Spring gets a little springier

It has been so cold this year. Winter seems to be finally losing its grip though. We had one day this week when the wind dropped, the sun shone and it was glorious - proper 'sit in the garden in a t-shirt' weather.

It seemed almost an insult when succeeding days dawned grey and gloomy. Especially Saturday which needed to be sunny as we had planned to join a guided walk on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path from Solva to Newgale. I had to abandon my plans to go though, as I am recovering from Slapped Cheek Syndrome - a virus which is relatively mild in children but fells adults like trees. It starts with flu-like symptoms, continues with an alarming meningitis-type rash and then attacks your joints - particularly hands, wrists, knees and feet - like sudden and acute arthritis. The only thing to do is sit it out with ibuprofen and rest, but it lasts for weeks at the very least with some suffering joint pain and stiffness for months or years.

So a strenuous coastal walk was out of the question (stairs being enough of a challenge at the moment). Instead H11 joined her friends G11 and her Mum Lins and other friends from school and guides with associated jolly dogs. It made for a happy group of walkers and the sun beamed on them for the entire trip. Meanwhile, the rest of us, Brian, R9 and I, joined G11's dad Jon to wait at Newgale for the intrepid walkers.

A cruel onshore wind slapped at our cheeks but undeterred, sausages were barbecued, coffee and hot chocolate were made, and we had a lovely picnic in the sunshine. The hardier types then continued their walk on to Broad Haven while the children stayed behind for a spot of body boarding. The tide came right in and lapped at our toes while Atlantic waves foamed and crashed - perfect conditions, if a little cold and windy for the spectators.

But it was a lovely afternoon. My opinion of beach trips is that they are pretty much camping but without the need for tents and sleeping bags. So I do pack a kettle, stove, jars of coffee, hot chocolate, milk, water and proper mugs. There's nothing finer for the soul than sitting with friends on a beach, cuddling a mug of hot coffee, warmly snuggled under a cosy quilt with a dachshund for added warmth.

Body boarding children need hot chocolate at this time of year too. That's also a fact that should be law! As is not changing at the beach - wrap aforementioned children in towels and picnic blankets and head directly home. Throw straight in shower until rewarmed.

Hopefully that is the first of many beach trips this year - 2012 was the 'year we watched the Olympics (while it rained every blinking day)'. Perhaps 2013 can be 'the year we went body boarding all the time'. Time will tell!

Quilty pleasures

As the Kaffe Fassett Quilts exhibition was so lovely and as I took soooooo many photographs, I thought I'd make them into a quick video. I was very keen to show how the quilts had been hung (as if they had been flung into the air like a pack of cards) and the clever juxtaposition of colours.

The exhibition is a delight and thoroughly inspirational. I'd seen Kaffe Fassett fabrics, of course, and I'd seen his books but there's no substitute to seeing his designs made up as he intended them to look. It's a master class of colour and pattern combination. I've tended to err on the side of simplicity in the quilts I have made so far - I think I may be more daring in future.

One thing I would love to do though is to make a whole cloth quilt in some sunshiny yellow fabric like some of the traditional Welsh quilts that are hung on the walls. These are all hand-stitched and how cheerful they must have looked on cold grey Welsh days. These Welsh Quilts often have a story attached - one made as a thank you to a farmer who gave the quilter some butter when it was on ration, others made for weddings.

The exhibition is at the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter until November. It's right next door to the Calico Kate shop which conveniently sells Kaffe Fassett fabrics (and every possible other thing the keen sewist could desire!)

Inspiration

We've just reached the end of the two week Easter school holidays. In some ways time has flown, in others it has meandered along in an aimless sort of way.

I'm still struggling with my inner demons, as I said before. I've had two successive dental abscesses which haven't helped. A first one, simple and common enough, which took a short break and then turned into a bit of an emergency. I didn't really realise what a pickle I was in, which was probably a good thing. I had exemplary NHS dental care though and am on the road to recovery, thanks to antibiotics and enough painkillers to euthanase a hippopotamus.

In the middle of it all we managed a trip (all of us as a family - how rare!) to Lampeter to see the exhibition of Kaffe Fassett quilts at the Welsh Quilt Centre. Well worth the trip, so inspirational and full of vivid, happy, soul-lifting colour. The exhibition is on until November 2nd.

I also managed to recover enough for a trip to Lawrenny with lovely Jo, her noisy boys and R9 (H11 being over at a friend's house). The sun shone in quite a spring like way for a change. We did the walk from the boat yard to Garron Pill and back round via the village.

 Of course we ended up at the Quayside tearoom and found a sheltered spot for cakes and Elderflower spritzer in the sun.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, lambing has been happening and has mostly been going well. The ewes seem to be producing colossal lambs this year (we've got a new ram). These are great big things on stilts. This one (number nine to be born) can easily suckle whilst lying down. I don't think the ewes are as amused by this as we are! Lambs with such long legs seem to get them tucked up during the birthing process, so there have been a few needing a bit of a pull. We're more than half way through now though.

Back to school tomorrow, with all the extra little things that brings. The day is already packed with orthodontist visits, sheepy things and guides -  somehow I've got to fit in the cleaning, and maybe something (anything) to progress my little business - really it needs to be a 48-hour day!

Motivation

Not really motivation, more a lack of it. For months we have trudged through mire and murk as the sky has cried rain on us. After a while you stop looking at it; the reality is so demoralising your eyes stop seeing it. It makes me turn inwards, I know it's a lack of sunlight, too little vitamin D. It causes a lack of energy, crumbling nails, dry hair and skin. The endless sucking mud saps at your energy.

Running is normally my antidote to this, the exhilaration of it even on the rainiest of days is a mood-lifter, but tendinitis put paid to running this winter. Three months was the received wisdom, which sounded like a life sentence at the beginning, but now I'm at the end of it and I can't seem to get motivated into my trainers again. Perhaps after Easter the day will come when I want to and I'll go and it will be fine again.

In the meantime I'm vacillating between weeks so ridiculously busy I don't get anything done and periods of such intense loneliness it seems as if the rest of the world is out there having fun and I'm left out of it.

But this morning the sun is out again. The world is crisp and cold and bright. I have to use the old horseshoe to smash the ice in the dogs' water bowl. This stream, which has spent the winter months angrily carving out a new, deeper trench for itself, is now pretty and trickling again with diamond sparkling ice. The ground underfoot is hard and dry and the birds have struck up their orchestra again.

Inside we're blooming!

The UK isn't quite all covered in snow at the moment - despite how it might appear from the news reports! We've got sunshine today, although it's still pretty cold outside - and a houseful of yellow pot mums. Mum took advantage of an offer to give a good home to a bargain quantity of beautiful blooms from Wiggly Wigglers and a spectacularly huge boxful of blooms arrived on Friday. There are tulips, alstomeria, smoke bush and seven bunches of chrysanthemums. The only vessel suitable for conditioning the flowers was the bath and they filled it with their loveliness while I dug vases out of cupboards. Every room now has a burst of sunny yellow and the house smells like a florists. It's lovely. Spring may not quite have sprung outdoors just yet, but inside we're blooming!

NOTE: Just wanted to add a link to Wiggly Wigglers: http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/ and to mention the fact that their flowers are British - direct from the farm in Herefordshire. They sell their own home grown bird food too which our lucky Pembrokeshire birds are busily scoffing.

Bathing piggies and eating a very Beau Bunny

Spring sprung briefly last week and it was lovely (if a little cold) to be back out in the garden again. The puddles and awful sucking mud we've endured over the past months have dried and walking around is a much easier affair again. The garden isn't terribly photogenic yet though, so instead here are the piggies having a bath.

Guinea pigs are prone to itchy little skin infections so the occasional bath (in T-Gel, as recommended by Rodents with Attitude) helps to keep them healthy.

Meanwhile, another 'pet' appeared only this one was very edible indeed! The lovely people at Hotel Chocolat offered me the chance to review one of their Easter Eggs. How could I refuse?!

This is the handsome Beau Bunny egg, in all its wrapped glory.

Beau himself adorns the eggs, cleverly printed on in chocolate. 

 He's accompanied by six tasty little eggs. The gold ones are salted caramel:

And the dark brown ones are praline:

What can I tell you? We shared this between three - one adult (me) and H11 and R9. We're already fans of Hotel Chocolat but as there are no shops in Pembrokeshire, we regard our local branches as the ones in Taunton and Exeter. They're a reliable source of thank-you-for-looking-after-our-dog-presents along with never-mind-it's-raining-on-our-holiday treats.

Beau Bunny is lovely. A nice thick egg of creamy milk chocolate, which requires a good thwack to get into it, and the little eggs are, as you'd expect, absolutely divine. The salted caramel filling was definitely the favourite with H11 and R9, in fact I think they'd have liked the main egg to be full of it too! The egg retails at £15 and for that you're getting 190g of chocolate, so it's not cheap, but it's probably one of the better quality, tastier eggs. We all loved it.

Aftermath

I suppose some level of destruction was inevitable; snow is heavy, two falls of snow, both four inches deep, are extra heavy.

It was too much for the roof over the hayloft.

Oh well, at least it saved us the job of taking it down, and it needed to be taken down so it can be repaired (when we have the cash). In the meantime a little tidying and making safe is required and that's a job for the spring.

The snow left more speedily than it arrived turning overnight into torrents of water that rushed across our concrete farmyard. On they way the thaw lifted a myriad of stones and mud, which it left behind on the yard, and it swept the bottoms of our gravelly streams clean. Grass and reeds were left flattened by the speed of the water; all stems pointing downhill towards the river which roared and growled at full capacity.

Then there were gales and hailstorms which ripped through our young Merryweather damson like a madman with an axe. The roof was whipped off the hen house and two of the occupants had a breezy night being blown about the garden (the third must have had a much tighter grip on the perch...)

We've had almost daily power cuts; intermittent things which mean all electronic clocks (on the cooker and the heating) must be repeatedly reset. There is still water, water everywhere, and mud, mud (not very) glorious mud.

On the bright side the polytunnel is intact and full of salad and we've had some bright crisp clear nights rich with stars. Sitting here now, at the computer, I look out of the window and sigh at the state of the garden but even through the gloom of dusk I can see the glimmer of a bud; a hellebore, tough as old boots and a sure sign of better things to come.