Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

Welcome to the New Decade . . .

. . . here's hoping it's a good one!

Christmas Day, Kingfisher and Cormorant

And another Christmas Day rolls around - family visitors, mulled wine, too much food, all the usual things. 

Never did quite get to the cake (this year's theme - the Welsh Dragon) - had more than enough with dinner!


In fact it was down to the prom later to take in the evening starling 'show' (and walk off dinner) - along the way spotted the kingfisher on the shore, and captured a rather blurry photo!



This cormorant stretching its wings came out a bit better  . . .

. . .  and of course the starlings themselves:

Through Hell and High Water

Well 'hell' might be a slight exaggeration, but there was certainly high water!

On the way to Stratford (en route to pick up the parents for Christmas) - water, water, everywhere - driving through rivers of it.


Got to Stratford safely in the end, and had a nice evening, admiring the lights, drinking cider, and eating curry!








On to Cambridgeshire - more Christmas lights, and time to catch-up with family before the journey back to Wales.


Food, wine and chat - watched by one very hungry little dog . . .

Let's Go Fly a Kite . . .

. . . well photograph one anyway - a sunny winter afternoon up at Nant yr Arian attempting to snap the Red Kite feeding frenzy.

Lots and lots and lots of kites - but they move so fast it's very difficult to get a decent shot . . .

This was the best I could do!

Explore Your Archive 2019

Another year, another invitation to find out what your local archive service has to offer . . .

. . . launched in Wales with multi-coloured cotton bags, and (of course) cake!

Wedding Day

And after the 'Hen', the Wedding ...

Time with family and friends, an emotional ceremony, followed by bubbles and magic, dinner and wine, even more emotional speeches and an evening on the dance floor.

The bride looked beautiful, the groom shed a few tears, as did the father of the bride, and there was even a little Marci on the cake . . .

A lovely day.

Into the Woods . . .

A bright November afternoon, and a wander round Penrhyn woods - autumn leaves, mossy trees - time for some arty photography!

Bloomin'

Took custody of some orchid plants from Mum earlier this year - repotted, and yay - one at least has bloomed!

Jen's Hen

And on to the second girly weekend of October - this time my sister's hen do 'Girl's Night In' . . .






Stayed in a very nice cottage in Norfolk -  food, cake, snacks and drink (they even provided 'emergency wine' cover!) - a log fire, massage and manicure (and of course, Jen's favourite films - cue Love Actually and Mary Poppins).

We did have a day out in Norwich - including an 'escape room' experience in the old Guildhall - so nearly 'escaped', but were timed out on the final lock.  Great fun - topped off with dinner and cocktails!

All in all a lovely weekend.

Jammin'

Mixed fruits from the garden - grape, raspberry, strawberry - sucking in the sugar . . .

Sweet!

Archive Girls On Tour: The Return

Time for the unintentionally biennial archive girls reunion - this time basing ourselves in the Forest of Dean.

A different cottage - a different location for our main 'day out' (from Ludlow to Ledbury), but the same great company!

Good food, a few drinks (of course), and the traditional evening of Strictly.

Finished our trip with a visit to Westbury Court Garden  - a restored Dutch water garden, with some interesting old trees, and lots of carp to feed . . .

The question now is whether we can actually manage to keep the diary date for next year, or whether I'll be reporting back again in 2021!

Solar: One Year On

It has now been 12 months since we had solar installed - and we've already planted a few trees:

Looking more closely at the the stats . . .

• 12 solar panels on the roof of the house (all made by LG)
• Total generated 3.01 MW-h
• Individually the panels averaged 257 kW-h over the year
• The top performing panel generated 275 kW-h and the poorest 231 kW-h

The shade cast by the yew tree is a big factor for at least two of the panels (it will be interesting to see if its recent downsizing will impact on next year's performance). Keen readers may notice that the panel average does not equate to the totals below, this may be due to the fact we had the wrong inverter installed for a day or two..... Or it could just be inaccurate reporting by the Solaredge equipment!

Our best performing day for solar generation was 28th May 2019 when we generated 24.24 Kilowatt Hours (kW-h), with the month of May being the highest month for overall solar generation. Below are the Top 10 and Bottom 10 dates for solar generation throughout the year. It should be no surprise to see that many of the bottom 10 dates are near the shortest day of the year.

Date	Watt Hours		Date	Watt Hours
28/05/2019	24,235		15/02/2019	50
04/05/2019	23,822		23/12/2018	102
11/05/2019	23,385		07/01/2019	115
21/05/2019	23,345		18/12/2018	130
22/06/2019	23,107		13/11/2018	224
12/05/2019	22,899		05/12/2018	226
21/06/2019	22,796		06/12/2018	258
20/06/2019	22,760		15/12/2018	261
05/07/2019	22,729		29/12/2018	304
03/07/2019	22,720		31/12/2018	316

The table below shows the electricity generated by the panels - the figure in green is the resulting reduction in our monthly electricity bill.  Much of our surplus generated electric goes straight into the hot water with the rest being fed back into the national grid (a back of the envelope calculation estimates this as being an average 47% of the energy generated).

Year	Month	Generated kW-h	Consumption reduction %
2018	September	156.106	- 29.3%
	October	206.419	- 36.2%
	November	87.261	- 22.2%
	December	32.87	- 25.2%
2019	January	62.46	- 37.5%
	February	175.996	- 42.3%
	March	283.345	- 32.5%
	April	393.949	- 49.9%
	May	489.449	- 54.6%
	June	401.437	- 51.5%
	July	445.908	- 67.1%
	August	404.56	- 53.2%
	September	337.506	- 23.6%
Total		3477.226	- 42.5%

And of course there must be a graph!

Looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months generate . . .

Back to the Woodshed

We've not done much with the woodpile for a couple of year's or so now - except for a bit of a tidying up exercise back in 2017 - and it was all returning to a state of chaos once again.

So, with a couple of sunny days ahead of us, decided it was time to turf it all out, have a bit of a sort, move the dry and already split wood inside the woodshed, and get the chainsaw out . . .

Can't say we got through all of it - but Martin had a good work-out with the axe, while I moved and stacked.  We now have room outside to store and dry out the off-cuts from the yew tree -  and an almost full woodshed again. 


Hopefully enough to see us through the winter!

Cutting Back

Earlier this year we took a look at the yew tree and decided  the time had probably come to scale it down a bit:

High Winds + Large Tree + Close Proximity to House 

It wasn't an equation we were entirely comfortable with . . .

So today (on a damp but at least still morning) the tree surgeons arrived to do the business (having scheduled things for once nesting season was over).

Two men (one up the tree, one dealing with the cuttings), a chainsaw or two, and a chipping machine.

Taking us from 'Before':

To 'After':

They did a very neat job, leaving us (as requested) with a heap of chippings to distribute around the garden, and a pile of stripped logs, which we'll dry out to feed the log burner next winter.

So, it's done - still not entirely comfortable with the choice, but we'll probably sleep better on windy nights from now on!

Mae hi'n heulog . . .

Last day of the holidays (bar the weekend), sun shining, and a lunchtime trip to Aberaeron, for chips (and ice cream) . . .




Took a few photos - mostly following this heron around seeing who could get the best shot (I'll give that one to Martin).




Finished the day with a sunset walk along our own prom (my shot!)  . . .

September Meanderings

September is holiday time too, and in between chopping, grating, stewing and boiling things from the garden, we managed a few days away visiting family.

First stop Stratford (this time with the full wheel) - a wander round town, a few pints, a curry, and some shopping.








On the way there we revisited Coughton Court - a beautiful tudor house and gardens - and what would have been a lovely cream tea, but for the hordes of hovering wasps!

Moved on to Cambridge on the next day - stopping in Coventry Ikea along the way for a free cup of tea, cake, some excellent views from the cafe - and (from Martin's perspective) too much shopping!







Nice evening in Cambridge - including a drink in the pub opposite my old place of work at Shire Hall. 

In those days we'd go out for a lunchtime pint (although I was usually on the 'snowballs') - how times have changed!

Next morning it was wedding business with my sister (trying on her dress - no pictures allowed!) before heading on to March for the main family visit (and to meet up again with Martin - for some reason he wasn't interested in wedding dresses).


Visit to Peckover House with the folks - lovely house as ever, beautiful gardens / greenhouses . . .









. . . and some fantastic book / paper sculptures on exhibit . . .

The hotel we were staying in was another blast from the past as well - overlooking my old infant / junior school.

All in all a nice few days - time to go home again . . .

Stocking the Larder

It's that time of the year when the garden produce is coming in thick and fast, and has to be processed and either cooked or preserved for later consumption - and this in addition to the annual marrow mountain!

On Monday, we stripped both the apple trees - sorting, peeling and chopping, starting with the apples that the insects had already munched down on.

Stewed a couple of large pans of chopped apples, ready for the freezer, keeping aside those in sufficiently good condition to survive for a few weeks more.

Tuesday, and time to start on the first tranche of beef tomatoes from the main greenhouse.  

More chopping, and cooking down - yielding nine pots of tomato sauce for the freezer - and there'll be  more to follow as the tomatoes continue to ripen.

Finally today made up some redcurrant jelly from our first major(ish) redcurrant harvest frozen earlier in the summer - only two small pots, but it is a lovely colour!

Marrow Mission

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do something with them there marrows . . .

 A small mountain of courgette lasagne has already been produced and portioned for the freezer - along with courgette fritters, and soup . . .



. . . now what to do with this lot:

• Bhajis?

• More Soup?

• Cake?

All of the above?