A Simple Life of Luxury

Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means

Author: Alan Cole

Lining up for the start 0

MTB

Marshbrook CRC MTB Marathon – Race Report

Hopefully you’ve already read my post about our camping weekend in Shropshire. We were there so that I could do the Marshbrook round of the CRC MTB Marathon series along with my brothers Jay and Brad. I also met another friend, Darren there who was riding it too. Darren, Jay and myself had signed up...

Camping 3

Family / Lifestyle / MTB

Camping in Shropshire

I’ve barely ever been to Shropshire properly before but we’ve just got back from a lovely weekend camping just outside of a little village called Marshbrook, not far from Church Stretton in the Shropshire Hills. We were there to do the CRC MTB-Marathon on Sunday (more on that in another post) but as part of...

Google+ 0

Technology

Google+

Is Facebook Evil? Is Twitter irrelevant? Answer yes to these and maybe Google+ is for you. The social network to rule them all.. Maybe, maybe not but if you want to keep with the cool kids then you have to give it a go. I am, but I’ve yet to make any judgement. I tried Google...

Cucumbers and pototoes 0

Gardening / Lifestyle

The Garden Yields

Our hard work on the garden is beginning to pay off. As well as looking nice out there, we’ve already had some garden produce. As well as the strawberries we’ve had a few raspberries with plenty more on the way. The blackcurrants and red currants seem to have been striped by the birds, but we’re...

Hill Reps Heart Rate 0

Fitness / Triathlon

Cycling – Hill Reps

One of the good things about having someone else write a training plan for you is that it gets you out doing things you might otherwise not have done. Last week it was pounding up and down the cliff path doing running hill reps. This week it was more hill reps, but on my bike. The prescribed session was...

Huddles of bees on Clettwr 0

Beekeeping

Hive Inspections – Progress?

We made our weekly hive inspections on Wednesday afternoon and there was some progress. The bees are still acting a little strangely though. Both the colony in the Clettwr hive and the colony in the triple nuc box (a caught swarm from Clettwr) are very active. They are up and busy from first light until...

Feverfew 0

Beekeeping / Gardening

Feverfew

We weren’t sure whether or not to get rid of all the feverfew in our garden. It certainly grows like a weed here and self-seeds all over the place. On top of that it is supposed to be disliked by bees so not ideal in bee-friendly garden. It does look nice at times though and...

Poppy 0

Gardening / Photography

Poppy

Yet more garden flowers. Poppies self seed themselves all over the place, but the bees like them, they are easy to remove when they appear somewhere that we don’t want them and they certainly add some colour so we tend to leave them here and there.  

Borth Coastal Defence Scheme Progress 0

Wales

Borth Coastal Defence Scheme Progress

I’ve just been looking at the weekly reports from BAM Nuttall on the progress of the Borth Coastal Defence Scheme and all seems to be progressing well. Groyne 1: is complete Groyne 2: is complete Breakwater 1: Not Started Breakwater 2: The majority of the toe armour is complete with the toe armour to finish...

A few more Moths 0

Moth Trapping

A few more Moths

At last another break in the weather and some time to put the moth trap out. Once again I put it out without a sheet so the catch wasn’t huge but there were 44 moths in the trap this morning from 10 different species, including a Poplar Hawkmoth. 1 Pale-shouldered Brocade 6 Lackey 12 Heart...