Borth and Borth Monument

This was our first time to Borth and we were on the beach within half an hour of arriving!   It had been quite a long drive - six hours ish? - from Norwich so we were keen for a leg stretch and to get the boys out for a run.

There isn't an awful lot at Borth - a mini supermarket, a few pubs and places to eat, including an ice cream parlour, some seaside tat shops for postcards and bucket and spades.  But the beach itself is fab and gives a lovely view around the bay.  We were very excited already!

We could see a monument on top of the cliffs to the left of the bay and decided there and then that we'd walk up there one day during our visit - it wasn't actually as far as it looks.

When we got back to the beach, we had a mini mooch before heading out for the day.   We just could not keep away from that beach!

This photo really makes me laugh - we're such holidaymakers!

Holiday Randoms - Borth

Back in March, Amanda and Sid, Finn and I headed off to Ceredigion for a week's caravan holiday at Borth, near Aberystwyth.  It was just after Mother's Day so, as well as our normal luggage, we transported an enormous bouquet of tulips with us, sent to Amanda from Shannon, and, along with three bottles of wine, they were all we unpacked before we headed for our first beach stroll, within ten minutes of arrival!

Our first beach walk provided Amanda with a solution to the dilemma about what we do with all these tulips which we'd unceremoniously plonked into a waste paper basket - bucket and spade!

There, much better!  (And this gave me an idea of plant pots also for my garden, so I came home with half a dozen, different coloured buckets too!)

The caravan site was set in terraces down a steeply sloping site - which made unloading the car quite an ordeal.  However, on the plus side, the views were stunning with the hills and mountains of Snowdonia in the distance.  We were also treated to the odd sight of red kites flying overhead.

The boys made themselves at home almost immediately of course - as did we.  It didn't take long at all for our crap to be strewn over all available benches and surfaces!

The caravan was lovely and was everything we needed, warm and cosy, with plenty of room for all of us, and perfectly centrally located for everywhere we wanted to visit this week.  Normally, we go back to holiday destinations that we've been before so we pretty much know what the week will bring.  But Borth and this part of the Welsh coast was quite unknown to both of us.  Of course, I'd walked the Ceredigion Coast Path a few years ago - twelve actually! - but I didn't remember very much of it, as it was almost done as a route march.  So it was lovely to become reacquainted with it and it's definitely a place I'd like to go back to.

The only slight hitch about the whole holiday was a slight tumble that I took mid week - down a five foot drop before cracking my head open on a concrete block.  I won't go into all the details here, but I ended up in A&E in Aberystwyth, where the staff were absolutely brilliant, and had a bit of a headache and a crunched up leg for the rest of the week.  (In fact, the crunched up leg stuck with me for a good couple of months afterwards and still isn't quite healed - I think it takes longer to heal when you're an old lady like me!)

 So not quite the week we were expecting, but it didn't spoil the holiday really - it just meant we did everything we'd planned to do, but some of it in a drug induced haze! 

Other People's Gardens - June 2017

I've been lucky enough to have loads of gardening work recently - it's that time of year.  First up was my brother and sister-in-law's garden up on the north Norfolk coast - a beautiful garden, crammed full of plants which are very good at suppressing weeds.   It was just a bit of a tidy up, and cutting back to give some space to plants that were being crowded out - including a fruiting gooseberry that I didn't know was there until it stabbed me!  I also had a helper in this garden, in the form of Buddy, their sweet little border terrorist.

Next up is the garden on the Broads that I've been working on for a few months now and the wild flower meadow area in the front garden is coming along beautifully, where we found this lovely unusual poppy.

My newest garden, just south of Norwich, is giving me lots of work - I've been there every week now for a month and I don't seem to be making much headway at all!   It's absolutely crammed full of plants - and has obviously been very well organised by the previous occupants of the property, but the young family that have moved in now have been rather overwhelmed with it all and I think they would like a "less is more" kind of garden.  Especially with two very young children and a puppy!   My biggest challenge at the moment is trying to work out exactly what plants are growing ..... this is definitely the garden where I've most had to consult my reference books in the field, so to speak!

I think this is some kind of hellebore although very tall - four feet high?  Although Andy thinks it's cannabis!  I can sort of see what he means with those leaves!