that had made it out into the raised beds had been severely nibbled by 'something', including the celery and beetroot. Later in the week I planted out some more leeks to fill the bed that I had started back in May, only to discover the following morning that they, too, had been nibbled. It was then that I managed to find where the rabbit was getting in through a small hole in the wire netting, and blocked it temporarily with some stones and a rabbit trap that was lying nearby! After that, the vegetables remained uneaten and even began to recover.

When I was here in May a pair of nuthatches had nested in a blue tit box just outside the back door, and it was lovely to see that two of the babies had fledged successfully and were still visiting the peanut feeders - you could tell that they were the youngsters because they were slightly smaller and less colourful. I also saw a young Greater Spotted Woodpecker being fed by its mum/dad in the silver birch tree outside my window. Have you ever had a pheasant on your peanut feeder? Dawn had seen a female pheasant hanging on the peanut feeder a few weeks before I got there and she had obviously been perfecting her technique because I managed to take a quick photo through the dining room window of her balancing on one part of the bird feeder and reaching across to get the peanuts!

After a couple of days of being the sole WWOOFer, I was joined by Alana, from Australia, who had been here first of all back in April. She, too, was amazed at the difference in the garden since she'd been there and spent the first afternoon looking round to see what had grown that she had planted. On our second morning together, Dawn showed us a sequence of Yoga moves called 'Salute the Sun' that help to stretch most of the muscles in the body. We went out onto the decking to do them and it was wonderful to salute the actual sun and feel the warmth on your face as you went through the routine. As it is a sequence that flows in some sort of order I think I am more likely to remember to do them. I was amazed later to discover how much good they'd done me as I was wielding a mattock for about two hours, digging over an area of deep rooted scrubby plants in preparation for seeding a new lawn area, and I never had a twinge in my back, and didn't have to retire for a lie down at the end of the day, just to ease the pain!

When I arrived in Moelfre the weather was atrocious with fine curtains of rain pulsing down the valley and I had been confined to 'indoor' jobs, putting up some shelving in the garage and fixing batons on which to hang the garden tools, but during the few days that Alana was staying the weather was hot and sunny for a lot of the time and we tried to plan jobs that were not in direct sunshine for too long so, after digging up some grass to extend the shed base in preparation for moving the old summerhouse on to it, I went off to a shady area of the garden and clipped the conifer hedge that bounds the vegetable garden on one side. It hadn't been done for a while as the hedge trimmer had broken, so I took the shears to it! Its quite a compulsive job once you get going and while I was there I managed to clip all of one side of it and make a start on the other – it is about 50 yards long and 6-7 feet high – perhaps I'll be able to finish it when I go back in September!

Alana left on the Friday morning and I was a lone WWOOFer again until a French couple arrived the following Wednesday afternoon. I quite like being alone sometimes as I can work on things at my own pace and don't have to make the effort to hold a conversation, which can be quite tiring if the other party's first language is not English! Very lazy of me, I know! The French couple turned out to be French engineering students – most WWOOF hosts avoid them like the plague because, in general, they are only in Britain to fulfil a compulsory 6-8 week module to' improve their English' and have very little interest in farming, organic gardening or any of the other things that WWOOF hosts aspire to. Quite often their English is minimal and that, coupled with little knowledge of farming/gardening, can make the whole stay a complete waste of time for the host, but Clement and Diane seemed lovely and set to work willingly, even though they probably couldn't appreciate fully what we were trying to achieve. They are staying with Dawn and Tony for three weeks and the main job that they will be doing will be preparing for the delivery of the new log cabin which will arrive in the middle of July. It is coming in flat-packed sections and will then have to be carried up two flights of steps and erected on the (modified) base of the old summerhouse. This means that the remains of the old summerhouse will have to be removed and re-erected, once repaired, on the other site that Alana and I worked on in another area of the garden. I just hope that they are both stronger than they looked!

The weather was quite unpredictable while I was there but I did manage to plant out leeks and parsnip plants, plant out some rather sad-looking seed potatoes that Tony had not managed to plant out earlier, and erect a long runner bean construction capable of supporting 40 plants, if we can just get the pest control sorted! Tony and I also repaired one of his rather clever mesh cloches and made a new one that we covered in very fine mesh to go over the carrots. He had bought enough battening to make another one, too so that will make a total of 4 that can be deployed anywhere in the garden. They are the width of the raised beds (about 4 foot) and just under half the length (about 8 foot) but, because they are constructed using tanalised batten and alkathene water pipe, they are very light weight so can be moved from plot to plot by one person. I am very glad that I now know how to make them as that will be very handy in the future.

While staying with Dawn and Tony, I finally made up my mind to put in a silly offer on the semi-derelict cottages in Llanidloes. Dawn was very interested so I went to the property page stored on my laptop to show her the photo and details only to find that they were sold subject to contract! I was gutted! I was also annoyed as I had asked the agents last year to let me know if there was any interest in the property and they failed to do so, so I'm afraid they got an email from me pointing out the error of their ways! I received an apology the next day but, unfortunately, the sale seems to be proceeding so I've missed the boat on that one! I should have decided sooner - far too cautious, that's my trouble. 

I left on the Friday morning (5th July) and headed back south to Cheltenham to spend the weekend with my Mum before continuing down to Somerset. The weather had turned hot and sunny and I enjoyed the drive through Shropshire – it really is a beautiful county. Dawn tells me that this good spell of weather is set to continue for a while, so that will be a relief after the wet spell we've just had.