Art-i-tecture

We come across so many lovely buildings 

Library of Things

Our town's "Building Resilience And Community Engagement" (BRACE) group (some of whom are 'pious,' remember?) has a 'Library of Things' available for townsfolk to rent out for a minimal charge. It's a drive to encourage people to borrow and not buy new things for that once-off use. They have a catalogue of just over 200 items that have been donated. They have board games, sewing machines, carpet steamers, tools, camping equipment etc.

Sounds like a good scheme to me. Maybe giving the carpets a steam clean or power washing the house will get done one day! They also have 3 sewing machines for rent, which should come in handy.

The same group participates in a Repair Cafe once each month. This is where volunteers with knowledge in fixing electronics, furniture, small appliances, clothing, jewelery, etc lend their skills to fix people's broken things that have been brought in. Not everything can be fixed, and an attempt is made not to undermine local businesses that might offer that service such as bicycle repairs. Refreshments are provided for the community as the repairs are carried out. We hope to go along to the one in July and see how we can help/participate.

I think this poor couch that we inadvertently found ourselves paying for (see Couch story) in January

and which now looks like this: 

could be a candidate for the Repair Cafe ...

Dale has quite a reputation for breaking chairs, and this one was no exception. I was in the kitchen when I heard a bowl hit the tiled floor in the conservatory where Dale had been sitting reading. The only thing broken was the chair - both Dale and the bowl were still intact. Oh well! It was such a dirty yellow that I'd intended covering it to make it more acceptable but now ... is it even worth it? If it's this easy to break, will it stand up to being used on a regular basis? It hurts to give away when we reluctantly paid $70 for it only a few months ago.

Why Llanfyllin?

When we're introduced to new people in town, we keep getting asked things like, "What made you choose Llanfyllin?" "Out of all the places in the world you could focus on after being in the U.S., why Llanfyllin?" Or, "did you know this is kind of a  ... umm ... a hippie type community?" " A bit ... alternative ... quirky .."

"Then we'll fit right in," is our response, but yes ... we have encountered a few 'woo-woo' beliefs and ideas during our introduction to the B.R.A.C.E. (Building Resilience And Community Engagement) contingent. Our heart attack-recovering neighbor (he's doing well), who stopped in for a social visit, said, "Ah, yes, these people can be a bit ... pious." I thought he had a lovely accepting way of expressing his sentiment.

I think they should have said OLD hippies! Is this how they end up?

It's really hard to explain how it came to be LLanfyllin. We didn't focus on a particular town for any reason and ask 'what are the schools like?' 'Do they have a library?' Or, 'ooh, that town looks pretty, I want to live there.' Rather, we searched for houses with our particular specifications and 'dealbreakers' (shared driveways, pasture, nature reserve, 4WD needed, urban, public right-of-way through the property, contingent deals (called a chain here), and no parking spaces were all a big NO-NO). It really eliminated a lot of homes and brought the search results right down. We adapted some requirements once we saw what the 'lay of the land' was, for example, having a place to park the car on our own property was critical, as opposed to specifying a garage. Older homes had very poor insulation and some had low doorways, so no. Having open fields to look out at on the edge of town, which seemed nice to us, could become a development in later years. so no good. Or illegal fly grazing be a hassle on an open pasture on our land. There are some strangely ancient laws and acceptances of passed-through-the-ages practices that might be questionable today.

Almost every house we liked the feel of was in Wales, just by chance. So we had to follow our desires. We had 3 to choose from in Llanfyllin, and we're super happy with the one we chose. It was a house and surrounds we had our focus on, and being near a town was another consideration. We got it all!

This is the beer garden at the back of our local pub, The Old New Inn.

Settling In

I'm reluctantly not spending time in my garden lately, nor are we exploring our environs much since we have so much arranging, re-arranging and then re- re-arranging to do. No sooner do we get things fitting in perfectly, than another 4 bowls or set of coffee mugs gets unpacked from within the depths of an efficiently packed armchair or display cabinet. Then it's back to square one.

It's just hard assessing where to put stuff when things come out in dribs and drabs. Today I found this long-awaited item, which I have missed since we packed it away. It's the small, useful and meaningful things that one misses.

We are being patient, and busy. It's been pretty warm, so assembling things in the 'greenhouse' (aka our Conservatory) has been very challenging. We opened up doors and windows to get some airflow through (we hadn't found our battery fan at that stage) and we ended up with swarms of flies in the house which almost sent me to a mental institution. I couldn't deal with them and was obsessively swatting with dishtowels (no fly swatter), and the battery operated zappers that materialized needed batteries. There's a veritable fly cemetery in my kitchen. Yes, it's gross ... but it feeds little robins, and gives the parents a break!

I'm glad to have found some summer clothes that were used as packaging to protect ornaments and memorabilia. Dale has found some of his passenger coaches had dis-assembled themselves on the long journey! This little luxury item turned up at last - again, a small simple thing: my wooden toaster tongs. How did we manage without it?

Strawberries here are amazing! Small and sweet, not enormous and tasteless

Dale concluded that there'd be no point in properly arranging and transforming the garage until he'd laid out the rubber floor covering first, since everything else stands on that. What an effort he put in, but it does look (and feel) fantastic. And we can get the car back inside again.

Photo: D. Schultz