Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

 At last! This is a World Heritage site we've been dying to see - the Pontcysyllte (Pont – ker – sulth – tay) Aqueduct. We joined our friends on this fantastic outing - having locals guide us to the best spots and parking areas was a superb way to enjoy this 220 year old structure over the river Dee.

The aqueduct is the highest canal way in the world (126' 8" tall). The 19 arch structure across the valley is wide enough for a single narrowboat with a towpath for horses to pull them along. The towpath is now used by pedestrians visiting the site.

The view over the trees, river and valley is amazing

Once across the valley, the canal widens to a passing and berthing width, and the pedestrian way is much broader, too.

TheTraphont Cefn railway viaduct can be seen in the distance.

View of the 1,007' aqueduct from the stone road bridge

Such and ambitious and ingenious piece of engineering cannot but fill one with awe. This magnificent structure has inspired Dale's design plans for our garden ...

Frond of Ferns

I'm thrilled to have a native hart's tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium) in my garden. It's unique in having an entire, undivided leaf, unlike other ferns in the U.K. 

We've spotted it growing in a number of other places too. In this next photo, the transverse lines down the whole length of the strap-shaped leaves, where the spores develop, can easily be seen from below.

Photo: D. Schultz

Another fern of note, not growing in my garden, but visible nearby on the sides of the pilgrim track to the well above our property, is the deer fern (also called hard fern: Blechnum spicant). I was so excited to discover that it's an ancient-woodland-indicator plant hard-fern.

         

This lovely fern guide has been so helpful

Difficult Delivery

Our posts and timber for our planned retaining wall arrived at the beginning of last week, but the driver insisted he couldn't come any closer to our house than the chapel down the road. He claimed he wouldn't be able to turn the corner to get out, from the position he'd got himself in (thus blocking Brook Street and New Road). After much fussing, and bad attitude, we accepted our delivery at the roadside, with the driver carelessly chucking sleepers down onto the asphalt on their ends.

As Dale says, we've had bigger trucks come through and up our lane very successfully, so we're not sure what his problem was. Dale directed the driver out of his difficult, traffic snarling position so that he could be on his way back to Liverpool, then we loaded the back of our car with some of the load, doing 2 or 3 trips back and forth up the lane, with the trunk open. Not a single snarled car showed any sign of annoyance or irritation - people here are used to having to deal with tight spaces and delayed progress.

Waiting for the driver-tantrum to be over, I took the opportunity to admire the chapel entrance.

I photographed this Persicaria species along the way.

October Morn

 

Morning light adorns

Trees and shrubs with a fresh glow

In their autumn garb

Local Art

 I really love this piece of art by Judith Crozier-Banks displayed in a window on High Street - the technique is called dotting. Quite impressive.

Up close, it looks like this, almost reptilian.

Pookie, the Rabbit with Wings

 This is the buff-tailed bumblebee, or I should say, an ex-buff-tailed bumblebee. 

When I saw the delicate, translucent wings, I immediately thought of the 1946 children's story book by Ivy Wallace about Pookie, the rabbit with wings.

Pookie

Moss Finds a Way

Moss! What an incredible plant - it always finds a way to utilize the minimum of soils, even little particles that must have become stuck between the bricks in this wall. And yet, for some reason, people try to get rid of it! It's beautiful, hardy, helps the soil store carbon and also acts as a filter for pollutants in the air. What's not to love?

The moss we've transplanted to our pond's edges looks happy and vibrant.

Welsh as She is Spelled/Spelt

We've come across quite a few different spellings of words or names that we're already familiar with since moving to Wales. When they're explained to me and I read them out in Welsh, I realize that "hmm, that spelling works!" It's just not what I'm used to.

Gilhespy is a surname that we would write as Gillespie

Ifans is another family name, pronounced as Evans (Welsh f has a v sound)

Huw is another way of spelling the man's name Hugh

Sion can be a spelling of the boy's name Sean

Mail box in our town with King George VI cypher, dating it between 1936 and 1952

Welsh has between 8 and 13 dipthongs (vowel combinations) depending on the region, and they harvest them from 7 vowels - A, E, I, O, U, W, and Y - not 5, as in English. This obviously generates more variations.

So, our street name Coed Llan Lane, is actually said as Coyd (as in boy) Hlan Lane.

It's fun learning new things, but it's hard making them stick!

More 'Shrooms

 It's fall, so mushrooms are popping up everywhere.

It looks as if this mighty fungus has broken an old stump apart!

 

This miniscule one is easily overlooked, though it looks as if it's the perfect size for insects.

Harvest

Oi! The church bells of St. Myllin's rang out on Friday evening, not as part of the Sunday service, nor for Monday's practice, but for the crop harvest. The bells traditionally rang to give thanks for the bounty, and to ensure the preservation of the gathered crop.

So I thought I'd better get to work harvesting quinces from my garden, and make that quince paste (membrillo) and jelly I've been meaning to try. My quinces were small and hard, with lots of pips and minimal flesh. Still worth a try, I thought.

I plucked this heavy load in no time - the aroma is floral and fruity, so fresh!

I washed them all thoroughly - only 2 sowbugs, 2 snails, no worms or tunnels, and very little decay/degradation to avoid or cut away.

This is what they look like on the inside - no real flavor sampling was done though, as they're too hard, astringent and sour to be appreciated raw. It looks like a combination of a pear and an apple, and there are a lot of pips, which look a bit like popcorn kernels.

I decided not to peel them - that was just too much! The smell of them cooking is heavenly!

I drained off the juice, then added sugar for the jelly (left). The flesh went through the blender, and was then slow simmered with sugar to make a purée.

The jelly turned out well - it turns rosy pink during the cooking process. It's a tasty new flavor for our palette.

The membrillo paste had to be left overnight in the oven to dry out more. We sampled some with cheese and crackers - reviews were positive! 

Voilà! My first membrillo, or quince cheese ("a sweet and tart, thick jelly made of the pulp of the quince fruit. It is a common confection in several countries" - Quince cheese). 

The color of the paste is a little 'off' (not rosy pink) because I included the skins in my purée. 

This turned out to be a fun fall project. Though I really enjoyed trying something new and feeling successful at it, it was very messy and tedious. Everything was sticky afterwards - the purée bubbled up and exploded up into the hood filter and backsplash at one point when I chatted to a neighbor, and even the underside of my shoes made a tacky sound, so I had to mop the floor as well.

The purée is excellent stirred into yoghurt - ooh, man!

 

Black Jelly

This delicate swirling organism on our pond log is most likely a jelly fungus called witch's butter. (Exidia glandulosa). It produces fruiting bodies in autumn, and feels somewhat gelatinous and slimy to the touch. They occur on dead broadleaf trees and branches.

It was only by photographing the community of fungi growing on our dead log, that the black witch's butter came to my attention.

Autumnal Light

 This is our magnificent locust tree, an outstanding feature-piece in our garden

Fall colors aren't dramatic in the same way as in Maine, but the changing light regime makes things look pretty nevertheless.

The enormous leaves of our empress/foxglove tree have started to fall

Get Out Your Parasols

 This is a delicate parasol mushroom called a pleated inkcap in varying states

Living Dead

 I'm excited to see how much life there is because of this dead tree - quite amazing. Death brings life!

A dying tree gives

Life to other living things -

Continuity.

Chaotic Quiz Night

Quick pizza dinner before Trivia

We joined up with some friends at The Old New Inn (maybe I should rename it The [M]old New Inn) last week for Quiz night. Boy, was it chaotic! For a start, the quizmaster had a thick Welsh accent, and there was no projection of the questions onto a screen to help us!

When we asked for a repeat of a question, he usually couldn't remember which question he'd got up to, so there was a lot of back- and forth-ing to bring him up to speed each time we queried something. Exasperating! At one point, not being able to pronounce the names of the rivers on his sheet, he read out the answer as well!

His scoring was the most incomprehensibly bizarre system I've ever encountered. For instance, in the sports category, one question required us to name the 11 British driving champions, for a total of 11 points, and all subsequent questions in that category scored one point.

There were many other categories too, some where there was an occasional 3-7 part answer (eg, name the 7 wonders of Wales) for that same number of points, and others where a single answer was required. Some categories scored 18 points, some 10!

Later, the music category required us to name a song and artist for each question, with half points awarded for each, for a total of 10 for that category. Why the inconsistency? Additionally, teams could play a JOKER card before any category began, usually picking the topic they were best at. Choosing a joker where there were 18 points to be had instead of 10 made for a very unfair advantage, especially when there was no heads-up as to how many points we were playing for.

Funny thing is, despite it being frustrating at times, we had a great time guessing with our friends (and this time we didn't come last).

Dusk in Autumn