It's stopped Raining! Spring has sprung and Mr W has a birthday

And thank goodness for that .. its been a busy few weeks.. visitors, gardening, Frock shopping, fences, Mr W's birthday and becoming an editor.

February half term was fun my sister, niece, nephew all landed along with her fiancé and his family.. My sister, niece and I had a day in Cardiff shopping for frocks and by some minor miracle managed to get my wedding dress and the dress that my niece will be wearing when she and my nephew give me away. it didn't look like it was going to happen at first but in the final hour we cracked it! I nearly bought a Vivian Westwood number but figured that a designer dress in a garden with dogs, alcohol, a lake and small people could all just equal a dress disaster .. I wear what I eat at the best of times :-) Was a fun day.. I haven't been shopping like that forever!

It was Mr W's birthday at the end of that week and he was presented (from sis and the kids) with a jumper that just say's CHIPS.. he has been banned from these since a minor health drama so its a protest jumper.. dream on :-) I bought him something much more healthy.. A Bee hive.. stand by honey lovers  :-)

The following week my dad landed and just in the nick of time (before the whole thing blew away) replaced my veg patch fences.. so I am ready for growing season for sure now! We then used all of the off cuts from the fencing job to make wedding signs for the lane.. I am thinking up what to put on them as we speak. he certainly worked hard bless him.. meanwhile I am STILL  clearing the bank sides but really hopeful to be done in the next couple of weeks as I have another big project after that waiting for me in the wood! Got to get ship shape by August!

In amongst all of that, and working I have also been editing the Llandinam Listener.. our local newsletter of which I am a big fan.. its fallen to the same couple of people in the village for years and so they are training up a couple more so that we can all take turns.. and having done this I am NOT surprised.. its a bit of a task.. I am ready for the proofreaders to look at it now though so slowly getting there .. as ever its busy busy!

The WI darts team are still going strong and at long long last I have won one of my games.. the problem we have is that none of us can hit doubles so given you have to finish on a double these games can take for ever.. good fun though  I have truly never laughed so much! We haven't made the final (big surprise) but we certainly haven't disgraced ourselves either!

And the best of all the news.. Spring is here! So I chose a lovely sunny day to finally lay my lovely Mccaully dog to rest.. he has a rose called 'simply the best' to mark his spot! he is in the area where he sunbathed lots in his last year with me.

Mr Heron has returned from his winter holiday 

Ducks are finding places to nest .. though not sure the top of this is most sensible for eggs!

smart new fence 

side view

wedding signs x 8

The daffodils have started 

On a lovely spring day I  laid my Lovely lolly dog to rest . And here is his rose.. ' simply the best'  most fitting for my lovely chum. 

pretty snowdrops in the sun 

The frog spawn has started

spring flowers

Planting season!

Freddie helping with the editing of the LLandinam Listener 

Paper everywhere.. very confusing 

1st draft ready for proof 

check me out

Mr W having a kitchen protest 

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!