Let Sleeping Piglets Lie . . .

Must blog about the garden soon (watch this space), but couldn't resist putting up something on the piglets we saw at Llanerchaeron today.

Llanerchaeron is our local National Trust property, which we usually visit two or three times a year - mostly to wander the walled gardens, and the old farm buildings, which usually host some livestock.

Today we were checking out the fruit cage there as we are planning one of our own. But there were lots of daffodils out in the garden as well - and a really interesting 'frilly' specimen in one of their greenhouses, as pictured on the left.

The highlight of the visit was

however the piglets of varying sizes. From the very small, sleeping in the sun next to Big Mama, to some independent scaredy pigs who kept running inside the sty when we walked past, to the largest, which were somewhat restive rattling around looking for food.

What really caught our eye though were these snoozing babies (pictured below), who achieved a near pyramid formation by the time we left. Sleeping on the outside is obviously unpopular - we watched one move off the end and position itself on top of its siblings, to be followed by the new outsider, who went for the inside top position. Meanwhile, the others snoozed on apparently undisturbed!

Weather I Should Blog . . .

Not been the best blogger of late, and must admit that the weather thing had got rather boring - so moving to a monthly summary, here are the last two months, pictorially, and from the weather station record (temperature only). *

*The latter suffers from a small glitch - somehow lost all my data from 26th January to 6th February.

On the whole not a bad couple of months, and we're having some lovely Spring weather just now (more info at the end of March - presuming I get round to it!)

JANUARY:

FEBRUARY:

. . . In With The New

To complete the story - as of Monday I am now a full-time Civil Servant. Was promptly shipped down to Cardiff for induction sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. Found out a lot I didn't know about the Welsh Assembly Government (and how it is different from the National Assembly of Wales), and really enjoyed seeing inside the Senedd, a great eco-building, and a fantastic piece of architecture, particularly the way the Debating Chamber or Siambr is embedded in the mushroom stalk like feature.

Enjoyed Cardiff too - was booked in to the Big Sleep hotel (really good value, B&B for £50 a night), and got a free upgrade to the Executive Suite - I've never stayed in an Executive Suite before!

Not that the Big Sleep is that posh - but in addition to the bedroom, there was a lounge (pictured - great wallpaper eh?!), kitchenette, and the en-suite bathroom had a jacuzzi bath. The views (from the 10th floor) out over Cardiff were also fantastic, especially at night:

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my new role as Archives Development Adviser - and the opportunity to work more closely with the archival profession in Wales. The journey home also brought one final delight - a sudden cold snap brought snow over the Brecon Beacons - not enough to delay the journey, but it did look beautiful:

Out With The Old . . .

Long time, no blog. February was a strange month - my last working in academia - and after taking down the hedge, we didn't seem to do a great deal around the garden. Did clear up most of the hedge debris - Martin just needs to dig out the stumps now - I'll leave that to him and the chainsaw!

Anyway with the end of February, I finally finished with the University (well for the most part anyway - will still be marking for them!). On my last day there was the traditional coffee and cakes, and I was presented with a lovely bouquet of flowers, a standard Bay Tree in a pot, and a silver pendant set with quartz. There was a card and speeches, and it was all rather strange - I've been there nearly six years (plus all that time as an undergraduate, Masters and PhD student), and can't quite believe it's over . . .

Hedge Today, Gone Tomorrow

We'd been debating this one for a while - what to do with the hedge dividing off the square bit of garden at the side (where we've just put Greenhouse No. 3). Although it doesn't look too bad in this picture, the trees on the right hand side had died back considerably.


We started by taking down all the dead and dying trees, but then it just looked a little lopsided. So we finished by taking the lot down:

Must admit there is still one hell of a mess to clear up - it's a lot of tree! - but it has opened up the area considerably - room now for Greenhouse No. 2 maybe.

And We Shall Have Snow . . .

While the rest of the country ground to a halt yesterday we stayed relatively snow free on the West coast. Woke up to a whiter world, but not white enough to close the roads or anything - quite pretty though:

And got to see our snowdrops in their true setting:

Greenhouse Number Three

We decided last year to invest in a second greenhouse (a little larger than our existing model) especially as it was going cheap in Focus. We're planning to put it at the top of the garden in the sun trap near the wood store.

However a couple of weeks back we were offered a third, even larger, greenhouse (8 x 10 ft) for free - if we'd deconstruct it and take it away. There were a few panes of glass missing but not many, so we thought it was worth a go.

It took an afternoon and an hour or two the following morning to get from that to this.

Now we're at the stage of putting it all back together again. Well, Martin's been doing the work with a little help from his Dad . . . We've got the foundation's in, and the frame up - we'll need to wait for the right weather before putting in the glass itself though.

The Robin has been loving the construction work - all those nice juicy worms digging in the blocks turned up - he's even fatter if possible!