Laws of physics, a Pontypool garden and an ancient Nisyros fortress

Posted on November 15, 2011 by BarryH

With the continuing mild weather, reckoned to be at least 5oC higher than the expected temperatures at this stage in November, I’ve been slaving away in the garden.  I have put off the decorating yet again and have been renovating the rhubarb patch.  I established it about 30 years ago and it’s recently been getting very tired and overgrown.  As the lowest part of the stone-terraced vegetable garden it is backed by two large stone slabs set on edge as part of a protection against frosts and so encourage early growth, as well as holding back the creeping soil.

But the stone slabs are so heavy that they have sunk into the clay soil and the rhubarb has been overtopping them.  The rhubarb has also been migrating to the edges of the patch and trying to climb out with the result that crops have been diminishing.  Revamping the patch therefore had to begin with excavating and repositioning the sunken stone slabs.  Easier said than done!!

For a start they had become deeply embedded in the clay layer underlying the subsoil so a trench had to be dug just to get at the base of the slabs.  Then there was the fact that they are both significantly heavier than most of the many other heavy stones in the garden.  I can’t remember whether I could pick them up and carry them when I fetched them from the old mountain quarry 30 years ago but somehow I suspect not.  However, somehow I got them into the trailer at the quarry, from the front gate about 50 metres down the garden, and then stood them on edge.  After 30 years in situ difficulty in handling the weight was compounded by the fact that they were muddy and wet therefore difficult to get a grip on.

So I resorted to basic physics, more specifically to the use of levers.  To be precise, and to bore blog readers into submission, I used a combination of the First and Second Orders of Levers.  http://www.handworx.com.au/gearworx/mechanics/simplemachines.html

Or to put it another way, I used a concrete block as a fulcrum and a long metal bar under one end of the slab to lever it up, wedged blocks underneath and then moved to the other end of the slab, repeating the process until the desired height was reached.  There were only two real problems with the technique.  The first was trying to keep the slabs in a vertical position during the lifting process: the higher they were raised the more unstable they became.   The second problem was that it required body-weight for pushing down on the lever not strength to lift it up ….. and I’m just not heavy enough.  But putting the fulcrum as close as possible to the load and lengthening the bar increased mechanical advantage and I managed it.

I was quite chuffed when I got the first slab in position and concreted it in place and then even more chuffed when I succeeded in getting the second slab fitting snugly next to it.  Initially that did require strength because I had had to lay the second slab flat on the ground to deal with the first and then had to left it up into a very precisely sized gap.

These were not the largest stones I had moved into the garden and positioned.  There are two considerably heavier, small-scale ‘standing stones’ which represented quite a challenge 20-odd years ago, requiring the use of wooden rollers to move them into location as well as a good bit of brute force to stand them on end.

Second slab positioned ready for concreting to widen the footprint to prevent it sinking again

One of two standing stones in the garden dating back to about AD1985

But then I thought of the size of the stones used in the construction of the Paleocastro (πάλiο/paleo = old, κάστρο/kastro = castle) on Nisyros and looked with new eyes at the puny stones I had been working with.  In the Paleocastro individual stone blocks are 2-3 feet high, 3 foot deep and anything up to 12 feet long.  Built without any kind of mortar they were cut so precisely that they fit together so tightly that you can’t get a piece of paper between them.  Quite apart from getting the stones to the site, the stone-masonry skills to measure and cut the individual blocks, the mechanics of manoeuvring the blocks into position must have been the same simple laws of physics that I was using but on a much more massive scale.   And there are many such massively built stone structures in the ancient world across Greece and other parts of Europe, Egypt, the Middle East, Central and South America ….. Puts my puny struggling and sweating into context but it’s somehow satisfying to be using the same techniques on however small a scale.

The main gate to the Paleocastro on Nisyros

Blocks cut to fit precisely together

Steps to give access to the top of the walls


Posted in extreme gardening, Greece 2011, Pontypool, Reflections | Leave a comment

Failing to find The Answer and seeing red in Stockport

Posted on November 6, 2011 by BarryH

I’ve been up in Stockport for a few days, taking advantage of the Aviva Trains ‘Club 55’ deal which, with the addition of a Senior Rail Card, means that anyone over 55 can travel anywhere on the network for £16.  From the house the 170 mile journey by car is 99% on dual carriageway.  But travelling up there by car is always daunting because of the potential for major hold-ups at various points on the M5, the M6, the M56, the M60 …. or even on them all.  With a train fare at £16 it’s simply not worth getting the car out of the garage.

Didn’t do very much when I was up North.  Bits of gardening, visited my Uncle, the odd walk to the shops, watching Joanna Lumley on her Greek Odyssey. But one day, after carefully checking the weather forecast, we walked along the river Mersey into Stockport.  For an urban area it’s an interesting and pleasant half hour walk.  Unfortunately, and completely contrary to the forecast, it bucketed down with rain.

We skulked under cover in the town centre for a while, did the shopping, drank coffee and discussed the wisdom of going back to the house on the bus.  I was quite in favour of that, not so much because it would have kept us dry but because the bus we would catch would be the Number 42.  Who could resist the opportunity to travel on a bus which was the Answer to the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.  Wikipedia says of it (the number, not the bus): “42 (forty-two) is the natural number immediately following 41 and directly preceding 43. The number has received considerable attention in popular culture as a result of its central appearance in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything“”.

In the event we didn’t get to travel on the bus and so were saved from finding out that the Ultimate Question turns out to be “What is nine times six?”. My view is that the Answer is correct and it is the Question which is wrong.   When we came out of the coffee shop it had stopped raining and the sky to the west, glimpsed above the top of the shopping centre, was lightening.  So, emboldened by high-dose caffeine injection, we walked back along the riverside path.  And very glad we did.

With the late afternoon sun and the clearing black clouds the sky was very dramatic.  Wouldn’t have missed it.

Stockport Pyramid, as famous as any in Egypt, at least locally

Rending the heavens

Clearing sky

Blue sky increasingly displacing the red against the black clouds

No, not the reflection of the sun but a street light on the M60 glinting in gold shards on a small rapid on the river

n

Posted in Autumn, Reflections | Leave a comment

Images of Autumn in the garden

Posted on November 3, 2011 by BarryH

The unexpectedly warm Autumn weather continues, a few days dry with a decent amount of sunshine, other days showery with the occasional sunny interval.  The effect in the garden, like in the Park and on the mountain, has been colourful and in some ways unusual.

Heavy showers followed by sunshine always make colours in the natural world more intense.  There are simple laws of physics and meteorology to explain this.  And so it has seemed recently, with Autumn colours more vivid than usual.  Because plants in the garden tend to be exotic rather than native species and chosen for their flamboyance, Autumn colours have been even more vivid there than on the mountain.  Not quite as spectacular as the Westonbirt Acer Glade but small pockets of exotic colour nonetheless.

But the unusually warm weather has also meant that plants have been a bit confused.  Some are still in flower, some coming into flower again after a very indifferent summer, others flowering for the first time.   It is unusual at this stage in Autumn to have such a variety of flowers in the garden.

Vivid red of a Japanese maple

Still in the shade but vivid enough to brighten up a dark corner of the morning garden

Deep purple against a blue sky

.... and against a green lawn

From a different angle

A detailed look

A mountain ash, planted 30 years ago for its Autumn colour

Cotoneaster is smothered in berries this year

.... and they come in different colours and habits

...... augmented by the equally prolific and colourful pyracantha or Firethorn

There are also splashes of colour from plants in flower including cyclamen

Welsh poppies which are springing up even in gloomy corners

Even though under cover I thought this begonia had died in last winter's cold but it survived ans is now outside in the wet .... and in flower

Having survived last winter outside, this fuschia is doing better now than it has in the summer

This geranium is in danger of taking over large parts of the garden and still in flower so I hesitate to cut it back

This campanula is similarly invasive and in places growing up through the patios

In general the garden is a mass of contrasting colours

n

Posted in Autumn | Leave a comment

Images of Autumn and Pontypool

Posted on October 30, 2011 by BarryH

Autumn colour isn’t only to be found in New England and Westonbirt and other UK arboreta.  Admittedly, a visit to the Westonbirt Acer Glade to catch the changing leaf colour at the right time and with the sun shining is very impressive.  I always get a bad attack of Repetitive Photo Syndrome when I visit.  The collection of 125 species of exotic maples collected there are very dramatic and the planting layout shows them off to best effect.

However, Autumn also happens in other places in the UK and, though somewhat more muted than at Westonbirt, the colours of native trees can be pretty impressive.  Walking through Pontypool Park and up onto the mountain ridge in the sunshine between the showers in last few days has been very colourful and heart-lifting in between the greyness.

So, having had my SLR camera lens repaired I took a few photos.  One big advantage is that you don’t have to wait for the crowds to part before you can frame your shot.  And it’s all free!!!

CLICK on any of the images for a larger view

Town Hall and sequoia at the entrance to the Park

Just one of the colourful vistas in Pontypool Park

Exotic clock tower in the Park

Colour at the bowling green

Not all the maples are 'Autumn' coloured

Though usually associated with Christmas the holly berries are particularly colourful in Autumn

Though usually associated with Christmas, holly is particularly colourful in the Autumn

Approaching the Folly Tower

The yellow of gorse in flower, red hawthorn berries and Autumn leaves all add their colour at the same time.

Beech trees, very widespread in this part of the world, are impressive in Autumn

In places they form avenues marking old trackways down the flank of the ridge

The views from the ridge are pretty good too, here with the Skirrid in the background

Looking East across the Vale of Usk to the Wye Valley and in the far distance the Malverns

Looking North towards Blaenavon

Looking West to the last vestiges of the South Wales Coalfield, once of world-wide importance

.... and standing tall at the end of a good Autumn afternoon

Posted in Autumn, Pontypool | 1 Comment

Remembering

Posted on October 28, 2011 by BarryH

 

 

Posted in Reflections | 3 Comments

Autumn: a time to get ready for Winter

Posted on October 24, 2011 by BarryH

Things are changing.  Days are getting shorter and colder.  When the sun shines it’s still just about pleasant enough to sit out for an hour around noon but certainly not beyond mid afternoon.  Still clinging on to going out in shorts and sandals but need to keep moving …. briskly.  And I’ve fished out socks and shoes ready for when the sandals become too cool. The first forecast of frost was for overnight Wednesday but it didn’t happen.  Not here anyway.  But it did mark a change in attitude.  Time to let go of the lingering fond memories of summer and start doing practical stuff to prepare for winter.

Started the Autumn-clearing in the vegetable garden.  Not buying any veg at all at the moment, eating leeks, carrots, broccoli, beetroot and cabbage straight from the garden every day. Picking the small but tasty crop of Autumn raspberries.  Waiting for a frost to sweeten the sprouts and parsnips.  Courgettes now finished so I’ve cleared the sprawling foliage.  Still trying to find innovative ways of using the massive crop of apples which topped out at 160 lbs: not bad for 2 small bushes.  Like a squirrel hoarding nuts I’m busy making batches of stuff and putting individual portions in the freezer to pull out in the depths of winter.

One discovery was that the large crop of beetroot has been ravaged, the shoulders of most of the decent sized roots having been eaten away probably by mice …. or rats.  We had a constant battle with rats when we kept chickens because they came after the food left overnight in the feeder.  But that made them an easy target.  I trapped 28 in less than 2 years, put them in plastic bags and took them to the top of the mountain to leave out for the buzzards and ravens.  There was a distinct pattern to the trapping.  There were few in the Summer months but then several in a short time as a rat family moved in for easy pickings as Winter drew closer. Then a lull until another family moved in to the vacated territory.  Seems that this year they may be coming after my beetroot now they are deprived of hen food.

An important job in the garden during October is to move the tender plants back into the Blue House and the conservatory as the first frosts threaten.  This year that is less of a task as many were killed by the harder than usual frosts last winter.  Nevertheless there are significant numbers of aeoniums and agaves which survived and need protecting.  The aeoniums in the conservatory survived as they benefited from the heat from the house while those in the unheated Blue House died along with most of the cacti.

Cramming aeoniums, prickly pears, 'money plants' and geraniums into the conservatory

However, the agaves in the Blue House proved the most resilient and, if anything, actually continued growing.  The two which are in the ground in the Blue House are now getting so big that they are making it difficult to move around, spreading to about 8 feet across, the same size as the palm tree which is between them. I’ve had to put corks on the tips to avoid being savaged as I edge past them.  Some year soon now they will flower and that will be a BIG problem as flower spikes can be 20 feet high and the Blue House is only 15 feet high in the centre.

The Blue House agaves in 2003

..... and today

The soil in this part of the world is heavy clay of a type classified by the Ministry of Agriculture (or whatever it is now called) as one of the most difficult to cultivate in Wales because it is either glutinously wet or dry and cracked.  On average it is reckoned to be only workable for sowing an average of 8 days a year.  This year I had a huge crop of potatoes, earthed up with leaf mould before I left for Greece.  Growing potatoes has the advantage of breaking up the soil and, together with the leaf mould, this has left behind a finer, better quality soil, at least temporarily.  So a couple of days ago I planted garlic in it.  Apparently garlic needs frost to force it to split into cloves and so is best planted in October to take advantage of the upcoming winter.  I don’t know what the truth of this is, the countries best known for their garlic being around the Mediterranean and Aegean where frosts are not common.  And in the UK the centre for production of garlic heads is the Isle of Wight.  But for many years now planting garlic has been part of the preparation for winter.

Old Wives’ Wisdom would have it that an abundance of berries on trees and bushes is a sign of a hard winter to come.  My view is that it is an indication of the conditions we have had in the seasons just past.  Whatever, the birds are well provided for this winter, however it turns out, because there is a super-abundance of berries, particularly on the tree-cotoneasters.  Usually the berries sit there until a flock of birds from the blackbird/thrush family descends on them and then they are stripped in a few days.  They seem to eat chromatically, starting with the bright red berries, then orange, then yellow.

Cotoneaster loaded with berries

One preparation I need to make for winter is to cut up the wood to feed the fire when the weather turns really cold.  I hesitate to light the first open fire of the winter because that is so seductive that there is a strong temptation to just sit in front of it and read a book.  Can’t afford to do that until all the preparations are finished.  And there is still a lot to do.

Better get on with it.  Days are getting noticeably shorter.  I’m usually out of bed now in time to see the first light come over the hill.

Sometimes the early morning has a cold brightness

Sometimes the sun tries to break through small gaps in heavy grey clouds

Occasionally the dawn sky is fiery

..... and just take a closer look

 

Posted in Autumn, extreme gardening | 1 Comment

Looking back, looking forward: problems in context

Posted on October 14, 2011 by BarryH

It’s been over a week since I posted the last blog and in that time nothing of consequence has happened in the small world in which I live.  That world has been more than usually limited by almost complete inactivity due to a bad attack of gut-rot which followed from the unwellness I commented on in the last blog.  Still by no means certain as to what the cause/causes was/were and I’ll certainly not go into detail out of consideration for the sensitivities of scatalogophobes (The word is derived from two Greek words, ‘phobia’ with which we are all familiar and σκατός which means … Sh…t, I’ve forgotten but not to be confused with those who are afraid of or confused by eschatology).  .

Suffice it to say that for a week I scarcely went out of the house.  Not even into the garden.  Not that there has been much incentive to go outside.  The Indian Summer past, the weather has been pretty uniformly grey, the only variation being in the shade of grey.  Basically between gloom and deep gloom as shown by a rolling pattern of light or dark grey clouds on the Met Office Weather forecasts, interspersed periodically by symbols for drizzle or mist.  On the positive side, temperatures have remained in double figures so no need to drag myself outside to put tender plants into the Blue House for overwintering as has happened on a number of occasions at this time of year in the past.

Not that I’ve taken the opportunity of physical inactivity to do any deep thinking, I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself.  And becoming very bored.  Which did make me wonder …….

My English teacher in school was very keen to instil in us the correct and accurate use of the language.  We would be caned for use in (virtually) any context of 6 Forbidden Words because they were sloppy and imprecise.  Three of those words were ‘get’, ‘quite’ and ‘nice’ (the exception for the latter was in its precise or fine meaning).  He also took us to task for the incorrect use of ‘hopefully’ and gave the example “to travel hopefully is better than to arrive” (Robert Louis Stevenson).  That example made a deep impression on me because it sums up a key aspect of my psyche and what I later realised is a not uncommon human attitude.

Everyday life is generally boring.  We need things to look forward to in order to get us through the drudgery of cleaning the loo.  We need things which excite the imagination.  That’s probably partly why the anticipation is usually more satisfying than the reality, the imagination involved in expectation often painting an overly optimistic rosy picture.

One of the great things about being in Greece in September is that it extends the summer, delays the descent into winter greyness.  But then the contrast on return to Grey Britain is all the more sharp.  Though this year ameliorated by the Indian Summer of very good weather for a week, we are now into The Grey with the prospect only of the odd day of Autumn colours if the sun shines again.  The truth is that the images we see and remember of glorious golds and yellows of trees in Autumn sunshine are a rare treat, not the norm.

Perhaps the worst thing about the gloom which descends at this time of year is that there is nothing positive to look forward to.  The days will get shorter and darker.  The weather will get greyer, damper and colder.  Next summer and the prospect of warm sunshine is below the horizon.  The prospect of deep winter in Canada is hidden behind £ and $ signs.   And Christmas looms.  Fewer and fewer people seem to look forward to it as a time to be enjoyed.  Christians and many others bemoan the commercialisation and loss of ‘the real meaning’ of Christmas, forgetting that a lot of the stuff we associate with it is in any case an invention of the likes of Coca Cola for purely commercial reasons.

I was despondently doing the washing up after breakfast one morning and looking out of the window at the greyness.  Turning on the radio I heard part of a reading from a book by a guy who had had firsthand experience of dealing with the effects on people of the spraying of the jungles of Vietnam with the ecocide ‘Agent Orange’.  (if you’re not familiar with this look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange).  I’m glad I didn’t see images on the TV, the verbal description was graphic enough.  Absolutely appalling.  I’ll not go on about the morality of a so-called civilised nation which can inflict that suffering on another and then start another war based on a trumped up case of Weapons of Mass Destruction.  My mind is already well made up on that.  What struck me was the simple line in the book that seeing that extent and degree of human suffering inflicted on people put one’s own problems in context.  The use of Agent Orange is but one of many inhumanities perpetrated on individuals and societies even in our modern world.

Gut-rot is a temporary and minor inconvenience.  Boredom is self-indulgence.

Posted in Autumn, Grey Britain, Reflections | Leave a comment

Not-so-Grey Britain: Unreal, VERY pleasant ….. but I did get caught out.

Posted on October 3, 2011 by BarryH

What’s gone wrong with the weather?!?!  It’s fabulous!!!!  Cloudless blue sky.  Temperatures in the mid 20s.  From Tuesday afternoon, through the weekend and it’s still cloudless sky on Monday – 3 October!!!!.  It’s only a couple of degrees cooler than on Rhodes and the forecast there was for showers over the weekend.  The hottest week in Autumn on record!!!!!.

Sorry, that’s the end of the exclamation marks.  I’m in danger of wearing out the key.

However, having spent much of the summer in Greece, warm as it is at the end of September/early October in the UK with fairly low-angled sun there is no danger of getting sunburnt

But I did get caught out.  And quite badly.

I realised on Wednesday, at the end of a day working in the garden, that I was getting dehydrated.  I realised I needed to start chucking water down my neck (on the inside).  Thursday and again I was working in the garden all day and preparing to rebuild part of the stone terracing in the vegetable garden, but stopping now and again to have a drink.

Friday and I finished digging out the footings for the section of stone wall I was rebuilding, walked down to the supermarket and back, then did a 2½ hour walk across the mountain to the satisfyingly difficult to pronounce Hafodyrynys with a friend, did some more preparation for the wall-rebuild including pressure-washing the stones, and then walked the half hour to the pub for a pint. About 20 kms in all.  I drank a litre-bottle of cold water on the walk and had a couple of pints of beer but I should have seen the warning signs.  Sorry to be so crude, but it’s an important point, I didn’t need to pee much all day and, because this was Autumn in the UK, I didn’t monitor the colour when I did.   When walking in the mountains in the heat of a Greek summer it’s essential to do this in order to check for the onset of dehydration.  The fact that there is a breeze means you aren’t conscious of sweating much but the moisture is being stripped out of your body quite rapidly.

So on Saturday I got up ready for action.  I was going to rebuild the section of wall I had prepared.  I should explain that some of the stones I’m relaying are quite large.  I had to pick them up, carry them to somewhere in the garden to pressure-wash them, carry them back and then place them in position on a base of freshly poured concrete. I had estimated that some of the stones weighed about 60 kgs so I thought I would check.  I took the bathroom scales down the garden and weighed one of them.  It was 56 kgs so, like most people I obviously exaggerate for effect.   I was not only humping these stones around but also buckets of concrete from the mixer.  I wanted to do it all in one go so the footings were one piece, increasing the likelihood that they wouldn’t crack and sink again.  The mixer was going for 7 hours and all that time I didn’t stop.  No food and only one small drink.  No wonder by the end of the day I felt like I had been beaten up.  My whole body ached.

Sunday and I had planned to take advantage of the fabulous weather and walk up the ridge to Abergavenny.  The good weather was forecast to break on Tuesday.  In order to spur me on and not chicken out from the walk I had arranged to do it with a friend.  We set out at 10.15 and did the walk in reasonably good time with only one brief stop, 4½ hours for the 22 kms.

To be honest, by the end of the walk I was in a bad way.  I had no interest in eating anything. I forced down a salad as I thought I should eat something but I didn’t enjoy any of it.  I didn’t want to drink anything but iced water. I tried a pint of beer but couldn’t finish it and switched to a fruit drink.   My legs were like jelly.

What happened?  Not sure really.  I guess a few things but homing in on a couple of probabilities.  Fairly certainly dehydration.  What small amount I was peeing was dark orange, a bad sign.  Probably also a touch of heat exhaustion.  The sun was not that strong but I had been working hard out in the full sun for 5 days and especially hard for the last 3.  And basic muscle fatigue.  I know I can walk the distances I covered on Friday and Sunday without much trouble but carrying large lumps of stone and buckets of concrete around for a day is something my body isn’t used to.  I can pick up and carry the large stones but am conscious of being close to my limits each time.

It has been great that I have been around for the 2011 summer in Grey Britain. I was still here for the great weather in April and back at the end of September.  I wouldn’t have missed it, it complemented the rest of the summer in Greece very well.  The rest of the so-called 2011 summer in the UK doesn’t bear thinking about.

The weather in Greece was particularly good this year.  I was over there for the 3 weeks on either side of the solstice when the sun is at its strongest and walking in the mountains every day.  But it’s maddening that the only problem I have is in October in Grey Britain!!!!!  (sorry, I’m hitting the exclamation marks again).  Lesson?  Don’t underestimate dehydration and heat exhaustion even in the UK.  In Greece it’s a real danger all the time so I monitor it very carefully.  Back here I carelessly and arrogantly …. and wrongly …. assumed I would be fine.

I have always pushed the limits.  This time I went too far.  Trying to cram too much into an Indian Summer in Grey Britain.

16.00 on Monday and the Indian Summer has just ended.  Cloud drifted across the sky in the strong wind in less than 10 minutes.  Temperatures tomorrow down from mid 20s to 15.  Rain tomorrow evening.  Back to Grey Britain.

Posted in Autumn, extreme gardening, Grey Britain | Leave a comment

Back to reality: finding ways to alleviate the boredom

Posted on September 25, 2011 by BarryH

Been home just over a week now.  An uneventful week.  Nothing to get the pulse racing.  Just plodding along.  But then that’s what much of life is, learning to cope with the tedium and trying to inject a bit of challenge.

Mind, there is always a bit of pulse-quickening when I cut the two 20-foot hedges as I have been doing the last couple of days.  They are only short lengths of hedge but are tall in order to achieve privacy for the house and patio area.  The one hedge I have to kneel on top of and use the hedge trimmer like a canoe paddle vertically down the sides in order to cut the top 2 feet or so.  The hedge trimmer is quite heavy with a 42 inch bar to give extra reach and wielding that while perching on top of the hedge swaying around in the wind is always interesting! The other hedge I have to climb up inside and stick my head out of the top while balancing on a piece of 3×2 spanning the gap between the trunks.

At least now I can do the sides using a scaffolding tower.  Previously I balanced a ladder on top of a box on top of a table.  Enfys quite rightly got a little twitchy about that, particularly after an incident about 4 years ago when I fell off the roof trying to put the finishing touches to a neat bit of trimming.  I like to think that it was concern about my continuing to be in one piece that she was concerned about rather than the expletives I was giving vent to as I emerged coughing and spluttering out of the debris which I dragged down with me from inside the tree.  I don’t know what I’ll do when I get old.  I can’t imagine anyone else taking on the job.

I’m also going for two new world records.  The one is for the heaviest crop of apples from two dwarf trees and the other is for the number of culinary alternatives for using apples.  I’m so far up to 145 lbs of apples and the research into apple recipes is a work in progress. One I have tried is to combine the glut of apples with the glut of beetroot and make them into a very dramatically coloured juice, fired by lemon and root ginger.  It is amusing to monitor one’s movements after drinking this concoction.

Days are getting noticeably shorter now and by coincidence, early morning rumblings a couple of days before the Autumnal Equinox, meant that I was greeted by a fiery sky as well.

Fiery start to the day

Unfortunately I’m doing very little walking.  Partly this is because my feet are now only comfortable in sandals and it just isn’t pleasant ploughing through wet grass and bracken which are usually sopping wet in the Autumn from overnight dew even when it hasn’t rained.  Partly it’s because, when the weather is dry, I’m busy trying to catch up with the work which needs doing in the garden and when it’s wet I just don’t fancy it.

I used to enjoy going out in the rain and have good quality wet-weather gear.  But I don’t really enjoy it any longer.  I think it’s something to do with the fact that much of the time when it’s wet the weather is just grey and boring, mountains shrouded in grey cloud and heavy drizzle.  I particularly used to enjoy going out in very heavy rain but that normally meant getting wet from the inside as the layer of water on the outside of ‘breathable’ waterproof cags stops the breathable Gore-Tex membrane from working.  Try explaining the physics of that to someone complaining that they get wet in their £300 Gore-Tex cag.

At the moment my exercise is swinging around in trees and scaffolding towers rather than leaping around craggy mountainsides.  At least it keeps me from sitting swaying backwards and forwards like those stressed-out caged animals in the zoo.

Come Sunday and I just had to get out for a walk.  The morning was very wet but when it dried up in the afternoon I seized the moment and went.  I devised a variation on a favourite walk to the top of Garn Wen which I could do in sandals and keep my feet moderately dry and free of mud.  It was very pleasant in the late afternoon sun though a brisk pace was needed to keep the blood pumping and, except on the mountain top, the path was pretty wet and squelchy.  I chose to try to stick to hard surfaces as much as possible, including the ‘Roman Road’, though with limited success.   I’m going to have to bite the bullet soon and start wearing boots again.

Known locally as 'The Roman Road' it seems that this paved path is nothing more than a Folly, like the tower on top of the hill which it leads to

I have never know this path to be dry even in the height of a 'long hot summer'. Drainage channels across it have broken up and the stones washed away.

Reaching the top and coming out into the sunlight

Mooning about on top of the mountain

Photographer on trig point

Perhaps the best part of being home is meeting up with family and friends.  I miss that when I’m in Greece and it’s good to catch up again. Subconsciously, and for no real reason, I tend to group friends into ‘old’ and ‘new’.  The old friends are the ones from college days.  I’m still in touch with a number of those and we have a shared memory, going back nearly half a century!!!!  In addition there are the ‘old’ friends we met when we lived in Cardiff straight after college.   The ‘new’ friends are those we met when we moved to Pontypool.  But ‘new’ is a relative term.  It struck me recently that many of those I have known for 25 years …… a quarter of a century.  And even those I think of as very recent friends, such as those we met in the Greek class, I have known for a decade.  It’s good to have friends.  Many of them are now finding themselves in receipt of bags of apples.

Posted in Grey Britain, Pontypool | Leave a comment

Greece 2011: withdrawal symptoms and readjusting to Grey Britain

Posted on September 18, 2011 by BarryH

Back home now.  Flew into Manchester Airport on Wednesday, dropping down through grey cloud to a grey, distinctly cool evening.

I slept very soundly, it being the equivalent of 02.30 Greek time (BST+2 hours) by the time I got to bed, but strangely my body-clock woke me up at the usual time, 07.00.  I guess my weird sleeping pattern means that readjusting to minor changes in time zones is pretty straightforward.

Thursday was very different, sunny and Autumn-warm.  Walked with Ruth into Stockport in the sunshine to do bits of shopping.  Sat in the sunshine outside a small restaurant specialising in Mediterranean food in a quiet street just behind the main shopping precinct and had a very tasty snack.  Walked back along the river in the sunshine.  Had a drink sitting in the garden in the sunshine.  Walked through Heaton Mersey Common to the supermarket in the sunshine.  I wore shorts and T-shirt all day.  Altogether very pleasant, a transition from a summer in Greece.

Since then the weather has been alternating between sunshine and showers, some showers very heavy, like the one at the moment.  Torrential.  And cold.  Temperatures are around 15o compared with double that on Symi.  On Friday I had white-finger most of the day and couldn’t warm up properly. Aches and pains are starting to re-appear. For the first time since early April I’m back in shoes rather than sandals and it’s not good.  Months tramping around the mountains and within 48 hours of being home I’ve got a blister on my heel !!!

The weather has made it difficult to get to grips with sorting out the fruit and veg in the garden.  To add to the massive crop of blue potatoes which I harvested when was home in August there are large crops of leeks, purple sprouting broccoli  and cabbage, a reasonable crop of beetroot and good sprouts ready for the frosts to sweeten up.  But by far the biggest crop is the apples.  From two small trees I already have 80 lbs boxed up and there will be probably almost as much again to pick in the next weeks or so.

Sadly the enthusiasm I had for making progress with development work in the garden has been somewhat dampened by the weather but I’m still hopeful that positive steps can be taken once dealing with Autumn has been sorted out.

And in the house?  For a long time I have been very poor at unpacking my bags when I get home.  Rucksacks and suitcases always hang around with things in for months.  I came to the conclusion it’s because when the unpacking is finished it signals that the holiday is finally over.  Hence my reluctance to complete the process.  This time ….. I haven’ even started to unpack.  My Big Bag is still zipped up and strapped.  The feeble excuse is that I’m waiting for a reliable window in the weather to be able to hang out the washing which lurks inside.  Until that is done it’s difficult to contemplate any of the other jobs which need doing, like decorating the guest room and shower.

Walking?  I’m afraid there’s no contest there.  I have been walking in the mountains and on the coastal cliffs of Britain since I was introduced to the Peak District at the age of 12.  I have an extensive range of clothing and footwear for all seasons including the harshest of winters.  I am fortunate to live at the southern tip of the Brecon Beacons National Park, the closest mountain area for the 25-30% of the UK population who choose to live in London and the Sarfeast and I’ve got all this on my doorstep, with extensive options of good mountain walks from the house. But for me now there is nothing to compare with walking in sandals, shorts and T-shirt in the heat of a Greek Summer.

Most of the time, even in Summer, a walk in the UK requires carrying alternative clothing in case it turns wet, or is too hot, or too cold and wearing waterproof boots which no matter how expensive or comfortable are an order of magnitude less comfortable than good walking sandals.  Ruth and I walked about 15 kilometres in warm sunshine in Stockport before I came back here and that was very pleasant if a little lacking in challenge.  I managed a short walk on Sunday afternoon, a circular walk up to the ridge and back taking about an hour.  In that time there were 3 very heavy showers and after 15 minutes I was dripping wet.  I couldn’t take the camera out without having to dry it immediately.  I did risk it and take a few shots though.

White farmhouse, black cloud

Watching a rain cloud drifting eastward from the ridgetop

The bonus of rain showers .... rainbows

There is always the need to add the ‘if/when’ qualification to walking, and indeed to having holidays, over here: “if/when the weather is good it’s great here, you can’t beat the scenery”.   Yes, But, BUT …..  both last summer and more especially this the weather has not been at all good.  The ‘Staycation’ fizzled out almost as soon as the word was coined and is now a term of derision.

Frankly, even without the ‘if/when’ qualification, the scenery on most of the islands I visit is every bit as dramatic as in Britain.  Walking in the Rockies last winter was amazing.  I guess in part it’s down to what you appreciate.  Personally I love walking in rugged, barren landscapes rather than a green patchwork.  I suppose crystallising it out, I like extremes in weather and in my walking environments, just as with my taste in foods.  I’m afraid I don’t do ‘subtle’.

As for the comparison between the Aegean and the seas/coasts around Britain, well ….. nothing to say there really.  No comparison whatever.  I close my eyes and picture swimming off a tiny rock platform in Pedi Bay on Symi at the end of a day walking in the mountains, then basking on the rock to dry off, an eagle soaring the ridge behind. Or …………………

I could go on but I won’t.  I know I’m back here for a while and will do as much walking in the mountains and along the coasts as I can.  I’ll continue to set challenges for myself and will appreciate having the mountains as my backyard.  But at the back of my mind will be the thought that I’m keeping fit ready for the mountains of Greece.  I just hope that I can get my camera out of the rucksack every once in a while.

Posted in Greece 2011, Grey Britain | Leave a comment