Category: April

Meet the newest member of the family, the singing pony !

I think we could maybe call this a bit of bare back riding !!

Today is my brother in laws birthday, and so we took a drive up to Rowen to Conwy Water Gardens. It’s a great place for a walk round, free to get in, it has fishing lakes, ducks, chickens and cockerels that follow you around and a wonderful Pancake House, with savoury as well as sweet pancakes. They sell tropical fish and carp for ponds and every sort of equipment you could need to go with them, but the best bit has to be the new pair of otters out near the fishing lakes. Well worth a visit.

Happy Birthday, Owen !

OOOps nearly forgot to put a pic of the otters in for Sharon!

Today is my mother-in-law’s birthday, I can’t tell you which one because I would be in big trouble, but Happy Birthday, Mary!

We made a visit to the bird reserve in Conwy and had a rather good cup of hot chocolate in the cafe, anyway on the way out I spotted this patch of cowslips. Apparently the name comes from the Old English for cowpat, – “cuslyppe” because it grows in meadows used by cows.   According to legend, St Peter dropped the keys to Heaven and where they landed Cowslips grew.

I love watching ferns uncurling in spring, it’s like they are stretching out after a good nights sleep. I would love to make a time lapse film of this, to watch it happen faster, hmm, do I have the patience? I think so, maybe next year.

Those tulips I showed you the other day have all changed colour but they’ve not quite opened yet, it won’t be long though.

Did a little bit of cooking today, for a change, normally it is my better half who feeds us all. I thought I was making a Shepherd’s Pie but apparently it was actually a Cottage Pie, made with beef and not lamb, it was nice anyway.

Just a quick mess around with some new lens filters picked up in a second hand shop this week, some interesting effects, and a gorgeous model who is so used to the camera now she will pose any time I want.

The daffodils are beautiful at the moment but they will be even better when my gorgeous red and orange tulips open around them, it won’t be long.

This is just a cute picture of my cat Oskar, messing about climbing up the trellis in the garden. I think the sunshine has affected him, he was very playful today.

A couple of Happy Birthdays today go to my little brother Michael who is 47 today and my almost Son-in-Law, Craig who is 21 years old today, who also has a new baby nephew Dylan born today.

This is the very first aeroplane that I saw in the sky above North Wales after the ban on flights because of the dust from the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

We nipped around to see our friend Wendy tonight to talk about rings and wedding things. This is a picture of Millie who decided she definitely did not want to go back in the house just because we said so. She is gorgeous though.

Painting at last, unfortunately I was only painting the so called ‘stainless’ steel bathroom shelves with black hammerite, because they have started to rust. I’m in the process of replacing all the white grout in the bathroom with black, ever had one of those jobs you wish you hadn’t started.

Just a few more lights from yet another journey down the A55. The last one on here I keep seeing different images in, like a crowd of people behind a stretch of barbed wire, or a group of animals jumping over a fence. (Honest I haven’t touched any alcohol…).

We’ve had a few busy days this week and not a lot of time to take photographs, so I’ve had to resort to taking pictures in the dark again, such a shame. I love playing with the lights when I’m bored and not driving, it also saves me ‘driving’ from the passenger seat too.

This is slowly turning into a garden diary – I really will have to get out and about more. For now here’s a picture of my Kiwi plant – I haven’t had any fruit off this yet but it’s only a couple of years old. I just liked the shadows it was making on the fence in the sunshine.

Flowers on my redcurrant bush, last year we had a 2 kilo crop of beautiful juicy redcurrants from one small bush, and we put enough in the freezer for Christmas dinner.

I don’t know if you remember the very first blog on New Years’ Day the pear tree that was flowering in the freezing weather, well here it is again, in the sunshine this time. Looks like we may get a reasonable crop of pears this year.

Today is my big sisters’ birthday – so Happy Birthday Pat !

I know this is a very strange picture but I love my Hostas, I decided a few years ago to give up trying to grow them in the ground, because the slugs and snails love them more than me. I refuse to use chemicals in my garden so I have to grow them in pots now, I spotted today that they are just poking their noses out through the moss blanket that’s been keeping them warm during the winter.

My daffodils have been having a very long lie in this spring, I didn’t get any sign of them at all in March, but now better late than never, they are out and beautiful as always.

We were visiting Susie up at Presthaven Sands in Prestatyn today, I had a wonderful walk with the dog on a beach. It’s funny I’ve lived in this area for over 22 years but I don’t really know Prestatyn at all, I certainly didn’t realise what a wonderful stretch of beach there is.

I spotted these little tiny violets hiding when I was hanging out the washing this morning, the garden is slowly waking up, and colours are appearing here and there.

Here is a picture of a relatively small “accidental tree” in my garden. We had a holiday in Northern France in October 2001, at the time my youngest son was almost 11 years old, and like most British boys, but not French ones it seems, very interested in conkers. He collected a huge amount of beautiful, shiny, plump rusty brown conkers and brought quite a few home with him. The following spring, finding a bag of conkers, lurking in his bedroom I threw them out into the back garden and ‘Voila’ three sprouted and produced baby French chestnut trees. This one is now around 8 foot tall with huge sticky leaf buds at the moment.

From blue skies yesterday to black skies today, a brisk walk today on Colwyn Bay beach. It wasn’t too bad, there was a little bit of blue sky and it only rained for a few minutes. I don’t care, and neither does the dog, I have been known to walk the dog on the beach during hailstorms, I just love spending time on the beach whatever the weather.

Took a trip up to Prestatyn to visit Susie today, the sun was shining and there was a real feeling of spring in the air at last.

Managed to get a couple of nice shots from the car on the way home, just look how clear the sky is, not a cloud in sight.

 I discovered today that hazel trees have teeny tiny bright red flowers, I was really surprised when I saw them, I’ve had this tree for around 15 years and never noticed flowers before.

When we were hiding the eggs yesterday I noticed my Hellebore in full flower, a little late I think, it’s also know as the Christmas Rose.

It’s traditional in our house or rather garden, to hide little easter eggs around for the children to search for. Well the “children” are no longer children so we borrow some from next door. This year we also have my grand daughter joining in, well watching and wondering why there are so many people running around the garden.

Well the picture shows a yellow egg pretending to be an early tulip, a pink one masquerading as a camellia flower, and another sitting on a very large piece of natural driftwood sculpture acquired from the banks of the River Conwy a few years ago.

I nipped down to Llandulas, apparently it was flooded during the storms and I wanted to see if Dr Geeber’s pebble sculpture, I showed you the other week had survived. Unfortunately it hasn’t, but then I suppose this was inevitable and it illustrates the ephemeral nature of environmental art.

The local council had been repairing around the sea wall and had given the wooden edging a bright new coat of yellow paint, it stood out so beautifully against the blue of the sea and sky.

After the storms, we’ve got some welcome sunshine but it’s raining as well.

I spotted this beautiful rainbow while walking the dog in the rain on the beach.

That must have been one big storm, there are huge room size pieces of concrete, lay on the beach that have been brought down off the sea wall, near The Toad. There are holes as you can see in the actual Promenade, I saw this and another just as deep and wide, Rhos side of the pier and I think there are more on Old Colwyn side.