An Eventful Turn of Events

Our neighbour asked us to be part of the audience for their band's amateur videotaping they'd planned in a chapel at the end of our lane last week. The owner of the 1857 Methodist chapel (and also of the Old New Inn), is a local artist, who uses the chapel as his home and studio. He is one of only 133 artists (Dan Llywelyn Hall) to have been commissioned to paint Queen Elizabeth's portrait, and which we were lucky enough to see in its natural habitat.

The Recursives set up their equipment amidst the stained glass windows

 

and paintings,

dressed up, added lights, smoke, dancers and then worked through 3 'takes' of their chosen song, "Delilah". They created quite a dramatic scene. Dale and I were to wave our arms in the air from the pews and shake tambourines at an assigned time.

As we were wrapping up, our neighbour suddenly became very ill with chest pains, sweating profusely. It was incredibly sudden and there was no clue, no warning, that he'd been working up to having a heart attack. The 999 emergency line advised giving him an aspirin (which he was unable to swallow or dissolve) and making him as comfortable as possible, in whatever position he could tolerate. His wife arrived and pleaded with emergency services to send an ambulance, but they couldn't get one to him right away and couldn't say how long it would be. We waited in the streets for at least 30 minutes, thinking it would be there soon, and we could show them exactly where to go. Another call to 999 revealed that it could be 3 hours before an ambulance could get there!

Dale happened to have his Welsh knight's suit of armour with him, so he readily volunteered to drive the couple to the hospital 45 minutes away, risking speed cameras (which could jeopardize his driver's licence) at every turn. Our neighbour was seen right away and taken into surgery to have a stent inserted, so he is now recovering in hospital. He should be home after the weekend. Sir Dale helped save his life, and has been deeply thanked.

What a horribly, scary turn of events that evening took. It was all so bizarre and frightening to see someone struggling to stay alive and there being NOTHING that could help him.

 

This disquieting scene painted by Dan encapsulated the turn of the evening's mood.

Ironically, we have an ambulance service stationed on our lane, but they closed at 8PM that night, so obviously one needs to pick a convenient time to have a medical emergency!

Whimsical Pond Plans

This is how our pond area looks from our patio. Quite a presentation!

The pond liner leaks though, and Dale's been enjoying toying with design ideas related to fixing the leaky pond. He's imagining creating an intriguing trickling brook that will incorporate and hide that ugly ass radiator retaining wall on the far side of our house. 

By building another retaining wall parallel to it, filling it in and placing pond forms and channels within it, he reckons we could have a wonderful mossy, babbling brook, which can flow into an infinity pool where this mess of pebbles has been placed.

Water flowing over the edge of this pond can trickle along the base of the next retaining wall (in the garden space between the 2 parallel strips of concrete walkway), and then into the existing pond. We are both aware that this is a very ambitious and elaborate plan, so we are really trying to reel ourselves in and simplify it. If it's going to need too much upkeep and maintenance, we'll regret it.

It'll involve a lot of excavating and filling, as well as moving plants ...very elaborate, but oh so tantalizing!

Here is a very roughly executed presentation of our playful idea - maybe this project will satisfy Dale's creative engineering side if he doesn't find the space and interest in redoing a train layout.

Llanfyllin Lines

 

Sundry

We listened to music played by our neighbor's band, The Recursives, at an outdoor beer garden a little while ago. It was pretty good, and lovely being outside (without rain), but finding parking was a pain and a little hair-raising in the tiny village road spaces.

Also, we finally found the drain snake we'd needed when we were cleaning out the gutters a while back. There was one in a faraway cabinet in our utility room.

Bell ringing practice on Monday evenings in the village church is NOT the evening to be sitting outside enjoying the swifts, rainbows and perfumes of roses. It is a discordant cacophony!

The recent St. Myllin's Day festival was a non-event. It's meant to honour the monk who baptized people at our well, but when we strolled into town, there was basically nothing going on, despite there being a pitiful looking sign hung along the edge of the street. 

Here is a feature of our new dishwasher, besides now being solar powered - a top tray for cutlery. Takes a bit of getting used to after being familiar with a lower level basket up till now. We've only had to buy 0.6 kWh of electricity since installing solar panels, that's 18p worth!

Everyone in the U.K. is REQUIRED to register to vote. It doesn't mean you have to vote, but you must be on the voter's roll. To vote for local government in Wales, one must be 16. Every year a form/census of voting eligibility is sent to each household, and a civil penalty (fine) is issued for anyone failing to comply.