Life is better when the sun shines

It was feeling almost springlike today as I was giving Pippin her extra food. The poor old thing's still going strong despite having a list of ailments as long as her tail. She loves her extra treats.

We could do with more dry days like today because it's like this pretty much all over the farm - worse in some places. The land just cannot take any more rain. At least it is sloping so the worst of the wet runs off, but put your boot down on even the greenest-looking bit and the answer is squelch.

I love it when the sheep are obedient. Who needs a sheepdog when you can just open the gate and call them? We used the international sheep call sign of here sheepy sheep sheeps and (for once) in they came. The rattling of a feed sack helped, as did the fact that they knew a cosy barn is theirs until after lambing and sheep like nothing better than loafing about indoors with unlimited food. 

Dylan the new ram seems to be quite the charmer and has settled happily into the flock. He had sore feet but a bit of appropriate medicine and the company of his new ladies took his mind off his sore hooves and he's sound again.

Everything we do has spectators. This is Mitch, the bossiest of the cat pack. And no, don't laugh at the "door". It'll get fixed one day. So what if it doesn't quite reach to the floor?! It saves the need for a cat flap.

Magatha Christie and the case of the missing keys

It began on a dark and rainy Friday evening in the depths of the sober lull between Christmas and New Year. After shuffling the children off to bed I reclined on the sofa, settled the dog snugly on my lap and prepared to watch Restoration Man.

My gentle slumbers close attention to George Clarke's erudite commentary was rudely interrupted by the telephone. Brian answered because he was awake nearest. I paid little attention until the words "no, it's no problem, we'll come and get you" were uttered.

What?!

It turned out that Mum, who had nipped out to her meditation group in Nevern, had become parted from her coat and in that coat pocket was her car key. Ah ha.

It also turned out that "we'll fetch you" actually meant "Maggie will fetch you". Ah ha ha.

I dragged myself out from underneath the dog, threw on my coat and valiantly charged out into the stormy night in my 4X4.

I splashed triumphantly into Nevern, to be greeted with the words, "have you got my spare car keys?" Oh expletive deleted I'd forgotten them. Ah ****ing ha.

So I drove my parent back over the Preseli Hills through fog and rain and wind while she explained that her coat had inadvertently gone home (to a deepest darkest somewhere south of Lampeter) on the back of a gentleman who had mistaken her smart Berghaus waterproof with its pocketful of car keys and sensible torch for his moth-eaten coat which had the grand total of nothing in its scruffy pockets. Mum was wearing the latter (because it was raining) looking moth-eaten, scruffy and car key and torch-less.

We left Mum's car (according to her) tucked in neatly at the side of the road or (according to me) parked in the middle of the road blocking her hosts' car neatly in its driveway and causing a small obstruction to those negotiating the picturesque but narrow bridge over the river Nevern.

The night passed bringing more rain and the morning subsequently arrived with news from Mum's hosts that her car was parked near the river and the aforementioned river had just burst its banks. Ah.

We had visions of a little silver Hyundai Getz appearing on news reports bobbing down the river to the sea and causing a hazard to shipping.

So we splashed over the Preselis again, this time double-checking the presence of the spare key, passing through two floods and dodging others and successfully rescued the car from the clutches of the river Nevern.

The coat, the keys and the torch? Well they're still somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of the countryside south of Lampeter. The apologetic gentleman says he'll return them. Eventually. Case closed.

* Incidentally, Maggie isn't really short for Magatha, but I think it would suit my surname better if it was!

What really bugs me about Christmas...

What really bugs me about Christmas is the way TV adverts and magazines portray it. We see harassed mum going from shopping to cleaning to party to cooking and then relative after relative arriving to open piles of expensive presents before squeezing around a table to eat a massive turkey.

Is it really like that? Or are we just made to feel that is how it should be so we spend lots of money trying to achieve that TV advertland ideal?

Martin Moneysavingexpert Lewis has been ranting about this for years - about how we feel obligated to give cards and buy presents we can't afford for people we don't like. He's taken a lot of flack for saying it but he has got a point.

I blame the gift bag for starters. I don't know who invented them but they are ridiculous! What happened to the single, individually wrapped present? A gift bag begs to be FILLED and that's expensive. Of course they're perfect when gifting for families as you can tuck everyone's present in together but not one bag each - unless you can afford it and as long as they then don't feel obligated to equally reciprocate.

I'm learning not to feel guilty about not always being able to reciprocate. We can't keep up with the lovely relatives who send our children cash. It seems crazy to then send it back to theirs, but we have done that in the past.

I LOVE buying presents. I buy Christmas presents all year round if I see the right thing and I stick to my budget, not because I'm Scrooge but because I don't have any alternative.

I LOVE making presents, which is why Magatha Bagatha came into being and I LOVE giving presents (especially to children).

BUT...

I worry about those with small families, those who work on Christmas Day, those who live on their own and will be spending the day alone, those who have lost jobs, those who have lost relatives. Christmas in advertland isn't how it's supposed to be. That's someone else's Christmas. We should all stick to our own individual versions, tailor-made to suit ourselves and our budget and, definitely, not feel obligated, not feel guilty and not feel OMG-how-can-I-afford-this?!

Here, in our little part of the Preseli Hills, this is how things are:

We HATE turkey - so we're having chicken. Three generations will sit in COMFORT around the dining table - there's five of us (not 'only' five, just five). The tree isn't a Norwegian spruce (LOVE the smell, HATE the price) it's a willow branch (and some Crabtree and Evelyn Noel room spray for fragrance.) I HATE tinsel (so it's quarantined upstairs where the children have lovingly wound it around everywhere). This is NOT America so there's no cranberry sauce. I haven't bought a SINGLE gift bag (we're always given plenty to recycle!) If you turn up and I'd like to give you a present, I WILL give you marmalade but don't feel obligated to give anything back. I bought ONE pack of Christmas cards and ONE book of stamps and they're all used up now so if you didn't get a card, I'm sorry but HAPPY CHRISTMAS anyway.

Have a very happy Christmas everyone, and have YOUR perfect Christmas, not somebody else's.

Mud, water and festive breakages

Mud

The relentless rain has left us fetlock deep in mud. Walking the dogs is more slipping with the dogs and they haul vast quantities back in to the house with them on their paws. The sheep don't seem to mind, thanks to the invention of lanolin. The ponies mind and are brought into the shed to dry out. The four-legged can walk about on the mud - if one leg slips there's another three to lean on. Humans are less fortunate so walking about is tiresome. A couple of times I've had to grab onto a handy mane to save from muddy disaster.

Water

Our farm, like all of the others here, is strewn with streams. In the summer they burble happily down to the river at the bottom, in winter - or, rather, in a WET winter like this one - they hurry angrily on down muttering loudly to themselves. Unless of course they become clogged with leaves and then there is childlike pleasure in kicking the leaves out and getting a satisfying gurgle before the stream forms a mini tsunami and rushes on again sweeping a barrage of leaves in its path. Even though only a foot wide and ankle-deep the power is surprising. It makes me wish I had the wit of an engineer, imagining how even a tiny turbine could harness that power and turn it into electricity. I know it can be done, I've even seem it demonstrated on Youtube with an empty water carrier and plastic spoons but I cannot work out how that electricity, once made, could be employed. I should have paid attention in physics.

Christmas

The festive season has arrived despite my best efforts to ignore it and hope it will magically move itself to a more convenient time, say, around Easter. I've been busy with Magatha Bagatha sewing presents for family alongside making things for customers. It's been an absolute joy - especially finding out how much I love making bunting and designing cushions to a customer's specification. Comments such as: "Maggie, they are amazing, I am over the moon with them,"  and "Wow! I love them!" are so lovely and very encouraging.

Finally though I have got to the end of the things I need to make and have packed away my sewing machine. Underneath it was the dining table, which we're going to need next Tuesday, and around it, under heaps of material, is apparently the rest of the dining room although I haven't managed to locate all of it yet!

But I have got the tree up - a bit of goat willow I found in the hedge by the river. Last time we chopped down an ash sapling that was growing in the wrong place, but it would seem vandalism to kill an ash at the moment. The willow is an excellent substitute and looks festive wrapped in sparkling lights.

Small disasters

Things keep breaking. My car was the start of this current spate of breakages. I actually cried when it left, I'm such a wuss. I loved my CR-V. Then we acquired a gorgeous new (younger, sprightlier) one that I love more; I'm that fickle.

The oil boiler has been broken for ages but we finally saved up enough to pay for it to be fixed (by not using or having to pay for oil - simple!) and now it is working again we are flagrantly leaving it on all day and basking in the heat. The bathroom is warm (hot!) enough for a leisurely bath, not just a splash and dash.

Then the fridge part of the fridge freezer broke. Just as I was about to stuff it with food ready for Christmas. Blasted thing. What timing! If it wasn't already dead I'd kill it. We'd always hated it tough (horrid complicated LG thing) so  a replacement is arriving tomorrow.

We've been on Mulliday

Well, on holiday to the Isle of Mull anyway. My Dad lives there (see Peter on Mull) with  his wife Pat in a lovely new house they've built together in a very handy spot near where the Oban ferry arrives.

Turus Mara.

We trekked up the motorway, overnighted at Carlisle and spent Sunday night to Thursday morning on the island. It was my second visit to Mull but the first for Brian and the first ever visit to Scotland for H10 and R8.

Mull is like the rest of Scotland - soaring peaks, seaweedy beaches and crystal clear lochs, all packed with wildlife. When we weren't tripping over fat bunny rabbits we were spotting deer, arguing over whether it was buzzard or golden eagle and giggling at the antics of otters. We searched for Highland Coos, admired the curlicue horns on Blackface sheep and bemoaned the absence of white-tailed eagles.

An otter before breakfast.

We bounced around on bumpy roads in the back of Dad and Pat's Land Rover, toasted marshmallows over embers in the fireplace of an abandoned bothy, photographed peak after peak after peak and fell over on slippy seaweedy paths and nearly broke our wrists (well, only Dad and I).

There were the usual funnies - one when I jumped out of the car to photograph an eagle and dropped one of my leather gloves on the road. I didn't realise until my hands were cold in Tobermory. Yes we drove all the way back to pick it out of a puddle. (Sighs and rolls eyes.)

Another happened as we queued to leave the island when the CalMac man took tickets and asked Brian to confirm the number of occupants in the car.

"Five," Brian boomed back confidently, handing over five tickets, forgetting that one was for the car.

CalMacMan smiled thinly, handed over FOUR boarding cards and announced dryly, "The one in the boot gets in for free."

I laughed at that all the way back to Pembrokeshire. (Last time, when we were in Scotland on honeymoon, Brian drove into a lay-by for no apparent reason and I was laughing so hard I couldn't tell him what he had done. It was the lay-by on the left just before you get to the turning for Duck Bay and we gave it a wave on this trip. He maintains to this day that it looks just like road, not lay-by. He's wrong.)

Snow, as requested by H10 and R8.

We left Scotland with snow on its highest peaks and followed the rainbows back down the motorways and over sleet-laden hills and finally back to home. The journey takes 12 hours but the views are so wonderful from the northern stretch of the M6 it's not that onerous (especially if you can't drive because your wrist is too bruised from falling over watching otters!)

From PC despair to PC joy!

Poor blog! It has been a trifle neglected of late. Partly this is because my desktop PC died and there was much to do to transfer files and here I must send heartfelt thanks to LJ Computers Ltd for rescuing my hard disc.

Apparently my motherboard was 'sizzling' when Jon (the J of LJ Computers) turned it on so then it was a case of file rescue from the hard disc. Easy when you know how - or know someone who does! LJ Computers are local to me here but they are like an online IT department, supporting everything from software, to hardware, websites and IT training. And they know how to rescue a gal in PC trouble!

They advised on shiny new hardware for me too and I now have an HP PC with Windows 7. This was a big jump from Windows XP and it's LOVELY.

Apart from going from PC despair to PC joy I've been sewing, sewing and sewing for a craft fair I'm taking part in (and for Christmas presents too).

The craft fair is on November 10th, 10am to 4pm, at Clarbeston Road hall and Lins (coincidentally the L of LJ Computers) is rounding up lots of talented craftspeople from Pembrokeshire to sell their wares and raise funds for St Meilyr's Church in Llysyfran. This is perfect timing for Christmas shopping and if you're in the area on that day I urge you to come along, have a mince pie and BUY LOCAL FOR CHRISTMAS!

Magatha Bagatha (aka me) will have cushions, cafetiere covers, lavender bags and covered journals (so far!), R8 is bringing along some of her embroidery and H10 and her friend G11 will be selling homemade dog biscuits to raise money for the Dog's Trust. for the full list of exhibitors see the website HERE.

UPDATE: Find LJ Computers on Facebook HERE. They are a friendly and approachable family-run company  and provide hosting and website design alongside quality IT advice, support and delivery. Their websites are: www.ljcltd.co.uk and www.ljcltd-webhosting.co.uk.

Thoughts on a half marathon

I ran the Cardiff Half Marathon yesterday for the fourth time. The sun was smiling on Cardiff and the 18,000 runners started to the chimes of the Cardiff Castle clock.

These are some of my thoughts over the 13.1 miles:

STARTING PEN: I can see the start arch. I must be too far forward. Blimey that tannoy is so loud! Everyone around me looks a bit too fit. I might just try to edge back a bit... Oops, stepped on another runner. I'm stuck! I need a wee.

MILE 1: Must try to get rid of knackered old fleece that's keeping me warm without annihilating anyone in the cheering crowds. Bye bye fleece! Hello people waving from bedroom windows in fluffy pink dressing gowns.

MILE 2: This is LOVELY! Cheering crowds in Grangetown, decent pace, feeling GOOD! Ooh look, a gorilla!

MILE 3: Everyone is running past me. Apart from the ones who are walking. Overtaken by Yoda. Quite a fast runner, Yoda is. First water stop. Lovely.

MILE 4: Overtaken by Mr Potato Head, Buzz Lightyear and a bloke dressed as a lifeboat. It's a bit crowded but the pace is comfortable.

MILE 5: This is BRILLIANT! Runners around me are talking of 2:15 pace. I can't do that but they're overtaking me so that's okay. This is my favourite part - over Cardiff Bay Barrage. Overtaken by three blokes wearing Speedos. Just Speedos. Hello Dr Who Experience.

MILE 6: Straight down Lloyd George Avenue. This has been the start/finish in previous years. Hello air cadets, thank you for the gels. The road is sticky from discarded gel packets. It's like running on Velcro. Thank you lovely spectator person for the wine gums! Hello Senedd.

MILE 7: More friendly cheering crowds. This is like being in the Olympics! Is the the legacy that Lord Coe was talking about? I think so. Long may it last.

MILE 8: I'm running on the spot. And hallucinating. I'm pretty sure a tall pink furry thing has just overtaken me with an ironing board strapped to its back. Weird.

MILE 9: I'm running, facing forwards but going backwards. How is that possible? Overtaken by the Jamaican bobsleigh team carrying their bobsleigh and singing 'You've Lost That Loving Feelin'.

MILE 10: I can't feel my toes. Actually I can feel my toes and I wish I couldn't. Ow, ow, OW! The road is littered with the corpses of abandoned Mars Bars.

MILE 11: I AM NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN THIS IS HELL! More water. Thank you. Morphine would have been better. I'll just have a little walk. I NEVER walk in half marathons. This is BAD. Feel better after a few moments and run again. Second wind. It hurts but I think I may finish in a reasonable time, if not my best.

MILE 12: Woman crossing the road with toddler in one hand and pushchair in the other clips my heel and sends me sprawling. I scream SH*T!!! in front of crowds of friendly spectators, while pushchair woman looks horrified. Gallant, chivalrous man puts out arms to catch should I fall. Luckily I stay upright by flailing arms and legs like a stranded starfish. Brave man had a lucky escape. I'd have flattened him and covered him in sweat. Surge of adrenaline speeds me away from embarrassing scene and up nasty bit of hill.

MILE 13: Pushchair incident has shocked all joints in legs and pelvis. Ankle feels awful. Can hardly walk, let alone run. Hobble along feeling sorry for self. Surrounded by other walkers. I've never been this far back in the field.

FINISH: Speedy expert runner, with medal already around neck, yells that we'll be able to see the finish around the next corner. Force body to run. I CAN SEE THE FINISH! Sprint for the line overtaking corpses on the way. Grab medal and say thankyouthankyouthankyou to all the stewards and volunteers at the finish. Hobble away carrying goodie bag and medal.

Cardiff Half Marathon history: 2009, 2 hours 25 mins; 2010, 2 hours 17 mins; 2011, 2 hours 25 mins; 2012, 2 hours 40 mins.

That's my last one for the time being. I've finally been forced to admit that the training required to get to 13.1 miles in exacerbating my Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction - a condiditon I developed during pregnancy. It's difficult to run that far with a wobbly pelvis and I've found that my weekly limit is a maximum of 17 miles, not the 25 miles plus I need to be able to do. So it's strength training, shorter runs, cycling and 10ks for me for a bit.

As for half marathons, I know I said never, but...