Granny's Phone.

The sun tried to make an appearance today but it is definitely turning colder and feels as if rain is on the way.

In the morning we went to Mach for our usual Welsh language practice with our friends. We haven't met up for a while as Anne went on holiday to NZ for three weeks. Lucky her. 

The first thing was to go through all the lessons Anne missed. Oh, those wonderful prepositions. It was really helpful to go over it all and explain each exercise to Anne. We finished off by translating another story from a book for learners. We only got half-way because we couldn't stop laughing at the story line. Granny had passed away two years previously but they still celebrated her birthday with a cake. That was odd enough but then there was the matter of the phone. Granny had been very fond of her phone, constantly phoning or texting her friends and family. So fond that the phone had gone with her into the coffin. And mother and her daughter continued to send Granny texts on special occasions. At that point we were laughing so hysterically that we just couldn't carry on. Wer're an immature bunch.

 

On the way home we stopped at Glaspwll for some honey. At £5 a jar it's a fair price for what it is though more expensive than the honey in the supermarket. But after listening to The Food Programme on R4 about how that honey comes from China where the bees are kept in warehouses and fed on sugar alone we would prefer not to buy that honey.

While Peter spent the afternoon playing pool I got on with things at home. First up was the kitchen sink. I'd noticed it wasn't draining properly so decided to check the U-bend. Not an easy task when the fixed  cupboard shelf is almost touching the bottom of the U-bend. When I finally got the U-bend off I found that although it was clear there was a build up of gunk at the start of the pipe that leads off it. I got it all cleaned up and put back together and felt quite proud of myself.

Next was those pesky water butts. Peter had found me the hole boring attachment which was another obstacle overcome. First I had to rearrange the piles of paving slabs that went under the water butts to get them high enough. Plenty of heavy lifting there. Finally all I had to do was drill holes in the water butts (one too many in one of them.) and cut the drain pipes to fit the diverters. It seems I'm incapable of cutting in a straight line at least when cutting drain pipes in situ with an old wood saw. I practised on the one behind the house first before doing the one by the road. Everything is now fitted though I need to finish off the overflow pipes, just a couple of things to buy for that.

The rest of the photos are from yesterday-

Felicia is an avid gardener and her garden is stunning. There's a cottage garden in front of their house, (which used to be the kennels for Nanteos,) then a large kitchen garden and beyond that a woodland garden.

At this time of the year the garden is full of many different varieties of hellebore.

A sad story about the pond. Every year a pair of ducks come and build a nest at the edge of the pond. They then eat all the wildlife in the pond, tadpoles, newts, water snails and other invertebrates. Then the ducklings hatch but before they are big enough to walk to the stream on the far side of the field it only takes 2 or 3 days for the buzzards and kites to eat all the ducklings. The end result is no ducklings and an empty pond.