It's all wind and weddings.. oh and a bit of rain and snow..

So what's been going on down at Waen.. Have just had to upload all the photo's I have taken because my head has been a bit all over the joint with weather, weddings, work and Waen in general.. so going from the top.. Ducks.. 

There is nonsense afoot with the Mallards this starts with the fact that there are more boys than girls and I reckon that there is some major bullying going on .. there are 2 of them scrapping here.. and one of the boys always seems to be left behind poor chappie :-(

then to add to Mallard madness they appear to be going out on day trips quite a lot.. perhaps looking for new homes for new babies that may be trotting along.. Must be honest kind of hope so... if each pair has 6 babies... that would be a SERIOUS amount of new mouths to feed!

day tripping 

 The Weather has prevented any sort of outdoor gardening which is a HUGE shame becasue I was on a complete mission clearing lots of nasty bramble suckering roots from the bankside to try and thin it out so that I can get more wildflowers and bumble bee attractors in there in the future.. but as I was slipping and sliding up the banks it became a not dissimilar to the winter Olympics so I have had to pause that mission.. Anyway in the absence of outdoor gardening I have turned my attention to indoor gardening and how amazing has this lovely Amaryllis that my Mam bought for me turned out :-)

UNLIKE the below attempt at the hyacinth for our WI february competition.. dear me.. so in October we were all given a Hyacinth bulb and the mission was to turn up to the February meeting with it in bloom.. well I managed the bloom but why is it so tiny.. clearly i did not win the competition.. look what I was up against.. 

My feeble attempt 

The rest of them.. Hmmm.. Major fail  Mrs waen

And during all of this Malarky the weather stepped up a right notch..after 4 weeks of rain we moved on to snow.. which to be honest was a nice change.. Freddie had his first snow encounter.. the ludicrous creature ran out of the house slipped along the path and smashed into the rockery wall.. clown! There was some mild mayhem getting into work .. if you think Waen is remote it has NOTHING on the farm but I made it .. 

 And the snow came and went fairly quickly and was followed up with the HOWLING winds.. thankfully we have just taken delivery of a LOT of wood to re-fence the veg garden because it is pretty much all hanging off the fence posts.. can't wait for my dad to arrive to get on with that task  :-)
we lost internet and power for a while and all in all was a bit scary but we got off lightly.. there is some tree damage and we have lost a tree sadly but not bad considering the rest of the country.

a huge bough has come away from one of our most beautiful fir tree

the tree is badly damaged but a chat with a tree surgeon tells me all will be well long term

unlike this fella who is out of the ground roots and all 

 There are pockets of floods .. some that used t be pathways all over the garden.. here is the boy Freddie making great attempts not to get his paws wet..

 and our lovely girl stopping for a bit of a drink  :-)

So what to do in all of this weather other than plan the Waen wedding.. so I have now made 150 meters of bunting .. more to come.. 

 

and stuck 400 butterflies onto tiny pegs.. not without injury from the glue gun.. 

My sister and the kids are up this week so I am hoping for a spot of better weather.. time to get back to the garden me thinks  :-)

Mud .. rain.. mud.. and other things

Well its raining.. its been raining for a million days now.. it varies between torrential with hale and / or snow involved and spitting .. days in the garden so far this year = 6.. not good got bizzillions of tasks to do.

Anyway have used the time wisely. We have finally sorted out the Welsh dresser we bought last year, its been sanded and waxed and now is all one colour (always nice). have done loads of work at Kerry Farm.. we have been allocating the lucky applicants who were awarded a holiday to their holidays and letting those who sadly were not how to approach other similar organisations, and have been doing a bit more than usual fro Multiple Choice.

Apart from that wedding planning is in full flow and that all takes up some time so all in all whilst I can't do what I want to do I am still a busy bear  :-)

Would REALLY like the rain to stop though.. bored of it now!

Freddie is constantly unclean

Winnie has dreadlocks that Bob Marley would be proud of

we made good use of the deluge and sanded and waxed the dresser.. it has been on the to do list for 8 months

Much smarter

Archie is SOOOO sick of rain he has taken to lying in a bowl whilst I make bunting

My sister and the kids bought me a fab hedgehog house for xmas.. found the  perfect spot and filled it with hay .

 Not sure if you will remember but one of my 40th birthday parcels was 25 kilo's of daffodils.. they arrived.. there are bizzillions of them.. what fun.. there are 2 rubbish patches in the woodland to clear and these lovely babies will be the spring pop up in these patches.. followed by wild-flowers for summer :-) THANK YOU  H my lovely chum xxx

3ft by 1ft box of daff's .. very welsh 

Christmas followed by a house full of muddy puppies..

Lazy me .. yet again.. everything stopped for Christmas  and what a lovely Christmas it was.. I was as ever spoilt.

For Christmas dinner, which was a lovely little affair of Mr W, Mr W's smallest boy and myself (along with various creatures), I completely defied my country side living and bought all of the X,as dinner from good old Marks and Sparks  (except for the locally sourced free range turkey and a Christmas Pudding we picked up at a food festival in August) so unlike my country wife companions I spent less that 45 mins making dinner :-) but it was lovely and we all enjoyed.

Between Christmas and new year we had guests and then also popped about visiting and then New Year was spend with lovely chums near Hay -On -Wye. Nice.

All in all a lovely event.

Since Christmas I have spent most of my time time washing dogs, cleaning the mud off floors and generally trying to keep the mud on the outside of the house.. I am failing in the mission but not through lack of trying. Then it was a busy first week back at work (both jobs) and at last its all back to normal and time to potter around the garden has come back to me.

Of course we mustn't forget the plans for the wedding day which are tootling along nicely.. I am not going to share much until after the day in case guests read.. but it's going to be here in our little piece of paradise (unless it is truly appalling weather in which case we have a back up) and the theme is 'Wellies'.

Garden decorations are my current thing so I am making bunting like some sort if Primark sewing factory.. I can now make 2.5 meters of bunting in 15 minutes  -  and that's double sided, hemmed bunting don't you know..

The Christmas hampers seem to have gone down well.. the elderflower wine has had mixed reaction (it was very sweet but also very potent) my Rhubarb and Lime Jam has been declared a success, the bramble wine seems to have worked and Rhubarb vodka is 'delish' all in all quite pleased with that. Better start next years efforts now :-)

Any way to anyone who reads this.. if anyone does .. I just wanted to say HAPPY NEW YEAR .. and wishing all of you a peaceful, happy and healthy one.

So this was the lounge after gift opening  -  told you I was spoilt  :-)  -  not all mine though 

freddie in his Christmas ankle warmers. 

Winnie chewing her ankle warmers off

Clearly he learnt from the boss.. 

check out my snazzy new pans :-)

In the event where they are too dirty to bath its off to the lake.. 

NOT CHUFFED!!!

DAD NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

WINNIE HEEEELLLLPPPPP!

Not pleased!

 -
Got me a bread maker  -  told you I was spoilt  -  Yum!

Mrs W is 40.. and is going to become officially MRS W..

So it was my birthday weekend and to say I had fun was an understatement, the run up wasn't too bad either, the previous weekend we had a day with Mr W's Big son and his lovely partner and I have been treated to a day working as a gardener at the EDEN PROJECT!!! WOW.. well if I can't learn how to garden from these guys I have no hope so that was a fabulous way to kick of my B'day.. made even more betterer by the fact that on our day trip I also consumed a few cocktails :-)
So I need to bash on and book that in the new year.. I am excited apparently I get to play in the tropical garden, the Mediterranean garden and potentially go up in the balloon to do some pruning.. amazing.

The spoiling of Mrs W then continued when my amazing family descended on Waen on Friday.. on coming into the house I found this amazing bouquet from the WI group.. what amazing ladies they are

My treat on Saturday was that we went basket weaving... myself, Mr W, my sister, mam, dad and niece all left with a basket and meanwhile my nephew was a one man Christmas decoration factory and so we were all treated to home made wicker Christmas trees to hang up too  :-)

MR and Mrs Waen's baskets are here; I HATE to admit that mine is the more ropey looking one on the right.. but its a complicated process so I am not too worried.. was funny to see my family all weaving and looking like we belonged to some sort of institution  :-)

On the evening we all chilled out (more about evening events in a mo) and admired our handy work whilst drinking copious amounts of pink champagne and then on Sunday off we trotted to a lovely national trust house who were having a Christmas market.. carol singers, reindeer and mulled wine.. YUM!

When we got back I was then treated to the best best food ever.. when I was a tiny person my favourite tea was what we called in our house the wedding tea.. its basically a buffet but NO-ONE can do this like my Mam and on this occasion with help from my lovely sister  :-) and here it is.. please bear in mind there were 7 of us not 77  :-)

As another surprise my sister had a replica of the birthday cakes that we had when we were small made.. how fabulous.. memories memories .. we each had the same one each year (why can't my niece and nephew do this?) and they were the BEST cakes!

So if that wasn't enough fun, nostalgia and bonding time I was then taken into our lounge to find a suitcase of 40 presents waiting for me.. one for each year.. and these weren't even my big pressies these were things that the family and Mr W had brought, found, produced from the archives of time, made etc. that reminded them of me.. queue the hysterical tears, laughter and joy .. and so in no particular order this is how it went; 

My Mam and Dad.. 

This was the major tear jerker and I am beyond astonishment at the things they have kept .. so I got; 

• a framed Michael Jackson glove with 4 of his singles (I was a big fan when small)
• A photo of me and my sister with my grandma.. queue the tears. 
• A ribbon that i used to wear in my hair when tiny... now this was not just any ribbon this was THE ribbon that I had in my hair on the photo of my sister with my Grandma.. now lease how do you do that?
• A copy of MY Playhour comic from December 1977 including a page that i had attempted to colour in (I was not good at the sticking between the lines bit)
• A painting set.. this was a dig at the time when, I was about 7 and  I spilt nail varnish on my duvet cover.. removed it with bleach .. realised that I had taken the pattern off.. (rats) and so then re-painted the pattern using my paint by numbers set.. would have worked too if I had remembered that people wash bedding. 
• A picture of Redcar with tickets and a giant Yellow top ice cream in the middle (we did like a lemon top) 
• The mister man book Mr messy with Mr crossed out and Miss written in.. I can't imagine what they mean. 
• A bag of S.R flour (I went to catering college) 
• Knitting needles (obvious) 
• and my old strawberry shortcake, blueberry muffin and cookie dough dollies from when I was small.. I saved up my pennies to buy them
  how cool was that .. but it didn't stop there.. 

My Sister; 

So from my sister I got; 

• A Christmas Bird wreath .. I feed the birds  :-)
• a book called Nip and Tuck.. perhaps time to consider in earnest 
• A book called Sister .. (aww)
• a TOPSY AND TIM book.. I LOVED these when small
• Purple rain on DVD  -  another childhood hero was Prince
• The smiths  -  heaven knows I am miserable now.. I was a gothic child and my sister a happy one.. sharing a room with me cannot have been cool
• Purple rain -  the single.. Joy of Joys bring on the dancette 
• A jelly straining bag.. Sis watched me farting around straining crab apples of some such a thing through my rubbish bag in the summer.. this was in the BIZ. 
• Onion glasses.. you pop them on when chopping onions (i chop a lot) to stop you crying.. hahahahahahahaha
• A candle house.. I love candles
  
  amazing.. spoilt and ruined but NO it didn't stop there.. 

My Niece; 

I was treated to; 

• a mug which says Keep Digging.. No explanation required 
• a book called The Pig.. they wanted to get me the pig of my dreams but Mr W he say no!
• Egg Cups  - for my girls eggs
• a purse with my name on SPELT CORRECTLY!! both niece and I can never find such things 
• A hand painted stone saying 'Waen'.

My Nephew; 

and from this little chap I got; 

• a Cat Chrtmas decoration   - I like cats and Christmas 
• a shoe Christmas decoration   -  i like shoes and Christmas 
• a pig mug - still no living pig (mean Mr W)
• a beetle car (small version) .. My fave. 
• a book on fruit gardening  -  I need this .. my yields were weak this year. 

Mr W 

So from the man himself I got; 

• a sheep dog mug (for my sheepdogs) 
• a camper van apron  -  I am a messy cook and like camper vans
• Plant sticks  -  to name the veg 
• button earrings.. nice
• Bingo -  I love a family game 
• White chocolates  -  my fave 
• welsh chocolate (an attempt to convert me) 
• Buttons made of slate -  I love to sew
• a case for needles (sewing ones that is) 

BUT if you think it stopped there think again.. Given the fact I LOVE to craft I was then treated to a craft from each of my family.. there is some serious crafting genius here.. 

Mr W made me a new sign for the house  -  ours got wrecked by the brush cutter man. 

My Mam knitted this and then felted it with a big flower

My nephew made a picture of me and a brooch out of Crisp packets 

check out my quaver face 

My niece made Christmas decorations out of stale bread! who knew?? 

My dad made me a model worm bus.. the story is that when I was small and went to his allotment I used to gather the worms up and put them on the potting table (bus) and drive them around.. I think I used to throw some off at each stop.. so here I am the ginger at the front of my bus of worms.. this is better than the real one 'cause my bus didn't have seats 

And my NON crafting sister (she saves lives for a living instead) made me a Christmas scene from something known as pop and slot! hahahahaha.. not a crafter but a good fake it xxxxxx

Well you would think this is enough for any woman eh? NO it wasn't .. I also received an amazing Pandora bracelet from Mam and dad.. A day with Mr W to learn how to keep pigs from my sister.. I reckon if they keep going with the hints it may pan out.. and also i got beautiful espresso cups with birds on and Mr W got me a trip for My Mam and I to go to New York.. with spending beans AND new suitcases!!

BUT There is still more... I recall somewhere at the start of this post that I said we had a chilled out Saturday night.. well it wasn't without excitement.. I am now an ENGAGED 40 year old woman.. with a beautiful Celtic, Diamond and Emerald ring .. standby for wedding stress .. 

I was also ruined by my lovely friends, work chums, people in the village, and Mr W's amazing family.. all in all.. I reckon 40 isn't too bad  :-) I am a spoilt and happy lady and am loving all concerned  :-)

the skydiving evidence..

see last post.. I make NO apology for my face on these photo's I was papping myself.. but what a hoot!
I am blessed to have such ace people in my life xx

Christmas and Birthday's - I LOVE December

Well its been all go here.. My new job is going well and I really like everyone I work with and the farm so its all good news. I have started my role as WI secretary, my first task is to learn everyone's names (this is hard for me) but will suss it out eventually.
 This has been my first week doing both my farm job and my work for the charity in Leeds and its been crazy but have managed and had fun being so busy (not that I wasn't before).

On Sunday I donned my waders and started cutting back around the lake for winter.. Mr W had to  pull me out at one point when my foot started to sink and the other one couldn't get a grip.. eek! but managed to get a little way around (about 1 tenth).. so a little way more to go!

But the most exciting thing to have happened of late is that on the 29th of November my very lovely friend Anne took me for a surprise day out to Manchester.. I had train tickets sent and the instruction to bring a lace up shoe and wear trousers.. OO heck .. as anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a risk taker so was a bit worried non  the less off I trotted having full faith that she love's me and wouldn't want to kill me..  so after THE most amazing lunch here..

http://www.the-french.co.uk/

which was a taster menu of which every mouthful was heaven I was feeling really rather relaxed s we hopped into  a taxi to the secret 'activity' destination.. and this is where we ended up...

http://www.airkix.com/our-tunnels/airkix-manchester.aspx

Indoor skydiving.. Oh me oh my!! NEVER have I been more scared but gosh did we laugh (75% of it was nervous laughing).. you get 2 1 minute flights which sounds quick yes?? .. NO.. they have time delay or something because those minutes were long.. waiting to get out of work on a Friday night type of LONG! But such fun.. for an extra 5.00 you can go right to the very top of the tunnel with the instructor holding onto you .. so of course in for a penny.. in for 5.00 and off we went.. I had such a GREAT day.. Love that woman!  Pictures will follow when I get them but my certificate is here;

Check me out.. love it more than my degree certificate!

So In other news the 1st of December came which means DECORATE THE HOUSE.. yeah yeah yeah.. and as I get giddy throwing tinsel everywhere Mr W flares nostrils and declares me to be lacking in taste.. ha ha.. every year the same.. every year but i love tinsel so I tinselled .. this year we are a 3 tree house.. greedy or what but as I am not seeing my mammy on the big day (NOOOOOO) and instead we are in welsh Wales with MR W's lovely son I have eased my no mammy pain with tree's.

The complete Girl tree 

The santa train fire guard - Much hated by Mr W

The big tree  -  Kris that's your Santa sack there look 

the tree in a pot bow tree (lights to be purchased) 

so the shopping and wrapping is done.. the turkey ordered, the hampers made we are good to go..

The Home made hampers have been flying out of the door (iI even sold one) I made 31 this year.. 19 for  our lovely friends, 1 made to order for MONEY, and 11 for Mr W's work team.. that's a lot of chutney, jam, wine, bath bombs, soap, lip balm and boxes!




 In amongst all of that I have been Knitting wise men.. I may have already said that every group in LLandinam has been invited by the church to decorate a tree in the theme of a Carol (a Christmas one that is not like Carol Thatcher) our Carol was 'We three kings' .. Bollocks.. jingle bells would have been a doddle!

A serious amount of hamper goods.. all home made.. feel quite proud. 

30 hampers all done 

two wise men.. no three only just came off the needles.. tree goes up tomorrow!

 And of course Freddie news.. Winnie used to bug the life out of our lovely Lolly dog.. jump all over him when he was getting a cuddle and stand on him at dinner time and drive him nuts.. you could almost hear him tutting and mumbling about the youth of today.. well Ms Winnie is having her pay back.. Freddie hangs off her ears, pulls her fur.. jumps all over her when she is getting a cuddle and generally drives her nuts.

he is also a Major thief.. if its not nailed down its in his bed, slippers, hair ties, books, gloves whatever.. but below he is practising for his Xmas dinner.. in bed with his friend Sprout
Gotta love him.