Bright smiles and cheery greetings were in abundance outside the Gelli Aur cafe where we all met up for our Walking Well Walk, which was being led by Pam. The weather was not the best with a damp mist hanging around but it didn’t stop us all from setting off in a jaunty fashion! Pam led the way following the path and the track out through the gates of the parkland, passing some magnificent trees, wonderful hedges which had recently been laid, banks of dainty daffodils and fossils in stones.
Leaving the country lane we started off up the hills through the fields and onwards towards the woodland. It was a steep hill and we were all careful not to trip as there was a very deep gully to one side!
We were all pleased to reach the top and clambered over the last stile with relief! Our break was enhanced by Phil providing us all with barley sugar sweets…I think a whiskey would have gone down well too! Following the mole hills we passed through some interesting gates and landed back on a country lane.
The lane led us through some lovely countryside with oak woodlands and beech trees on both sides. There were fields with sheep and lambs near the village church and hall. Maybe if we’d been up in the aeroplane seen on top of a building we’d have had better views over the land! The three ‘Last of the Spring Beer’ group enjoyed their walk and put the world to right as they walked along!
Back at the cafe we all enjoyed a hot drink with enormous helpings of cake…which all went down very well. Who could resist giving the cafe dog a treat!? No one! Thank you Pam for a lovely walk.
The days have been busy with visits to Llandovery for a very enjoyable visit to a friend. It’s a lovely town and there is excitement building for the arrival of the Eisteddfod in May : “The Urdd Eisteddfod is an annual touring Welsh-language youth festival of literature, music and performing arts organised by Urdd Gobaith Cymru and will be held in Llandovery in 2023′
Another visit to Llandeilo to meet up with art pals. Our sessions are put on hold during the winter months and will resume after Easter so in the meantime having a coffee together is very enjoyable. We met up at Davies and Co a wonderful building that houses great interior design products as well as a cafe and now a new deli too!
Never a week passes without a visit to Aberglasney. Some daffodils have flowered and now a blanket of snowdrops cover the land under the trees but the highlight at the moment are the orchids in the Ninfarium!
Back home in the garden there have been magnificent sunrise and sunsets to enjoy. Birds that fly in and out and eat all the sunflower seeds but decline to be photographed sensibly . Two mallards are now at home on the pond but flew off for a while when noise of our new gate was being erected. There’s nothing I like better than a bonfire to clear all the garden cuttings …it’s a jolly good job we’ve got such amazing neighbours!
The Scarlet elf caps were hidden in the garden under leaf litter but I knew they were there as they always are at this time of the year. Always cook before eating…it says….I think it’s better just to look and not eat!!
There’s also lots of lovely lichen around on the trees.
After many years of splitting snowdrop bulbs they are finally flowering all the way down one side of our drive. The daffodils planted the other side have failed so this year the split bulbs are starting on the other side !
Our council has just offered us new refuse boxes for glass along with food waste , blue bags for recycling items and black bags non recycling items. It’s very good indeed but the collection dates have all been changed and which bags to put out each week has also been changed. We were pleased that we managed to get it all right!! No wonder we need all the coffee to keep us going…we must cut down!
For Ukraine:
Thank you for reading. Hope you all have a good St Valentine’s Day on February 14th..it’s a good day to love and treat yourselves to something special but also a good day to keep sending love to all those around the world who need it the most.
Lletty's Blog 
Loved it Babs. We’ll send some coffee jars.
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Great to know you are reading the post as it lets you know what I’m getting up to! If I didn’t write the post I’d forget everything! That’s why I need the coffee to keep me going! Most people have wine and beer bottles in their glass recycling…I’ve always been odd!!! Must run in the family!!!
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A very enjoyable walk with lots of interesting things to see, Marianne. Like Aberglasney, the Chicago Botanic Garden has just opened its annual Orchid Show, always a welcome sight at this time of year. What gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, made even more picturesque by the surrounding countryside. Ours can only be seen over housetops. A good plan for recycling. We put all our recycling stuff in a blue bin and I’ve often wondered how they sort it all out once it gets to the collection point. My son-in-law recently went on a field trip with our granddaughter to their recycling plant and was told that the biggest problem they have is with plastic bags getting caught in the machinery.
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Thank you for reading Sue. I hope you can take more photos of orchids in your Botanic Gardens as they were amazing with so many different varieties last year. We often ponder on all this recycling and whether it all gets sorted properly at the depot. Hopefully it does but I’ve learnt that if there are items in the recycling bag that shouldn’t be there then the whole bag is ‘rubbish’! We can all just do our bit and hope that it helps!
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I just read today that unless you take the labels off of plastic bottles, they don’t get recyled. They certainly don’t make it easy and I think we could probably do with a more definitive explanation of how to prepare things so they can be recycled.
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I totally agree with you more easy to understand explanations are needed. I run an art group in a village hall and we mustn’t put paper kitchen roll in the recycling any more as it contains plastic…I can’t keep up with it all!!
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