A Simple Life of Luxury

Morgan has just had a nice busy week with his Granny from the Isle of Man. He’s old enough now to remember who she is and was really excited about her coming.

Fortunately she managed to arrive before Morgan went to bed so he came to the train station to pick her up. We had a nice day out on Saturday despite the miserable wet and windy weather and went to the Arts Centre for lunch and for a look around the craft fair and food fair. Alan made good use of the wind and went windsurfing with Steve. Morgan got spoilt rotten and has had lots of little treats and he loves having an extra person around to give him lots of attention.

Alan and I made use of having a baby sitter is residence and went out to the Olive Branch in Aber for dinner on Saturday and we all went out for lunch on Sunday to ‘Heathers’ at the Garden Centre.

All in all and nice week that seems to have gone really quickly. I don’t think Morgan really realised that that when we left him at Nursery this mornign Granny was going home so we’ll have to see what he thinks tonight.

He’s already looking forward to her next visit though although I think he’ll have to wait a few months for that.

I had another nice day in the hills today mountain-biking with Reg, Shem and Martin. We started at Pendam where I met Reg at around 10am and had a cup of tea, Shem and Martin turned up, Shem with his brand new bike. A Giant Anthem which looked really nice and was pretty light too. We had a little ride around most of the Pendam Trail then stopped for a cuppa before heading of towards Nant-y-Moch and back.

Nothing too strenuous, just a steady pace with lots of little stops. Shem’s new bike didn’t quite make it though as a seal on his front forks blew with a nice pop-shhhhh kind of sound so he will be sending the bike back to get it repaired/replaced.

I’ve decided that I usually do a days gardening for local OAPS each week just to get myself away from my computer and my usual job as a web-designer, so during the winter whilst the gardens don’t need any attention I shall send that day out in the hills on my bike… OK, it doesn’t bring in any money but it keeps me fit and keeps me sane… That’s the plan anyway, lets hope work doesn’t get in the way!

I actually remembered to take a few photos before the others arrived this morning as well…

So much for watching the birds on the bird table at lunch time…. it seems as though a very hopeful cat has taken up residence underneath it!

It seems quite early to me, but we have had the first snow-fall of winter here today. When we got up the hills were all covered in snow. Not quite enough to play in and it has started to melt quite a bit already, but if my back was feeling a little better it would have been tempting to go for a mountain-bike ride in it.

Maybe this is a sign and we’re going to have a cold, snowy winter, which would be nice.

After my action packed Saturday, Sunday was destined to be a family day. We headed into Aberystwyth to get some supplies and then went to the garden centre at Capel Dewi. We hadn’t been there for a while and it has all changed, and for the better we reckon. There were new owners of the restaurant / coffee shop too, so we had a nice Sunday lunch there which was good and the staff were all very friendly.

It is also time to start feeding the birds a little more and Morgan is quite interested in them at the moment so we bought some new bird feeders and when we got back morgan helped me put them up around the garden. We never used to get much in the way of birds to the bird table, just sparrows, and the odd robin or chaffinch, but it wasn’t long before the place was full of starlings, and I’ve just taken a look out there now and joining the huge numbers of starlings was about 6 chaffinches, a robin, a couple of pied wagtails and even a blue tit.

Sunday was also pretty windy. It wasn’t forecast to be quite so windy and it would have been a good day for a speed windsurf session in the estuary, but my back was hurting so I gave it a miss and let Morgan look after me by bringing me a hot wheat bean bag thing to keep my back warm.

I’ve had another action packed weekend here in Mid Wales. Enjoying the best that the area has to offer, all thanks to Anna who of course had Morgan to contend with on Saturday whilst I enjoyed myself.

Steve arived at around 9am and we headed off to Pendam for a mountain bike ride out to Angler’s Retreat and back. I had done this route a couple of times at night whilst following others from the Ystwyth Cycling Club, but hadn’t done it in the daylight or found the route on my own.

The route finding was fine and if anything it was easier at night, but the route itself was good with a good variety of surfaces and technical difficulty and not too much sustained climbing. It was pretty cold and wet up there and the wind was picking up so we only did the one route of about 14 miles so that we could head back down to the beach for a windsurf session. Steve managed to fall off a couple of time and I managed to find one really deep (probably about waist deep) puddle that I cycled through. Steve saw me disappear into it and thought better of trying to ride through it himself. needless to say I got pretty wet.

Back at sea-level and there was enough wind for a decent windsurf session at Ynyslas. I tried out my new wheel-barrow as my previous one has rusted away and met Steve, Impi and a guy from the south coast over there. We had a good session in what is now beginning to feel like winter conditions.

This part of Wales really does have a lot to offer for those who like the outdoor lifestyle and a bit of adventure.

Anna and Morgan meanwhile had been busy sorting out Morgans toys and cooking soup.

So that Anna doesn’t tell me off again for not blogging about the new bedroom furniture I thought Id better post some photos of the progress so far to accompany her previous post.

More stuff should be arriving on Thursday so no doubt I shall be ‘hard at it in the bedroom’ again on Thursday evening.

I’ve been waiting for Al to tell you about this but I’ve given up waiting.

We finally got around to ordering our new bedroom furniture. With limited choice around here we had to get it from MFI but we found just what we were after and I think we managed to get a fairly good deal as well.

As with all things like this nothing ever runs smoothly and after waiting nearly 4 weeks for delivery we hit our firt problem! I rang to check the delivery time only to be told by a recorded message that our furniture had already been delivered!….there was definitely no new furniture at our house and we were surviving on no bedroom furniture ready for the new stuff. A quick call to our local store sorted this one out and they assured me it would be delivered the following morning.

Delivered it was, within the time limits given. All good so far!….until the delivery men informed Al that not all of the stuff was there and the rest would be delivered in about 2 weeks….Typical! Not only this, we had a ‘courtesy’ call from MFI after the delivery to let us know that not everything would be there!

Al had taken a day off (from windsurfing I think) to wait in for the new stuff and I had taken the following day off to help build it all with Migmogs out of the way. I have rung and complained and apparently once the rest of the itiems are delivered they will call me to discuss a gesture of goodwill (I’ll believe it when I hear it!).

It wasn’t actually as bad as it first seemed. We were missing 3 cabinets which meant we could at least put the wardrobes together. The first one went up quickly, even with Morgan helping. Then we got out the bit that fits it into the wall giving the nice finished effect. We stood looking at this for about 2 hours and gave up.

The following day we cracked it and what is there so far looks really good. I don’t know where we would have been if Al hadn’t picked up a few good DIY tips from his dad. Al did the technical bits and I put the drawers together (we all know who will get the blame if they fall to bits in years to come).

Long time readers of this blog will know that is know a family tradition to go Xmas tree-hunting in the run up to Christmas. Previous posts here will show that we usually meet up for our annual Xmas Tree Hunt at Brockley Combe Forest, cut down a tree, wander around aimlessly for a while and then drive all the way back home. All very nice, but now that none of us live anywhere near Brockley Combe it is quite a trek and there isn’t really much to do there other than cut down a tree. Yes, its a nice walk, but even that is over ground we have trod on every year, so we thought it would be good to do something else this year.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time mountain biking in the forests around here and they are having a Christmas Market at Coed-y-Brenin this year so we thought that would be the perfect place to go. The market will provide a craft and food fair for the girlies, Santa’s going to be there for the children and there will be elves in the forest, there’s a cafe for lunch and plenty of walks to do on new trails with new views and of course a few of us will be able to go mountain-biking too. Hopefully it will be a good day out for everyone and it looks as though everyone will make the trip up from Bristol too.

There was no wind forecast this weekend and after a brief visit to Coed y Brenin a few weeks ago I was dying to try out some of the moutnain biking trails there so I made an early start on Saturday and met Steve in the car park at 9am.

We decided to do the trail called ‘The Beast’ which is basically a combination of the MBR and ‘The Dragons Back’ trails and according to the trail guides is 38km long, rated as a black run and therefore only suitable for experienced riders used to prolonged physical effort and difficult terrain and should take between 3 and 6 hours.

The trail starts off with some well constructed rocky singletrack which was very bumpy for Steve and I on our hardtail mountain bikes. It then climbs up the hill on a combination of forest roads and technical double and single tracks before launching you into some really good downhill sections over rocky singletrack. next up was probably the best bits of the whole ride, ‘The Pink Heiffer’ and ‘The Big Dug’ which are long flowing singletrack descents that were a joy to ride.

Steve was now beginning to suffer from some mechanical problems with a broken cassette and a lack of drive but was soldiering on. It did mean I had to wait at the end of each section for him, but at least i could have a rest and he was still enjoying himself.

We then climbed again and after a few stops to chat with other riders and at one point a group of about 30 girls we reached the forest cafe. We didn’t stop, but headed off into some more open countryside and a long, slow climb to the top of the hill. We stopped again for some refreshments and to admire the view and then headed off down some very tricky descents. the section called ‘Gomez’ was particularly difficult. Before long we were back at the river and had another climb to the top of the hill before a final descent towards the car park and a final singletrack section back to the visitor centre.

Steves bike had now given up completely so he ended up pushing his bike for the last few miles, and I thought I may have lost him completely at one point, but patience paid off and he arrived at the top of the last climb in the end.

Despite all of the stops and the mechanical issues we completed the course in 3 hours and could probably have done it in much less as we took it easy all the way around.

I’d certainly recommend it though as the trail has a nice mixture of riding and is the perfect distance for a nice, nothing too major, day in the saddle.

I even took a camera with me, and guess what used it once as well so here are a couple of very autumnal photos from Coed y Brenin.