Chores or Pleasure?

I've been enjoying my garden immensely, and have focused on it intently, while Dale attends to the nitty gritty of fixing toilet flushing mechanisms, and figuring out what's tripping the electrical circuit occasionally. 

Dale took advantage of the very convenient worker's scaffolding over the weekend to mount our Starlink antenna on the roof.

Photo: D. Schultz

 Oh well! I also clean toilets and wash underwear sometimes, so it's not all leisure activities! And I'm picking up all sorts of things left in the yard that I regard as litter. I really am having a hard time understanding someone curating such a beautiful showy garden, and yet leaving remnants of their gardening chores lying around. I've found styrofoam, plant pots, chipped tiles, and plastic bags for topsoil left behind among the plantings. Who does that? 

Benjamin's Buttons and Clematis are putting on quite a show. 

Our new dishwasher has now been installed, which I really appreciate ... though I fear I don't have enough dishes to run it before needing the next lot of clean kitchenware. It's so quiet, and doesn't chip dishes like I might in my Corian-like sink. Thank goodness J & M shared some of their spare cutlery and mugs with us, so we can feed and libate more than 2 people at a time! Guests are very welcome :-)

As far as weather goes, though it seems as if rain happens every day, it's often just a few drops, or a sprinkle now and again, or on and off rain and sun. It's not always a depressingly grey deluge, thank goodness. 

A rainbow appeared after this moody cloud shuffled down the valley - quite dramatic light plays going on!

Eye Catching Details

 

Our Town

 This is High street in Llanfyllin, historically a market town in the county of Powys, mid-Wales, with a population just under 1,600. We live behind the row of houses on High street, roughly in the general location of the red dot in relation to the town.

This is our central square or market place, with a wind sculpture created and donated by a local artist, Stan Jankowski

The town centre is a mix of old Victorian and medieval buildings, all listed (no changes to outside façade permitted)

Another side street, where the sidewalk has been annexed by desperate gardeners. It's not 'you own what you mow' but similar. Maybe it's referred to as 'you own what you sow'?

Our "postie" (post man or woman, aka mail carrier) came and introduced himself to us on his rounds earlier this week. He said to let him know if we're expecting a delivery but won't be home, or if we need him to drop things off elsewhere.

We currently have a lot of noise and dust being generated as the installers begin the process of providing us with solar panels, batteries and outlets for our 'green' upgrade. We expect they'll be busy for about a week.

 Scaffolding around the house

Pub at Last

We finally made it to the pub (The Old New Inn) during opening hours - woohoo. There was only one other person there, and after a little while, he came over, sat down and introduced himself, saying it doesn't cost anything to be nice. The lovely old gentleman, wearing a collar and tie, told us he assembles and paints figures of knights, and loves going on cruises. He was quite taken with the Knights Templar, and thought Dale would make a good knight (little does he know!).

Fish and chips for me for dinner, steak and ale pie for Dale. Fair fare. My ale was from the local Branat valley we passed through on our scenic uplands trip recently. The pub is small and kind of tatty, but it means no airs and graces, right?

Our kitchen sink has been leaking, so we walked to the local hardware store for parts, but we didn't have any success in getting the washers we needed. I did succeed in knocking over some counter displays after some bull-in-a-china-shop manoeuvres, though.

We stopped in at the town butcher, too. There were no prices displayed, so we had to ask the price of each item we pointed to, asking for the British name of each cut. The young attendant was incredibly patient and helpful.

The setting sun cast lovely roof shadows for us on our walk home