Tales from a ‘down-shifted’ family - Making the most of modest means
We spent a nice day at Powys Castle on Friday. Probably the best National Trust property we have visited so far. There isn’t much I can say about it other than the fact that the gardens were impressive, as was the castle itself.
Here are some of the many photos:
Powys Castle
Anna
Herbaceous Border
Morgan in Vine Tunnel
Formal Gardens
Gardens
I can see your bum!
Bee
As part of our couple of days away, after a day at the Blue Planet we stayed in the Premier Inn Wrexham. Although close to Wrexham it is a little way out of the town and felt nice. It was never going to be a luxury night away but it was perfect for us. Cheaper than a Youth Hostel despite having YHA membership, clean, quiet and comfortable and therefore everything we needed for a night.
The room was plenty big enough we had a bath and a shower and confortable beds and a friendly enough greeting.Of course, having a proper flush toilet is always a luxury for us!
There was a pub / restaurant next door called The Beeches which is co-owned by Premier Inn so this is where we went for our evening meal and where we were to go for breakfast in the morning. Once again we have no complaints. The restaurant was nicely laid out, the food was good and the service was excellent. We therefore had a nice relaxing meal, even Morgan ate OK and the waitresses were friendly and helpful. Breakfast in the morning was good too… Eat as much as you like which is something I always like and in addition to the full cooked breakfast there was plenty of cereals, toast, croissants, yoghurts, fruit, juices and coffeee etc. Just what I needed before a day out mountain-biking at Llandegla.
Certainly recommended.
Unusually for us we decided to conform to the norm and have a couple of days away during a Bank Holiday weekend!
We drove up to the Blue Planet in Liverpool on Friday morning. Morgan’s travel sickness seems to be coming on in leaps and bounds so it took a little longer and quite a few changes of clothes to get there than normal but it isn’t to bad a drive.
It isn’t cheapt to get into the Blue Planet but we had booked into a Premier Inn for the night and got a free child ticket with that and the prics compare to most other attractions. I have to admit that I wasn’t that impressed to start, but I did used to work in an aquarium so I guess I was expecting a little more from the tanks in such a large aquarium. The big shark tank did of course impress though and that is really what it is all about. The ’show’ was a little corny but the tank itself and the fish were pretty impressive. Thankfully it wasn’t too busy so (when not chasing Morgan around) we were able to take our time and have a good look. We bumped into a friend of Morgans which was good as they seemed to enjoy each others company and when we ask him what was the best thing about the Blue Planet he says it was seeing his friend there!
After a little play in the playground and some lunch we had another quick circuit around the tanks before heading off to find a chemist and some travel sickness tablets for Morgan and our hotel for the night.
Overall the Blue Planet was good. I still think it is quite expensive and I think the smaller tanks could be a lot better than they are as they just feel like padding for the main attraction of the Shark Tank.
Shark at The Blue Planet
The Blue Planet Aquarium
Burning up some Energy
I’ve been wanting to ride at Llandegla for a while now so on our way back from Wrexham we stopped off at Llandegla and I finally had my chance.
As we pulled into the car park it looked really busy, people and bikes everywhere but I guess that was to be expected on a bank holiday weekend.
After a quick look around the shop and visitor centre we walked back up to the car in the overflow car park and got ready. I had planned to do the full red route and black route whilst Anna and Morgan were going around the 3 mile long Green route. Anna was going to walk with Morgan on his little balance bike.
We set off together and once on the trail it wasn’t nearly as busy as it looked I did pass quite a few people and there were often people stood around at the beginnings of certain sections or the tops of climbs but considering how full the car ark was it was nice out on the trail.
Overall it was a really good trail, nothing too technical and not too much climbing really so it didn’t take me as long as I expected. No knowing what was coming next meant that I took it easy all the way around. There are big signs as you approach the black sections warning you about the ‘extreme nature’ of the trail but for those worried about it then don’t, all of the trail is easily rideable as you can simply roll over any of the obstacles. obviously if you attack the course and go for big air off the jumps etc. then it could be a little more challenging but it is also possible to simply ride over them keeping both wheels firmly on the ground. (Which is pretty much what I did!).
Back at the car and Anna and Morgan had just returned too. They had fun, Anna enjoyed her walk and Morgan had got on really well on his bike. he doesn;t get chance to use it much so an hour on it is probably as much practice as he’s ever had so he improved all the way around and apparently came to an impressive skidding stop at the car!
Can’t wait until he’s a little older and all three of use can go for rides on the easier trails together.. I’ll have to convince Anna to go out on my bike, but that does at least mean I’ll be forced to treat myself to a brand new, shiny full-suspension bike!
On the way home we stopped off at the top of the highest road in Wales for a succesful geocache find.
Oh, and we finally got the video camera out of hibernation so here is a little clip of Morgan at Llandegla.
Readers of my diary entries on Forces-of-Nature will realise that I’ve been out mountain-biking quite a bit recently. I generally ride one night a week with a small group of other local mountain-bikers all of whom have tubeless set-ups and don’t seem to get any punctures. I didn’t think there was any need to ‘go tubeless’, afterall I don’t have that many punctures and they are easy to repair on the trail so I didn’t really see the advantages.
However, after puncturing a couple of times whilst out with the others I did start feeling bad about making them wait around for me whilst I repaired the flat, so I have decided to give in to peer pressure (not something I do too often) and give it a go.
There are several ways to ‘go tubeless’. The first is to buy expensive specialist tubeless rims and tyres. I wasn’t going to go that far and as the tubeless rims and tyres are heavier and more expensive than their standard counterparts I couldn’t really see the advantages of such a system. The next option is to buy a conversion kit for normal rims and tyres, but there is also a third DIY option known as the ‘Ghetto Tubeless System’.
The way it works is you remove the inner-tube from your wheel. You then seal the rim using a strip of rubber to stop air leaking out through the spoke holes, put the tyre back on, put some latex sealant inside the tyre and then inflate it so that the tyre seals onto the rim. The latex sealant then fills any small gaps that might be present. Sounds simple, but reading reports online it can be difficult to get the tyre to seal onto the rim effectively. The main reason for this is that in order for the tyre beads to seal against the rim it needs to by pumped up to a certain pressure in order to push the tyre against the rim, but, as until the tyre is sealed it is difficult to get air into it. A catch 22 situation and most people end up having to use high pressure compressors or CO2 cartridges to get the air into the tyre quick enough… Notth I have at my disposal.
Still, at the weekend I gave it a go. Out came my inner-tube. I then stretched a small 20″ BMX tube over my MTB rim. This tube becomes the strip of rubber than seals the spoke holes in the rim, and its valve is the valve that will be used to pump the tyre up. Next I cut along its centre line so the the tube could fold out over the edges of the rim and then put my tyre back on trapping the now cut inner tube between the tyre bead and the rim. Before adding the sealant I tried pumping the tyre up just to see if I could get a seal. Surprisingly it pumped up straight away without any problems at all. So, in went the sealant, back on went the tyre and in went some air. After a bit of shaking to spread the sealant around I left it to let any small holes seal, and then trimmed the excess rubber away from the 20″ tube.
All seemed to be fine, but the tyre did loose some pressure overnight. Closer inspection showed that the side-walls of tyre were ever so slightly porous and tiny amounts of air was escaping through little pores all over the tyre.
Despite this I did the same to the rear wheel and yesterday had my first ride on the new system. All went well; no punctures, no flats and no issues with the tubeless system. Pressure was maintained throughout the ride as well. The front wheel now seems to hold pressure really well so I’d say that it was completely sealed. The rear one (which I did a day after) still looses a tiny bit of pressure over time, but I think it will seal up fully over the next day or so.
Lets hope they hold up!
For me the jury is still out but I shall see how it goes over the next few rides.
Check out this You Tube video if you want to see how to do it yourself, and I’ll no doubt keep people up to date within this Ghetto Tubeless thread.
When you think of the problems affecting coastal gardens the first issue that springs to mind is the wind. Living on the coast means that there is an uninterrupted flow of wind from the sea straight into your garden and the affects can be dramatic.
Very few people live right on the coast and it only takes a few obstacles such as trees, buildings or small hills to provide some protection. However, we do live on the coast and there is nothing between us and the beach so we experience the full force of the winds. You only have to go inland a little way to see how things change with a little bit of protection. Gardens just a short distance away are awash with colour and have a wide variety of plants and flowers thriving in them. Things aren’t quite so rosy in most gardens here.
Very little shelter from a cold North wind
I’ve worked for many years helping people out in their gardens and almost everyone seems to think their garden is exposed and windy, but until you’ve experienced living right on the coast you can’t understand the meaning of a truly exposed and windy garden. It isn’t just the strength of the wind but the incessant nature of it. We have a weather station in the garden that uploads live data to the internet every minute and it shows just how much wind we get. Whereas most people start thinking things are getting windy when the anemometer reaches around force 4-5 it is rare for us to ever have a day where it doesn’t reach this and more often than not it is much windier. Worse still, it just doesn’t stop blowing. We often get weeks on end where the wind just doesn’t drop.
Sounds bad? Well it gets worse. Most coastal gardens are affected to a greater or lesser degree by winds coming in off the sea. For people living on the west coast such as us this means that the prevailing wind is from the west so at least there should be a respite from the wind if it swings around and comes from another direction. Not so here. In fact, we have a special katabatic wind (known affectionately as Ivor) that funnels down through the Dovey Valley and blasts us with cold, dry winds from the East. This wind is stronger and just as persistant as winds off the sea and means that there isn’t a wind direction that doesn’t affect us. There is no getting away from the fact that this really is a windy place (which is why, as a windsurfer I wanted to live here).
The effects of big storms on your garden are easy to see. Broken plants, snapped branches, uprooted trees, overturned containers, broken panes in the greenhouse and such like. Lesser winds also have an effect, drying out plants and creating wind burn, the visual effects of which are burnt leaves and blackened stems. It can impede plant growth, stops young seedlings in their tracks, severely stunts trees and shrubs, and forms dramatic windswept shapes to larger trees. Many plants simply can’t cope with the extreme winds we experience here.
The obvious thing to do in order to protect from the wind is to create a shelter belt. Few of us have room for a full-on shelter belt consisting of a thick plantation of wind resistant trees, but just a single row of such plants can help create some shelter. Every little bit helps and as the number of plants you have in the garden increases you can produce your own little micro-climate in which the less wind-resistant plants can survive. Of course, you don’t want to go over the top otherwise your garden will soon feel over-shadowed and too enclosed. Another option is to build small banks that help protect from the wind. Again this may take up a little too much room in a small garden.
Fences and other garden structures can also be used to good effect to provide shelter. Open structures are better than solid ones as they dissipate the wind rather than deflect it. When wind hits a solid barrier such as a brick wall or panel fence it tends to deflect upwards only to descend with greater turbulence on the other side. Where possible several lines of defense are best. For instance an open fence with wind resistant hedging behind it.
The other thing is to choose your plants carefully and pick those that are more resistant to winds.
Trees that will put up with the worst wind conditions and ones traditionally used in coastal shelter belts, include pines such as Pinus nigra, P. pinaster and the Scots pine (P. sylvestris). We have pines here and although they survive they are prone to wind burn and tend to be very lop-sided. It is also difficult to get them to grow straight as they tend to adopt the typical windswept look of a coastal tree.
Willow and White Poplar (Populus alba) also do well here. The willow grows well, but can look a little untidy once windburnt and can become a little too invasive. The Poplar again does well but the new growth is easily damaged by summer winds. If both are kept under control with some hard pruning though they do offer good protection from the wind. The willow has little ornamental appeal but the leaves of the Poplar are fairly attractive. Both are deciduous though so don’t offer much in the way of protection or decoration in the winter.
Cordylines such as Cordyline australis (Autralian or Manx Cabbage tree) fare well and add a tropical touch
When it comes to shrubs, Escallonia is the obvious choice for creating shelter, but it is a little common around here. Even this gets pretty badly windburnt and despite its pretty pink flowers in the summer can look a little ugly in the winter. The evergreen Griselina littoralis, with its glossy, lime-green leaves is a good choice. I’m also having success with Olearia sp. (Daisy Bush) which does well, but again can look a little worse for wear due to windburn in the winter.
Other shrubs that are doing well in the wind although not creating much in the way of shelter are various Hebes and a lovely Golden Elder (Sambucus nigra).
As well as creating shelter from the wind it is also worthwhile making the most of it and planting grasses and bamboos that not only tolerate the wind but are at their best when being whipped about by it. The movement and sounds created by these plants can bring the garden alive. We have a large pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) that is doing well and adds just such life to the garden. As with many things that do well though it can become a little too large and needs to be kept under control. Stipa sp. and Miscanthus sp. are also likely to relish such conditions although I’ve yet to try them.
It takes time for smaller plants to grow large enough to provide suitable shelter so progress is slow but the results make it worthwhile. For those with deeper pockets then larger plants can be bought to speed up the process and more use could be made of the faster growing varieties. The willow and Poplar are particularly fast growing.
As you can see, the wind can be a problem for coastal gardens but with some careful planning it is possible to both limit its effects and work with it. As our garden matures hopefully it will become less of an issue. The addition of various tress and shrubs to create shelter has helped already and structures such as a pergola with some climbing plants is helping too. We’re now able to grow some less wind-resistant plants in the lee of these.
White Poplar and Golden Elder providing some summer shelter
Variegated Hebe providing all year interest
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This article is part of a series on Extreme Coastal Gardening
Jennie has posted some more photos from the weekend in facebook so here they are (without the one where I look stupid!)
