Abracadabra!

There’s magic afoot in my village......

My hands are blue but not because I’m cold.

I proudly peg my beautiful (well, I think so) creations on the line strung out between the birch trees.  They drip drip alongside, vests, sheets, pillow cases, skeins of wool and squares of material  all dyed the indigo blue of a late night summer sky just before the first stars appear.  But each piece has a unique pattern, swirls of white, tiny neat squares, straight lines, zigzags, little round circles and these patterns were created by MAGIC!

Marietta welcomes eight of us to her Indigo Dyeing Workshop run by NEW Wildlife at Rhydymwyn with a promise that we’ll each take home something unique at the end of the day.  We ogle at her fabric samples printed with intricate patterns and look at the array of pegs, rubber bands, string and even a bag of dried chick peas and I for one doubt that I’ll transform my plain white t-shirts into something so blue and beautiful.

She makes up two buckets of dye and demonstrates how we can create patterns on our fabric, then we begin – pleating, pegging, tying, scrunching, wrapping.  We become more creative as we get into it and wrap pine cones, pebbles and even the puzzling chick peas into our fabric.

Chick Pea patterns

Outside in the sunshine, with bees buzzing, a woodpecker pic-pic-ing and swathes of yellow loostrife lighting up the outside workspace, we squat before the buckets of dye and dip our pegged, paper clipped and chickpea-ed items into the liquid.  After 5 minutes we lift them out.  They are yellowy-green but - ‘hey presto’, as soon as the air hits them, magic occurs and they turn indigo before our amazed eyes.  More magic happens when we remove the string, pegs, pine cones, etc to reveal beautiful patterns.

Watching our creations flutter in the warm breeze I think; Harry Potter couldn’t have done better on his first day at Hogwarts.

World Listening Day

Today is World Listening Day.  The talk on the radio is of 'acoustic ecology and of going on a 'sound walk.'  We should care more about the way the world sounds.  Those high powered hand driers in most public loos make a lot of people jittery apparently.  Some people like the satisfying clunk of a car door, there's even a man who loves the sound of cars driving over cattle grids so much that he's made a CD called 'Cattle Grids of Dartmoor.'

On may way to the dentist I notice how I tune out the traffic sounds and only respond and look to the sky when I hear a shock of screaming swifts, a dozen swirling over my head.  They'll leave soon.  I'll miss that stop-me-in-my-tracks-sound. 

In the dentist waiting room there's the ubiquitous and unwelcome radio, 'Sisters are Doing it for Themselves.'  I suppose it masks the sinister buzz of a machine coming from surgery number 1.

I visited Cemlyn Bay Sandwich Tern colony on Anglesey last week with Dad.  Now there's a sound to revel in.  A real wilderness noise. I lay on pebbles made round by battering seas, closed my eyes and let the harsh 'kirrik' cries of a couple of thousand nesting birds pierce my ear drums. 

A short trip on the longest day

I had to be outside.  A primeval urge pulled me like a magnet up to Moel y Gaer hill fort.  At 10pm there was no-one else about.  I stepped over black slugs on the grassy path to the top of the hill and stood on the ramparts.  When the wind stopped buffeting me for a moment and I could hold my binoculars steady, I could just about see Blackpool Tower lit up and in the foreground, the steely River Dee and all the glowing lights of Liverpool.  I turned around and traced the dark, gentle mounds of the Clwydian Range, like soft scoops of chocolate ice cream.  And then the rain came, great big spots thwacking on my down jacket.  The wind picked up and blew the long grass in waves across the flat topped hill fort and murderous clouds covered the wavy-edged moon.  

I circled the ancient ramparts, paying my respects to Mother Nature on this longest day, apologizing for anything I may have done to upset her.  I did squish a slug last night as it made its way over a fresh green lettuce leaf in my veg patch.  Normally I lob them over the hedge.  When I had completed the circle, I headed down the hill with just enough light to avoid squishing any more slugs.

A blackbird sang in the gorse scrub, oblivious of the rain and the wind and the murderous clouds.

I’m going up again on Sunday to see the Supermoon.

A Short Break - Sixty Minutes from Home

Last week we holidayed all of 60 minutes away from home -  on the edge of the Menai Straits. 

Day one - from Is Helen camp site, a stone’s throw from Caernarfon Castle, we cycled past fields of glossy buttercups and verges fizzing with wild carrot to the windswept beach at Dinas Dinlle, ate mango ice cream, climbed a hill fort, drank tea in Caernarfon airport, watched tiny planes take people for an eagle's eye view of Snowdon.  Back at the campsite we watched swallows swoop for insects, and the sun set over the blue isle of Anglesey. 

Day two -  my reward for cycling to Rhyd Ddu via the Nantlle pass was a cream scone in our favourite tea room and sublime views of Snowdon all the way, complete with ant people and a miniature puffing train.

Day three – over the Menai Bridge to Llanddwyn Island. 

 ‘Nothing wins hearts like cheerfulness,’ according to Saint Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of lovers. She lived as a hermit on the island (I wish).  Shelly coves, wild violas, pale blue squill, sea pinks, creaking terns, it’s a special place.

‘Neither sickness nor sorrow will follow a man from Llanddwyn.’ Dafydd ap Gwyllm, 1320 -70

Sixty minutes later, we’re back home, watering courgettes, dead-heading purple pansies, smiling at the memory of crunchy sand, frothy hedgerows, squealing swifts.

Kindergarten

I’m like a teacher on playground duty.  The garden is full of baby birds, squabbling, fluttering, squawking and pecking – at anything that might be food.  I’m on cat and magpie alert.  I need a whistle.

Baby sparrows hurtle - head first after their parents.   Fluttering their wings like crazy they crash land in the laurel with a great rustle of leaves. 

A baby blackbird with a punk hair-do and a stubby tail squats under the garden bench, his beady black eye darting all around.  He emits high-pitched squeaks, like an electronic gadget.

The clattering noise behind my chair turns out to be a pale yellow frog, making its way along to, who knows where?  We eye each other through the trellis.  We had a fibre-glass pond about 25 years ago, for a short time, perhaps the frog remembers it?  I can hear it jumping across sacks of compost and old flowerpots.

There are baby plants in the garden too- feathery carrot seedlings, tiny velvet apples forming, clematis buds about to burst and lots and lots of nasturtium seedlings in places I didn't put them.

Birds are very vulnerable when they bathe.  So I am honoured when a blackbird bathes about three feet away from where I’m sitting.  Pearly drops of water roll off his black feathers and the yellow ring around his eye is the same yellow as the Welsh poppies growing in the gravel path.  We know each other well, this blackbird and me.  I cut up apples for him, he sings when I need it most.

Tales of a Rhydymwyn Riverbank

Last week, on a rare warm spring day, I joined Kate from North East Wales Wildlife on her regular otter survey route, past banks of pale yellow primroses and delicate violets.  The smell of wild garlic caused us to wrinkle our noses and talk about making wild garlic pesto sauce as the River Alyn murmured gently in the background.

Kate stopped and peered through her binoculars, ‘There’s some spraint,’ she pointed at an oily splodge on a prominent rock on the edge of the river.  We crouched over it and saw that it was full of white specks, ‘Frog leg bones,’ said Kate.  Of course we had to sniff the splodge, there’s a lot of speculation about the smell of otter poo.  Some say it’s like jasmine tea, others that it’s fishy or even like freshly mown hay, anyway, we agreed it’s not as unpleasant as it looks.  And more importantly, it meant there were otters here.  We spotted more and more spraint further along the river and then, even more exciting, paw prints in the silty mud

It was an idyllic spot on such a day, open meadow, slow meandering river, wild flowers, buzzards mewing, a woodpecker beating a frantic rhythm on a nearby dead tree.  Suddenly, we flinched at a sharp ‘peep’ and saw a blue blur as a kingfisher zipped past us.  It was tempting to take our shoes and socks off and paddle, but we were meant to be looking for otters. 

In fact, the cameras set up by NEW Wildlife have already picked up an otter and two cubs, we wanted to check if they were still around so were keen on finding fresh spraint.  The paw prints were certainly fresh and we imagined the otters scampering and playing over the many new branches fallen after the heavy April snows.  We were willing an otter to appear and kept our eyes peeled amongst the dark places under the overhanging bank and in the tangle of willow roots but we knew it was very unlikely. 

We agreed that just knowing they were around was enough.

Re-visiting an old backyard

Although it is my mission to appreciate and explore my own backyard, in April,the cold and snow forced me into submission.  I lived on a boat in Greece for a while where my backyard was watery and filled with dolphins.  It was time to re-visit that backyard for a couple of weeks.

Things got off to a promising start when a leather-jacketed bloke called Odysseus met us at Athens airport with our hire car. 

Greece in the springtime is sublime.  Flowers burst from every crevice, anemonies, poppies, marigolds, daisies, all mixed up and higgledy-piggledy, like one of the gods had scattered a giant packet of mixed wildflower seeds from a great height. 

                                   

We followed old cobbled paths up and up towards distant snow-capped peaks, crossed a deep, dark gorge where tall, thin cypress trees were scattered like exclamation marks. And beyond, the sea glittered, turquoise and silver and the sky was blue as the Greek flags fluttering from the taverna.

We ate Greek salads,

drenched in thick green olive oil

topped with slabs of salty feta cheese,

washed down with tongue-numbingly

cold Mythos beer. 

Our shoulders gradually slumped, we sashayed rather than scurried, felt our toes unclench and our eyes smile. It was good to be back.

                                                                                                      

Earth Hour

We switched off our lights and went for a walk during Earth Hour last night (8.30pm).  Snow had drifted to the height of the hedges and trees had white stripes on the exposed side of their trunks.  John's sheep were huddled in the gateway I normally lean on to view Moel Fammau.  Their eyes shone in the snow-light.  Even without a moon, we didn't need a torch to see our way.  No traffic moved.  The world was silent apart from the whistle of wind. We felt the sting of blown snow on our cheeks.  Branches of trees lolled on the ground, weighted down by layers of snow.  I wondered if they'd snap.  I saw myself going around with a big stick, liberating all the branches, like the nurse who cut off my plaster cast when I was small and made my thin white arm feel light and free again. 

When we got back home, we lit candles for the remaining 25 minutes and sat in silence, even though we really, really wanted to make a cup of tea.  The silence made my ears pop and I would swear I heard the earth around our house sigh for the relief of just an hours rest.  My ears, their tiny tubes, canals and delicate bones seemed to sigh too for their short rest.

Weed Medicine

The sun is bursting through the tall windows when I walk into the meeting room and I choose a seat directly in the path of the warming rays.  The smell of fresh coffee from Caffi Florence mingles with the nose-wrinkling aroma from a pile of wild garlic leaves on the front table.  I see from the handout that we’ll be shown how to make Ramsons Pesto sauce later.  I’m with 13 others at a Caffi Florence workshop, Loggerheads Country Park entitled; ‘ Hedgerow Remedies, Weed Medicine’.

Our tutor, Non Owen says; ‘weeds are wonderful,’ and gives us each a sample of nettle iron tonic, made in a previous session.  (From nettle tops, dried apricots, orange peel and some good red wine).  There are approving murmurs and ‘Mmms.’  ‘Tastes a bit like sherry,’ the lady next to me says, her eye-brows raised.

Non hands around a dish of dried rose hips for rose hip infused honey, telling us that they have 20-40 times more vitamin C than oranges.  There is silence as we watch the sun glint off the stream of honey Non is pouring into a pan.

         It is left to simmer whilst she moves on to Ramsons (wild garlic).  ‘It’s an antibiotic and a good spring tonic and cleanser,’ she tells us before turning on the hand blender.  We all lean back as Non switches to ‘turbo’ and prepares to lower the blender into a jug of oil and wild garlic leaves.  But it turns out to be quite tame and no-one gets covered in green slime.  Soon the liquid is the colour of a woodland and the meeting room smells like an Italian restaurant.  Non tastes it as she walks across to give us a sample.  She stops suddenly in her tracks, ‘Wooa,’ her eyes widen.  We all have a taste and experience that ‘kick’ as it slides down the back of the throat.  The room is filled with the sound of fourteen people tasting the green paste, smacking our lips, sucking in our cheeks, making sounds like appreciative cattle, ‘Mmmm.’

Meanwhile, the rose hip honey simmers on the stove and a Caffi Florence waitress comes in to take our drinks orders.

   

Next, dandelion coffee.  ’Good for the liver.’  Non prepares the dried roots and passes around the resulting pale brown liquid.  Eyes are screwed up, mouths are pursed.  It won’t be replacing my usual morning coffee, but I think of my liver and gulp it down.  

Just in time, our drinks are delivered, along with a tray of home-made cakes - lemon, fruit and chocolate brownies.  The weekly Nordic Walking Group strides past the window, their poles clicking on the path.  Perhaps they’d benefit from our next weedy remedy, a chickweed bath soak?

Finally the rosehip honey is ready.  Non decants it into small brown jars for us to take home for a vitamin C boost. 

As I leave, I can still taste the wild garlic on the back of my tongue and I see there’s Ramsons soup on the Caffi Florence menu.  Non was right, weeds are wonderful and FREE.

www.nonowenherbalist.co.uk  Medical Herbalist and Aromatherapist

www.caffiflorence.co.uk  Workshop programme

Slum Bird Millionaire

It’s budget day. When the chancellor opens his red box, we won’t be getting richer, times are hard.  There’s a letter from my bank saying thanks for lending us all your money but we’re now going to give you less for it.  Sorry, but times are hard. 

Today is World Sparrow day and times are hard for house sparrows too.  Their numbers have fallen by 70% in the UK, but they are in decline all over the world. 

I read a headline in a newspaper on line, ‘Homeless in Mumbai.’  It wasn’t referring to humans but to the plight of house sparrows.  The article told how conservationist Mohammed Dilawar has designed artificial nests and feeders so that the vanishing sparrows return to Mumbai.  He was also the man instrumental in declaring March 20^th World Sparrow Day.   

The authorities in Delhi have adopted the house sparrow as the state bird in a bid to halt any further decline in their numbers.  ‘We will take steps to ensure that the sparrow returns, feels safe and is able to live peacefully in the city,’ said a Chief Minister.  What a noble undertaking.  All over India, people are being encouraged to ‘chirp for the sparrow’ and become ‘sparrow supporters.’ You can read their poems and stories about sparrows on the web site www.worldsparrowday.org .

Birds are major indicators of the health of our environment, which is why people spend so much time and energy monitoring, counting and ringing them.   If a bird once so common is now in such serious trouble, something’s out of kilter out there.  Their drastic decline has to have an impact on us. 



Male sparrow in the box on the end of my house

I switch on my TV, not to see what comes out of the Chancellor's red box, but to see what’s going on in the bird box on the end of my house.  The sparrows are busy.  Their nest is coming along nicely.  He flies in with a piece of dry grass, faffs and fiddles, pushing it into place with his beak. 

 She appears at the entrance with a feather and he flies off, squeezing past her.   Sometimes they don’t bring any material into the nest, just fix and tidy what’s already there, forcing the scratchy grass into a soft circle by turning their plump bodies around and around.  



One in, one out






I hope bird boxes don’t count when it comes to the bedroom tax because I have ten.  They are all occupied though.

Charlie has been meaning to re-cement the ridge tiles, too late Charlie!

Slow Saturday Night

In my continuing quest to explore locally and do ‘slow’ things, I wonder what I can do on a soggy Saturday night in a Slow town like Mold?  Celebrate Wales' epic win of the Six Nations Rugby Tournament perhaps?  Not slow enough.   I decide to go to Theatre Clwyd and listen to some poetry by Gwyneth Lewis, Wales' first National Poet and the woman who composed those huge words outside the Wales Millenium Centre.

Heavy coats glistening with rain are hung over the backs of blue velvet chairs.  I seem to be the only one with a plastic cup of Rioja and a note book.  Gwyneth appears in a tight red dress, tinted glasses, a snazzy slash of red in her stylish, silvery hair.  She thanks us for making the effort to come after the big game and begins with a poem about swallowing the moon.  Next she reads from Sunbathing in the Rain, her cheerful book about depression and we hear how the noise of snowflakes disturbs fish.  I discover we share a love of sparrows as we are treated to poems from ‘The Sparrow Tree’ and as if I wasn’t won over already, I find Gwyneth also sails. 

The Rioja has gone down well and the hems of my trousers are drying out nicely by the time I get my copy of Sunbathing in the Rain signed.   I feel really uplifted and head out into the rain grinning, my new book tucked under my jacket.  Gwyneth was fab and I’m pleased I had the opportunity to hear her in my home town. 

This event was part of the Flintshire Arts Fest.  I could go and listen to Jazz singer Clare Teal next Tuesday.  According to Michael Parkinson she’s ‘worth listening to.’  Or, if I'm brave enough, go to the painting workshop with Ronnie Drillsma who says; ‘Good things can develop from happy accidents.’  I like doing ‘slow’ things and Flintshire’s a great place to do them in.

www.cittaslowmold.co.uk

www.clwyd-theatr-cymru.co.uk

Something to Smile About

It’s said that Prince Llewelyn never smiled again after he killed his faithful hound Gelert.  He returned from a hunting trip to find his baby son missing from his cot and the dog covered in blood.  He plunged his sword into Gelert but the dogs yelps caused the baby to cry.  When Llewelyn found the boy safe and a huge wolf dead nearby he realized he’d made a dreadful mistake.

The only mistake we make when we visit Beddgelert this weekend is not staying longer.  We walk alongside the bubbling River Glaslyn past Gelert’s Grave and over the bridge that carries the Welsh Highland Railway from Caernarfon to Porthmadog, linking up with the Ffestiniog Railway.  It is now possible to travel 40 miles through this legend-filled land by steam train.  That journey goes on my wish list.

We stumble along the boulder path between the railway line and the River, crossing the sort of bridges trolls might live under.  The Glaslyn, which comes to life on Snowdon’s flanks, pours over mossy rocks, slowing down to form deep grotto-green pools.

                                                                               

Blue-black ravens ‘kronk-kronk’, distracting us just as the path reaches out over the foaming river. Holding on to metal rungs we edge around the sticking-out cliff face.  The sun glows on the water like there’s Welsh gold in the river bed.  

 

 

The gorge becomes narrower and we loose the sun.  The trail is edged with pale, crispy lichens, cushions of dark green moss and dripping fern fronds, like a path through a fairy tale.  Above us the sky’s the same colour as the blue-tits who flit in and out of silver birch trees and behind us is the humpy line of the Nantlle Ridge, like a pod of arching whales. 

  

After two miles, we arrive at Aberglaslyn Bridge and eat cheese sandwiches on a fallen tree trunk, edging further and further along it as the sun moves down below the cliff.  Before they built The Cob at Porthmadog, the sea used to reach this far inland and ships once tied up here. 

Somewhere nearby is an osprey’s nest with a camera and viewing place.  The birds return from Africa sometime in March. We keep our eyes peeled, just in case.

It’s dark by the time we head back to our campsite in the forest.  The last time I remember being struck dumb by the night sky was on a school visit to the Planetarium but it was spoiled by kids flicking sweet papers and giggling in the dark.  No giggling this time, just deep sighs and thousands and thousands of stars, some faint, some bright and flickering, with hardly any space between them.   Eventually I get dizzy and cold (it’s minus two degrees centigrade) and head for our snug campervan.  When I close my eyes under a mound of quilts, I can still see the stars and unlike Prince Llewelyn, I fall asleep with a great big smile on my face.  

      

Traditional Skills - Day Two

The weather’s no better but we’re raring to go.  Naomi takes us through the process of making ‘burn’ spoons.  Somehow we’re going to turn a sycamore log into a wooden spoon!

      ‘There’s a big fire burning outside,’ she grins. 

      ‘Er, it’s not that big yet,’ Dan pokes his head around the door.

Naomi tells us some important tree etiquette.  ‘When you cut down a tree don’t leave the pale stump exposed, show it some respect and rub it with mud.’  I like that, helping the tree maintain its dignity.

We saw a piece of sycamore, split it, draw a spoon on the split side and gather around the fire pit for another demo. 

Using tongs made from willow, we select a piece of red hot ember, and after chasing it around the fire pit, sticking our tongues out like children concentrating hard, we eventually manage to pick it up and balance it on what will be the bowl of our spoons.  Holding the ember in place with a stick, we blow – hard, to create heat.  ‘Don’t hyperventilate,’ Dan warns, as I start to see stars from blowing too much.  Eventually, shallow indentations are miraculously made.

Inside in the warm, we begin whittling our spoons.  We sit well apart from each other so there are no nasty accidents. Dan explains the technique, ‘No carving on your leg.’  We all wince at the image he creates should the knife slip.

For a while, there’s just a scrape, scrape sound and the buzz of the overhead heaters as we all focus on our spoons and a mound of shavings grows at our feet.  We don’t want to stop for tea, we’re all getting ‘spoon vision’ according to Dan.

After lunch there’s a choice of making raw hide pouches or carrying on whittling our spoons.  Me and Dad choose to continue with our spoons. 

By the end of the day, I’m doubtful whether I’ll be peeling spuds for a while but we’re delighted with our rustic cutlery.

Up with the lark

The wind’s from Siberia, slicing through the crystal clear sky like an ice axe.  We’re up on Halkyn Common, Snowdonia on our left, The Dee far below on our right. I hear a faint song, like a thumb being drawn continuously over the teeth of a metal comb - not a dunnock, not a robin. Pulling my fleece hat off my right ear, I angle my head away from the whistling wind and look up.  Finally I spot a black dot way up high, just in front of the tissue paper moon, underlined by an EasyJet vapour trail, my first skylark of the year.  He pours down his song, never pausing for breath. 

It's only February, he won’t breed until April but he’s making sure he gets the best territory– the birdie equivalent of spreading his towel on a sun lounger before breakfast.

There's a ‘gulp’ of magpies clattering in a scrawny hawthorn.  I pity the ground nesting lark, though I once walked past a skylark’s nest everyday for a month and never knew it was there until someone showed me.  They’re very good at leading you away from their chicks.  Can they fool the magpies though?

Small Signs of Spring



Rhubarb!



                                            

Traditional Skills in Rhydymwyn

It’s Saturday, the weather’s grim, perfect for staying in and watching the rugby.  But Me and my Dad are busy turning a deer’s shin bone into a needle.  We select a bone, score it with a piece of flint, hit it with a stone to break it into shards then pick one to file into a needle.  Real cavemen would’ve used sandstone to file their bone bits, we haven’t got all day so we cheat with metal files.  The workroom is filled with the sound of rasping files and thirteen people concentrating hard, not even stopping for tea when Dan shouts; ‘the kettle’s boiled.’  It’s very meditative, filing.  Your mind is focused on the job in hand, the rain, the rugby, the chores are far away.

In the middle of it all, Naomi throws out a question:  ‘The weight of all the insects on the planet would be more than the weight of all the humans, true or false?’   Quick as a flash, someone shouts out, ‘True,’ and is rewarded with a parcel wrapped in Rudolph the Reindeer paper - a selection box!  The rest of the day is punctuated with sudden random questions and winners are rewarded with more chocolate. 

Deer Bone needles and awls

Naomi and Dan are www.outback2basics.co.uk from Shropshire.  They've been invited by North East Wales Wildlife (www.newwildlife.org.uk) to teach us some traditional skills. They’re brilliant, passionate, but most of all, fun.  They went to America and re-lived the Stone Age for 4 months, making their own clothes, shoes, shelter, fire, food.  We saw the photos, they obviously didn’t have showers in the Stone Age.

After lunch, we go outside for some fresh air and learn how to tap a birch tree to get the sap.  ‘It makes a lovely drink,’ Dan says.  ‘Pine cones make great scrubbing brushes,’ adds Naomi,  ‘and those Leylandii we all hate in our neighbour’s gardens, their bark makes great containers, but get permission first before you go stripping the bark of your neighbour’s trees, or any trees.’ 

            On our way back to the workroom, we stand under a dripping birch tree and study its branches.  ‘How can you use a tree to find your way?’ asks Dan.

 ‘Er, we give up.’  Dan explains that the branches on the south side of the tree are more horizontal, pointing towards the sun, the branches on the north side have to find the light so they point up, towards the sky.  Easy!

Bark Containers

Back inside, we begin making bark containers, sort of Stone Age handbags.  And we use the needles and awls we made during the morning session.  By the end of the afternoon, we’ve made an amazing variety of bark ‘bags.’  Better than Louis Vuitton any day.

Me and Dad walk home proud as punch with our bone needles, bark containers and chocolate prizes.  We stop by a particularly fine silver birch tree; ‘Nice bit of bark,’ says Dad.

            ‘Hmmm,’ I reply, stroking the trunk and picturing my next rustic creation.

(This was a free course provided by NEW Wildlife based in Rhydymwyn)