A Simple Life of Luxury

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

I noticed a new geocache hidden by Tortoiseshell appear about 5 miles from here yesterday morning. I was due to virtually drive past it later in the day so I left home a little earlier than needed and went out on an FTF (First to Find) mission.

It was a gorgeous day, the best so far this year with blue skies, blazing sunshine, temperatures in the low 20s and a decent Easterly breeze to keep me cool. From Bow Street I enjoyed a short walk up the hill and found the cache easily and surprise surprise I was the First to Find. Despite being a decent sized container there was nothing in it except for the logbook and pen and a geocoin. I took the geocoin and will hopefully move it on this weekend.

And, just for a change, not only did I remember to take my camera with me but I actually took some photos of typical Welsh summer scenery too.

The path to the cache

Oak leaves in summer

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.

As a new YHA member I was looking at the location of Youth Hostels last night and dreaming about the idea of walking around the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path stopping off at the Youth Hostels on the way. I’m not sure if it is possible yet to do this, but I’ve always wanted to walk the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and maybe when Morgan is a little older we’ll do it.

However, Pembrokeshire is just a start, according the CCW work has started on a 6 year project that will eventually lead to an all-Wales coastal path. Walkers will be able go all around the Welsh coastline on a continuous path by 2012, says the Countryside Council for Wales.

Sixty per cent of the coastline is already accessible, but the plan is to create new sections of path and upgrade others to improve access to horse riders and cyclists as well as walkers. Now that gives me some ideas!

There was quite a long run-up to Christmas this year. Anna and Morgan finished work and nursery on Friday afternoon so we had Friday Afternoon, Saturday, Sunday and Monday before the fat jolly red-clothed man himself arrived.

I had a new pair of binoculars for my birthday so I had promised Morgan that I’d taker him bird watching and give Anna a few hours to herself to do some last minute Xmas things. Unfortunately the day we picked was as miserable as they get, cold and wet. Despite this Morgan and I wrapped up and headed off to Ynyshir. We had a nice little walk through the woods and didn’t see anyone else. We then set up camp in one of the hides and looked out across the Dovey Valley to see if we could see any birds.

I think the birds had decided it was too wet to play today as ell as all we could see were swans and geese miles away on the flooded fields near to the estuary and we did catch a glimpse of a tree-creeper Morgan had fun in the bird-hide though and if we had thought to take a flask of soup or something it would have been fine, but he soon got cold so we headed back through the rain to the car.

It was a pity about the weather but at least Morgan now knows that bird-watching isn’t quite the same as looking for birds in an aviary at a zoo and a little stealth and patience (things that 2 yr old boys have little of) are required.

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!

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.

We’ve just had a good weekend visiting family in Gloucestershire. Saturday was spent at Prinknash Abbey Park, feeding ducks and various other birds, fish, goats and deer. Morgan seemed to love it there, but unfortunately the battery in my camera ran out half way round so we don’t have that many photos of him feeding the animals.

He also enjoyed playing with Kia and Shaun which is nice. We stopped off briefly to find a couple of gecoaches, but were unsuccessful with both of them. The second one ‘A Gnarled Giant’ was near to a huge Chestnut tree known as the Tortworth chestnut which was apparently mentioned as being ‘notable’ in the 12th century, which probably makes it over 1000 years old. The plaque near to the tree suggested that it is only around 900-1000 tears old though so it age is difficult to tell. Legend has it that it sprang from a nut planted in 800 AD. Written records go back to the 12th century. In 1776 Peter Collinson, then Britain’s leading dendrologist, described the Tortworth chestnut as “the largest tree in England, being 52 feet (15.8 metres) around.”

It was certainly pretty impressive.

Saturday night was a family gathering with various bits of news and some eating and drinking. Then in Sunday we had a leisurely start to the day, followed by lunch in the garden centre near to Gloucester and a long drive back to West Wales. All in all a good weekend away and not too much in the way of chores waiting for us when we got back.

Summer is at last back with us, so we had another family day out in the welsh hills. We took a nice drive up towards and around Nant-y-Moch in glorious sunshine. The weather really doesn’t get much better here in Wales than it was on Sunday. we then dropped down into Ponterwyd and off towards Ystumtuem where we parked up and as organ was asleep in the car I headed off across country to find a geocache.

The Bryn Bras geocache was pretty easy to find and I simply took a straight line following my GPSr right through bogs and blueberry bushes galore to the cache. The box itself was easy to find with the co-ordinates spot on. I left a geocoin and was intrigued by a small package in the ammo can that was sealed with a ote on the outside saying ‘FAO N. Gregory Sept 2007. I don’t know who N. Gregory is or why he/she has to wait until 2007 to open the package, but it is all very intriguing!

Back at the car and there was a camper van parked behind us and a German family just about to set off across the hills in search of h cache as well. We had a little chat and wished them well before heading off across to hills and wisty roads, past the wind turbines and on to Nant yr Arian. Here we had a drink, let Morgan play in the playground and then went off to pick some blueberries. There was still plenty of fruit on the bushes, although nowhere near as many as there were on the less frequented hills by Bryn Bras. Whilst at Nant yr Arian I also took a few leaflets about the mountain bike trails there as I’m planning to buy a mountain bike soon, so will hopefully making full use of the local routes.

All in all another pleasant day in the Welsh countryside.

The weather is warming up, the clocks have gone forward so it is time to start work in the garden again.
Morgan and I had a productive day yesterday.

• The lawns (if you can call them that) have been mowed. They’ve taken a bit of abuse over the winter from being waterlogged and from a pesky little mole and they aren’t looking great, but I’m sure they’ll recover.
• The willow and white poplar were cut right back as these will hopefully become a hedge along the edge of the garden.
• All the beds were edged, forked over and enriched with compost from our compost bins and the plants were all cut back and tidied up.
• The compost bins were forked through and sorted out.

Most things seem to have survived the winter, although the cold snap we had last week was quite a shock to the system to the already shooting Clematis and Gunnera. Now that things are tidy it is time to start getting a little creative out there. The first creative job will be to create a border around the deck out the front and fill it with bedding plants. As usual there are great plans for the garden, but no doubt it will be time-consuming enough just keeping on top of the grass!

Hopefully now that it has had some attention it will start to come to life.