The bubble has burst

I’ve living in a bubble this last 4 months, since my mum died really.  I made myself busy, I committed to a course which I came close to obsessing about, I put all of mum’s estate papers to one side and I just did stuff, although I’m not sure what I did.  There was the course ‘Upcycling’, tree planting, but I can’t remember much else. 

Now the course has ended, and now we’ve had her inquest and the death certificates are finally on their way, my bubble had burst. 

Now I feel rather tired and de-motivated.  And it’s just happened in the last few days.  I can see that things are so falling apart around me, the house is dirty, the garden is messy, I’m starting to panic every time I need to go out to see people. It’s been like this for a couple of days now.  I feel scared.  I don’t want to be like this, a couple of weeks ago I was fine.

Perhaps this is grief coming through.  Perhaps I should give myself some time.  Not worry, just get on with things the best way I can. 

Too much reading material!

On kitchen table right now are many things for me to read. And, as there is so much to read, I'm not reading very much. Stupid or what?

We've just received the National Trust member's magazine which I started reading immediately but am only half way through. Then this morning along came my Ebay purchase the Penguin "Tree Fruit Growing - Apples" by Raymond Bush. I need to read this, although published in 1946 the man from Gwynfor Growers who sold us our apple trees thought very highly of it.  Also, on my Kindle I've started reading "From Gutenberg to Zuckerburg: What you really need to know about the internet" by John Naughton, which is really interesting...
Then there are 3 books which I was given for Christmas which I want to read too.

Actually, now I've written this I know what to do. NT Mag, From Gutenburg to ... and then we'll see.  Do I need to read the apple tree book now or can it wait? And the Christmas books will still be there.  This way, I should be able to see the table in a  month or two!

Third Time's a Charm

Last night we were back at Theatr Mwldan to see our third film in 10 days, “War Horse”.  You can tell it’s award season with all these big films coming out.  Although shouldn’t the judges of these film awards consider all of the films in the last 12 months?  And not just be judge the ones which they have seen most recently.  No excuse now in the time of home cinema.  

Anyway, when we arrived at Mwldan, the first thing I did was to go to the loo and grab a load of tissues.  The trailer had brought tears to my eyes and foolishly I had forgotten to bring tissues.   Briefly the film is about a horse, born in Devon, trained by a boy.  The horse is sold to the army to become a cavalry horse in World War 1.  The scenes are quite brutal and the poor horses go through hell.  Some men respect the horses but most do not. Just about every emotion is pulled at in this film, horror, happiness, saccharine sweetness but mostly sadness.    I enjoyed the story and the film looked amazing but felt very manipulated by the music and direction, it was not subtle at all.  Even hubby had a tear in his eye in one or two places and a couple of ladies in the audience were sobbing their hearts out.  It got a good audience of all ages for a Tuesday night at Mwldan so that’s really good. No cinema tonight but maybe we’ll get a chance to catch up with “Sherlock”.

A week is a long time in politics

We’ve been to Theatr Mwldan twice in the last week. First to see “The Ides of March” and then a week on “The Iron Lady”. 

“The Ides of March” has not been promoted much in the UK as far as I can tell.  This is probably because it’s about the US political system and even at this level the system is quite a dirty place to play.  I found a good paced film, with interesting characters, a very good script, it was very intelligent.  I came out of the cinema quite relieved that we don’t have this system of campaigning in the UK  (I hope) as all of the main characters were paranoid, trying to second guess the opposition and it all led to betrayal.  Entertained and a little enlightened.

“The Iron Lady” I felt was two stories.  One of the stories was about a Prime Minister of the UK and the other about a poor old lady with Alzheimer’s.   Both pulled at the emotions in two different ways.  The story of the Prime Minister brought out all of feelings of shock, awe, fear, loathing which Mrs Thatcher provoked in me whilst growing up in the 1980s.  The portrayal of an old woman living with Alzheimer’s and her relationship with her daughter was especially very moving and had me in tears in places as well as a few chuckles.  However, I thought that I was seeing more of biopic about Margaret Thatcher and not something which was more than half made up.  No way can the writers know what is going in her home and in her head.  However Meryl Streep’s performance of an old lady is realistic.  She struggle to open a CD case and get a CD out of hit, which reminded me of mum, who struggled more than once to open a CD case, eventually waiting until someone visited and getting them to do it.  It also highlighted to me the loneliness of old age after your partner dies.  I found that quite upsetting.  So disappointed it was not so much about the PM Margaret Thatcher and her policies and leadership but moved by the old lady with Alzheimer’s and what it means.

Windy Walk

I went for a quick walk at lunchtime, about half an hour. Walked up the track behind the house into the field which we call the quartz boulder field.  The ground was very wet and in the corner where there must have been a torrent, the soil has been washed away to reveal the stone and shale underneath.  Walk on into the amphitheatre field which is very muddy.  Back down the top field, which was dryer, then along the drovers track home.  It was windy all the way, enough to drive the cobwebs away!

Wassailing - Apple Trees

Traditionally, Boxing Day / St Stephen’s Day is the day that one should go out and Wassail your Apple trees, at least that’s what I read in my Christmas book (“A Christmas collection from Wales” by Chris S. Stephens).  This means you should bang pots and pans around the trees and then share you cider with them! This is done to frighten away evil spirits and ensure a good crop of apples.  We didn’t do this, not quite, we certainly did not share our cider but we did plant 10 apple trees.

We bought the trees from Gwynfor Growers, Llangrannog who are fabulous people, very passionate and knowledgeable about their apple trees.  As our ultimate goal is to produce cider, with their advice we chose the following trees.

2 x Afal Ynys Enlli

2 x Monmouth Beauty (Cissy)

2 x Cox Cymraeg

1 x Morgan Sweet

2 x Pig Aderyn

1 x Trwyn Mochyn

It was warm on Boxing Day but there was a medium to heavy drizzle, even so it was too warm to wear a coat.  Our little orchard is not on the best of land, it’s on a slope and north facing but quite sheltered.  Hubby cleared the ground, I dug the holes and planted the trees, then hubby came back and staked them.  I loved it, outside, muddy, feeling the earth in my hands, it was a special moment to me.  So with any luck the trees will survive and at least have leaves on in the spring although Gwynfor Growers thought one or two might produce apples and if they do we are to remove them in spring.   They’d be too heavy for the branches. So fingers crossed that they survive our amateur planting techniques, our hillside and whatever the rest of this winter throws at us.

From Windsor to Waddesdon

Things have been so busy, that I have not had time to write about what happened last weekend. 

Friday we went to meet up with a friend just over from the States and we visited Windsor Castle together.  I was absolutely blown away with the scale of the state rooms.  Absolutely amazing work, wood carvings, masonry and gold leaf plus a rather large collection of knives, swords, armour and guns. No pictures inside, but we bought the guide book.  Our friend also had her 18 month old daughter with her, who although very charming, was not really old enough to appreciate her surroundings.  Although she did like the red ropes that seemed to be everywhere!  Luckily, our tickets are valid for the next 12 months and so we can return again and take our time going around rooms and the castle. We all like the Christmas trees. There were three inside, one was huge one, with lights and very stately crowns on it, the second, hung from the ceiling as they would have done in Victorian times the third smaller and lavishly decorated. We were impressed by these trees...  until the next afternoon, sorry Windsor Castle, your trees are fabulous, but we found better.

The Queen arrived just as we were leaving, and the Royal Standard was hoisted.  We didn't see HRH.

It was a cold day but bright, and here is the sunset.

The next afternoon, on our “let’s visit lots of people before Christmas tour”, we went to Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury.  This estate is owned by the Rothschild Family but seems to be run by the National Trust, so our NT card got us in. Unexpectedly, it was really busy, we were parked at the side of the driveway, nowhere near the car park or the house.  And people continued to arrive and park behind us. We walked to the house which looks so different from any other country houses which we’ve been to in the UK.  I guess it looks like a large French estate house, lots of details on the masonry and very clean.  There was a little wooden shed nearby which stated that this was the place to get house tickets – we got ours and could not get into the house until 3.45pm.  So we had 3 hours to wander around the grounds, look around the aviary and find odd sculptures.  We went to the stables and drank mulled wine and ate hot dogs whilst being entertained by a choir.  We were nearly late getting into the house as were enjoying going around the wine cellar (just looking), but luckily we remembered the time and were soon standing outside the door.  

Once we got in, we realised why Waddesdon was so busy, we were not there to see the house and its collections but to see the lavish and imaginative Christmas decorations, themed around Italy. The first trees were amazing, with Venetian Masks hanging from the branches.  I liked them very much and wondered what was to come next.  We slowly went up a spiral staircase and saw shapes and vases decorated with dried pasta – imagination and humour!  Other rooms we went into and there were more trees and decorations. Themes for decorating trees varied from Leonardo Da Vinci to a Volcano.  One staircase was dedicated to the story of Befana, a story which I knew nothing about, and some small rooms were all about the story of Pinocchio. I could have spent hours there, but we were only allowed a short time. It was wonderful though and now you see why I have two trees.  Thing is we’ll have to go back to Waddesdon Manor so that we can see all of the brilliant collections there.

Waddesdon on arrival - cars everywhere!

At the back of the house. 
All the statues were covered like this, it was like walking in a garden of ghosts.

Father Christmas greeting people at the entrance.

It's getting dark.