James and the Giant Plait and Lorraine posts a letter.,

While visiting, James mentioned that he had made a very nice bread plait at school. Well that was an opportunity not to be missed, so before you could say Jack robinson, I had the bread maker busy making a batch of dough, and James was soon enrolled on Penboyrs version of master chef, and was helping to plait a giant bread plait, which he decked with poppy seeds. Once it had proved and was almost climbed out of the tin while it was baked, the tribe set to sampling, and within a few minutes the whole loaf had dissapeared !It was really tasty. Come again soon James.

Lorraine was desperate to post a letter in the post box on our gate post, so first we had to have an expedition to Newcastle Emlyn to find a post card, and a stamp, and then we had to record the moment of posting digitally. Michelle and the Gunns senior were the lucky recipients. After all that excitement and hard wotk, the Gunns were happy to return to civilisation AKA Gidea Park. Funnily enough, they have not yet made another date for visiting. Chickens !!

Dinner at The Blue Bell Inn, darlings.

We decided to have dinner out on Tuesday night with the Gunns. Problem was, being new in the area and not great diners out, we didnt have a clue where to go. In a near by village, Cwnwyl Efford ( pronounces Quin Ell Ef Ord), I had seem a pub called the Blue Bell Inn, and we decided this was going to be the lucky establishment that would be providing dinner for eight. Unfortunately when I called by in the afternoon, the pub was shut, but a sign on the door promised it would be open from 5pm. Yippee. It was about 8pm by the time the rabble were all washed and dressed to go out, so we decended on the Blue Bell. The fact that there was only one dim light burning, and only one bloke sitting on the floor assembling a chair should have warned us that on Tuesday nights, the Blue Bell does not rock.The nice chair assembling man turned out to be the landlord,Mark, and he and his friend Karl, were quite happy to provide us with dinner, and free entertainment. We were presented with the menu, told that there was no gammon, there was only one portion of pasta dish left, and found that the sirloin steak had to be rump steak as there was no sirloin left either.Groceries were due to be purchased the following day. Apparently Mark had told his local supplier of potatoes and carrots that they "stink,really stink", so he might be interested if we can produce saleable produce , sometime soon. Anyway we all managed to find something to eat and drink, and Mark the landlord managed to keep us entertained by telling us all about a gig he was doing at a local hotel the next Sunday. I never really worked out if he did his act dressed as a woman, or as a man pretending to be a woman, or maybe even something else. He was rather proud that his frock for the occasion was covered with sequins.which he assured me he had sewn on himself ( ??) I was too nervous to ask what colour in case he wanted to show me. As always, when you are having a great evening, the ladies needed the loo, so migration en masse was planned, and directions were sort. Mark told us to" wait a minute , darlings " while he minced off to put the lights on in the loo, so we could enjoy the ambiance. Well, what atmosphere! When we arrived at said facilities, it was to find the loo had its very own screen of fairy lights on the wall, and the top of the cistern ( which was sort of beige/brown originally ) had been given a lovely shiny coat of glossy lilac paint . Such style !!Unfortunately the stratigically placed tea towel to dry your hands on spoiled the effect. Not to be out done, the boys shot off to view their facilities, and reported back that their place was covered with saucy postcards.Boys will be boys.
Well it was a great night out, the food was OK and I would definately go again, but not on Tuesday night.

The Big Chop

Well, I can never cease to be surprised. I was wrong about the Tree Man, he was back within a week, to sort the poor old tree out. With a lot of noise of chain saws, a great big shredder, and two good looking blokes in braces and helmets, and the bloke who owned the company, our poor old tree was sorted out. It was amazing to see what a knot the tree had wound itself into over the years. Species still unidentified, age ?? probably at least 50 years by the number of ringd in the trunks. If anyone would like to confirm this for themselves, there are plenty of logs that can be moved to the wood store, where you could count rings in relative comfort.In the end about 2/3 of the tree was removed and shredded, then dumped into field number 2, to make lovely compost. The remaining 1/3 of the tree is still large, and not too bad looking considering the drastic surgery it has undergone. We also have a huge area( about 10m x 3m that hasn't seem day light form a long long time, and might well turn into a shady seating area. Theres also an area of bank that needs covering with plants. I have an idea for this that involves burying planting baskets half way into the bank and planting up with 'self caring', low maintainance plants. I believe the local pound shop does a great range of plastic flowers and foilage. ( Just joking )

The Gunns descend from London

Graham, Lorraine James and Catherine are visiting for a few days... What can we get them to do. Well, Graham was able to help loosen the soil at the bottom of a couple of raised beds for us... no easy task as the ground seems to have baked hard in the sun. Seun was on hand to supervise, and make sure the job was well done. (see photo below).
Lorraine and I were able to fill the raised beds as they were dug, with the turf I removed from the same piece of ground.. feels like that was a waste of time and effort, though no doubt good experience. I could put that on my C V now, quailfied Turf Roller ( read that correctly please) and Mud Crawler.. guess that doesnt have the same ring about it as a mud fighter, but think I am better suited to being a Mud Crawler .After a layer of turf came 6 bags of well rotted compost,then about ten wheelbarrow loads of topsoil. ( did I mention that these are BIG beds, 5m x 1.2m , or 5yards x 1,5yards ( Sort of rough conversion, for the oldies ).Then it was time for tea and cake. Praise the Lord.
James meanwhile was seconded to pond shaping duty. This involved the making of several shelves to rest the water plant baskets on, and a lot of throwing of the ball for Ruby, who dose not seem to recognise the inportance of the task. The pond has been named James Pond (not 007) in recognition of James effort . Catherine was relaxing after several heavy nights out ( in London , before she came to visit) and was making sure the conservatory looked attractive.
After lunch ( 3 pm in Wales ), the comittee of David and Graham ( with a lot of nagging from me ... as I was worried that David would leave the cover for the poly tunnel until we were on our own again) decided that we would " go for it " ie: put the cover on the tunnel frame. A Huge piece of plastic (21m x 39m )was moved into the field and allowed to warm up in the sunshine. Another stalling tactic by the men I feel.Luckily Mar3k and Anna then arrived from Fareham, just in time to have a glass of cool drink, and get a move on with helping us. ragging the cover over the frame was the easy bit, then came the stabilising, the starghtening, the repositioning, the cursing, redoing the stabilising, fiddling, measuring etc etc. Did you just hear a fog horn booming ? I think it said "Boring ,tedious necessary."
Finally, the boys declared the job was done for the day, and we could get back to it tomorrow, Joy.

Back on the Blog

I can't believe that its the middle of May, and I haven't written one word. If I had time, I would give myself lines. Luckily, no time. Now to see if I can update you on all the news and goings on at Llaingof, in the right order. Out with the calender to give a few clues as to what happened when, and the credit card statement to help with what was bought and when. Here goes........

just a quickie

its all go at Llaingof, we have had a week of sunshine, its almost been too hot to do as much as we should. Will update on evening soon.
Quick overview... plenty of visitors, so have had lots of help... thank you all.
Conifer has been trimmed " reduced to about 1/3 of its size
Poly tunnel up.... just getting its ends neatened,
top soil ... 12 tonnes on the way
3 raised beds completed, 12 to go
Nature pond has had some more shaping and liner has arrived,
Railway sleepers moved to the edge of the veggie growing area
One quote for fencing recieved, another on the way
Better get off my bum and get outside before its too warm

The helpers( willing or not )

Its amazing where you can get help from. Our new neighbour Teresa is always on hand to advise when asked, ( and have a little laugh at our forest of beans, growing madly, but we are unable to put them out as we might still have a frost )Penny and Nigel kindly came and named a lot of new plants, and gave us some idea of how to use the rayburn oven, then there was Jayne, who helped renovate the falling down hen house ( dont ask I am still waiting for the new one to be delivered ), tish who helped prune the unruly garden , gave me a perm and showed me how to clip davids hair,and Phil who added a bit of man power for david, helping trim all the hegdes ready for fencing, move a HUGE pile of stones, dig a couple of trenches for the poly tunnel.
Then there are the not some useful helpers...
Ruby, who panics if her ball is not thrown every two minutes
Seun, whose job it is to get in the way and inspect every spade and wheelbarrow full of soil in case it contains anything interesting for dogs.
Daisy, who kindly guards the stairs to our bedroom in case any one unauthorised wishes to pass, and acts as a russian fur hat for anybody sitting on her chair in the evening.

And last, but not least Kitty, whose job it is to complain often that she needs some more food, and keeps Davids hands busy at night as she needs constant scratching of her ears, even when he is asleep.