Or Do I?

Or do I  . . . 

♥

It Got Worse ...

It got worse, before it got better.

If you play Spot the Difference with yesterday's earlier photo you will see that the train track (the dark line you can see across the centre of this photo) ended up completely underwater just after the high tide brought more water thundering along the River.

In Llanrwst, as some of you might have seen on the National news lots of our shops were flooded with water as all the little streams and inlets spilled over their channels, sending four foot of water into the shops along the main stretch into town.

Roads heading into Llanrwst ... for whatever reason ... weren't signposted as closed until 6.30pm last night meaning that articulated lorries that had no knowledge of the flood ahead had to reverse their way dangerously along the A470 to get to areas where they could turn around.  One poor guy knocked on our door to ask where the nearest available road was to turn his lorry round ... he had to reverse for a over mile, which is not good when you are reversing a huge articulated trailer into oncoming traffic who have no understanding of why you are doing this!!

The Co-op car park in Llanrwst yesterday morning.

So much damage in such a short space of time.  Storm Ciara has a lot to answer for!!

We have been lucky, we are on the 'right' side of the road and floodwater has never reached us, not so lucky are our neighbours with the beautiful campsite.  Their shepherds huts, hot tubs and camping fields are all under water ... for the third time in two years.

I can hardly keep my eyes open after being woken at 4pm by howling winds, one of our fences blowing down, things blowing around and our security light which is now full of water  flashing off and on like a manic belisha beacon, but that's nothing compared to the Monday morning so many are facing both here and in all the other flood affected areas of the UK.

My heart goes out to you.

Our next high tide is at 11.26 am and will bring an estimated 8m of water once again flooding up the River.  Fingers crossed.

(The sheep were safely load onto a trailer and moved back to Thomas' farm an hour before the field they were in was completely flooded.)

Sue xx

Storm Ciara

Storm Ciara sneaked in last night and built and built and built.

While we cosily watched television the rain lashed the house ... which for the first time in years stayed dry on the inside!!  The chickens were locked in their house as soon as  it started to go dark, with enough food and water to ride out the start of the storm and they got through the night well, although it must have been very noisy for them in their little wooden house.  I knew it was going to be a bad night when we realised that little Banksy, the younger of our cockerels, was inside the house ... he usually sleeps in the trees just behind.

The birds all came out briefly first thing when I opened up the house, to have a mooch around in their now sodden world, but they very quickly decided that a Sunday breakfast in bed was preferable to their feathery skirts being blown up as they tried to cross Chicken World and all soon retreated back up the ramp to the safety of their home.

The photo above shows the fields opposite us a couple of hours ago, on the lower side of the road, with the sodden ground completely unable to cope with the torrential rain of the last few hours.  The River Conwy is about to rise again with the high tide due at 11am.  Then we will see if an emergency evacuation of the sheep hiding just behind the hedge will be necessary.  Our paddock is on standby for Thomas' girls if they need it.

At the moment the wind is building to unheard of speeds and noise, and the little traffic that is on the road seems to be in a rush to reach it's destination.  Personally I wouldn't go out there if you paid me.

I hope all of my readers wherever you are, are riding out the storm well.  Fingers crossed she blows herself out soon before any more damage is done.

A little clip during a lull in the wind earlier.

Sue xx

A Break From All the Noise

Gosh I need a break from all the noise!!

The noise from outside … the chainsaws, hedge trimmers lawn mowers, electric tools of all sorts of description, engines, traffic, chatter ... but I also need a break from the noise in my head.

The noise telling me that things aren't right.  That things need to be sorted.  I know once I do the quiet will come back, but I have big decisions to make and lots of noise to drown out.  It's been tough for months now, and no doubt there are even tougher times to come.

But it will be a relief to sit on the deck of a caravan, listen to the stillness and be back to a simplicity that allows me to see the beauty and magic that is truly left in this world.

Have office ... will travel.

Sue xx

I May Be Gone a While

Just how wonderful were all of your responses to the Tuesday blog post!!

  You really did step up and share your favourite blogs past and present, thank you.  I'm not really going to be gone a while, but the title for this post fitted in with the meme so nicely and I am going to have a look at all of the recommendations so I may be missing intermittently.

Saying that ... I do prefer a good read to being social ... I can only take people in small doses.

This week has been hard with a pair of gardeners here all week bringing the mayhem that is our small-holding under control ready for sale ... yes they are outside and I have mostly been inside ... but they are there.  And they keep asking me questions.  

Which of course I answer politely and  I make a good effort to make small talk and have a laugh with them whenever I refill their little outdoor brewing up area with hot water, teabags and biscuits.  But it's draining me of energy, the will to live and all patience.  Luckily for Alan he has been away all week and thus spared my in-house wrath.

Does anyone else hate having workman in, or strangers in the house or garden ... or am I simply once again letting you in on the secrets of my weird foibles?

I am busying myself with a Challenge inspired by a reader, which also is getting ready for us selling up and moving on.  Let's just say I've been pretty active on Facebook Marketplace and the cupboards are emptying nicely.  If it's not nailed down and doesn't fulfill a really good use and  look pretty it's basically - GOING!!

I've got to go, there's a vacuum cleaner waiting to be photographed.   😁

Sue xx

So ... Which is Your Favourite Blog

Which is your favourite blog … at the moment?

I say at the moment  because if you are anything like me it can change.  It can be dependant on your mood, or the writers mood, on the time of year, on what the writer has been writing or publishing recently about their lives or occupation etc etc

I ask not because I want anyone to say yours, yours, yours ... indeed I do not want you to say that unless it perhaps, by any stretch of the imagination it really, really, really, most definitely is.  

But because after looking through my sidebar yesterday and deleting some very old, and now dormant blogs, deleting some which no longer held that much of an interest to me, and deleting a couple that I don't remember why they had ended up on there in the first place.  I realised that it's been a long time since I have found a blog that I have wanted to read from start to current day. 

You know the way you find a new-to-you  blog on someone else's sidebar, you read a post and scroll back going Older Post, Older Post, Older Post, until you realise that it would be so much better to go right back to the begining and read it like a book in totally chronological order.  You sink into their words, photographs and images ... and totally lose a couple of hours out of your life by accidentally falling into theirs.

It's not happened to me for ages.

I tried to read my old blog Our New Life in the Country from the beginning, but I found myself wanting to edit it ... and you should never edit a life, even if it is your own ... so I stopped before the urge got too strong.

Now I want to find some new blogs to read.

So will you help me?  

All you have to do is to name the favourite blog on your sidebar, or in your 'Blogs I Follow' list or simply from your head, the blog you turn to as soon as you switch on your computer, knowing they will have published something that will resonate, or entertain or just make you relax, hands luxuriously tighter round your mug of coffee, back pressed deeper into your chair.   Just the name of it if you can't manage a link, and perhaps a line or two about why you like it so much

 Just promise me folks that if your bestest blogging buddy in the world doesn't pick your  blog you won't be offended.  We're all in this wonderful blogging world together, the writers, the readers, the Followers and the lurkers ... let's stay friends and simply spread the blogging love.

♥♥♥

To start this off ... and put myself on the line ... I will say that my current favourite blog is Gillian's Tales from a Happy House with it's beautiful, picture heavy tales from her life and her home.  It's like sitting down with a good magazine and losing yourself in images … with just enough words to tell a story. 

♥♥♥


I'll call by and visit and Follow all the blogs that are either yours (the commenters) or the ones recommended by you.

Sue xx

Rosemary for Me ... and Fat Treats for the Birds

The Rosemary plants in the old tin bath  have gone rampant.  One in particular was about to go over so I went out armed with strong scissors and gave it a good 'haircut'.

It looks so much better now and hopefully won't go to seed, and it meant that I had some lovely big branches to process in the kitchen, ready for use in the next few weeks recipes.  I love rosemary and use it in all sorts of things, it goes wonderfully on roasting vegetables or salmon fillets for Alan.  The smell alone in the kitchen is simply wonderful.

First I pulled off all the little leaves that would have sat below the water line in the jug.  I simply checked for bugs and then put them on a tray in the bottom oven of the Aga until they were fully dried out.  It took about 30 minutes, with me giving the tray a shake every few minutes to make sure they all dried out evenly.

After that time this is how they looked.  I then chopped them up very finely and tipped them into a clean jam jar.  Now they are ready for use in any soups, stews or breadcrumb mixtures that I make over the next few months.

The large branches are now in one of my old jugs on the worktop.  

They are better than a vase of flowers in my opinion and every time I'm close by I can't resist a stroke of the leaves to get that lovely aroma onto my fingers.  The good news is that even after just a couple of days, two of the branches are already showing signs of  getting little roots, which means I will be able to pot them up and perhaps take a couple of pots to the Van next month.

And the fat of the title?

Well, I was sorting through the fridge and found a block of coconut fat, so far past it's use by date that even I decided against using it.  Although it did still smell fresh!!   Not one to waste food though I immediately thought of all the little wild birds that are currently pinching our chickens layers pellets and corn each day and so thought I would give all our feathery friends a treat. 

I just left the fat to melt near the Aga and then tipped into it a mixture of finely chopped nuts, seeds, some leftover cooked pasta and a couple of handfuls of oats.  Once I had filled the fat with as many tasty treats as it would hold I popped it into the fridge and left it overnight to set.

The next day I chopped it into 'brownie' sized chunks and scattered them around Chicken World.  The birds loved them, both the chickens, the now resident Pheasants and all the little birds that have made our property their home.

And listening to the cacophony of birdsong I caught on my phone the other day, it sounds like they are all happy little birdies!

Sue xx