where art collides philosoperontap

At 9.32am yesterday a fox came into the garden. Came through the beech hedge from next door, around the back of the shed, back between the shed and the greenhouse then around the back of the raised beds and through a hole in the bottom of the fence to the other next door.

I wasn’t in the shed at the time. And even had I been there I probs wouldn’t have noticed the fox. My desk faces in the wrong direction. Might have done. The fox may not have come had I been in the shed. Cunning.

Then two nights ago we had a hedgehog on the back lawn. Keep meaning to build a hedgehog house. It has been a long term item on my jobs list. Perhaps 2025 is the year of the hedgehog house.

Simple bacon and egg brekkie with a slice of toasted sourdough. I quite like the simple life. Some might not consider that breakfast to be a simple on. Porridge, Tref my son, that’s simple. Well I am not a porridge fan. I do eat THG’s very fine gran o’la with yo’ gurt and berries which is similar and perhaps slightly posher. Not today though, like I said.

Yet to cook said breakfast. Have settled onto a sofa in the snug. Too cosy man. On another sofa the talented THG is knitting a patchwork blanket. Fits in a row here and there when she can. We will be alright when the winter is at its worst. Oh that’ll be now. We have other blankets.

Makes me realise how different our lives are now compared to times gone by. Even when I was a kid, pre central heating days, you had to force yourself out from under the blankets. When you lived in a small farmhouse in Wales in the eighteenth century it would have been a tough one. They bred em hard in them days. 

I only mention it because that’s where I am at with the family tree research. THG’s side goes back a lot further – someone else has done the work. May get around to checking it someday. V time consuming. We are back to 1580 on her mum’s side, the Fletchers. Scotland.

I’ve been leaving the heating on in the shed so it is warm as soon as I get there. Otherwise it takes half an hour or so to get up to temperature and I’m sat there in a jumper with freezing cold hands. Ish. Only do this in the depths of winter.

It’s a big contrast to the height of summer where the shed doors are left wide open all day and I allow nature to enter into the picture. I have to shut the doors when going into the house for a cuppa or similar in case nature decides to go inside the shed. Had a bird do that in the past.

Anyway gotta go. There is bacon to cook.

Pre dawn down, stairs. Was awake. Time rushes by. Wind the clock forward, at pace. Back to  bed after making the tea. Back down for breakfast. Up, down, turning around, brewing the tea and defying the ground. I have another pot, of tea, in front, of me.

Bugger. Just missed a parcel delivery. Both of us were in but were otherwise engaged and didn’t hear the doorbell. The Ring doorbell is not the most reliable going. Now got to pick it up from the Carlton Centre Post Office tomorrow. Annoying innit. 

What if I was a little old person who couldn’t get to the door in time. I certainly was the latter. I almost certainly know what it is and due to the value will probs have needed signing for. Ah well.

Got another delivery coming between 11.10 and 13.10. Quite precise that. I’ve had examples of DPD arriving five minutes early and having to wait for the delivery window before letting me sign for something. This ain’t DPD. So I’m sat on the settee in the snug using my laptop. 

I’m wearing my spare specs this morning because I stood on my Oakleys in the shower room. Fortunately it looks like an easy fix but I’ll need to take them in to Clearview Opticians, when I have the car. Always something innit.

It’s come to something when listening to “thought for the day” is preferable to the news. Not that I normally like listening to the news anyway. Right now the news is full of Donald Trump crap. Ironically I’ve been putting drops in my left ear to unbung it a bit. The wireless set is next to my left ear. Feels as if I should be leaving it bunged up. Fortunately/unfortunately the drops seem to be working :).

Was a productive enough weekend, fwiw. I reattached the bath panel that the plumber had removed to replace the taps. All it needed was a replacement screw and a few drops of superglue at the top to keep it in place pending application of sealant. Simples eh?

Also took a look at THG’s ‘new’ slide projector and determined that it had been shipped sans slide magazine tray. Ten quid plus postage on eBay and five second hand magazines are winging their way to Lincoln as we speak, inshallah. We have zillions of slides from THG’s childhood to work our way through. A few gems in there no doubt. I believe we may have a screen in the attic somewhere but the front room curtains will do.

Finally the dinner last night was chops with veggies and the gravy for saturday’s poached partridge meal. Sensational even though I say so myself.

Exciting stuff eh? 

In the meantime I had a bit of a result on the family tree side. There’s lots going on but one of my great great grandfathers, William Davies was a farmer and a poet with the pen name Y Bardd Coch (The Red Bard). I’ve been looking for some of his poetry. Other than his epitaph I’ve not had much luck there but his gravestone does say that both he and my gg grandmother lived in a place called Maesybidie, or Maesybidiau.

Now their farm was called Coedsaithpren and the census records for his lifetime don’t show him as having lived in Maesybidie. However his burial record, found yesterday, says that his wife Anne died there and he died at his daughter’s woollen mill Maesdulais and that he had lived in Maesybidie.

This tells an age old story. Old couple retires from the farm and go to live in a cottage. Maesybidie may well have had other family living there as the census shows Davieses from the mid 19th century but not from 1901. William and Anne must have moved there after 1891. When Anne died in 1897 William will eventually have moved out and seemingly moved in with his daughter Mary Ann at Maesdulais.

Maesybidie is quite a famous place locally. It is a Welsh longhouse that has been there for hundreds of years and it is said to have provided shelter for Llewelyn ein Llyw Olaf, the last true prince of Wales, after a visit to Dinefwr (Dynevor). If yer interested there is an article from The Carmarthen Journal on Maesybidie here

If anyone can help with finding Y Bardd Coch’s poetry that would be most appreciated.

Ciao amigos

Finally found a use for the iPad Pro. I bought it maybe a couple or three years ago in a rush of blood after a boozy lunch in Soho with Charles Edwards and Martin John. Top of the range with all bells and whistles. We weren’t far from the Apple store in Covent Garden and it seemed to make sense. I had after all been thinking about doing it for ages as it could be useful to take on trips, being a smaller footprint than my macbook.

The reality turned out to be different. The user interface is crap for typing and it was not nearly as responsive as the macbook even with the expensive keyboard attached. Moreover, being a rubbish artist, I never used the stylus/pen thingy.

It is good quality for media streaming but most of the time I have my macbook for that although yesterday for some reason the latter stopped being able to see the chromecast. Even after I’d followed all the troubleshooting tips and updated mac os and chrome. I might have to resort to using the iPad to cast if I can’t fix the macbook but that is another story. Software eh?

So anyway now the iPad sits conveniently on the butcher’s block island in the middle of the kitchen in the ideal place to look up recipes. There is a scenario whereby THG decides it doesn’t belong there as it gets in her way but we aren’t there yet. Even looks the part. The modern kitchen/chef etc

Last night I cooked a deelish one pot poached partridge supper. It was loosely based on various online recipes but they all seemed a bit elaborate with fancy ingredients which I couldn’t be bothered to even look in the cupboard to see if we had them so I made it up as I went along. Did follow some of the processes which included pan frying the partridges first in butter. I think it made a difference. Anyway the result was good and was complimented by THG which is always v satisfying obvs.

This morning the day has started with one of THG’s invigorating granolas with yo’ gurt and blackberries we harvested in abundance last autumn and have frozen in batches. What’s not to like. Fruit related conversations this morning did cover the fact that the plumb tree planted against the trellis at the bottom of the garden was not doing the biz and we are considering replacing it with a fig. 

The apricot is diseased and is going to be felled. A bit of a dramatic way to say we are going to chop the apricot tree down. I’ve been watching too much Lawless Island on Disney Plus. It isn’t a particularly big apricot tree but an expert has said it ain’t going to do the job for us so going it is.

I don’t watch very many TV programmes but we got a free Disney Plus subscription so I trawled around the National Geographic section to see if there was anything worth watching and landed on Lawless Island, so to speak.

The first series was v good. Different. The subsequent series have been pretty samey. Wood chopping, fishing and deer hunting with a bit of trapping thrown in. Lots of swearing that is beeped out. Anyway I was watching the first episode of a new (to me) series to find that one of my fave characters had died during the winter because of a fire in his cabin. Oh dear. V sad.

Figured I’d google it  to find out more and it turned out it happened four years ago so presumably I still have a bit of catching up to do. Not sure I’ll manage the whole lot. 

During covid  lockdown I binge watched one of my fave programmes which was the one about the auction house in Yorkshire that sold classic cars. Can’t immediately remember its name. After four series I figured that every episode was just a repeat of the previous one but with different cars. Haven’t watched it since, even though I’m pretty sure that at least three more series have been produced.

It’s a problem, finding stuff to watch on the telly. Actually, no it isn’t. Just don’t watch the telly. We are ok tonight because the snooker is on and Liverpool will be playing in the week so that’s ok as well. And it’s University Challenge tomorrow. Yay.

Otherwise when the TV is on in the house I usually have my headphones on so that I don’t have to hear it. I’m a v fussy telly watcher. Dad’s Army isn’t on at the moment, at least not on free to air.  I especially don’t like the news. Too much bad shit happening.

THG has just put on her coat to go to church and I’m not even dressed yet. Better go. Ciao amigos…

Hooray it’s the weekend. That’s great isn’t it? Watcha doin? Anything good? Great outdoors, go to see a game, shopping? Stuff like that?

We used to have a routine at the weekend. The pre kid routine would have been different to when the offspring arrived but that would mostly have involved getting ready to go and play rugby, playing rugby, drinking, eating and falling asleep on the settee. Sundays were closed in those days though there may well have been a two hour window in the pub at lunchtime followed by a roast dinner and another slumber. I might be wrong. It was a long time ago.

When Tom arrived things changed. After breakfast he and I would go for a walk. It was the same walk every week. Living in Greetwell Gate we were only a stones throw from Lincoln cathedral and that would be our first port of call. First stop was the statue of poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the chapter house and the flying buttresses. Tom and I would do Hunchback of Notre Dame impressions shouting “the bells, the bells”.

Sometimes we would nip in to the cathedral. We would do this through the coffee shop which in those days was next to the chapter house. You could get in the back door of the cathedral that way without having to shell out real money to go in. At the front door there were fierce looking guards with, I’m sure, false smiles making you dip your hand in your pocket for a ‘donation’. It always felt a bit of a result being able to sneak in for free. That’s local knowledge for you.

Then we would mosey across Castle Hill to the castle itself and go and see the Magna Carta. After we had been doing this for a year or so the Magna Carta room got a new guard/attendant. Seeing a delightful small blonde child looking at the Magna Carta she wandered over to explain to Tom what it was all about, not knowing this was about the fiftieth time he’d seen it. You have to pay to see the document nowadays.

Finally we would end up at the Lawn and The Sir Joseph Banks Conservatory. This was a great gaff with different world zones containing plants he had brought back from his travels. There was a path meandering around the jungle and a large pond containing koi carp in the middle. We could easily spend an hour in there pretending we were going through unexplored jungle. There was a bench for me to sit whilst Tom got on his hands and knees and dipped his hands in the water.I might even have a paper with me. If THG took him he would only get a couple of minutes quick in and out and definitely no hands and knees and water. Happy days.

The routine continued when Hannah came on the scene, perhaps to a lesser extent but things changed when more kids arrived on the scene and we moved down the road to a bigger house. Sports clubs, swimming lessons and other family related activities took over.

Saturday afternoon was still the rugby club. The deal was the kids could have unlimited lemonade and crisps as long as I got to stay in the bar. I drew the line at chocolate thinking they would probably not eat their tea. As it was, THG always wondered why the kids came home with not much appetite.

The rugby club was a great place for kids. There were lots of others there and they could run around wild in gangs. There was always some parent or other keeping an eye out on them, I assume.

Anyway that was a long time ago. Today I am dropping Hannah off at the hairdressers and nipping to Wickes to buy some superglue. This pm might watch the imps on the box.  What you up to?

Warm house this morning. Wasn’t cold before but the heating was not quite up to scratch. Had the boiler serviced yesterday and in respect of the heating not working properly all the plumber had to do was increase the speed of the pump. At least it didn’t involve a new boiler which we only had a few years ago.

Had me granola and now contemplating the day ahead. It was the last of  the granola so hopefully another batch will magically appear. THG makes great granola. Fair play. Got a bit of work to do but nothing that will get in the way of life. Actually I quite like doing a bit of work once I get in to it.

Red arrows just flew by. I assume it was them or it could have been a jet from RAF Waddington. Sounded quite low. I’ve given up dashing to try and see them as they’ve always gone behind a tree or a rooftop by the time I get into the open. When I can see them they are usually quite high up and no good for photography.

The only thing I have in the diary today is “pay tax”. Fairly sure I did this in December though many festive spirits have flowed since that time and I’m not totes 100% positive. Could check the bank account I suppose. Obvs I have other things I could be getting on with. We do need to chop down the diseased apricot tree but this is something I might leave to an offspring. I can lop off the branches easily enough with my branch lopper (natch).

They’ve flown by again! Five times now and I saw them as I was walking to the shed. Just the two planes flying very low. As low as is permissible I imagine. Normally you see more than two of them practising formation flying. 

Many years ago when we lived in Greetwell Gate our neighbour Al did a stint at RAF Cranwell running the multi engined flying training. The time came for him to move back to his day job at BRize Norton so he got permission from the CO to take me up in the jump seat when he was on a training run. They don’t let just anyone go up you know but I was pitched as a VIP, being on the executive of the Parliamentary Space Committee (breathes on fingernails and rubs them on jumper).

Worra day that was. Crap weather but I got a tour of the base including the ops room where you could see who was flying where that day. Noone was allowed to come within a certain distance of a royal flight, fwiw.

Then we kitted up and spent an hour low flying over Lincolnshire including a couple of flypasts of the cathedral and our house. Unfortunately I had a crappy camera and it was raining so I didn’t get particularly good photos. That night, after a couple of beers in the officers’ mess Al and I went out on the lash in uphill Lincoln ending up, as you do, with a curry at the Raj Douth as was.

The Raj Douth was on Eastgate and very close to the Bishop’s Palace. It was my custom and practice when on the way home after a few beers to nip inside the gate of said palace and relieve the pressure in the bushes. Al, being a serving officer, declined the opportunity. Wouldn’t have looked good if he had been caught.

Nowadays the house is a former Bishop’s Palace, is privately owned and has electric gates that stay closed so the pleasure is no longer available to me. It was only a couple of hundred yards from our house and I could have waited until I got home to use the loo but the mischievous side of me liked the element of risk involved, albeit low.

Telling you all my secrets here. Better stop before I say anymore…

Searly. Looks as if sbeen a bit of frost out there. I read somewhere that some news hungry media outlet was forecasting snow towards the end of the month. Well it is January for Pete’s sake. Whoever Pete is/was. 

Doubt Pete was a weather forecaster cos that phrase is not just used in weather related sentences, for Pete’s sake. Being an oft used phrase, afaik, one assumes that Pete has benefited from the support. Would you call it moral support? Certainly not athletic.

So I’ve finished breakfast but have no pot of tea ready and can’t be arsed to get up and make one. My next step will be to pick up my new book: “Life & Tradition in Rural Wales” by J. Geraint Jenkins. V interesting. I half thought about getting in touch with him as I find his stuff interesting and useful and did look him up but discovered that unfortunately he kicked the bucket way back in 2009. Before 2009 I hadn’t read any of his books and wouldn’t have thought of hooking up. RIP J. Geraint.

I took delivery of three ‘new’ books yesterday inc two written by Gerry, the other being wool manufacturing techniques. Don’t recall the exact title but the book is in the shed and if you want to know just ask and I’ll look at it. 

The other book was The Historical Atlas of Wales. This was a well thumbed ex Manchester University Library tome but should come in handy. It has useful things like maps of the locations of Griffiths Jones Circulating Schools over time. I’d like to drill in and find the exact locations plus names of the students if possible. This information did exist as the teachers were remunerated based on the numbers of pupils and to support this they had to provide names. 

I am trying to find out where my antecedents learned to read and write. I began the process myself, I assume, at my mothers knee in Dolgellau, subsequently ably supported by the local infants school. Also learned to make bread in that school as I seem to recall. That class must have made an impression because I can’t remember anything else about that school.

Funnily enough I was approached by someone at Sue’s party last weekend who said she had been in primary school with me in Cardiff. Unfortunately I didn’t remember her. I was only seven for Pete’s sake. Pete must be one of the most mentioned people in history perhaps behind only Jesus Christ and God himself. Illustrious company. Helluva guy.

The totes incredible THG has just plonked a pot of tea down in front of me. This is the cue for me to stop typing and pick up my book. 

Ciao amigos.

PS Coffee at Waitrose around 10.45 if anyone interested. Book early.

…

The big news this pm is that the plumber is coming to service our boiler. The hot tap in the bath is also dripping so needs sorting. We used to go years between boiler  “services” but got a letter in November saying it was a year since the last one. When I eventually got around to calling to book it I mentioned the aforementioned periodicity and the girl on the other end said she was newish and one of her jobs was to send out reminders. @Simon building up his retirement fund 🙂 V efficient. 

As it happens our central heating is not warming the house up as quickly as I am sure it can do so the timing is good. They were originally scheduled to come at the end of the month but finished a job early and are swinging by shortly which very much suits us.

THG reports it’s pretty gloomy out there. I looked up the forecast and misty it is. How do they differentiate between mist and fog? Maybe one is thicker than the other. Otherwise haven’t the foggiest 🙂

Although it is Wednesday morning it feels like a Monday cos we only got home yesterday afternoon. Just before dark. Freezing house which took ages to warm up. Boiler being serviced at the end of the month.

At ten o’clock it is still gloomy but the mist has dissipated. There’s a bird chatting away but I don’t think I can hear the other side of the conversation. Maybe I can and they both sound the same. The inside of the shed is brightly lit and calm. Needs a tidy though.

Breakfast was gran o lah, yo’ gurt and a strawberry with three or four blackberries. Nice to get back into a routine of sensible eating. I am pleased to say we face a quiet month ahead. Maybe the occasional get together for the rugby but no trips. Yay.

I’ve had enough trips to do me for now. Daresay I’ll get the itchy feet again and in fact I am working on a biggie, probs for next year. Got a lot of avios to use up plus a companion voucher.

…

Busy enough day of it. Bit of gardening, bit of family tree research, bit of work and an initial pre hip op call with the physio.

Three “new” books arrived.

Just had a dream. 

I rocked up at the hospital for my hip replacement and was immediately put on a bed/trolley, had a red arrow marked on my right leg,  given an injection in my spine and left alone while the anaesthetic took affect. After a while I got a bit bored and got my laptop out to start recording the whole process for posting later. Then I thought I might not have much time so hurriedly knocked out a Facebook post just saying I was about to go under the knife and I’d see you all after the op. At that point someone noticed I hadn’t actually parked the car and offered to move it to which I agreed. Then some others rocked up having been doing something in a field and set up a field kitchen or something. The place was getting busy. At that point it started to rain and I regretted not having the car to sit in so I got off the trolley and walked to a caff just over the road, climbed the stairs and took shelter under the canopy covering the veranda/porch. The anaesthetic still hadn’t kicked in and I started wondering where the medical teams had got to. I was just about to phone the hospital when I realised I was awake.

How about that then!

…

Nice spin out in the car for Sue’s birthday. Swung by Axminster Tools where THG bought a load of offcuts for two quid. Happy girl. Then went to Llanilltud Fawr where we planned to do the beach and the church which as you probably know is fifteen hundred years old. Worth a visit.

En route from Axminster Tools to LLiF (bit of a Welsh pun there) we got caught behind a funeral cortege doing thirty miles an hour. Maybe ten minutes into this  tediously slow procession we hit a junction which was a decision point. If the hearse and convoy went one direction we would go the other. They went left, we went straight on and before you knew it we made it to the car park down at the beach.

If you’ve never been, the beach at Llanilltud Fawr is a lovely spot. Great rock formations, pebbles and, on this occasion lots of driftwood including whole tree trunks. No way we would get that in the car. Caff was shut.  Bummer. Wot! Mind you most places were shut. A Monday South Wales in January. There were surfers out on the water and a couple of fishermen up on the headland. Seemed to be a long way from the water but who am I to say?

Now this is the funny bit. After the beach I expressed an interest in looking around the fifteen hundred year old church. I particularly like looking at the list of past vicars and seeing what was on the hymn list from the previous Sunday Service. Bugger me there was a funeral going on. The cars from the procession we had been stuck behind earlier were there, parked outside the church.

It was over an hour since we left them so can’t have been much longer to go. We found a caff and related the story to everyone who wanted to hear. They all agreed that it wouldn’t be long until the funeral was over as they had noted that it started an hour previous.

Two teas, a coffee and some sort of shortbread biscuit later we waved goodbye to the folks in the caff and mosied on back to the church. Blow me down, knock me down wiv a feather, the funeral was still ongoing. Ninety minutes in! Fakin L. We postponed the church visit to a time in the future and returned to the town hall car park. Ironically, as we departed Llanilltud Fawr, the church began emptying out. Black bedecked mourners making their way up the road to the centre of the village. Please note that when I go, the dress code will be flowery Hawaiian shirts. No black.

…

The road wound steeply up from the beach at Dunraven Castle. A barbed wire enclosed sheep field was decorated with scraps of wool. The telegraph wire perched heavily with small birds. These were not getting ready for an annual migration. Just a regular get together for the dissemination of information. Best place for worms in January.

We ignored the notice informing us of the parking charge. Nobody there to collect the money anyway and no obvious mechanism to pay. Parked on the front row by the sea wall and gazed at the surf, a couple of random surfers, two fishermen silhouetted on the headland and enough rock formations to distract a geologist. The driftwood heavy pebble beach banked up before us invited small children to throw rocks. It being a Monday no small children were to be seen. A good time to go.

A slow start to the day after Sue’s bash last night. Surprised meself by lasting until the end. I have a reputation for nodding off and going home early. Ensconced as I was in an armchair with a glass of wine within easy reach I held court. Sort of. Ish. Quite a few old pals of Sue there who I sort of knew from University days together with old family friends.

We are sat now in the front room doing our own thing. All is quiet. I hear the faint strain of the radio coming from the bathroom upstairs.

Great meal out last night with the scouts committee. Celebrating Akela’s retirement after 49 years as a leader, 47 with our group. Amazing. V cold out. Bacon roll for breakfast and finished off the sourdough with a bit of toast and marmalade. Gotta stoke the boiler, so to speak,on a day like today. 

Taking some survival gear with us in the car for the drive to Caadiff. A blanket and an extra cheese roll. Gotta be ready for all eventualities innit. Be prepared. At 9am it is minus two. I am mostly packed and am taking five minutes out to drink my tea in the snug.

THG is doing the first driving stint so I’ll be able to read my book n stuff. That’s one of the benefits of only having her car to drive. She wouldn’t drive my old Defender as it was too bit. I didn’t mind really but it did mean we wouldn’t be sharing the driving and I couldn’t spend half the trip buried in my phone doing social media. Not a bad thing really I suppose, probs.

Gonna wear my trefbash shirt for tonight’s party. That will halve the effective cost per wear. Another three wears and it will be down to the cost of a Tommy Bahama silk shirt! Feels a little out of place wearing a Hawaiian shirt when the temperature is below zero but that’s no different to its first outing in December in London really.

Tomorrow we have a family lunch in Heaney’s restaurant. It’s a posh gaff near Sue’s and I quite fancy a solid Sunday roast though no idea if they do such a thing, being posh an all. It’ll need to be substantial if this weather hangs around. Lettuce is out of season. Exactly one month today when I go under the knife so this is my last weekend “off”. 

Gotta go. Tara.

…

Lovely crisp white countryside out there. Someone has given the roadside trees a light dusting of white. V pictureskew. Minus three. The sun stays low, not rising above the treetops. Long journey ahead.

When we were kids and when we had kids a long journey would have included lots of singing. Took a while for ours to get into that but eventually they did and we got some great harmonies out of the. They all have good voices. Great voices even.

Stopped to clean the windscreen and then again in the garage in Newark to source winter screenwash. I daresay that’s what we already had in but when setting off it was frozen and the windscreen just turned mucky. Sorted now. 

The dirty windscreen has been replaced with fog as we drive through Nottinghamshire towards Leicester. Without the sun it’s just a yucky day on the roads. A foggy day, in Nottingham. There’s a song there.

Were it not for the fact that we are headed to Caadiff for Sue’s birthday the sensible thing today would have been to stay indoors and light the fire. Football on the telly. Tomato soup for lunch with nice crusty bread and butter and a chunk of mature cheddar cheese.

Cup of tea finished & now contemplating the day ahead. THG is out scraping the ice of her car windows. Heavy frost again last night. Will be killing off a lot of bugs in the garden. If I can psych myself up to do it, the issue being the cold, I’ll prune the grapevine this morning now that @Rod Whiting has provided instructions. 

It’s obvious what to do really but only once you know. When you drive past carefully tended vineyards with vines laden down with grapes you know there is clearly a knack to doing it and up until now I haven’t had that knack. It should only take five minutes and I have the secateurs in the shed and a pair of gloves so no reason why I can’t get on with it really.

With a bit of luck next autumn we will be picking bunches of grapes for the table although I’m not sure whether they are eaters or wine grapes. The few that we have managed to pick so far have been quite bitter but I put that down to just not understanding how to look after them.

I quite like this heavy frost lark. Feels clean. You have to be careful when treading on the deck in front of the shed but as long as you take care it’s fine. The shed is toasty and v cosy. A good spot to get on with some stuff today. Got an invitation to send out later. Organising a shindig in Antwerp. Just need to get motivated to do it.

Bit of packing to do this pm. Sue’s birthday bash in Caadiff. Going to wear my tropical trefbash shirt for the occasion. Gorra look good for ya blood and blister innit. The keto diet is on hold for the weekend starting today as it’s the annual scouts leaders Christmas dinner at the Wig and Mitre. Always a good evening. No uniforms allowed, not that I have a uniform. Chairmen don’t wear uniforms. I get to choose the wine he he. Don’t worry. There is nothing expensive on the Wig and Mitre wine list.

A squirrel just hopped by carrying a nut or similar in its mouth. Had my screen specs on so couldn’t make it out exactly. Nature in action. I’m assuming it keeps a stash somewhere. Otherwise all is calm in the shed. There is no wind to speak of. Just a layer of cold air enveloping the structure. No birds even. They have more sense.

We are at the bottom of nature’s cycle.The flicker of light that is spring is still far distant.

…

Pleased with my grapevine pruning efforts. Took more than five mins but it is now v tidy and I had a cup of tea brewing in the kitchen while I was at it so all good. Can’t believe it is Friday already.

Me new book has just arrived: A history of Wales 1660 – 1815 by E.D.Evans. The foreword mentions it as being written for A Level students. The first one in the English language as other books on the subject have been in Welsh apaz. So far it’s a good read.

I am reminded of the time that I bought a second hand French history book. The name escapes me (ohohiho) but the point is THG said she had had that book as an A Level French text book and couldn’t imagine reading it for pleasure :).

Yay it’s Thursday. At last. Made it, phew. What a glorious morning. Joy to be alive. I’ve quickly polished off my gran o la with yo gurt and berries and and nearly ready to take on the day. This includes popping to waitrose to buy some milk and then partake of a very fine cawfee. 11 am at the caff if anyone is around.

I try not to see or hear the news but some of it does get through and I sense that the Facebook empire has now started its decline, as did twitter before it and then prior to that the British and Roman Empires. There will be others I’ve missed, probs. Too many to list here but you get the gist. Nothing lasts for ever.

There is already a serious amount of crap here and I sense it is about to get worse. Not totes sure I’m quite ready to abandon Facebook yet as it connects me to a lot of friends around the world. The future isn’t looking bright for the platform though. Lorra shit happening.

So the question is whether bsky.social is the place to go. It looks more like a replacement for twitter than Facebook and I’m not sure it has any privacy controls. I’ve already started being followed by bots. Attractive women one and all. I have enough attractive women in my life thanks very much.

I already have around fifty real friends there. Mostly from Facebook but one or two new ones I’m pleased to see who don’t do the book. There are only fifty or so people I regularly engage with on Facebook. Probs less. However, sometimes I meet people in real life who are also Facebook friends who mention that they read my posts but don’t leave comments. Most of my friends list are people I’ve met in real life, a few international internetty types usually being the exception plus one or two others.  I guess there is always philosopherontap for people who just want to read this stuff.

Still here for now but alternatively @huworourke@bsky.social is my handle. Mam was an O’Rourke, Huw’s my first name. I think @tref was already taken. I occasionally post stuff there.

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Extra jumper on today. My Ireland FatFace sweater. Together with my extremely warm Himalayan BlackYak sweater it brings me to just the right comfort level. If I was in an office I’d probably still be wearing two jumpers. I suspect it isn’t the temperature inside, which in the shed is set to 21 degrees C, but more psychological due to the icy conditions outside.

At eight fifty five the sun was still very low over the allotments beyond the back fence.

Got a bit of work type stuff to do today. Nothing too onerous that would get in the way of life. THG is off to the gym for her first class at nine thirty. Worrawoman.

I’ve decided that the family tree stuff has for now reached the point of diminishing returns and am easing back on it with a view to doing more work on the history book itself. Will keep you updated with progress obvs but it is more likely to be a 2026 finish than 2025. Whether anyone will want to publish it is a different issue.

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At 9.51am the shadows are still very long – over three quarters the length of the lawn.

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In waitrose to buy milk. Got a 50 pence off voucher for two pints. Every little thing helps innit. Also bought a bit of bacon and some halloumi. Now sat nursing a large lahtay in da caff surrounded by talk of garden centres and other age related subjects. Two blokes over there with laptops open presumably talking werk.

The caff is almost as crowded as the car park! The car park isn’t particularly crowded. It’s just that they are all in the caff. The trolley park outside the caff was full. I just rolled mine in and left it. 

Couple sat opposite had been to Benidorm over new years eve.  Fireworks display. Apaz. Think I heard it right. Don’t want to.make it too obvious I’m listening in. 

There’s a walk at the end of the month. Terry, who they saw in the store, won’t be there as he’s going in for an op.

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The temperature in the sunny Waitrose car park had risen to a balmy one degrees btw Not the same in our shaded back garden. The sun ain’t getting up over the trees.

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Occurred to me btw, what with being about to celebrate my sixty fourth birthday in December this year, we should be thinking about renting a cottage in the Isle of Wight in the summer of 2026. Obvious thing to do really innit. 

Can’t see us scrimping and saving to get there though. Not in my DNA. Also doubt we will have grandchildren to bounce up and down on my knee. Furthermore I won’t be out until quarter to three, unless it’s a long lunch.

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It is observed btw that the garden is mostly in shade at this time of year. The small bit that was in sunshine this morning is no longer thus as the sun, in its perambulation from east to west spends most of the day behind trees lining our boundary.

Icy conditions out there this morning and not safe to go running so we haven’t. Instead I had a toasted sausage sandwich with half a grapefruit. Eaten separately obvs. That’s the last of the bangers dispatched. Had intended to have simple gran o lah with yo gurt and berries but the freezing conditions swayed me. Stay warm. Fortunately I left the heating on in the shed so should be nice and toasty when I get there in half an hour or so. Heating also on in the house fwiw.

I quite like the cold weather as long as I am personally not cold. Don’t mind a bit of tingle in the cheeks and at the tip of the nose and the freezing breath is for some reason satisfying. Probs some hangover from childhood. That shoebox was not very well insulated.

Considerably later start than yesterday. I get sucked in to family tree research. You spend hours fruitlessly poring over web page after webpage then eureka you hit a little nugget of gold.

Been trying to trace my 5G grandparents from the Llandysul area. Should be doable because the 4G grandpappy was a farmer and Baptist minister of religion and his brother was a rector of the established church. Yesterday I refound another brother who I’d previously found but forgotten where and deleted him from my record as I wasn’t so sure. I also found David Davies the rector’s marriage certificate with an Evan Davies of Talgoed as a witness. Talgoed was the farm where Baptist Daniel lived. I now know the surname of David’s wife Sarah.

Evan is either Dave’s dad or another brother. Daniel’s marriage cert from the same era was witnessed by a Benjamin Davies. Either dad or another brother. There was a Benjamin Davies who served as curate for a number of years. Could have been a relative of Daniel or just a friend. The coincidences are  fairly compelling. Problem is there are lots of missing church records from the pre 1800s era and even where they do exist there isn’t necessarily enough evidence to go on. You need a parent’s name in there.

Uncovering David and Sarah’s marriage cert gives me more problems as their eldest son, the famous Baptist preacher and divine, JP Davies was notionally born three years before his parents got married. Wasn’t apnin in those days especially amongst vicars. It is unlikely that JP’s birthdate is wrong as he was a high profile person with much written about him. The parents’ marriage certificate must also be right.

There will be an answer. I just need to somehow blow away those obscuring mists of time. Doubt a David was a Dave in those days btw 🙂 Reverend Davies more likely.

Anyway I’m boring you. Likely to be a warming bowl of Heinz tomayto soup for lunch. THG got 6 tins for four quid in Lidl yesterday which I’m sure you know is a steal. My Fast800 chicken tagine last night was also a winner (winner chicken dinner) and we have plenty left for another meal. It’s quite satisfying when you follow a recipe to prepare a meal and it turns out well. 

The remainder of the week is looking v cold with a very slight increase in temperature at the weekend. The wind direction is all over the place moving from a SouWesterly this morning to a NorthEasterly this evening. V cold indeed. Not that it is particularly windy right now.

Dressed and up and at it by seven thirtyish this morning. Woot, I hear you say. Is this a new Tref? There is an element of shaking myself out of a relaxed and easygoing attitude that I felt would waste my life away. Life is too short to not be dressed by seven thirty. Well maybe that is a bit extreme but you get the idea.

Been at the family tree research. Last night whilst my life partner was watching a cookery programme I stuck my headphones on and distracted meself by listening to a bit of Nina Simone. Her live stuff on YouTube is v good, if a bit sad.

Anyway whilst listening to NS I looked at checking a few facts on the family of my great, great, great, great, grandfather Daniel and looked up his gravestone. Amazingly I found a few other family graves that I’d taken photos of and promptly forgotten so I was able to add some more info in than I had been looking for. Death dates and names of spouses. Stuff like that.

Well the new information prompted Ancestry to push a few hints my way and I found that Daniel’s grandson, also Daniel, had married his cousin Margaret who lived less than a mile away. I now have a whole new batch of hints that will soak up my time.

When you dig into your past like this it reveals a lot about life in the period you are exploring. For example cousin/wife signed her marriage record with “her mark” suggesting she couldn’t write her name. This was the same for her sister Mary when she married Benjamin Davies from Cwmduad. Their mother Margaret however, who was the daughter of Baptist minister Daniel could write her name.

Mother Margaret had nine children including four girls. You wonder which of them could read. I’m going to see if I can find all their marriage records to see which of them signed their names. Shame really but that was life in the hinterland of nineteenth century rural Wales. We are talking 1820s and 30s.

Just finding this info out is going to take ages but I think it is worth it 🙂 In the meantime I will fit in a little work work at some point. Keep it ticking over, knowworramean.

Outside the shed the birds are bellowing away. It is a nice, if somewhat crisp, sunny morning. A pesky squirrel scampers along the deck foraging for nuts. The football, which was more or less in the middle of the lawn, has moved to about eight feet from the path. This must have been down to wind effect. I doubt anyone has kicked it. Just a small example of how the powerful forces of nature shape our environment 🙂 

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Took a break from the research to sort out my somewhat large in/filing tray. Removed some bits of paper for actual physical filing (gawd knows when that will get done but it is now in a different pile on the spare desk). Some went to shredding and a few sheets of paper left for actual action. This is mostly tedious stuff I’ve been putting off for months but will need to get done sometime soon.

The shredding is typically the most satisfying bit of it all. On this particular occasion the shredder was playing up and on examination found it to be chock a block full of shredded papier. I knew what to do obvs and emptied all the shreddings (?) into the now quite full compost bin at the side of the shed.

Shredder still didn’t work so set to picking out all the bits of paper that might be blocking up the mechanism, gave the waste tray a good shove into place and hey presto I was in business.

Emptying the shredder does result in collateral damage in that I then have to sweep up bits of paper from the floor to the side of the desk. OK not a biggie I know but the whole shed really needs hoovering. A job for tomorrow maybe. Manãna.

So the decks are almost cleared for action. The desk certainly needs a bit of a tidy bit it isn’t urgent. I do have an old acoustic guitar, a banjo (needs a few bits) and a telescope up for grabs if anyone wants them. They were just taking up space in the corner in front of the hatstand. Lemme know.

Next up was the neon tropical trefbash sign. It was delivered a few days ago but at some stage needs putting up. To this end the sign company sent me a very good ceiling hanging kit (fair play) but one of the holes in the perspex wasn’t quite big enough to take the bolt. I jumped into action and gave it a bit of a filing down using a suitable drill bit. Hey presto again, the bolt fitted.

That was the relatively easy bit. The sign now needs hanging from the shed ceiling but I have not totes decided where. This act will also mean drilling into the pristine plasterwork for the first time. I have held off doing this on any of the shed walls and ceiling since it was built a few years ago but I feel that the time is now right.

The question is whether I hang the sign somewhere that can be seen from the outside or whether it goes in the obvious place in the corner above the spare desk. The other alternative is to my left when sat at my desk but that would mean I’d have to find somewhere else for the yacht which does look good on top of the bookcase there. Decisions decisions.

I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out. The Lagunitas sign is visible to the outside when switched on and is an indication to the whole world that the bar is open. Not that you can see the Lagunitas sign from anywhere other than the back of our house. Wouldn’t want any old scrote coming in.

For Mara’s benefit I need to decide what to have for lunch. Still got some nice ham left so could have another ham salad but tbh I had that yesterday. Dunno. Couple of sausages maybs. I’ll have to see what’s in the fridge. These are the important decisions we all face every day of our lives. The make or break survival decisions. Do or die. Liven up your life or blandly plough ahead with the same old thing day in day out.

I can understand doing that for breakfast. Lots of folk just have porridge for example. Fills em up. Sets them up for the day. I don’t particularly like porridge. Too bland even for me. You have to strike a balance somehow.

In “the old days” people often had no choice. My miner grandfather David Charles Davies for example was the only person in the house given bacon for breakfast. He needed it to sustain the hard physical work that lay ahead of him. They hung the bacon in the pantry after slaughtering it. It would last all winter afaik.

We don’t hang a pig in the pantry. We haven’t got one. No pantry or pig for that matter. We did used to have one together with a coal hole next to the downstairs loo but they all disappeared when we extended the house. It was quite nice having a pantry but it’s gone. The coalmen would be able to fill the coal hole from the outside. The forgotten practices of yesteryear.

Gotta go. Food to be hunted and gathered…