A Simple Life of Luxury

Geocaching seems to have turned me into a media hound! Maybe not, but I did do an interview and spend a morning geocaching with BBC Radio Wales the other day.

This was completely unrelated to my recent article that was published on the BBC Isle of Man website, but I was approached by the producer of Country Focus that airs on BBC Radio Wales and asked if I would mind doing a half hour programme all about Geocaching. I got together a few other aber-cachers and we met up last week to take the shows presenter out caching for the morning.

After a quick introduction in my office explaining the concept and showing them how to get the cache details from the web an into my GPSr and iPod we jumped in the car and headed into Aberyswyth where we went in search of the Yellow cache from the Rainbow series. Red Kite (the owner of the cache) and Sarah from Idle Rocks were with me along with the shows present (Mel Doel) and producer (Pauline Smith) We gave Mel and Pauline the GPSr and let them find the cache themselves which they did easily. Sarah hadn;t foudn this one either so after signing the logbook, and leaving a BBC Radio Wales calling card it was back into the car and up to the Forestry at pendam for a search for one of my caches.

The Pendam Cache had gone missing a week or so before so I quickly restored it with a new one. We then met Gareth from Forestry Commission, and Peter Hewlett from Llyn Peninsula and had a little interview with them about eco-tourism and gecoaching. We then headed off to allow them to find the Pendam cache.

The Country Focus people had brought a Travel Bug with them so they dropped that off in the cache and will be monitoring its progress on the programme. The programme airs at 7.30am on a Sunday so not many people that know me will hear it (probably a good thing!), and we’re not sure when exactly it will go out, but I’m sure I’ll let you know here oncer I have some more info.

Overall it was a nice morning out. I wanted to stress that geocaching for me was really about the walk and the countryside rather than the finding of the cache, and a way to go to places that you might otherwise not have gone to, but I’m not sure how it will come out once they edit it all. I have a feeling they were trying to portray me as a mad geocacher who spends his time searching for plastic boxes and getting excited about the contents! I know that is what some people do and I also wanted to express the fact that geocaching is really varied and can be whatever you want it to be, but again we’ll have to see if that makes it into the show.

We’ve had some fun at the beach recently. Nothing unusual there, but its good to make the most of it and all too easy to take it for granted when it is so close.

Morgan and I built a huge sandcastle one morning and watched the tide destroy it. We also tried out Morgans new wetsuit and let Morgan have a go on a body-board. I’m not sure what he thought of it really as he soon got cold but he seemed really excited beforehand and did talk about catching the waves later, once he had warmed up.

We also tried to go out in the new inflatable canoe the other day, but the waves were a little too big and Morgan wasn’t too keen so Anna and Morgan played in a pool on the beach whilst I tried to surf in the canoe. We shall have to have another go soon either in the estuary or on a dead flat day on the sea.

I also got out windsurfing yesterday in conditions that were as good as they get here in West Wales. 30 knots of wind, huge waves and best of all, glorious sunshine. I even plucked up the courage to attempt a forward loop, but only the one!

It’s been a while since I mentioned how the garden is getting on but I’ve been spending some time on it recently so thought and update was due.

Most things are growing well despite the difficult conditions. Our soil is nothing but sand, the winds are ferocious most of the time and the air is salt laden. Not a great starting point for a glorious garden I know, but we’re working on it. The compost bins have been emptied and forked into the borders which is gradually improving the soil and as the various plants and hedges growing are beginning to provide some shelter.

The Gunnera is doing well and Morgan shelters under its large leaves if it starts raining. We also seem to be having quite a bit of success with the Hebes and Golden Elder so I’ve taken some cuttings of these so that we can create a few more little hedges here and there.

The recent winds which were pretty strong for the time of year (even for here) did a little damage, but thankfully my Pergola stood firm. Some leaves were broken on the Gunnera, the rose and Margarites have some windburn on them and some were blown over and the poppies were stripped of their flowers but most things seem to have survived.

I’ve even spent some money (shock, horror!) on some plants. The new acquisitions are some climbers for the pergola. A large Solanum (Chilean Potato Vine) for one side and a Honeysuckle and Polygonum (Russian Vine or Mile-a-Minute plant) for the other. It’s rare that we buy plants for the garden as we can never be sure how well they will fare here, but I couldn’t resist them. The Honeysuckle should be OK and the one out the front which came from a cutting is doing well, but the other plant may suffer from the wind. Only time will tell.

The garden won’t win any awards but considering the location and the fact that we’ve spent very little on plants it is coming along slowly but surely.

Our latest ‘toy’ is an inflatable canoe that we bought from the unlikely source of Lidl in Aberystwyth.

Inflatable Canoe

It is a two man inflatable canoe, although we can get the three of us in it fairly comfortably and it comes complete with seats and various storage compartments. The inner is your normal plastic rubber dinghy style material then it is all covered in a (hopefully) hard-wearing PVC fabric. It doesn;t take too long to inflate. There are two main side chambers, a hull chamber and two little chambers that act as cushions for you to sit on. The seats then buckle in using webbing straps and you are ready to go.

We’ve wanted a canoe for a while now, but a big open Canadian Canoe was just a little to difficult to transport, store and carry to the beach. We’ve looked at solid plastic sit on tops and such like too but again storage and transport was a problem. The inflatable option seemed the best way to go as it all packs up into an easy to carry bag and will hopefully mean we can take it to the beach or elsewhere with ease and will therefore actually use it more.

I’ve been out for a test run in it. I pumped it up and carried it across to the beach which was probably a mistake as it then catches the wind and makes carryin it a little difficult. next time I think I’ll pump it up on the beach. I then headed out to sea from Ynyslas and out to the Aberdovey Bar. From here I weaved my way through the sandbanks and acros to Aberdovey where I stopped for a little picnic. I then paddled along the coast to Graveyards, out to the Aberdovey Buoy and back across to Ynyslas where I played around in the small surf for bit. All seemed to go well. It was fairly slow going into the wind but the boat was super stable and fairly easy to paddle. It will however be best suited to calm days or protected rivers, lakes and estuaries.

Now I can’t wait to go out for a family outing in it. Who knows we may go on camping trips up the Dovey before long.

After our relaxing morning sailing at Axbridge Reservoir we headed off to Cheddar and drove up the gorge. There were a few geocaches in the gorge so we stopped off to do these.

The first was a quick cache and dash called ‘Home of the Cheddar Pink‘ on the roadside. It was a gorgeous day so the gorge was pretty busy with tourists and hundreds of climbers but I managed to retrieve and replace it discretely. Next was a quick Earthcache all about the gorge itself. Morgan and I sat on the grass for a bit and watched the world go by whilst Anna had a snooze on the car.

We then headed off up the gorge and into Priddy (The highest village on the Mendips), where I went off on a little walk around the village finding the various clues of the Priddy Perambulation cache. Morgan and Anna slept in the car whilst I did this. This was a lovely cache, helped of course by the amazing weather, but it took me on a little walk around the village finding various numbers and learning a bit about the history of the village too. All the clues were easy to find as was the final (quite large) container so there was nothing to frustrate, just a nice easy pleasant treasure trail.

We then headed off to Stock hill and another geocache in the woods. This one, The Stock Hill Tri-Angle was a little more difficult. A short walk from the road took us deep into the woods where the GPS signal was a little patchy. Once there we had to find three trees, each with a letter (A, B and C) on them. It took a while to find the first but at least then we knew what we were looking for. The next two took a bit of time to find as well, but once we had all three we then had a triangle with sides of about 30m. The cache was somewhere within this triangle. We then searched for a while to find the cache. We lost track of which tree was which a few times so had to re-search for the letters a couple of time, but eventually we found what was a very cleverly hidden cache. I won’t give anything away here but it was well camouflaged and well hidden so we were pretty pleased with ourselves once we had found it.

Yet again geocaching kept us amused for the afternoon and gave us a reason to go to some places that we might not have bothered going to otherwise.

We’ve just got back from a nice weekend away visiting family in the South West. We went this weekend as there was a windsurf demo day at Axbridge Reservoir. Although this isn’t the sort of place I would normally windsurf my brother moors his boat there so we though it would be nice to meet him there and play on his boat too.

As it happens there was very little wind. There was just enough for jays boat though so after he had a quick sail in it I jumped in with Morgan and went for a little sail too. I hadn’t been in a sailing boat for years and even then had only sailed one once or twice, but I soon worked it all out and did manage to sail out, backwards and forwards a few times and then sail back to where I started from all without getting me or Morgan wet!

We then sat in the sun watching people on Stand Up Paddle boards playing around and a few people just about get planing on windsurf boards. It’s a shame there wasn’t more wind so that I could have gone windsurfing but it was a actually nice just sitting in the sun chilling whilst Morgan played in the water with Harry.

Certainly a nice way to spend a relaxing morning.

After yesterdays successful work-life balance day I couldn’t let it slip today so managed yet another good day. I didn’t get up quite so early today, in fact for a change I managed to stay in bed until about 7am. I think yesterdays epic cycle ride must have tired me out! So, after some housework I settled down to work, went through my e-mails and then had a meeting with a client. By 11am he sun was blazing and the wind had picked up so I headed over to the beach and had a lovely windsurf session with just the right amount of wind and plenty of sunshine.

Back home and another hour or so of work and then off into town to buy a few toys for Morgan (An inflatable canoe, wetsuit and float coat). Collected Morgan from nursery and then headed back to the beach to take him ’surfing’.

OK, so maybe the balance was more towards life than work today but I’m not complaining about that and I am doing a little bit of work this evening as well!

Regular readers of the blog will know that our Simple Life of Luxury is all about getting the work-life balance right and living in a location that suits or lifestyle. None of this working like mad in a city all week just to drive for miles to get to the beach or hills for a few hours rest and recuperation at the weekends. Work is of course important as we have bills to pay, mouths to feed and toys and gadgets to buy, but we work to live rather than live to work.

We don’t always get it right of course and there are plenty of times when work and other commitments get in the way of enjoying ourselves, but the beach is just across the road and the hills just behind us so there is almost always an opportunity to spend some time there. In fact we often take them for granted and it is at this time of year when holidaymakers appear for the week by the sea that we realise that most people don’t even see the sea from one year to the next.

There are also times when we get it just right. We had a good weekend enjoying the sunshine on the beach and in the garden. Paddling in the sea, building sandcastles, playing in a canoe and having BBQ’s and beach parties. For most people that would have been it and come Monday they would be back to work and longing to be out in the sunshine. As a freelance website designer I’m able to be a little more flexible so come Monday I got the work-life balance just right. I got up at 5am and did a couple of hours of work until 7.30am. Then an hour of housework until 8.30am followed by another 4 hours of work, but by 1pm I ws out for a ride on my mountain bike in the glorious sunshine. It was quite a ride too, 32 miles and a total climb of over 4000 feet through some of the best scenery in Wales. By the time I got back to the beach there was just enough time for a quick swim in the sea followed by dinner with Anna and Morgan and then another hour of work as I had a client to meet at 7.30pm.

A perfect day, plenty of activities and recreation and enough work to help pay the bills.

Although living in a rural location, there is little tree cover nearby and therefore the variety of birds we get in the garden is fairly limited.

Over the last few weeks we have had some new visitors though in the form of a pair of Linnets. These small finches are partial migrants to the UK and about the same size as a sparrow, but the males have a distinctive red head and breast. They certainly seem to be enjoying the forget-me-not seeds and I finally managed to take some photos of them the other day.

I’ve just got back from a weekend in Pembrokeshire. Dennis, a friend from Bristol is getting married in a few weeks time so it was a stag weekend with a difference. Nothing too ’stag-like’ about it in fact and Dennis didn’t even want to call it a stag weekend, just a weekend away before the wedding.

We stayed at Caerfai Farm campsite which although fairly basic had nice views of the sea and all the amenities you need whilst camping, including toilets, showers and a little farm shop. It was also fairly quiet and there was plenty of room. We did manage to squeeze 9 tents onto one pitch though which seemed to confuse the campsite owners!

The weather was great and most people returned looking decidedly red thanks to too much time in the sun. As well as heading off to the pub each night, we sat around a campfire on the beach wandered around St. Davids and went for a swim in the sea. I also walked along the coast path a bit and found a geocache. The beach at Caerfai Bay is a small rocky cove with sand when the tide is out. The rocks around here are perfect for scrambling over and ‘coasteering’. The coast path is easily accessible from the campsite and as part of the Pembrokeshire National park offers amazing views and lovely coastal scenery. I didn’t walk far along the coast path but did explore the nearby St Non’s Chapel and walked around the deep inlet of Porth Clais.

All in all a nice weekend away and its about time we got our own tent and went camping with Morgan. if only we could guarantee nice weather all the time.