Spoilt for choice

There were Christmas craft fairs everywhere today. We went to the one at Colby Woodland Gardens which gave us free entry and Claire of Cake Carousel was there with her delicious cupcakes which H9 and R7 are quite fond of sampling.

But we could have gone to two in Narberth - one foodie one vintage - or one at the Steiner School or another at the hall in Clynderwen.

Colby though is one we've been to before and after you've perused the stalls you can wander the pretty walled garden.

The fuchsias are still in full bloom, despite the fact it's only five weeks to Christmas.

The rill looks pretty all year round. The octagonal house at the top hasn't been open to the public before this year and all we've done previously is peer in through the windows.

Now though, they let you inside. It's a real sun trap and has clever trompe l'oeil pictures on the wall. You can hire it now for fully catered functions. I just have to work out some sort of a function I might need fully catering. It would be lovely here.

H9 and R7 had raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes and then bought bug catching pots from the National Trust shop. I bought beads and other sparkly bits and bobs for Christmas decorations from Carole at Begelly Beads. All the while the sun shone and it felt more like March than November.

A bit of calm, then a bit of storm...

It sometimes feels as if Colby Woodland Garden is our second home. It is only a 20 minute drive due south from the Preselis, and only the vaguest hint of sunshine compels us there. So we found ourselves there on Saturday with the lovely woodland paths to ourselves. We no longer need a map to navigate the maze of hilly paths and H and R just love to race ahead up little steps and around corners watching out for squirrels and hobbits.

But Saturday was the calm before the storm. R5 had been complaining of a sore gum and on Sunday she woke up looking like a hamster who had stuffed a football into the pocket of its cheek. A few phone calls later found us in Tenby Cottage Hospital with a dentist instead of in Theatr Mwldan watching The Secret of Moonacre. It transpires that R5 has an abscess underneath a molar and must have the offending tooth extracted under general anaesthetic in Swansea.

Fine (actually not fine, but anyway) here enters the politics of dental treatment in Pembrokeshire. My sister is a dentist and, until recently, has been taking care of our teeth. But she is in Sheffield and now H and R are no longer babies and have commitments such as school, zooming off up the motorway spending gold-plated unleaded is becoming less appealing. So much less appealing in fact, that we haven't darkened the doorway of my sister's surgery since February 2007. Instead I have been looking for a local dentist since before Christmas and the best I have been offered is to be put on a waiting list of 12 to 18 months. Sadly R5's teeth couldn't wait.

Each time I have admitted that we haven't seen a dentist for over two years to a dentist/dental nurse/local health board person/dental surgery receptionist I feel as if I am waving a big banner which reads: I AM A BAD MOTHER. Each time I look at my little hamster-jawed five-year-old I beat myself over the head with said banner. But time has, well, passed. And we missed the fact that all was not well tooth-wise inside R5's mouth. Even my sister from her lofty position of dental knowledge suggested that the marks visible on R5's teeth were "staining caused by your water, are-you-using-the-correct-toothpaste-and-brushing-properly?"

The position today is that R5 is on antibiotics and painkillers. We cannot register with a dentist because they are all full. I have phoned and left messages with various people who have the power to admit us to dental treatment and my sister has e-mailed someone she met on a course who works in Pembrokeshire.

Now we can do is wait for a dentist to find a gap in their busy schedule to accommodate at least R5, if not the rest of us (I fear to look inside any other mouths in case further nightmares lurk within) wait for the antibiotics to work their magic and worry about impending general anaesthesia.

Bugger.

While the sun shines...

We have had two weeks of the school holidays now and the first week was a bit of a wash out. First Rosie was ill and it was raining, then I took both girls for their injections (Rosie, 3, is just having her baby injections; Hannah, 5, is having her pre-school boosters. We’re a bit behind.) and it was raining, then Hannah was ill and it was raining.

Then the rain stopped, the sun came out and we did normal holiday things like go to Newgale beach last Saturday and eat sandy sandwiches and ice cream. We built a sandcastle with a moat and then a seaweed fire breathing dragon using the big smooth cobbles from Newgale’s sea defences.

We then went to Hilton Court Gardens which has a wooded garden with a maze of paths mown in between the trees, just perfect for little girls to race about. It has a lake with waterlillies and dragonflies and a tea shop which serves truly fabulous cakes.

I was there once pre-children with Mum. We had been for a tour around the gardens and were just sitting down to a pot of tea and a slice of poppy seed cake when a woman and her elderly mother arrived. The woman was quite primly dressed; a sort of twin set and pearls type, and very nicely spoken. Her mother was the sort of woman who would wear purple and eat a whole pound of sausages at one go. She was all grey-haired, twinkly-eyed mischief. In a granny hat.

“Look,” she announced in a loud, carrying voice to her prim daughter. “That tree over there is a Penis Glaucosa.”
“Mother,” shrieked Miss Prim in the style of Lady Bracknell saying ‘a handbag’, “I think you mean Pinus!”
Mother sat down to her tea with a very satisfied look on her face.

Monday found us at Colby Woodland Gardens again. We ran about the paths, pausing occasionally to admire the hydrangeas which are in full bloom at the moment. The walled garden is superb at this time of year. A lovely cool rill runs down the middle and there is an enviable rosemary hedge. I adore rosemary (which is why Rosie is called Rosemary). I am currently taking rosemary cuttings to make my own Colby-style rosemary hedge. The garden also boasts a fig tree, with big fat figs on it. My fig tree dropped all its baby figs during the dry spring, but it is in a pot, so perhaps I had better take the plunge and plant it in the ground. I have spent the past five years dithering over where to put it and, to be honest; I’m still none the wiser.

This year we have decided to make hay not haylage. Yes, I know we have taken this decision in the wettest year since records began! The past couple of years the haylage has been so dry, we have wondered why we bothered to wrap it, especially since the plastic is such a pain to get rid of. So, in the spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle, as Bob the Builder would say, it will not be wrapped, and our fingers will be firmly crossed until it is safely tucked away in the barn.

The hay was cut on Tuesday, turned on Wednesday, and rained on in the early hours of Thursday morning. But only a little. Mum has been phoning the turner and the baler and has vague promises that they will come (hopefully in the right order) to row the hay up and then big bale it. But everyone is so busy having been held up for six weeks by the wet weather. It will get done, though, it usually does.

Our Exmoor pony lodger has returned for a month. She has been away to a yard to be taught a few manners and now is much more polite about gateways and the fingers of small children. She has lost none of her feisty nature, however, and still thinks she should be first, whatever is happening. So far on this stay she has not broken any fence posts or gates and hasn’t started any riots yet. When the farrier visited on Tuesday morning she waited her turn like a good little girl. Last time she broke the gate latch because she wanted to see what was going on (and be first, of course).

So we are settling down to our summer routine of getting up late, forgetting to brush our hair and going out on alternate days. If it rains we do craft, so are slowly disappearing under a pile of drawings and paintings, including one, today, of a snowman.

Sunny days at home this week have involved climbing up the hill to inspect the hay and riding scooters back down again (it’s a very good slope). While the girls ride their scooters I plan my fantasy house which would be built up the hill with views of the Preselis and towards Tenby. This is in my fantasy world where the local planners would let me build a house in the middle of a field in the middle of a farm. Dream on! It would have lots of sunny windows, lovely wooden beams (oak) and a big, square kitchen with a table and an Aga. It would be far, far away from our noisy inconsiderate neighbours. Sigh.