Posts that Didn't Happen: April 2026

And on to April - where for the first half of the month a lot of our time was taken up with car issues.  

While the damage to the car was largely cosmetic (paintwork and some minor 'dinks') - we had been planning to trade it in, and as the damage would affect its trade-in value, we rang the insurance people. They advised it should be dealt with on a no-fault non-insurance claim basis, through Enterprise and Incident Management Solutions - so far, so good.

Then we had word that they were classing it as a 'total loss' (a Category N non-structural 'write-off') - basically, given the age of the car, they'd decided it wasn't worth 'repairing'.  After some to-ing and fro-ing it also became apparent that we weren't insured to drive it, without a further MOT and repair work!  All of which left us using the campervan as a 'run around' and finally having to make a decision over whether we were going to go for an electric car or not.

Decision made, and the middle of the month saw us with a full drive - the van, the old car (awaiting resolution of the 'total loss' claim before disposal), and our new electric car . . .  

Next job, a car charger! (Wherein lies a future tale!)

In other news: we continued minor upgrades to the van (boxing in around the rear windows); I finished what I think should be my last consultancy project; our nearly six-year old sourdough starter got a serious mould infestation and had to be binned; we rearranged some furniture, investing in behind-the sofa shelving (for my growing jigsaw collection!), moving the futon to the spare room from the Folly, and the 'kewb' chairs to the Folly from the spare room; and along the way I did a bit of Lego!

An investment was also made in new plug-in 'mobile' solar panels, which with mini inverters, will allow us to take advantage of sunny spots around the house.  

They were a bit larger than we'd taken on board, and in the end we returned two of them, as we didn't think we'd have the space to accommodate all four.  Busy trying them in different areas of the garden to find the best locations!

Towards the end of the month, with some dry weather, we decided to get rid of the yew tree off-cuts from last month's efforts, with a bonfire.  

Well inferno, might be a better word for it - it turns out yew tree is very very flammable, and it went up like billy-oh!  

Martin usually has a hose on stand-by, but it caught him unawares, and we had a bit of a panic before getting it under control.  We now have a rather large scorched patch, and a burnt section of netting on the fruit cage (which we were dismantling anyway so not an issue.)  

On the plus side it was all over very quickly, and it burnt away to nothing - one to take on board for any future bonfires though!

Finally, the end of the month saw us take our first 'proper' trip in the van - staying at a campsite in Llangollen (part of a trip to take Martin's parents to visit family in North Wales).

We had a mostly sunny, if breezy couple of days, with lots of walks - including out to Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (which it was a real experience to walk across).

It was a nice break - enjoyed a few beers and a very nice curry - and got to test the van in a 'real world' environment (rather than my parent's drive).

All good!

Posts that Didn't Happen: July 2025

July arrived with more nice weather and a trip to The Mumbles to meet up with holidaying family - lovely to catch-up, have a spot of lunch, and visit a location we'll have to come back to.

This was followed a week or so later by another trip across country in the Van, for a family birthday celebration (weekend barbecue and Sunday lunch).

Great to get together again with extended family, and we managed to keep the Van cool enough overnight to sleep, despite the baking weather.

After we'd gone though, one obsessed little dog was still staring at the barbecue for a day or so (just in case!) . . .

Back home again, weather a bit cooler and variable, but still nice enough to get out in the garden, and on the wetter days had a few consultancy bits and pieces to be getting on with.

Had a day out to Lampeter / Aberaeron on one of the nicer days.  Harvested this year's 'marrow mountain', and did a bit of pruning / garden maintenance.

Along the way managed to confuse Martin over which holly tree I wanted the top taken off, so ended up with two lopped holly trees - generating a lot of debris for a bonfire (at least holly leaves burn really well!).

With all of that we just did a bit of tweaking on the Van - looking at cab blinds, and fly screens, and electrical bits and pieces - plus some major to-ing and fro-ing with van insurance, which thankfully got sorted in the end.

On to August . . .

Remember, remember . . .

 And as it is the 5th November, what better day for a bonfire?

Got rid of the accumulated garden debris anyway!

Baking Hot

The latter part of July has been baking in more ways than one.  

From glorious sunshine at the top of Consti . . .

to firing up the pizza oven . . .

. . .  to a bonfire - disposing of the the last batch of garden debris.

Still hot enough to allows us to bake potatoes in the ashes the following day!

A Good Day

With our holiday weeks drawing to an end - and after a busy few days cleaning, tidying, gardening, cutting hedges etc. - decided on another trip 'out' - this time a (pre-booked) day trip to Powis Castle.

We've been really lucky with the weather so far, and today did not disappoint, with another day of glorious sunshine, so the gardens were looking their very best (no access to the Castle itself still):

Also took the opportunity to pop in to the nearby Coed-y-Dinas store / garden centre on our way home for a browse round.

Must say I'm not sure why anyone would want a gorilla in their garden, but it was good to see that he was wearing his mask!

Back home again, and as it was still dry, sunny, and relatively calm decided to light the bonfire (which had built up again with garden waste, hedge clippings and various bits of rotten shed panelling / old leylandii).  

We'd scattered the hedge debris around the fire pit to help it all dry out a bit - but it still looked like far too much for one bonfire:

It did turn into a longer job than we'd planned, but it was a nice evening so we stuck with it - ate our dinner by the fire, had a drink, and watched the stars come out.

By 9pm we were down to the dying embers, and had actually managed to burn the lot - time to shower off the smoke, and pour a glass of wine!

Bonfire #2

It's been a while since our last bonfire, and in the interim Martin had dug out a proper 'fire pit' which we've been filling with garden debris for the last year or more.

With the tip closed due to the lockdown, and more hedge clippings etc. accumulating - decided it was time to light it and create some capacity.

Chose a nice warm still evening - emptied the pit first to make sure that the local wildlife hadn't set up house in the bottom - and here we go:

The hose was readied in case things got out of hand, but all went to plan - we even sat there for a bit watching it, enjoying a beer / cider by the heat as the evening cooled.

It burnt well enough to get rid of some of our more fresh clippings as well - although that did create a lot of smoke, and amazingly it was still smouldering a day or more later.

We now have an empty pit, ready for re-filling for next time . . .

Bonfire

We've been accumulating hedge debris, and odd bits of wood round the back of the woodshed for longer than I care to  remember, and to be honest it had all got a bit out of hand . . .

Martin's recent hedge-chopping activities had only added to the pile, which had gotten so large we couldn't actually get to any of the outside wood storage areas.

No pictures were taken, but here you can see the subsidiary pile accumulating on the other side of the fruit cage - a mix of rotting pallets and hedge clippings . . .

So with time on our hands (two week's off, and our first reasonably decent day weather-wise since Saturday) we decided that today was the day to tackle the wood-pile.

We started by sorting, chopping and discarding the twiggy bits not worth keeping.

One load made it to the tip before we decided we were on a highway to nothing, and had the bright idea of putting a match to the smaller pile by the fruit cage / compost heap.

A slosh (scarily) of petrol later, and we soon had a fine blaze - in fact it was hard to keep up with it as it turned out that even relatively fresh leylandii burns very very well!


So we now have a pile of ash, and the external wood storage area is satisfyingly clear and tidy.

A good day's work!