Posts that Didn't Happen: January 2025

And on to January 'proper' . . .

After our festive wanderings, it was home again, home again on New Year's Day - welcomed back by a (possible) view of the Northern Lights.  See picture of 'reddish' glow!

Within the week the weather began to turn really cold, and we even had a smattering of snow - which morphed into ice on our country roads, keeping us home for a couple of days or so.

Van 'planning' continued despite the weather, with various plumbing bits being ordered, kitchen units measured up for, and electrical work actually underway.  Here's a view of the 'in progress' electric control cupboard.

Later in the month we were heading back across country again, fitting in a birthday visit to Stratford-upon-Avon along the way.  A few days with family, sorting out medical appointments and other bits and pieces, and enjoying some Moo time (not sure she appreciated her Dad's attempt at hair dressing!). 

Home again to yet more stormy weather - although 'Eowyn' was far less destructive in our neck of the woods than 'Darragh', and our new prom lights made it through unscathed:

By the end of the month, there were even signs that Spring was on its way, with some early daffodils appearing in a sheltered spot down the road from us.   

Looking forward to some warmer days ahead . . .

Posts that Didn't Happen: December 2024

Year's end and the month of December . . .

Started the month with an early visit to family, where the remodelled town centre was sporting a (deliberately) wonky tree (in homage to last year's newsworthy effort)!

The plan had been to meet up with some old school friends while we were there, but Storm Darragh rather put paid to that, as we all had to travel to get to the dinner location.   

And while it may have been a wild night in Cambridgeshire, back in Wales the weather warning was ramped up to RED.

Travelling home the next day, it soon became apparent that our bit of Wales had indeed had a rough time - with lots of fallen trees on the road over to Aberystwyth.

Luckily the damage at home wasn't too bad - one missing roof tile, and a partially demolished bit of garden storage!

Then with the clock ticking down to Christmas, it was time to clear the front room of 'Project Van', to make room for the festive bling!

Decorating, cooking, eating - all the usual - duly followed, and we even got a sunny Boxing Day for a walk up Constitution Hill.

The end of the month saw us back with family across country for 'second Christmas',  a special birthday celebration - and more festive sights . . .

On to 2025 . . .

Stormy Seas

Not been the best of days - windy and wet for most of it - but even then there are sights to be seen.

Early evening walk on the prom - still very windy but more or less dry - and the waves were crashing against the prom walls in a very impressive fashion - tried to capture it on my phone's camera but this really doesn't do it justice:

Cold and Stormy Days

The weather continued colder and brighter for a few days after our walk up Consti - in fact we even made a second trip later in the week!  

We actually saw a dash of snow one day - all good for the 'meadow' which we'd planted up with Yellow Rattle seeds that need some colder weather to prime them to germinate.

Hoping that if that 'takes' we may actually have more success with other meadow plants, as it is supposed to suppress the grass and help other more delicate wildflower plants to flourish.  

Just have to wait and see what comes up!

Of course the cold days soon gave way to more wet and windy weather - with Storm Isha hitting us hard enough to do some serious damage to the polytunnel.  Martin made a temporary repair, but we'll have to replace the cover for the new growing season - although we'll wait for better weather first! 

Storm Arwen

End of November, and I managed to coincide a visit to my parents with the first named storm of the season!

Travelled over the day before the storm hit; opportunity to catch-up with family, take in the local Christmas lights, and help out with some bits and pieces.  

Had to delay my plans to return by a day though, in light of the weather, which meant leaving Martin to cope with the fall-out from the storm.

And this was a bad one - Storm Arwen hit Wales on the Friday, and by Saturday morning it had pretty much wrecked the smaller of our two greenhouses, with Martin spending a good couple of hours clearing up broken glass.

So we now have a glassless frame - the plants that survived the night having been relocated to the larger greenhouse (which itself suffered some minor damage.)

Will have to see if replacing the glass is worth the investment or if there is something else we can do to best make use of what's left.

Storm Francis

And on top of everything else - the storms are back . . .  Francis has done its worst, which was mainly to bring down part of the ornamental 'palm' in the back garden (itself a reincarnation of one we lost to our last really snowy winter back in 2010).

On the whole we escaped the worst of it, and as you can see there is still a healthy offshoot, so the palm isn't done for yet.  We also avoided a scheduled 'switch off' for network maintenance as electricity crews were too busy dealing with the fall out of the storm.

Here's hoping for a quieter end to the year weather-wise!

Sunday Sights

More storms and what probably counts as drama in mid-Wales on a sunny Sunday . . .

Our morning trip to the gym brought evidence of the impact of Storm Jorge - named by the Spanish before it reached us - which  has seen flooding up and down the country. 

Luckily mid-Wales appears to have got off relatively lightly again, and the only real damage we saw was this tree down outside the local leisure centre.

Later in the day we took a still rather breezy walk along an admittedly pebble-strewn prom, but nothing too serious.

Then back at home we noticed the air ambulance parked up in the field next door.  They were there for some time, but we didn't see them actually pick anyone up, so hopefully nobody was seriously hurt.

And it did make for a good photo opportunity!

Still Stormy?

Although Ciara and her successor Dennis the Menace are long gone, the prom remains in something of a state:

I guess there's no point clearing up if there's more storms to come . . .  but looking forward to some summer sunshine now!

Storm Ciara

February hasn't been with us for long, and the weather has taken a turn for the worse, with the advent of Storm Ciara . . .  not that Aberystwyth fared that badly:

This is still a far cry from the damage we saw in January 2014, and other areas of the country have seen much worse.

Hopefully that's it for 2020!

Calm . . . Storm

So, Friday morning saw us out walking the prom, before the promised 'Great Summer Storm' of 2019 - a lovely sunny morning, and some views of the harbour from across the gap (strangely something I'd never walked across before):

And here we have the prom on early Saturday afternoon - doesn't look that bad, but at times it was so blustery I could hardly walk into the wind, and there were some very impressive waves (although I failed to get a picture of any of them). 

All very unseasonable for August!

Dinner in the Dark

It's been a stormy day, with the wind howling round the house overnight (although other places in Wales seem to be having it worse than us). 

Made it out onto the prom this afternoon, despite the weather, for what proved to be a rather wild walk . . . but with some great views!

Back home with the wind still buffeting the house, and (perhaps not surprisingly) we also had our first power cut of the year.  

Luckily dinner was a casserole (out of the rayburn), and we could light the fire for some added warmth . . .  

. . . and here we are, with dinner in the dark (well by firelight, candlelight and torchlight!).

Fair play to the electricity people - they had us reconnected within a couple of hours despite the weather - although we're now checking out rechargeable / windupable lanterns on Amazon!

By the Sea . . .

First sunny weekend of the New Year, and we were out on the prom enjoying the sunshine and the sea.

Storm Eleanor may have moved on (leaving its debris behind it), but there were still some impressive waves to be seen at high tide on Saturday.


Here we are by the harbour, trying to capture a good wave while freezing our fingers off in the bright cold that comes with a sunny January day!




Sunday saw us walking alongside a much more civilised sea - as the sun set on the horizon . . .

Still pretty cold out mind you - at least it wasn't raining!

Sea, Land & Snow

Our first night at sea was a little on the choppy side - dozing and rolling didn't make for the best of night's sleep. Got up while we were in port at Måløy, where we ended up staying a bit longer than scheduled while everybody had some breakfast.

This was because we were about to head out into open sea, and a force 9 gale.  We were instructed (more than once) to sit down and relax, or stay in our cabins, so found ourselves seats middle deck looking out to sea.

It was two hours then of up and down, up and down, as we negotiated what we were later told were seas with 10 metre waves.

Can't say I enjoyed it, but managed to avoid the sick bag by breathing in on the 'ups' and out on the 'downs'. Some of our fellow passengers didn't look so good mind you!

Were glad to make proper landfall where we could get off the ship for a couple of hours. This was at Ålesund, famed for its Art Nouveau architecture, and Aksla viewpoint (418 steps up from town).






Unfortunately we didn't have time to tackle the steps and have a proper look round - although Martin might have made it!  Had a good wander at ground level though - plenty to see, with the buildings and the harbour,  and good to stretch the legs on firm ground.

Back on board, and sailing north, the next couple of days took us to lots of small local ports, with two longer stopovers where we had a chance to get off ship again and have a look round.


And both had snow - proper snow - real, deep, white, crunchy snow.  The kind of snow we just haven't been getting (on the Welsh coast anyway!).

First stop was Trondheim, where the sights included a crow snowboarding on a food carton, the old town bridge, Nidaros Cathedral, and the wooden warehouses lining the waterways:

The next day we were at Bodø, admiring the local artwork (no, I don't know what it is!) and enjoying a snowy walk round the harbour.

Along the way there was plenty to see as we sailed past the Norwegian coastline, dropped in to lots of small ports, got snowed on, and passed some particularly picturesque lighthouses:

Tornado!

In work this morning, when the world outside suddenly went mad - from a bit on the breezy side to absolutely howling winds - everyone stopped work to go and stare out of the windows!  Within 20 minutes though we were back to normal, except of course for the collateral damage . . .

It turned out there'd been an actual tornado passing through - with caravans ripped apart at Clarach Bay, trees down all over the place, closed roads, and damage to roofs, chimneys, flagpoles, and floodlights (two were blown over on the local football ground).

Here's the local news report - but Aberystwyth weather was back headlining on the national news again as well!

For once we more or less got away with at home - no broken glass in the greenhouses, and all trees intact - although we did notice that the raspberry support posts in the fruit cage (which were probably rotten anyway) had been taken out.

Down Came The Rain!

Phenomenal rain storm today - less than half an hour in duration, but so much water . . .

Dramatic stuff!

Hurricane!

Well 'hurricane' might be a slight exaggeration, but we don't see 100mph winds that often!

It didn't seem that bad yesterday morning, but by dinnertime the wind was phenomenal - trees were soon coming down (they had to close the road on Penglais Hill - I walked to the top to meet Martin, battling my way against the wind, and listening with some apprehension to the creaking and cracking of the trees on either side of the road!).

By the time we got home, the electricity was out, but at least for us it was restored within a couple of hours.

We didn't entirely escape in our garden either - the winds did for the final bit of the tree that started coming down in 2012.






The smaller of our two greenhouses didn't fare too well either - lots of broken panes of glass, and the door falling off!

Today the full scale of the damage was emerging - the trees either side of Penglais Hill had come down like dominoes, resting against each other - a brick wall had been 'blown over' by the Co-Op - I could go on . . .

We won't be forgetting the first few weeks of 2014 in a hurry!

Borth Beach

Beautiful sunny day, and a trip to Borth to check out the storm damage there.

Aberystwyth was very much the poster-boy of the early January storms and Borth didn't feature much in the news, but there was flooding, and the beach (well stones) were washed up towards the houses in a big way.

They must have been working for a while to clear as far as they have, but the diggers are still very much in evidence!

One Week On

One week later, and we headed back to the prom to check on progress on the clean up.

They'd had local volunteers out earlier in the day with their own spades and wheelbarrows (which made for a good news item), but the machines were still out in force clearing the last piles of shingle into lorries.   Lots of the paving slabs had been gathered up as well ready for relaying in due course.

Some of the damage was more apparent if anything - the holes in the seawall, and the undermining of the pavilion, which is now listing quite severely . . .

. . . as it turns out they're actually in the process of dismantling it for repair, but in the meantime the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales had the opportunity of recording the basement structures of the former marine baths on which it was built.

Still a lot of work to do . . .