Cutting back the willow

I have a sizeable willow in the garden. I have felt the need before to cut it down to size a bit. It gives a lot of shadow in quite a large part of the garden, and the plants in the raised bed underneath that don't like that. I had been thinking about taking some of the trunks out. And one Saturday Neil and I tackled it. 

Starting 

It went super fast! We managed to cut several trunks out without dropping them on our heads. And we barely dropped them on vulnerable plants. We could cut off all the branches in no time as Neil had brought powerful loppers. And we cut the trunks in two if otherwise they wouldn’t fit in the garage. They will be firewood! 

We worked until we got hungry and wanted lunch. We had only started after 11! I suppose we weren’t at it more than an hour. Afterwards we went for a nice walk.  But we really changed the light availability in the garden. And that after the work the neighbour did. It’s a different garden now! I hope the plants that get more light now will thrive. Time will tell! 

Finished

Getting rid of things

I have made a start doing a bit of a cull of my stuff. I had been wanting to do that for quite a while already, but I never really got around to it. I suppose the fact that I'm actually making some progress at least partially because of Neil's inspiration. 

Some of what I get rid of is going into the bin. But some of it might be of use to other people. I already got rid of my hiking snow shovel. I haven't done a winter hike in many years! That's the only time you need it. That one I actually sold to a student who was about to have a winter adventure in the Alps.

The snow shovel

I also got rid of a kitchen appliance I wasn't actually using. And an item of which I didn't even know what it was. I should've got rid of it years ago! I've been on the verge of throwing it away twice. But this time, I just asked on Facebook if anyone wanted it, and there were a lot of reactions. It has a new home now!

The unidentified thing

This is only a start. I hope to keep going with this. It would be nice to do a bit of decluttering. Surely I don't need everything I own. And some of it should really get a new lease of life!

Hot water bottle

I have been showering cold for years now. It’s fine! I feel really invigorated afterwards. But I do admit I sometimes come out with cold hands and/or feet. Especially in winter, of course. 

The hands are not a problem. The feet aren’t when I am just coming home from work. I make sure to shower pretty much straight away, as then I have hours to get them to warm up again before it’s bedtime. But it's not unusual for me to come home later. That tends to happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for reasons of Track Tuesday and Thursday Night Hill training. I often am home about 8:30 on Tuesday and 9:00 on Thursday. And I try to go to bed at 10:00. So that doesn't leave a lot of time to warm up my feet.

My standard attempt is to just light a fire. If the whole room gets warm, then sooner or later my feet get warm. And I can also put them quite close to the fire. It tends to work. But warming up an entire room to get warm feet is not very efficient; neither with regard to fuel nor time. 

The answer is obvious, of course. But I just wasn't used to it. Someone reminded me of the existence of hot water bottles and I figured I should probably give that a go. Just heating half a litre of water is quite quick! And I don't have a dedicated water bottle, but if you just put a metal water bottle in a thick sock you have the same thing.

I've tried it a few times now. It works! I put it in my bed and place my feet on either side of it. And then I can sleep like a log.

As it is now April, and fully spring, so I don't think I will be using it a lot more. But I will make sure that my little water bottle and my sock are ready when autumn hits again!

Reclaiming the lawn

My garden is always trying to get wilder, and I have episodic bursts of trying to move it in the opposite direction. This general Easter period was one of those bursts. And one of the first things I did was trim back the hedge. And that triggered another action. 

Most of my garden is lawn, and on several sides, other plants are trying to encroach. Ivy is trying to come from several directions, and one of these is from underneath the hedge. And that had become extra obvious now that the hedge was smaller. I had had a lingering desire to and do that for years, But the hedge work pushed that to the top of the to do list. 

I removed the ivy and whatever other plants had colonised this strip, and then removed the leaf litter. I’ve greatly boosted my compost heap. And then I raked back some top soil, spread grass seed, and raked the top soil back.

I first did that houseward of the raised bed. Then on the riverward side, but only until some lump. I think it’s an old tree trunk. I think I will clear up around the lump too, but I ran out of time. And when I was done, nature watered it. 

I hope the grass seed (a leftover) is still viable. I hope so! Then I can soon enjoy my extended lawn…

Before of the riverward bit

After

Vikings in North Wales

Penmaenmawr Museum does a public lecture series. We might have got wind of it through the Neolithic axe day in summer. I hadn't attended any of them, but Neil had alerted me to the last on in this season's series: about Vikings in North Wales. He wanted to go! And it's right up my street as well.

We would come from our respective houses, so I drove to Penmaenmawr, parked on the High Street, and went to the museum. But it was closed! Oh dear. The lecture would not be in the actual museum? The presentation about Neolithic Axes has been in a different building! I quickly went to the website, and saw the talk was actually in community centre, a stone’s throw away from the museum. I went in and found a seat, and saved one for Neil. 

It turned out that he had gone to the venue where the presentation about the axes had been. So he was in the wrong place as well! But a different wrong place. We are a right pair. But I could tell him where to go. And he arrived shortly after the talk had started.

The speaker was a PhD student at Bangor University. Next year he should finish. And he had three years worth of data to talk about. I figured that would keep us entertained.

He started by saying that the conventional view was that there was no evidence whatsoever, or hardly any, that Vikings had been to North Wales. But he was there to convince us otherwise.

So what did he have? He started with written sources. There are some Welsh, Nordic and English sources that mention the Viking era in North Wales, and he told us how much mention that actually was of Vikings in Wales. There were a few! Sometimes just a reference to pagans, and these are then assumed to be Vikings. But sometimes named individuals: he mentioned a certain Gorm, an Ingrimundur, and the brothers Maccus and Guthfrith Haraldsson. Not much was known about the specifics of their whereabouts but they had clearly been in the area. Had they settled on Anglesey?

He also mentioned archaeological finds.. Sometimes, items associated with Viking culture are dug up. Baptismal fonts with Viking knotwork. A button. A piece of a horse’s harness. None actually proved that there were vikings here, but at least proof that at least their cultural influence had percolated. 

He also mentioned a burial in Llanbedrgoch, where two men seem to have been chucked in a ditch. One seems to have come from Norway. But his burial suggests he wasn't appreciated. Might he have been a slave? 

He also touched on toponyms that might be Viking. Maybe even Anglesey! He had found a reference to “Ongelsund” and he thought that was Anglesey. I found it a bit unexpected; generally, once you are an -øy, and you end up in the UK, you became an -ey like Bardsey. How would you go from sund to sey? 

He also discussed Iron Age fortifications. It can be difficult to find out who built them, but they would be a reasonable place to start digging. And he showed us geophys of a potential boat grave. He obviously didn’t tell us where that was. It would be great if it would be excavated, and turn out to be what it looks like in the blurry radar picture! 

That was pretty much it! Told with aplomb. I had enjoyed it. And then there was time for questions. There were several. My Ongelsund question was one of them. And one man offered that mention of ‘black peoples’ and ‘white peoples’, which had been mentioned in the context of pagan hordes, might be a reference to Norwegians and Danes, respectively. He said that in Irish sources, they were known as dark strangers and blonde strangers. Apparently, Danes are a lot more fair-haired than Norwegians. 

Then it was time to call it a day. We did a bit of after-talk chatting with other members of the audience. Neil knew several people there, and I enjoyed finally meeting them in the flesh. He had been talking about them!

The next series is not until October. But I think we will be back for more then! 

Dissertation presentation preparation

It tends to be my big task after Easter: preparing for the dissertation presentations. It involves finding out which members of staff are available when, making a schedule, finding out which students are allowed to either present to only the staff, of to upload a recording. Sorting out catering, communicating with worried students, making sure all paperwork is ready for all staff. And making conference booklets. I make sure every room has a booklet with the session's programme, and the summaries of the talks. I will only print out a few of these bathroom this year, as in the past, I have had to throw quite a lot of them away. But I think it is nice to create a bit of a scientific conference feel.

This year I was on it fairly early. That was easy, as this year they fell after Easter. If Easter falls late, that doesn't fit. This year, Easter is early, so I could start during the time the students were away. Great! So as soon as the students upload their presentation slides and talk summaries I can deal with that without also having to do the rest of the work, as that will be already done. I have faith it will be fairly straightforward this year! 

Shuttleworth

Old-fashionede early. I sort of have that habit. Also when I am in a YSS caving hut in the Dales. Gwyneth is the same. When I got up I found her in the living room. I had my breakfast there, and a nice chat. And I went to get my stuff ready for today's trip: Shuttleworth. I didn't know the place. I know it only takes two ropes to get in.

In dribs and drabs, the other ladies appeared. And after a while, we all made our way back to Cowan Bridge, and from there to the same parking place we had been the day before. And I thought I'd just get kitted up as the day before. I did not! Looking at my bucket I realised I had left my furry suit in the hut. Stupid! But I had been a bit warm the day before, so I could clearly wear less, if it was a vaguely comparable trip. I decided I would just wear my regular clothes underneath my oversuit and that would have to do. But the other ladies weren't having that. Gwyneth offered me mountain biking leggings, and Ellie a thermal top. That was kind! 

It was a longer walk to the entrance, but still not cumbersomely long. The entrance looked a bit like a raised covered manhole. Open the cover and you see a tube with a ladder in it. At the bottom of the tube a hole was cut in its side. 

Ellie would go in first. There was a bit of faffing. The hole in the side didn’t lead to a level, but to a pitch. There was no floor outside that hole. It seemed a bit difficult to rig. 

It was one thing to rig it, and apparently another to go down it. It took people forever to vanish out of sight! And there was a cold wind blowing. I was missing my furry suit. But the other ladies, who were wearing what they had intended to wear, were cold too.

When I could finally go in I was at least out of the wind. But progress was slow. But the cave is quite narrow in its upper reaches, so I had no idea why. That's frustrating! If you can see what's going on, you can emphasise with it, but if you have no idea what's going on, the only thing you can do is be bored.

After that first short pitch there was a short traverse to a short pitch through a narrow gap down onto a ledge with a bit of a sideways pitch to a next shelf. Progress was so slow! As I was just waiting I didn’t get warm. After that shelf there seemed to be a long pitch, but even that took forever. Once Gwyneth, who was the one in front of me, was on it, I could see it had yet another rebelay. But after that, it was straight down. 

The pitch in the narrow gap

The final pitch(es)

That brought us into a rather large chamber. And in there, we crawled to a different part of the chamber, which has nice dripstone information. That is what we had come for! We walked around, admiring the scenery, and taking lots of pictures. That is; the others did, as we had decided to leave our bags behind by the crawl, and that is where I had my phone. So all the pictures were taken by those who had kept these on them.

Beautiful curtain 

Group pic

Looking at drippies

It was nice but for me, it hadn't been worth the long cold wait and the being home late. But that's the thing about caving; sometimes you're committed! So at least I was warm now, as the crawling warmed me up, and I just enjoyed the views and the company.

When we had seen it all we went back to our bags. Sharon suggested the snack break. But I was conscious of time. I hoped to have a little bit of evening at home! And I know the cat would be getting impatient. So I suggested I start making my way up. That was accepted. Sharon would come after me, helping Mary up. And then the rest would follow.

I thought I'd wait at the top of the little traverse, but they took quite a while. Before Sharon had reached me I decided to go all the way out. The first thing I wanted to do is check that no prankster would have closed the cover of the cave, locking us in. Probably not! But you never know. And the second thing was; one of the things I wanted to do at home was phone my mom. But I could just as well do it right here. As long as I was outside.

I got out, found a sheltered spot, and phoned my mum. That was nice. I also tried to phone Neil but he didn't answer. And by that time I could hear Sharon behind me. She suggested I come back into the tube, in order to shelter more efficiently from the wind. I did that. And together we helped Mary out. 

Out! 

Mary turned out to have all the car keys on her. They gave them to me and sent me ahead. So I could change back into my civilian gear and have a leak. And not much later, the others started to appear. This was the end of our trip! But it was already 5 pm, and it is almost a three hour drive.

We said our goodbyes and headed back to Wales. It had been a great weekend! I had really enjoyed the Lost John’s trip, and going for a meal afterwards. But now it was time to get back to the little cat! I am sure we will do things like this more often.