bunn

It was Pp's birthday today, so since the forecast was clear and windless, we went out in the boat.

We had lunch in the shelter of Skokholm island, with puffins and guillemots whirring busily past us. There were no seals today, but there were bluebells and whatever that small white flower is that you can just see forming masses among the grass in the photo below.

Then, since the weather was good, we went on past the next island, Skomer, whose massive cliffs were surprisingly busy with visiting tourists, as well as seabirds. That meant we went into St Bride's Bay, the wide bay between Skomer island and the massive point of westward-thrusting rock that holds St Davids, the smallest city in Britain. The oil tankers often hang about in St Brides Bay, and there was one lurking there today, waiting for a space at the oil terminal, I assume.

However, the wind from the north was getting up, so we decided that was enough exploring for now, and headed back south through Jack Sound. Jack Sound has a bit of a reputation as a difficult passage, but the tide was flowing straight south, so we thought we'd risk it, and in the end it was a smoother route than the seas around Skomer had been.

Here's one of the tourist boats going out from St Martin's Haven to Skomer behind us, as we came out of Jack Sound and started heading home.

We've volunteered to support our friends the Celtic Longboat rowers again - last year we went to Saundersfoot with them. They have a team of nine, with four rowing and one coxing at any time, the rest of them ride in the RIB with us until it's time to swap over.

This year we have ambitions to go north, out to Grassholm, the island of the gannets, which depending on who you ask, is 6, 8, or 11 miles off the coast, and then across St Brides Bay to Solva. If it happens (and it will be very weather dependent!) it will be mid-August when we try it. At present, we are just doing a bit of training in the estuary, including swapping boats, towing the Celtic, and so on.

I'd always thought of this as a poetic phrase, but yesterday it happened to me! We were out in kayaks on the Pembroke River, a very calm sunny evening, the sky blue and the water full of reflections of the ploughed red hills, sun on the yellow gorse and white blackthorn-flowers. The sun was going down into the hills west of us, and directly opposite, a huge pale moon was rising. The reflections were unreal.

I did try to photograph it, but my phone camera is clearly not wired for poetry.

I feel I've done a bunch of things and already forgotten many of them, so here's a disordered list of things before they fall out of my head entirely

Went to the opening of a new tiny games cafe in town. A nice space and lovely people, I hope they make a success of it, there are SO many empty shops. The name 'Stormborn Games' along with the red lightning on black is a bold branding choice, but perhaps Warhammer teens will consider it pleasingly edgy.

Went for a swim in the glorious sunshine off our little beach- the first this year with no gloves. Thought that was a mistake to start with, but my hands adjusted OK though I'm pretty sure the water can't have been more than 8 degrees, it makes a huge difference to have no wind and the sun shining. Bit weird for April in Wales, but I'm resolved to enjoy it.

Still struggling with very annoying eczema. It started with a bunch of horsefly bites last year, and just will. not. quit. Currently covering myself practically hourly in oat based lotions after another run of steroids and trying very hard not to scratch. I did take several months off swimming, thinking that was making it worse, or at least an infection risk - but if anything the cold salty water seems to make my skin happier, so I might as well enjoy the swims.

Theo Hound finished his scentwork course on Saturday morning.
He is pretty good at finding the things we've been working on finding (we started with Kong dog toys, and worked from whole toys, to finding chunks of Kong in a magnetic tin, to tiny slivers of Kong in a vial.) I am less skilled at directing and rewarding him than he is at finding things.

There were only two dogs left at the end of the course (mystified by dropping out of a course you've paid for up front, which conflicts with ALL my instincts, but hey.) The other dog that stuck it to the end was Bertie the cockerpoo. They spent a reasonably amount of the last two sessions play-chasing, wrestling and growling loudly, and both very much enjoying it.

Went down to visit my mother in Devon, where we visited Rosemoor RHS garden to see the spring flowers (mostly seas of daffodils but also a mysterious, beautiful pale blue fluffy squill for which we could find no ID, and therefore suspect someone at Rosemoor has decided is Undesirable), and went to Wembury beach, where the sun shone and we had a delightful picnic. The steps down to the beach were steeper and more irregular than I remembered, but Mum made it down them - fortunately there is a level walk back up from the beach into the village, so we did that rather than try to clamber back up the steps then I left her by the road admiring the view while I walked back to collect the car. Saw my first Peacock butterfly of the year on the way.

I have more or less decided that adopting more dogs when I'm travelling so regularly to Devon wouldn't be the wisest move. Theo is great in the car, can be left for a few hours, and can go pretty much anywhere - pubs, cafes, motorway services, around Pudding my Mum's cat - but it's not reasonable to expect that from another rescue dog, at least not immediately. I am still in a number of dog rescue Facebook groups, so I keep seeing so many hopeful appeals for home for delightful dogs: the pandemic adoption wave is over, and homes are once again hard to find. But you can't adopt ALL the dogs...

None the less, I keep looking mournfully at the local greyhound rescues. I would love to have another ex-racer around and I think Theo would enjoy the company too. Maybe in the autumn...

I'm reading my way through the Laundry Files books by Charles Stross - British technospy fiction spiced with horrifying tentacular Things From The Beyond. They are pacy, fun and don't take themselves seriously. I'm surprised that I'm enjoying reading so many words in present tense: normally I have a definite preference for past tense for novels. But here it works. Had never previously come across the phrase 'hairy eyeball' and don't like it. :-D

The weather is warming up! I've planted three Agapanthus Northern Star and three nerine bulbs in a strange triangle of soil that I suspect exists because the previous owner of this house didn't have quite enough concrete to cover it.

It's a very sunny exposed spot that also gets a lot of wind, since it's only about 20 feet from the water, so rather than plant it all up with something that might not be able to handle the location, I'm doing a test plant. I can always add more bulbs if they seem to like it there.

The young rowan trees that I'm training along the fence look like they might actually manage more than a couple of flowers this year, though they may still be too young to actually have berries.

None of the three citrus trees in pots seem terribly happy. The lemon had one flower: the kumquat and orange, none at all. I think maybe I should have fed them more last year. They have now moved off their special citrus winter food onto summer food and I'm going to start watering them more generously too.

Ended up with an accidental surplus of carrots, could not find a recipe I liked the look of where I actually had all the ingredients, so kind of squished together a recipe with what I had in the cupboard. Quite liked it, so:
400g carrots.
200g castor sugar
3 eggs
150g ground almonds
100g very dark chocolate
200g butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
teaspoon vanilla essence (never know why this is added really, I assume it's some kind of Baking Spell, since I'm really not sure I can distinguish vanilla under all that cocoa and chocolate)

Pre-heat oven to 160 C (fan)

Roughly chop the carrots and boil (in water obvs) till soft.

Drain water, put the carrots into a liquidiser, make them into a puree.

Put the chocolate & butter in a bowl floating in a saucepan of hot water and melt.

Add the melted stuff to the liquidised carrots, give it a whiz till blended.

Add the eggs & ground almonds, whiz. If too stiff, add a tablespoonful water.

Add cocoa powder & sugar, whiz till blended.

Stick in 20 x 20cm brownie tin lined with either baking paper or that silicone stuff, put that in oven for 30-40 mins.

Eat when cool, they are a bit squishier when still warm.

A female blackbird came and sat on my new special calciworm feeder and ate four calciworms!

I was previously unsure if the blackbirds were actually using the calciworm feeder or if it was just being looted by the jackdaws, but now I have seen it being used by the designated audience!

Not that I object to the jackdaws, but they really will eat pretty much anything.

Theo and I went for a beach wander in the March sun. Waves crashing on the sand, and an almost empty shore.

( Read more... )

One of Theo's absurdly large ears is painful and a bit gunky again. I am tentatively putting this down to my having given him too many Asda Southern Fried Chicken Chunks as treats on his training course. Back to beef and insects only and ears wiped out daily with leucillin.

Here's a postbox topper dragon with daffodils that I met today in Ystradgynlais.

It's been a busy couple of days: yesterday I went to art group, packed games to post, and went swimming at Freshwater East with the Bluetits (the thermometers swore the sea was at 10 degrees, and although the sun was shining, I am sure those thermometers were optimistic by at least 3 degrees: we were not blue, but we were certainly very pink when we got out)

Then today I got up early, baked some bread, took Theo to a scentwork class. He was pretty good at it though he was a bit surprised I wanted him to find such easy things over and over. Next time we get to hunt for smaller things, but he has homework: a pair of large plumbing pipes screwed to boards, that he must practice finding things in for his homework.

Then since the sun was shining I and Pp hared off in the car eastward, and drove some of the mountain roads, from Llangadog to Brynaman, to Ystradgynlais (a surprisingly busy and thriving little town: would lunch again) to Defynnog and back along narrow lanes across the mountains through Ystradfellte and home via Neath.

We drove over the Black Mountain, but it was more golden in the sun today.

Brief visit to Devon to see my mother.

( Read more... )Oh, and I completed my founding of the Shire story: There and Back Again (to Norbury of the Kings)

I took this extremely battered and spineless book and tarted it up a bit:
( Read more... )

I thought I might do a longer walk today, and then phone to get Pp to come and pick me up at the end rather than doing a loop walk.

( Read more... )

I'm not sure why I felt like writing such a long story about the daughter of a one-line hobbit from the LOTR appendices, but so it goes. Here's the first chapter. I'm not quite sure about the second chapter so I'm keeping it to ferment for a couple days. Hopefully it won't grow too much more worldbuilding because it's got more than it needs of that already.

There and Back Again to Norbury of the Kings.
Three hundred years after Angmar first arose in the North-kingdom, the successor kingdom of Arthedain still stands against the Witch-king of Angmar, though Rhudaur and Cardolan have fallen.

Not that the war bothers Marcho’s daughter Bagmē Blōma, half-Fallowhide, half-Harfoot, fifteen years old and all opinions. She’s got other things on her mind.

Made bread. Not very successfully, think my sourdough is feeling a bit chill and sluggish. Made a mental note to feed it more often.
Had a delightful beach walk at Freshwater West with Pp & Theo.
Went to a quiz with the Hazelbeach cold water swimming group. Terrible trouble identifying a whole sheet of US presidents, but we got 23/25 in the end. Completely forgot the symbol for tin (sn)
Wrote an instadrabble (about Sam, Finrod and rosebay willowherb).
Had a writing idea for a whodunnit with Maglor. Now need a copy of 'And then there were none'
I finally remembered to register with the library on Thursday, I bet they will have a copy I can borrow.
Did a walk with a new friend for Theo:three-legged salukiwhippet Anwen.

Going to try to resurrect occasional Things Done posts because I remember they made me feel like progress had been made, rather than things instantly forgotten as they are ticked off.

Yesterday I took three paintings in to a tiny exhibition my art group is doing at the local library. It gave me much grief to pick them but eventually I decided on two local landscapes (bottom right, grey and blue) , and a sort of still life that I painted in 2020 and never got to exhibit because Events Happened (top left).
( Read more... )

Today, I contacted two customers who are on our old server7 and warned them that I was going to move them to server8. This is part of the running down of my website business to focus on the Shop on the Borderlands, which is something I urgently desire, but which some of my customers are less keen on. I feel I was very brave. I WILL move the last of them and discontinue the server next week, which will save me a whapping 250 quid a month. Server8 is sufficient to support the Shop and the smaller /low hassle sites that remain, and is also newer with all the latest Stuff.

There was some blanket-weed in my tiny pond-pot, which I suspect arrived with the water forget-me-not I added this summer (which seems to be thriving). Today I scooped it out (well, most of it) and put it on the compost heap. I began other weeding, but Theo got cold and insisted we go back inside.

I brushed up the christmas tree needles. I'd done this once already, but they have an amazing ability to hide.

I went to art group and finished painting this woodland scene, which I rather like although it's a pity that I did it on this new paper which clearly is not up to the application of much water. I had hoped it would flatten out if I put it between two books, but it hasn't.
( Read more... )

I try to make a carved decoration from each year's Christmas tree. This year's tree was a Nordmann Fir, and I really hope that next year we can find a different species, because the wood was both very hard, and very splintery. Not a fun wood to carve, and although the tree held its needles well, it had almost no scent, and I think the scent is one reason for having a wooden tree.

This is what it looked like when I'd just taken the bark off: it was wet, and it was kind of crumbly and yet at the same time I had to sharpen my chisels a lot. I think possibly I tried working it when it was a bit too green, it did get better as it began to dry, but I've definitely had wood that was much nicer to carve green.

And here's the final version: a puffin on one side...

And on the other side a sea-sunset, using the grain of the tree to make the sun. It was very hard to get the edges of the waves free of spiky bits.

We whizzed down briefly to Devon before Christmas to see my mother, Pp's goddaughter and her parents and distribute presents.

( Read more... )

Walked along the coast path from Tenby to Waterwynch Bay : up past the hotels and grand apartment blocks of The Croft, a name that echoes a farm that must have vanished over two hundred years ago from the magnificent Victorianness of the current road, which quickly dwindles to a narrow footpath, much beset with storm-fallen foliage.

After twenty minutes or so I reached a path that led to the sea, and randomly followed it to Waterwynch Bay, a beautiful stretch of yellow sand overlooked by a single monstrous holiday home.

( Read more... )

We had a red weather warning this time, and a government alert sent to our phones to warn of danger to life!

But in fact this time it was just very windy. It was a bit stressful, remembering Storm Eunice when we took a lot of damage, but nothing major got damaged. A tree came down on the one road that connects us to the town, but it was quickly chopped and shoved to one side by local residents.

I actually went out to join a Christmas quiz with some friends on Saturday night. Felt slightly guilty, given the dire warnings, but we went only a very short distance on main roads and encountered no trouble.

My house has one loose roof tile and some soffits that are loose and will need sorting when the wind drops. That will be a minor nuisance to sort out, but I think we can probably leave it till the roofers have finished their emergency work.

Apparently the waves at the headland facing out to sea were seven meters. The Irish Ferry wisely decided to stay in port for a couple of days, we finally saw it heading off this afternoon.

My Sunday drive down to Devon went very smoothly. Empty, dark and rainy roads. Theo slept happily all the way, having had a good run on a wet beach before we set off.

On Monday, we went and had a rummage in the Luckett woods, where I had cause to remember just how many foxes and deer there are in these woods, something that my memory had previously managed to optimistically dull.

( Read more... )

Storm Bert came charging into Wales having brought terrible floods to Worcestershire. So far it's been south-westerly winds, which from a selfish perspective are the right kind, because we are sheltered from winds coming in that direction. It's the northerlies that are a problem here.

I've now photographed ALL the bundles for the Shop Black Friday sale. There are about 50 of the bundles and some of them are monster piles of books that I am extremely dubious will sell even at bargain prices: I think maybe we should have carved them into smaller groups. But we shall see. It would be unusual, I think, to start roleplaying with the purchase of 30+ giant hardbacks plus the starter set, but maybe someone out there will be tempted.

Yes, I know it's absurd for a UK business to have a Black Friday sale given that we don't do Thanksgiving. But it turns out that late November sales are popular in the UK too, and that makes it a good chance to clear out stuff that has been lingering on the shelves for a while.

I've been trying to offload one of my old website build customers for well over a year now, and they STILL don't have their new site ready for use. They're going to regret it if the thing finally gives up the ghost and falls over, it has to be hanging on by its fingernails.

I walked to Pembroke along the river with Theo on Sunday, and saw these goats, which followed us with a bit too much enthusiasm. Theo was initially excited to encounter them, but then he realised they were Big! and Pointy! and he became afraid and had to be protected.

I don't know what they wanted, but I was somewhat relieved that they stopped at this gate. Clearly they could have got over it, but apparently they knew that was Forbidden.

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bunn

May 2025

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Recent Entries

Jack Sound

West of the Moon, East of the Sun

Another Walrus-post (of many things)

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To Devon & back

Adventures in bookbinding

Accidental efficiency

Wrote a story about the founding of the Shire

Things Done

Things Done

2024 carving

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Storm Darragh

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