A Simple Life of Luxury

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

Category: General

Tardy Bears Picnic 1

Community / General / Lifestyle / Nature

Tardy Bears Picnic

After our meeting of the Ceredigion Moth Group on Saturday morning Morgan and I headed back down to sea level and collected Anna and a friend of Morgan’s called Lotti and we all headed off to the RSPB reserve at Ynyshir where we were booked in for a Teddy Bears Picnic – or as it...

Obstacle Race 0

Family / General

Sports Day

We had a good afternoon at Morgan’s schools Sports Day. It wasn’t quite sunny but it was dry and the kids all seemed to enjoy themselves. For some reason the red team (Gogerddan) have won for the past few years but at last there was a turn around and the green team (Trawsgoed) won by...

Multiple Income Streams 0

General

Multiple Income Streams

One of the important things to do as a self-employed freelancer is to make sure you have multiple income streams as you just never know what is going to happen next. I don’t do too badly in that respect although it can get quite hectic now and then. As well as my main job as...

Discouraging Children from Swimming – Plascrug Leisure Centre 4

Family / General

Discouraging Children from Swimming – Plascrug Leisure Centre

We don’t take Morgan swimming quite as often as we should, but Cerdigion County Council don’t make it easy either. Last time we took him to the pool at Plascrug leisure centre we were told that the children’s pool was a little cold. When we got in was was more than cold, it was absolutely...

Caterpillar 0

General / Nature

Caterpillar on our Honeysuckle

I’ve just found a little caterpillar on the honeysuckle, looking for all the world like a little twig. Perfect camouflage, so much so that he almost got pruned along with the other dead twigs. Having looked through some books, it looks most likely to be the caterpillar of an Engrailed Moth.

Cinnabar 0

General

Ceredigion Moths – More new ones

Another good night for moths last night. Relatively warm, still and plenty of things flapping around the moth trap. I took a look before going to bed and a there were already a one new garden records for me to identify –  a very nice little ‘Common Swift’. In the end the haul was just...

Vote for Policies 0

Community / General

Vote for Policies

Sorry, I couldn’t resist a political post here on the weblog! Worse still, this is far too late, but it is interesting. I’ve been complaining about the media coverage in the run up to the election and the fact that there is very little information about the policies of the parties, but more emphasis on...

Trying Times 7

Family / Fitness / General

Trying Times

I used to be quite a good triathlete – But that was 20 years ago now and thing shave changed since then. I’m older, fatter, have less time to train and much much slower. Despite this somehow my sister (Trudi) has talked me into doing a triathlon in May in order to raise money for...

Ceredigion Moth Workshop and Fieldtrip 1

General / Nature

Ceredigion Moth Workshop and Fieldtrip

I had a good day at the Cardiganshire Moth Workshop in Borth on Saturday. There was a good attendance with 12 people there, including some from further south in the County which is promising. We started off going through the contents of some moth traps that had been left out the night before. The one...