Thursday 27 December 2007

Nadolig Llawen!

The frost is finally gone, but it got quite cold before it finished. This is a drainage ditch which normally has running water in it -- frozen solid!

And on to Christmas. We went to Greg's brother's house in the Cotswolds and had a lovely time. Some of my favourite presents: A knitting needle gauge so I can sort out second-hand knitting needles:

This isn't really a present, but Louise got a new toaster so we took her old (working) toaster home to have as a spare for when our current (Freecycled) toaster dies:

Greg bought me (us really) a new turntable -- ours had been on its last legs for a long time so this is quite welcome. If anybody wants our old one -- which I think is eminently fixable if you're of a mechanical mind -- it's on Freecycle.

Several books -- two of which are mine and one which is Greg's -- Bread Matters, which I hope will teach me how to make better bread, The Building of the Green Valley, which I hope will give me more insight into how people might have lived here 400 years ago (and ways that I can use that knowledge in my own life), and A Carmarthenshire Anthology, which I hope will have interesting information about the history of the area we live in.

Greg got this useful energy monitor so we can see what is eating electricity in our house. Of course it's made in China -- why isn't there a company here in the UK making these??? Having to choose between a device to help us reduce our electricity use (which is a good thing) and having yet another thing that was made in China (a bad thing) is not a fair choice!

I got this food mill which will make making ketchup and apple butter much easier!

I don't think I've done an egg post in a while, so here are two really cute fried bantam eggs -- check out the yolk to white ratio!

We've also decanted the first of the sloe gin -- yum! It is really a much lovelier colour than you can see here but I couldn't get it to photograph the way I could see it so you will have to use your imaginations...

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Oer!

It has gone from non-stop rain to non-stop freeze... The fields are full of slippery patches from where the water was flowing down the fields and the pond has also mostly frozen! There is a little bit where the water flows in that's still water, but the poor little duckies are just so confused...


In other news, we got the scaffolding back up on the back of the shed so now we can finish the roof -- freezing cold metal poles -- yum!

Sunday 16 December 2007

Bwyd

Read this and this. What are you eating?

Wednesday 12 December 2007

Gwau

Just made this from this lovely yarn... It is lovely and warm and soft and sparkly... I know this is a crap photo but it's really hard to photograph myself wearing something! Will try to get Greg to take a better photo of it this weekend...

Saturday 8 December 2007

Gwlyb, gwlyb, gwlyb...

It has now been over two weeks since we've had a completely dry day...

We've put the hen and the chick (now 15 weeks old, so she should start laying soon) in with the general population, and then hen is now laying regularly -- little bantam eggs -- so cute!

Diolchgarwch hapus i bawb:

I've been in the kitchen lots lately as I can't do much outside in this weather... I've made my own mincemeat this year:

And I also made these yummy pumpkin cookies for my Welsh class: