A Simple Life of Luxury

What a day… Lovely winds and huge seas and a few other peoplke out windsurfing and kitesurfer here at Ynyslas on Saturday. All was going well, the adrenalin was flowing thanks to the big waves and I was having a really good windsurf session, until out the back my UJ snapped and my board went scooting off without me. I then got hit by a big wave which wrenched the sail out of my hands too and when I surfaced my whole rig was sinking and my board was a couple of hundreds yards downwind of me.

There was no way to retrieve the rig so I swam after the board but after a couple more rinsings by big waves that disappeared from sight too so there was nothing left for me to do other than make the long swim back to shore.

Thankfully once back on the beach my board had washed up on the sands too so I was able to retrieve that, but my rig, complete with sail, mast, boom, extension, etc was lost at sea. We did take a walk along the beach later in the day to look for it but there was no sign of it anywhere. Another expensive day on the water, but at least I got back in one piece.

Read my Forces-of-Nature diary entry here.

Just some photos taken at Ynyslas today… A lovely sunny, windy autumnal day in the dunes. The dunes looked really nice with the grass flowing in the wind and the sun shining on them so I thought I take a few photos and share them with you here.

Marram Grass - Ynyslas

Marram Grass - Ynyslas

Dunes in the wind - Ynyslas

Sand Dunes in the sun - Ynyslas

Marram Grass in the wind

I’ve been ‘back into’ mountain-biking for about a year now. My blog post when I bought the new bike ended by saying:

I haven’t been on a bike for about 12 years and probably haven’t ridden one in anger for about 15, so it will no doubt be a shock to the system, but the idea is to have some fun in the hills and hopefully get a little fitter in the process. I’m not expecting to get back to my old standards as I’m not 20 years old anymore, but hopefully it will slow my steady decline in fitness.

As you can see the idea was to get a little fitter and have some fun. I decided to get a mountain-bike rather than get back out on my road bike simply because road-cycling is all about going as fast as you can and competing rather than simply getting out there and having some fun. I was never going to be as good as I used to be so I thought it better not to time myself, not to worry about the overall speed and therefore not make any comparisons.

All was going well but the male competitive streak still exists and when out riding with others you can’t help but compare, even on social-rides. This has now stepped up a level as the students of the Aber-MTB club arrange a mountain-bike Time Trial on Wednesday afternoons in the hills near here. I haven’t quite got around to joining them yet so I’m not competing but I did go out for a ride around the course last week just before they did and may actually enter this week. I have no illusions of beating most of them, but it is a good way to monitor my progress and see if I can improve my time. I’m definitely fitter than I was this time last year and a little faster too. There are plenty of improvements still to be made though and the odd bit of competition does help to bring these out. I just hope my body can cope with the added presuure and effort a little race involves!

Another weekend has gone and as usual we manged to keep ourselves amused here in West Wales. Saturday morning was spent doing chores and then collecting firewood on the beach.

The wind picked up in the afternoon and Steve arrived so I headed off to the beach with him and went windsurfing in fairly standard ‘Borth conditions’. There was a big windsurf demo going on at Aberdovey but we decided to sail in the waves on Saturday and head over to Aberdovey on Sunday.

Sunday dawned fairly windy so after watching the Grand Prix Steve and I headed off on the 45 minute drive to Aberdovey, which is actually about a mile away as the crow flies. There wasn’t a huge amount of wind there so we had breakfast and finally got into our wetsuits around midday. There was lots of new windsurf kit to try and we were soon all on the water and having fun.

Believe it or not I’ve never actually sailed from Aberdovey before. I have sailed across from Ynyslas, but never actually parked and launched there so it was a new experience for me. The wind was a little gusty, the tide was strong and the water flat so it wasn’t the best sail or the most exciting conditions but it was good to see so many people out. It was good to catch up with lots of friends who rarely venture this far from civilisation too.

None of the new kit really caught my attention and although all the kit was nice, there was nothing there that really grabbed me and made me want it. Probably a good thing as I can’t afford it anyway! It was good to see some of the pro’s in action though. I have no idea how they do some of the tricks they do and no illusions of ever being able to do them myself, but it is impressive to watch.

Not wanting to be outdone by Morgan’s photography from our recent fungi foray here are my photographic efforts.

I’d like to be able to identify the various fungi too, but I’m not to hot when it comes to fungi identification so if anyone knows what they are then post a comment and let me know. Especially if I can eat them!!

I’ll make some tentative attempts at ID though.

Fungi 1 - Sulphur Tuft - Hypholoma sp.
Fungi 2 - Still working on this one!
Fungi 3 - Earthtongue - Geoglossum cookeianum?
Fungi 4 - Hmmm there are so many like this I have no idea - yet
Fungi 5 - This is more difficult than I thought!
Fungi 6 - Common Eartball - Scelroderma sp.
Fungi 7 -No idea as yet.

Fungi 1

Fungi 2

Dyfi Estuary

Aberdovey

Fungi 3

Fungi 4

Morgan with Fungi 4

Fungi 5

Fungi 6

Fungi 7

Fungi 1

Fungi 2 again

Fungi Identification Books

You have seen the results of Morgan’s photography, now here he is in action!

We had a lovely sunny autumnal day yesterday so Morgan and I headed off to the woods at Ynyshir overlooking the Dyfi Estuary on a ‘Fungi Foray’. I’m not too good with fungi identification so the plan was to take some photos of them rather than to collect them.

Morgan had Anna’s digital compact camera. I showed him how to switch it on and put it in auto mode and how to take a photo and then I left him to it. To be honest I was expecting lots of blurred shots of his feet or his thumb, but he was surprisingly good at photography. OK, it was just point and shoot photography, but he did have to choose his subject, compose the photo and take the photo. Almost all of his shots were of something in particular, all were in focus and well composed and the landscape shots and such-like were perfectly horizontal and surprisingly good… Here are the results. Not bad for a 3yr old without any help at all.

Taken from a moving car

Mushrooms

More Mushrooms

The Dyfi Estuary

Dad in the bird hide

Clouds over Dyfi Estuary

Bird Hide Interior

Ynys-Hir Bird Hide

Ferns

Autumnal Leaves

Mushrooms Again

I met Steve on Saturday and went for a mountain bike ride at Llandegla in North Wales. This was my second time around the trail. We took it relatively easy and had a good time albeit with one or two sketchy moments and a crash for Steve. (Follow link above for full report).

Afterwards we went into the visitor centre, had a browse around the bike shop and then settled down for a bacon and egg bap, some carrot cake and hot chocolate. According to the bumpf, the bacon baps have been voted the best in Britain and they were certainly nice so (seeing as I haven’t tried every bacon bap in Britain) I won’t argue with this.

I still think the centre is missing quite a bit though. First of all, there are no showers which means you have to drive home wet, muddy and smelly after a hard ride around the trails. Not the end of the world, but it would be nice of there were a few more facilities.

Secondly, we drive past Llandegla now and then, and now that I’ve tasted the bacon baps it would make an ideal place for us to stop off on our journey. However, this won’t be happening because in order to do so we would have to pay to park. I know they have to make some money and with the centre being aimed at mountain-bikers many of them wouldn’t spend any money there if it was free to park, but the parking charge would put us off visiting it as a family for a quick stop and a snack.

There also isn’t much there for children. It would be nice if they had a little playground. There are of course plenty of waymarked forest walks and if you’re going for the day then the parking charge is fine as the mountain-bike trails make it worth the cost although a few extra facilities would be nice

For passing trade a short-stay (free) car park and a playground would make it an ideal stopping off point for many people and would no doubt increase business in the cafe, esepecially seeing as they serve the best bacon baps in the Britain!.

Sorry Anna, but I couldn’t resist posting this as it makes me giggle every time I see it…. Watch out Lewis Hamilton, she’s after your job!!

F1 Anna

So much for my wind resistant plants!!

Wind Damaged Polygonum

All had been going well and the new pergola was looking lovely with a very luxurious growth of Polygonum and Solanum that I had planted in June. In fact we had been surprised by the growth which was of course due in part by the warm, wet and windless summer that we’ve had. I never said that these plants would be particularly wind resistant so this was always going to be an experiment, but we’ve had some wind this week and the results are now in.

The Solanum has held up well, as has the Honeysuckle (although this hasn’t grown much yet) but the Polygonum is most definitely not a very wind resistant plant! Within hours of the wind getting to full force here (which is of course a very windy place) it was reduced to a sorry looking wind burnt tangle of stems with no leaves at all. The luxurious green growth that had enveloped the side and top of the pergola is no more… The wind was gusting to 40 knots or more according to the weather station in the back garden, but I think it is back to the drawing board as far as the Polygonum is concerned.