It's good to be able to have plants around the house. They add that personal touch that helps turn a house into a home. Having pots that can be planted with bulbs to flower over the winter or early spring gives variety to those that remain as more or less permanent feature plants. It's the same for the garden too - plants for the season intermingled with permanent planting. However the size of container needed for outdoor planting is rather different from those for indoors.
So what best to use - a variety!
Heavy clay pots are ideal for permanent display and our garden has several used for Clematis. Plastic pots are all very well but few convince me that they aren't plastic, and do I need plastic in the garden? How natural a material is this in a natural environment?
We have used wooden half barrels before and I rather like these for early year bulbs and then use them again for Summer display but now filled with bedding plants - Geraniums for instance. There is a downside though. After being filled with damp soil for several years these wooden tubs tend to rot away and disintegrate. Replacements need to be found, and that isn't either all that easy or a cheap matter.
Last year we had seen some half barrels advertised as being ex-whisky use, enquired, only to be told that they were not available any more. We thought that the same could be the case this year when a similar mailing from the local Farmers Mart arrived. Enquiring revealed that there weren't any locally, the sizes were smaller than advertised, but ...... two would be ordered for us and they would be arriving in the following week. 'We will phone you!'
Surprise, surprise - phone call to say that two had arrived and saved for us - come and collect or ... We went to collect and discovered we had a choice of half barrels. Two selected, and paid for. No reduction in price because they were smaller than those originally advertised! Take them or leave them!
Have you tried fitting two half barrels onto the back seat of a small saloon car - they did just fit with an inch or so to spare, and no barked knuckles either loading or back home unloading although there are a few marks on the seat!
The general disintegration of the half-barrels over time must be associated with drainage through the soil fill. Of course there will have to be stones or crocks at the bottom but drain holes obviously help a lot. So the issue to be faced was drilling holes through the 1" base wood - and how many. I thought five would be enough in the first I attempted - one hole in the centre and four roughly symmetrically placed towards the edge. So out came the old Black & Decker drill that M and I bought in Colchester all those years ago before we were married. It's been rewired a couple of times and the on/off switch modified but it still works well enough. And I have a 1" wood bit - really suitable for a 'brace & bit' but if carefully fitted will go into the electric drill clutch. Surprisingly quickly the holes were drilled - lots of small wood cuttings and a sweet smell from what was previously sherry and whisky soaked wood.
The second half-barrel was just as easy to deal with but six holes this time because there was a centre join in the wood fillets - six roughly symmetrically placed holes.
Now for the filling with both soil and potting mix - then a settling time before the planting. Will it be Geraniums or Begonias or something else?
I have had my trusty bike for nearly 30 years so it's not the most up to date of models but it does me for just getting around. It's an upright bike and ideal for a ride out when I want to be able to look at the surroundings - perhaps with a chance of a photograph?
So it's another fine afternoon and what better than hop on and ride off. Where to? Not too far so perhaps up the Dysynni valley to Castell y Bere our local ruined castle. But I didn't get that far, only as far as a turn off out of the valley.
The two local rivers, the Dysynni and the Fathew run in glacial valleys which result in an outlier of ground between them. This joins to Cader Idris the dominant small mountain of mid-Wales. There is just one local road that climbs the outlier ridge to connect with valley roads, and this is the road I decided to take.
There is no way that I can cycle all the way up the road from either of the two valleys , the road is just far too steep. To be honest I suppose on this ride I did about half the climb from the Dysynni valley to the rather flatter section at the top, and all in the lowest gear of my off-road bike. Even then I did have a lengthy stop part way because I spotted a view of Craig yr Aderyn (Birds' Rock) through the trees and I just had to get a photograph.
Having got my breath back the last section of the climb to the top wasn't too bad. It's level enough here to be the site of a cluster of farms and houses called Abertrinant. Rather posh slate name signs are obviously an indication in change of affluence. The old Chapel has been converted to living accommodation, and the two existing cottages appear to be holiday homes. A scatter of farm buildings still exist - a few still in agricultural use but many abandoned tens of years ago. The mixed farming of even the mid 1950s has given way to sheep rearing and really nothing else. Who wants to live here when in the winter the steep access roads can be impassable, and what work there is to be had is now restricted to jobs in Tywyn and even further afield?
Just before I came to one of those slate name boards there is a cluster of abandoned farm buildings, 'Tyddyn-y-berllan' - a name I found when looking at the very battered paper map we have at home. Worth a bit of a scramble to explore, provided I was careful! More risk of tripping over and getting scratched on well rooted brambles than probably anything else. But worthwhile because even though the roofless farmhouse itself was too dark and overgrown some of the outbuildings provided super subjects. How best to capture their essence on a short visit with existing light provided a challenge.
Worth another visit? Probably, possibly! Another time, another day, and the light will be different. So too will be my outlook because it won't be the case of finding the unexpected, but expecting too much.
As for the ride back home, all downhill to the Fathew valley road that ups and downs for the last couple of miles. Tired when I got in but quite pleased with the pictures I had.
(Several days later talking to an old postman who knows the area well, I understand that the farmhouse at 'Tyddyn-y-berllan' suffered a serious fire which resulted in the house being abandoned. Fire damage certainly wasn't obvious when I looked inside, but then it happened many years ago.)
Every town must have odd areas which don't seem to quite fit. The Gwalia is one such in Tywyn. I not sure how big the area is or even the origin of the name but it is certainly one of the oldest areas. Before the Dysynni river was dredged, river banks built up, and the area generally drained the high tide used to come up to moorings for small fishing boats. Now it's only in exceptional high tides driven by a westerly wind that bring any possibility of flooding. Having said that perhaps this year was one of those times because the small industrial units situated there had several inches of water over their floors.
Since the days of the fishing smacks with the cluster of small stone cottages a lot has changed. True several of the older habitations remain in a much renovated state to be weekend and holiday cottages. There was some building in Victorian times at the College Green end - the one nearest St Cadfan's Church - a three story terrace with a public house at one end. Of course marking the times, the pub is long closed and only a very faded painted end wall with its undecipherable name remains.
The Gwalia now gives the impression of being very run down - it is! There are unoccupied industrial units that must in some instances date to pre WW2 days. There is a closed Council yard. A builder has the usual clutter and expanse of discarded material. A car mechanic with an inexplicable number of cars in states of abandonment and disrepair continues to operate. A Double Glazing and Glass company has an office, and a skip, and piles of discarded frames and doors. On a bright sunny day it isn't in any way an attractive area to visit, on a dull rainy winter day .....
Should it be any surprise then to find a glass fibre hulled boat half hidden in brambles and general undergrowth - difficult to judge its length but 35' is probably a substantial underestimate. Goodness knows how the boat came to be laid up in this yard. Certainly been there for quite some time, certainly not in a good state of repair, and certainly not going anywhere soon. She had a name and harbour clearly readable, the 'Juno Meirion' of Milford.
The more you look the worse the paintwork becomes but the general state of fenders is even worse. No chance of being able to look inside the hull, the outside was enough to gauge her general state. Could she ever 'sail' again? Who knows! Who cares!
Possible to get a general record shot of her place in the yard but there isn't a great deal of point in doing that because that can be done anytime. Best to use the available sun to try for the detail that was there - another time and the sun will be different. Never again will she look the same.
It is very nearly the end of March, and it's raining again, not too hard but enough to wet everything and make it rather unpleasant to walk out. Last week and indeed the week before it was rather different. At least then we had a couple of weeks when for the most part it was sunny if a bit on the cold side in the shade. Those days reminded me of a similar couple of weeks we had last April - lovely days with lots of sun - the only continuous period of sunshine we had all year. Surely the weeks we have just had aren't going to be the best of this year?
A sunny day is too good to miss so I took to my old bike on several afternoons. One day saw me on the hills above the Dysynni river on the road between Rhoslefain and Llanygryn. There are several good views across the valley and with my bike precariously balanced on the hedge I took this photo.
The mainly ruined stone buildings are part of the Bodowen farm and the view is to the hills on the other side of the meeting of the Dysynni and Fathew rivers On a larger version of this picture it's fairly easy to make out the white Tyn-Llyn-Hen farm house, one of the most prominent houses on the far valley side. (It's on the right, above the stone wall, and just to the left of that funny flat topped building.)
It was a good ride made better by stopping and talking to Kate and Pete two walker friends. However I was surprised at how much I had had to climb up to Rhoslefain from the Broadwater road outside Tywyn. Riding downhill from Llanegryn was the 'treat' at the end of the afternoon. Thankful to be home I realised how unused I am to what was really a moderate distance to cycle. Perhaps another time I'll do the ride in the opposite direction - perhaps!
The day improved and by mid-morning the sun was beginning to break through the thin cloud that had existed since dawn. I had an idea that there were photos to be taken in what could be called Tywyn's Industrial Park. Instead of getting in the car I decided that a bike would be a better bet especially as I could easily get on and off. So trusty old bike it was!
But when I got there I was not enthused by anything that I saw. So the new wire fence round the re sited Police Station was interesting enough in its own way but it didn't seem to provide a frame for a picture. So I gave up on the idea of finding anything in that location and decided to explore the road leading through the Gwallia - somewhere I had promised myself I would go but had never got round to doing. It's a pretty straight road that starts off well metaled but after a couple of field gates becomes a grass track by the time it has reached the Broadwater. Pleasant enough out there with a breeze and a bit of sun. The river bank is raised above the surrounding rather marshy grassland - no trees, a few reeds, and today just the sound of birds - non in sight.
Cycling back I had to stop. I could see how Tywyn was built on what I can imagine to be a shingle and sand spit of land just above river and high tide levels, and silhouetted was the tower of St Cadfan's Church.
I certainly hadn't anticipated being on this track today, and the view I couldn't really have imagined. So after a disappointing start to the morning I think I have one 'keeper'.
The light is never the same.
One day you see something, look carefully, take a photograph.
A week later you can be sitting in the same place with the same object at roughly the same time in the day, and it looks very different.
That's just what happened at lunch time today.
I was sitting at the table. M was doing a crossword puzzle.
And there was my serviette ring lying on a piece of white paper.
The sun was shining - a bit unusual because it's been a dismal wet winter - and I saw quite a detailed and intense shadow. Certainly worth a few photographs - here's just one.
I was pleased at the complexity and subtlety of the that shadow.
Bought M a new cold-frame for Christmas but up until today it hadn't got unpacked. These days substantial items tend to come 'broken down' or even in complete kit form. When I ordered I knew that the latter was the case because I had already built a slightly larger version a couple of years back
But Spring is coming, it might be getting a bit drier and warmer, and this morning I plucked up courage to unpack and start assembling. The cold-frame was delivered in two packs - one contained all the metal parts, the second the safety glass. Starting on the parts package the components were checked against the instruction sheet list - everything present! An hour and a half later the frame was complete except for a final tightening of all the small bolts.
It wasn't very warm in the 'potting shed' and by this time I was cold and couldn't face the prospect of cutting and applying foam strip on which the glass lies in the frame. But I did tackle opening the glass box. This is a substantial item, wooden frame and clad with what I estimate as 6mm thick ply sheets - pretty heavy too but up on the bench top I could get at the screws holding down the opening side of the box - the other face is nailed down.
Nearly lunch time. I laid the sheet of ply back on top of the now open box, collected the screws together and put them on the top until I felt more like identifying a sensible place in the workshop so that I could hoard them away for a job that probably will never happen. Sometimes, just sometimes, items squirreled away like this do come in useful! I've even known it to happen!
By the time lunch was over and I was showing M how I had spent the morning, the sun had moved round to shine on the ply top, and those screws.
Went and grabbed the camera and then had to wait until the sun came out again!
At least it's a different subject that I've captured - no cardboard box here!
