Garden put to good use

When I first saw what would later become my house on Rightmove, I disregarded it; it was too big. Why would one person need a three-bedroom house? And it also had a big garden. I'm not much of a gardener! But then I remembered the mantra 'location, location, location', and bought it anyway. But I hoped I could sometimes use my house to be hospitable. And when it became illegal to entertain indoors for a long time, it became an extra waste to not put my huge garden to use. And then a few opportunities presented themselves in short succession.

I wanted to catch up with Kate. She had suggested popping by at my place. But then she ended up sea kayaking with the other Kate. She then suggested they pop by together for a cup of tea! But I figured that after a day of sea kayaking they would be hungry, so I suggested they come over for dinner instead. And so they did. I had made my interpretation of pizza, and it went down well! It was nice to catch up. And it's nice to cook for friends.

The other opportunity was on the next Monday. We had the book signing session, and quite a lot of us would have to come to one and the same place to sign these books. And some of my colleagues decided that we could then all go for lunch together. We haven't seen each other very much in the last 1½ years! And one of my colleagues quite likes the chippy here in the village, and I like my big garden, and we figured that if we do all of that in Bethesda, chances were that Martin would join us. So that's how we organised it!

After the book signing, I hastened home. And I got my garden ready. And after a while we sat there with four of us. Not much, considering that all academic staff together is something like 27 people, but still nice! And we had a nice uncoordinated amount of food. I had made blackcurrant clafoutis and olive bread. And others had brought chicken fajitas and crisps and whatnot. It was great! And then when I didn't expect it any more, a fifth person appeared. He had accidentally initially driven to the wrong village! But in the end he had found it. And he had brought some more food. He had strawberries and baklava! What a choice.

I quite like it that my garden clearly sometimes functions as a social hub! I suppose that I live quite central, and I conveniently live next to a parking lot, which makes the logistics easy. I hope it serves that purpose a few more times this summer!

Book signing for graduates

This is the second year in a row we do not have a graduation ceremony. That is a pity! It is nice to be able to finish off a formative period in your life, like your time at university, with a bit of a sense of occasion. And even though we know we could not possibly replace the pomp and circumstance of lots of people in gowns, and the grandiosity of the main hall of the University, we did want to do something, at least. And as two of my colleagues had edited a book about the ocean, we decided we should send out a copy of that book to each graduate, with a personal message in. So they had organised a book signing session at the university's print unit. I biked up there to do my part. It was nice to at least provide a personal message to my tutees! It is nicer to personally congratulate them, but well, what can one do. There will be a catch up ceremony when that sort of thing is advisable again, but it's not quite the same if you have that more than a year after you actually graduated. I hope they appreciate the books! And the messages. It's all you can give them in this strange period…

I forgot to take a picture of the actual book signing, so a picture of the sign of the Print Unit will have to do

Beet harvest

I have one vegetable bed in the upstairs garden, and two downstairs. I have made a conscientious effort to fertilise the ones downstairs; I didn't do anything about the upstairs one. However; for some reason, the upstairs veg bed is a lot more productive than the other ones. I had planted potatoes in both; in the upper bed they came up and looked good. I had pretty much already given up on the ones downstairs by the time they showed some hesitant foliage. I had also planted some trial beetroot in the upstairs bed. They did well! So I sowed more, and planted it out in the downstairs bed. I don't think that will give me a good crop. But one day I figured that the plants in the upstairs bed probably yielded enough root material for a meal. So I pulled them out! They had clearly spent a lot of energy on the plants; these were huge. But in spite of that I still had a meal out of them! I was proud. I think I need to do some serious improvement of the downstairs veg beds and then I might might be a bit more successful in producing my own vegetables. And I am already looking forward to my potato crop at the end of the season! Not sure if the other vegetables will do much; I still have some kale, kohlrabi and carrots upstairs. I have hope! And I have some herbs there, which are doing well. I could make some mint tea soon! And pasta with Sage! Watch this space…

Huge beetroot plants with small beets, but still just enough

Goodbye Fran

It all started with an autoreply of my colleague Martin. Something was clearly amiss. But it could be anything, really. Then it became legal to invite people over to your garden for coffee or dinner or things like that. So I invited Martin and Fran (from up the hill) down for dinner; they had inaugurated loosening of restrictions in my garden before. And if there was something amiss, Martin would tell me. Unfortunately, he did. He answered that coming down wasn't really an option; Fran was ill so if I wanted to see them I would have to come up. Oh dear, so that was what that autoreply was about. But coming up was what I did. And she was a lot more ill than I had anticipated. It was sad to see! But she was making the most of it. And it was really good to see them.

Later, we who teach with Martin took over his teaching and admin roles, as he needed to look after Fran. She didn't get better. She had kidney cancer, and it was aggressive. And recently, she died.

A strong contingent from the School showed up at the crematorium. I was sad this was already the second time this year I had to go there. These are still Covid times, and only a limited number of people were allowed inside. Outside, there was a 30 person limit. I'm sure that more people would have shown up if these wouldn't have been such strange times. We were invited to come wearing something bright, and celebrate Fran's life rather than mourning her. That's hard, though! But we tried.

I didn't know her very well! I saw her every winter as she always organised a Christmas do at their place. And she and Martin had come over for dinner several times. We have also been visiting Suzie all together. But now that she suddenly was restricted in her movement, I came up more often. I was glad to have that opportunity!

And now? We will keep looking after Martin's tasks until he is ready to take them back. And we are trying to support him emotionally as best as we can. And the invitation to the cremation service suggested we don't bring flowers, but give a donation to support kidney cancer research. I hope all together we have raised a lot of money. Maybe that means someone else will be spared this fate!

Proper climbing after hesitant start

I had done my first climbing since the start of the pandemic three weeks before. The weeks after that the climbing was indoors, and I had had a friend visiting on Monday, respectively, so I bailed out. But the week after that I joined again! We would be going to Penmaenbach. When I got there, I was the first one. We would be with five in total. One of them was my favourite climbing partner (even though I hadn't climbed with him for a long time): Glyn. He has this special skill of putting you at the bottom of an impossible route, and then just talking you up. If you're completely stuck, he just says reassuring things such as "it's only a step-and-reach move, you can do it" or "just trust your left foot, you'll be fine! You're on the rope, nothing can happen to you!" and then you magically can do it.

We distributed the stuff and walked to the crag. When we got very realised there are more midges than we had hoped. Glyn had a longing look at some routes a bit further away from the sea, but they sounded difficult. I figured we would probably start closer to the sea where the easier routes are. And we did! Tony and Glyn led to the first two routes. Then Ika and I seconded them. I enjoyed that route! I had done it before and it wasn't very difficult, but it was nice to do a proper route. And when I got to the top I had a slight job; Tony had decided the carabiners in the anchors were too old and rusty and had removed them. That meant I couldn't really lower myself from the top of my route, so I rigged from the top of the next route along. At least I still remembered how you do that!

By then Glyn saw an opportunity and suggested I go belay him on one of the routes he had seen earlier on. I was up for that! And he enjoyed a route that clearly challenged him a bit. That meant it wasn't for me. And he had the added challenge of some rowdy crows higher up who were chucking stuff at him. There were also nesting kittiwakes, which were further away, but their voices carried. And then we even had a kestrel land. 

By then others appeared, so Glyn then brought another rope on an easier route, while Tony seconded the original route. And when he was down, I went up. And he did his magic, and I got to the top! After the not very successful first night of climbing three weeks before that was quite an unexpected triumph. And by then the sun was low and it started raining. I thought that would be the end of things. But then Tony end Ika were keen to try that route as well. While they were climbing, the evening light went absolutely beautiful. And the rain stopped again! We all keenly photographed the amazing evening light on the rock that suddenly looked like Uluru. But at some point it got too dark and we had to scoot. But it had been an amazingly successful night! I had climbed two routes, one of which I had never expected to climb. And I had enjoyed an amazing sunset with friendly people! I felt really good after that. I expect all climbing nights to be like this, but my enthusiasm for climbing has been seriously rekindled!

The first two routes (me on the right one); pic by Glyn

Glyn on the difficult route (pic by Tony)

Ika on the difficult route and me on the more doable one (pic by Glyn)

Group picture: Ika, me, Eifion, Tony and Glyn (pic by Glyn through timer)

Ika belaying in beautiful evening light

It almost looked like another planet

Evening shot of Ika on the crag

Mural finished!

A bit over a month ago I blogged about Bethesda getting a mural for its bicentenary. And it is finished now! If you come into town over the main road from the coast, then one of the first things you see is this celebratory painting. I think it is amazing! I am not seasoned enough Pesda resident to get all the cultural references, but I get most I think: from left to right you have a part of the cover of the famous book "one moonlit night" (Un Nos Ola Leuad, but I own a different edition); a blondin as were used in the quarry; a generic cogwheel associated with slate production; the sort of card strikers placed in their windows during the Great Strike to indicate they were not strikebreakers; the top of Tryfan, where it is tradition to jump for one rock to another; the chapel called Bethesda, which gave the village its name (before that, the area was called Glanogwen); a bridge over the River Ogwen; and then a gathering of people I don't recognise. I first thought it was a male choir, but it has females on the right. I'm sure I'll find out about this! But even without fully understanding it I think it is a fab mural!

New life on the High Street

The British High Street is in crisis. That sentence could potentially be shorter; maybe it is even true that the High Street is in crisis. People do a lot of their shopping in big shops and/or shopping centres out of town, and they shop online a lot too. That way, a lot of small shops and high streets go bust. When I moved to Bethesda, the High Street already provided a sorry sight, and in the time I have lived here, I have seen several more shops close. It rarely happens that that leads to anything other than a boarded-up shopfront or empty shop windows. Something needs to change! And one potential change would be to make the High Street smaller. The High Street here in town is also the main through road. On the outskirts of town, people just live on the ground floor of the houses that line the road. And it would make sense to only use the central part of town, where the remaining shops are, as the commercial centre, interim some of the commercial space further out back into residential purposes. And I think process is starting to happen! During my time here, the bookmaker went bust, and the shop ended up empty. But then builders appeared; they soon reverted the big shop windows to something looking a bit more residential. I think this old shop is now being turned into an apartment. And Britain has a big housing shortage, so I think that is a good thing! Would we see more of this in the near future?

One of the more depressing parts of the Bethesda high Street

The house in the scaffolding used to be a bookmaker's

Something that even pleased me more was new shops appearing. In the last year, we have seen the appearance of a new gallery, a new deli, and now a new shop opening. That last shop is a bit difficult to define; it is the high street manifestation of Cadwyn Ogwen (the Ogwen chain), which is an initiative of all sorts of local producers and manufacturers who have teamed up, and offer their wares for online purchase and delivery. There is a local cupcake bakery involved in that, and the local cheese producer, and the fishmonger and fruit grower and the local brewery and a company making wax food wraps. And a lot more. And now they have an actual shop! 

The deli, that has been open for a few months now

The brand-new Cadwyn Ogwen shop

When I popped in I bought rhubarb, kale, and a candlestick. I could also have bought dairy, art, honey, crisps and whatnot. I hope this will be a success! Would be nice if the community comes together support local businesses. It is nice if your money goes to local people who have a lot of fruit growing on their land, rather than to the third yacht of the CEO of a global chain. And if you buy your rhubarb from the very valley you live in, not much in the way of transport CO2 is produced. I like it!