A Simple Life of Luxury

As regular readers will know we have been having a pragmatic approach to saving some electricity recently. We’re still using the electricity monitor and have been keeping the usage down which is good. It is summer of course so we shouldn’t be using much anyway, but hopefully come winter we’ll be careful with our energy consumption too.

Despite living in a brand new, energy efficient house though quite a few of our windows have large gaps around them which let in draughts and sand and obviously let out heat in the winter so I’ve started sealing these off which will hopefully help the energy consumption too.

Of course living at the end of the line means that we get plenty of power cuts too. A quick search through this blog and there are quite a few reports of loss of power and such like so this can on occasion help is save electricity too! We had a quick power cut on Friday afternoon with the power going off for a minute or so… Still enough to shut down all of the computers too abrubtly for my liking and of course reset all of the clocks etc. And then it went off for about an hour around dinner time. According to the electricity company a bird flew into the line earlier in the day when the power first went off and then they switched it off at dinner time to repair it… I’m not sure how a bird manages to cause such disruption but it did!

It did mean that our energy consumption for the day was a little lower than normal though, just 4Kwh

Our final stop of the day on our anniversary was The Frame House in Borth.

Instead of buying each other anniversary cards and presents we had decided to treat ourselves to a nice picture for the wall. We didn’t really know what we wanted so we stopped off to have a look for something suitable. The Frame House was looking good with its new coffee shop and we saw quite a few paintings and photos that we liked, but then we spotted a really nice one of the beach opposite our house with a few kites in it.

It was an original by a local artist called Eve Smith so was a little more money than we had intended to spend, but after a little bit of decision making we decided it was better to spend a little more on something special rather than just buy something suitable. Lets just hope Eve makes name for herself and it ends up being worth even more!

Continuing our anniversary day out we headed off to Llanerchaeron House near Aberaeron. This is a National Trust property so it isn’t cheap to get in but we decided that it was our anniversary so we may as well treat ourselves and have a look round, especially seeing as I’m into gardens at the moment anyway.

We wandered around the gardens and the lake and then had a look round the house. Th house itself isn’t huge but it was interesting. We were actually more interested in the service areas out the back of the house rather than the luxurious living areas.

The gardens were nice too, if only we had a little more protection from the wind here. Of course, being a National Trust property they did try to get us to join. We would if there were more National Trust properties in the area, but a family membership is quite expensive and with nothing else to visit around here it just wouldn’t be worth it for us.

At least I remembered to take some photos for a change!

All in all a nice day out together.

It was our wedding anniversary on Thursday so although we felt a little guilty about it we sent Morgan off to nursery as usual and had a day out together.

Typically I had come down with the dreaded lurgy the night before so wasn’t feeling great and the weather didn’t look too good to start with either. First we drove to Aberaeron but as it was pouring with rain decided to continue down the coast towards New Quay. We stopped off at a little garden centre in Llanart and had a wander round then dodged the showers in New Quay before heading off to the nearby Honey Farm for some lunch.

We hadn’t been to the honey farm before and although small it was a pleasant place to stop. We had a cream tea here and a little look around. They have a nice little picnic area, a tea room, an exhibition and a meadery. I discovered that the term ‘Honeymoon’ comes from the fact that honey was considered an aphrodisiac and was given to newlyweds for a lunar month after their wedding, hence the term honeymoon… Quite an appropriate thing to learn on our anniversary.

The weather had brightened up by now and it was actually a lovely day. The wind had picked up too so had I been feeling well enough I would have been dying to get out for a windsurf but as it was we headed back towards Aberaeron and off to Llanerchaeron House.

As I mentioned a while back, the Ceredigion Coastal Path is due to open soon. First Minister Rhodri Morgan will be joining in on the activities to launch the path between July 4th and July 9th. To mark the opening of the path Ceredigion Ramblers have organised a six-day festival that will see the whole 60 miles of the new coastal path from Cardigan to the Dyfi Estuary walked.

Most of the festival days are divided into morning and afternoon walks and the public are welcome to join either session or to make a whole day of it. Each walk will be led by members of the Ramblers’ in Ceredigion.

Click here for full details of the timetable, personal safety issues and transport arrangements for the Ceredigion Coastal Path Celebration Event 4-9th July 2008.

The  path has taken five years to create with the help of the Ceredigion Ramblers who working as volunteers have helped by builidng bridges and walls, excavating paths etc. It is expected to be popular with walkers far and wide, and will hopefully provide a real and lasting boost to the local economy. It may also encourage a few more people to find the geocaches that I and others have hidden along the path.

The path will form part of the 800 mile all-Wales Coastal Path which is being completed over the next four years.

Geocaching seems to have turned me into a media hound! Maybe not, but I did do an interview and spend a morning geocaching with BBC Radio Wales the other day.

This was completely unrelated to my recent article that was published on the BBC Isle of Man website, but I was approached by the producer of Country Focus that airs on BBC Radio Wales and asked if I would mind doing a half hour programme all about Geocaching. I got together a few other aber-cachers and we met up last week to take the shows presenter out caching for the morning.

After a quick introduction in my office explaining the concept and showing them how to get the cache details from the web an into my GPSr and iPod we jumped in the car and headed into Aberyswyth where we went in search of the Yellow cache from the Rainbow series. Red Kite (the owner of the cache) and Sarah from Idle Rocks were with me along with the shows present (Mel Doel) and producer (Pauline Smith) We gave Mel and Pauline the GPSr and let them find the cache themselves which they did easily. Sarah hadn;t foudn this one either so after signing the logbook, and leaving a BBC Radio Wales calling card it was back into the car and up to the Forestry at pendam for a search for one of my caches.

The Pendam Cache had gone missing a week or so before so I quickly restored it with a new one. We then met Gareth from Forestry Commission, and Peter Hewlett from Llyn Peninsula and had a little interview with them about eco-tourism and gecoaching. We then headed off to allow them to find the Pendam cache.

The Country Focus people had brought a Travel Bug with them so they dropped that off in the cache and will be monitoring its progress on the programme. The programme airs at 7.30am on a Sunday so not many people that know me will hear it (probably a good thing!), and we’re not sure when exactly it will go out, but I’m sure I’ll let you know here oncer I have some more info.

Overall it was a nice morning out. I wanted to stress that geocaching for me was really about the walk and the countryside rather than the finding of the cache, and a way to go to places that you might otherwise not have gone to, but I’m not sure how it will come out once they edit it all. I have a feeling they were trying to portray me as a mad geocacher who spends his time searching for plastic boxes and getting excited about the contents! I know that is what some people do and I also wanted to express the fact that geocaching is really varied and can be whatever you want it to be, but again we’ll have to see if that makes it into the show.

We’ve had some fun at the beach recently. Nothing unusual there, but its good to make the most of it and all too easy to take it for granted when it is so close.

Morgan and I built a huge sandcastle one morning and watched the tide destroy it. We also tried out Morgans new wetsuit and let Morgan have a go on a body-board. I’m not sure what he thought of it really as he soon got cold but he seemed really excited beforehand and did talk about catching the waves later, once he had warmed up.

We also tried to go out in the new inflatable canoe the other day, but the waves were a little too big and Morgan wasn’t too keen so Anna and Morgan played in a pool on the beach whilst I tried to surf in the canoe. We shall have to have another go soon either in the estuary or on a dead flat day on the sea.

I also got out windsurfing yesterday in conditions that were as good as they get here in West Wales. 30 knots of wind, huge waves and best of all, glorious sunshine. I even plucked up the courage to attempt a forward loop, but only the one!

It’s been a while since I mentioned how the garden is getting on but I’ve been spending some time on it recently so thought and update was due.

Most things are growing well despite the difficult conditions. Our soil is nothing but sand, the winds are ferocious most of the time and the air is salt laden. Not a great starting point for a glorious garden I know, but we’re working on it. The compost bins have been emptied and forked into the borders which is gradually improving the soil and as the various plants and hedges growing are beginning to provide some shelter.

The Gunnera is doing well and Morgan shelters under its large leaves if it starts raining. We also seem to be having quite a bit of success with the Hebes and Golden Elder so I’ve taken some cuttings of these so that we can create a few more little hedges here and there.

The recent winds which were pretty strong for the time of year (even for here) did a little damage, but thankfully my Pergola stood firm. Some leaves were broken on the Gunnera, the rose and Margarites have some windburn on them and some were blown over and the poppies were stripped of their flowers but most things seem to have survived.

I’ve even spent some money (shock, horror!) on some plants. The new acquisitions are some climbers for the pergola. A large Solanum (Chilean Potato Vine) for one side and a Honeysuckle and Polygonum (Russian Vine or Mile-a-Minute plant) for the other. It’s rare that we buy plants for the garden as we can never be sure how well they will fare here, but I couldn’t resist them. The Honeysuckle should be OK and the one out the front which came from a cutting is doing well, but the other plant may suffer from the wind. Only time will tell.

The garden won’t win any awards but considering the location and the fact that we’ve spent very little on plants it is coming along slowly but surely.

Our latest ‘toy’ is an inflatable canoe that we bought from the unlikely source of Lidl in Aberystwyth.

It is a two man inflatable canoe, although we can get the three of us in it fairly comfortably and it comes complete with seats and various storage compartments. The inner is your normal plastic rubber dinghy style material then it is all covered in a (hopefully) hard-wearing PVC fabric. It doesn;t take too long to inflate. There are two main side chambers, a hull chamber and two little chambers that act as cushions for you to sit on. The seats then buckle in using webbing straps and you are ready to go.

We’ve wanted a canoe for a while now, but a big open Canadian Canoe was just a little to difficult to transport, store and carry to the beach. We’ve looked at solid plastic sit on tops and such like too but again storage and transport was a problem. The inflatable option seemed the best way to go as it all packs up into an easy to carry bag and will hopefully mean we can take it to the beach or elsewhere with ease and will therefore actually use it more.

I’ve been out for a test run in it. I pumped it up and carried it across to the beach which was probably a mistake as it then catches the wind and makes carryin it a little difficult. next time I think I’ll pump it up on the beach. I then headed out to sea from Ynyslas and out to the Aberdovey Bar. From here I weaved my way through the sandbanks and acros to Aberdovey where I stopped for a little picnic. I then paddled along the coast to Graveyards, out to the Aberdovey Buoy and back across to Ynyslas where I played around in the small surf for bit. All seemed to go well. It was fairly slow going into the wind but the boat was super stable and fairly easy to paddle. It will however be best suited to calm days or protected rivers, lakes and estuaries.

Now I can’t wait to go out for a family outing in it. Who knows we may go on camping trips up the Dovey before long.

After our relaxing morning sailing at Axbridge Reservoir we headed off to Cheddar and drove up the gorge. There were a few geocaches in the gorge so we stopped off to do these.

The first was a quick cache and dash called ‘Home of the Cheddar Pink‘ on the roadside. It was a gorgeous day so the gorge was pretty busy with tourists and hundreds of climbers but I managed to retrieve and replace it discretely. Next was a quick Earthcache all about the gorge itself. Morgan and I sat on the grass for a bit and watched the world go by whilst Anna had a snooze on the car.

We then headed off up the gorge and into Priddy (The highest village on the Mendips), where I went off on a little walk around the village finding the various clues of the Priddy Perambulation cache. Morgan and Anna slept in the car whilst I did this. This was a lovely cache, helped of course by the amazing weather, but it took me on a little walk around the village finding various numbers and learning a bit about the history of the village too. All the clues were easy to find as was the final (quite large) container so there was nothing to frustrate, just a nice easy pleasant treasure trail.

We then headed off to Stock hill and another geocache in the woods. This one, The Stock Hill Tri-Angle was a little more difficult. A short walk from the road took us deep into the woods where the GPS signal was a little patchy. Once there we had to find three trees, each with a letter (A, B and C) on them. It took a while to find the first but at least then we knew what we were looking for. The next two took a bit of time to find as well, but once we had all three we then had a triangle with sides of about 30m. The cache was somewhere within this triangle. We then searched for a while to find the cache. We lost track of which tree was which a few times so had to re-search for the letters a couple of time, but eventually we found what was a very cleverly hidden cache. I won’t give anything away here but it was well camouflaged and well hidden so we were pretty pleased with ourselves once we had found it.

Yet again geocaching kept us amused for the afternoon and gave us a reason to go to some places that we might not have bothered going to otherwise.