Carleen Dekarski – Page 15

Newport

I spent yesterday in the back of a car giving directions as we toured 10 different rental properties in Newport, (Gwent in Welsh), Wales. A mate of ours is looking to move to Newport as the rent is cheaper and the commute is fairly simple via train into Bristol. Only 26 minutes, assuming they are running on time.

The benefits of Newport would include more housing space for less money, ability to save more quickly for your own home, closer to the stunning mountains, rivers and coastal areas in Wales, easy commute to the two main business centers of Bristol and Cardiff (you could include London in this as it would not be that much further for a day trip for work). However the downsides are obvious signs of a struggling town with lots of shop closures, large numbers of rental properties on the market (good for the renter but starts ringing alarm bells as to why), obvious signs of working class families really struggling to make ends meet and to that disorderly youth that just don’t have anything to do in the city and hence get into all sorts of trouble.

Speaking of Wales, the six nations rugby tournament is on at the moment and Wales won against England last night. Doesn’t appear to have been any blood shed yet!

After the rental properties tour we did a quick jaunt into the Brecon Beacons which still has a lot of snow on them at the moment.

Friday the 13th

Well besides having an incredibly busy and slightly stressful day at work today nothing spooky happened. Not that I was expecting it to.

Sitting at home now after having eaten a lovely dinner and thinking about tomorrow, Valentines Day. Generally we don’t do anything for Valentines. Why? Call me greedy but I quite enjoy feeling loved every day of the year not one day in particular. Call me cheap as I really dislike the inflationary pricing because of the date. Call me an old fart as we have been together long enough now that our idea of a posh night out is getting a clean pair of jeans on and heading down to the local Thai takeout. No the last point is a bit of a stir, but we do enjoy a good Thai meal.

However, I am not that cynical that I don’t appreciate the fact that many people do celebrate Valentines. Good on you. It is especially lovely hearing peoples stories about what their special someone did for them on Valentines. Nice to hear good things for a change.

Anyway, if that’s you, have a great Valentines and I look forward to giving all the correct sounding oohhh’s and ahhhh’s when you tell me all about your special outing.

Happy Birthday Roxy!

We haven’t forgotten! Hope you had a great day managing to stay cool somehow in that scorching heat wave. Love Carls & Steve

First major snow in 18 years

As you know on Monday Steve and I took off to Kew Gardens as it had snowed down there. When we got back to Bristol there was a bit of snow around but not much. About 4am Tuesday morning I got up and looked out the window and what a sight. It had snowed. Not tons but enough to make the place look so pristine. I took a photo from our bedroom window. Normally this view is pretty grotty so the snow made a dramatic change to the view.

By mid morning on Tuesday the snow was starting to melt so we were quite blue. But, low and behold late Wednesday and Thursday night we got more snow. Bring it on!

Bristol and many other parts of the UK are at a stand still at the moment. With buses canceled, salt supplies nearly depleted, only major roads being salted/gritted leaving many “stranded”, schools closed, you would think that this is chaos. In all honesty, yes I am sure it has been highly inconvenient for a large number of people but it has been 2 days out of the last 18 YEARS. Get over it!

What amazes me is that you have people with these lovely, large, gas guzzling, 4×4 vehicles, traveling at 10 miles per hour as they have never actually used the 4×4 option since they purchased it. Over here they are called Chelsea Tractor drivers. Darn fine vehicles owned and used for appearance sakes.

About 3/4 of the team I work with didn’t show up today due to bus cancellations etc. My train line was running perfectly and I really enjoyed the walk for the last 2 days in snow. People have been smiling, talking to each other for no reason other than to comment on how beautiful the snow is. They have been really enjoyable snow filled days.

View from our bedroom early 4am Thursday morning

Book review: How to live off-grid

I have long been fascinated and probably have held a rather romantic idea of living off-grid in my strawbale construction home with my small holders set up e.g. vege patch and limited livestock. I have also thought that going off-grid probably is not that easy or more people would be far more successful at it than they appear to be. Reading this book, I would be right.

Basically the book takes you through the journey of a London freelance journalist who had bought a small place in Spain and was investigating how to improve the off-grid experience he was having. The book meets a number of different characters with varying levels of independence from water mains, electricity and sewage. It looks at different types of systems used e.g. wind, solar etc and how well (or in most cases) how work intensive they are.

It would seem that there are many people out there wishing to go off-grid but realising when they get there that it is hard work as many of the options require continual maintenance, receive little support from the manufacturer/supplier and most importantly if you try to do it on the cheap then you will shoot yourself in the foot. Do it right the first time so it doesn’t need to be done again!!

Anyway, I still have half the book left to go but am enjoying it so far. I don’t think it has tarnished the dream but has definitely given serious food for thought and reinforced my feeling that you need to make the right contacts and ensure that those you buy from or get info from are also living the experience and therefore show they can live by their product/advice.

“Kew” the snow

This posts title comes courtesy of Steve. I thought it was rather clever.

The BBC and local news stations had been predicting heavy snow falls but to date we had yet to see them. Imagine our surprise when this time they got it right.

I had been waking up throughout the night to check for snow but to no avail. I was already up, dressed and ready to leave for work when Steve mentioned checking the Earthcam websites to see if there was one for Kew Gardens. He has been wanting to visit Kew or the Eden Project if they were ever likely to be covered in snow. I found a live webcam for Kew and what should I see but lashings of snow!

I quickly called into work for an impromptu annual leave day which I was granted much to my delight. Changed into our winter gears – thermals, microgrid, Goretex jacket and ski pants and we were off heading to London. Now this was rather impulsive and most people would say a bit on the crazy side. Everyone else was trying very hard to avoid driving or going anywhere near London but here we were heading straight into the city. In fact apparently 6 million people didn’t go into work today across the UK!

To be honest, this meant driving down was easy. The roads were generally pretty quiet. Yee hah! We got a park right outside the main gates (free parking too!) and made our way in. We have annual tickets to Kew so didn’t even have to pay to get in. Love it.

The gardens were spectacular. I love it here in summer but in winter it is a totally different place. Also, Heathrow airport had grounded all flights it was so peaceful today especially with that certain type of “heavy” quiet that accompanies snow. Normally there are flights going over every 90 seconds. Today was bliss.

We took the burner and coffee in with us and hunkered down for a hot drink halfway through our walk. It snowed pretty much on and off all day while we were there.

We stayed until just after 2pm but had to finally leave in order to ensure we avoided driving back through the snow in the dark. Believe me, leaving was hard to do. What a magic day.

Winter laying

On the last post I made a comment about eggs not being available anywhere on the River Cottage shop menu for brekkie. After some research brought about by a good point made from a work colleague it would seem that egg laying is seasonal? Who the heck would have known. I thought I was (or I try to be) reasonably up to date on where my food comes from, how it was handled/treated and making choices appropriate to season. So it surprised me when in my naivety I have assumed that as I can always buy eggs year round in the supermarket that hens lay at the same capacity all year round.

Apparently egg production decreases over the winter months. Due to shorter daylight hours production drops off. So they don’t stop altogether but you wouldn’t expect the number of eggs as during the lighter months. How about that. I wonder though if this doesn’t affect us as much downunder as we don’t get the same type of incredibly short days as what we get here in the UK? Anyway, that is your bit of possibly insightful news for today.

If I’m incorrect, blame it on Wikipedia 😉

Coastal Trail Series – Portland

This is a much larger post for a change. Steve had some annual leave up his sleeve so we took off Friday in order to get some traveling in before the run on Saturday.
As this run was down in Dorset territory it was a great opportunity to visit a place that is the iconic home to one of my favourite, inspiring shows – River Cottage. Although Hugh was no where to be seen we did arrive early enough to have breakfast. To be honest, the breakfast was nice but the selection available was far from what I imagined there should be. Steve had a bacon roll and I had salmon with fresh baked bread. Both very delicious but only 2 of the 5 or 6 choices and of which there we no eggs at all to be found on the menu. Not sure what that was about? The coffee however was also great.
After lunch we slowly headed out of Devon and into Dorset stopping along the way at Charmouth to do a bit of fossil hunting. We found a few small ones but nothing like the intact dinosaur that is on display nearby. I think you have to really be visiting on a daily basis with hammer and chisel to be finding all the good stuff. Me, I’m just content to have a wander and see what I find.
We stopped for fish and chips in West Bay which is a nice little seaside town, however it is very much a retirement destination but still has quite a strong fishing business by the looks.

We next moved on to Chesil Beach which is basically a huge spit running parallel to the mainland for miles. It is entirely made up of the most amazing coloured pebbles. I have never seen anything like it before. They make the most amazing noise underfoot and although tiring to walk on I found them far better than having annoying, grinding sand in your shoes.

Finally we headed into Weymouth which was far larger than I expected it to be. Again, due to the proximity of the sea, fishing and cargo are the main stayers here. It seems to be a town that has everything going for it plus access to stunning waterways. From Weymouth you can catch the numerous ships leaving for France etc. I believe imports and exports go through this town port as well.
We decided not to stay the night in town and headed out to The Lugger Inn located in Chickerell.
Saturday morning we got a sleep in for a change as we normally get up really early and arrive in time for the race briefings etc. This time it was a leisurely breakfast and a short drive to race base at the Portland and Weymouth Sailing Academy. Talk about a great set up they have here and tons of kids learning to sail. I could see myself living quite contentedly for a while in Portland. I suppose it helps when the weather is glorious so the sea, sky and rock look spectacular.

So far, of all the runs, this was by far the most spectator accessible where I was able to arrive at certain points along the way to provide some encouragement to Steve as he ran and try to snap a few pictures. I was very fortunate to catch up with him as he was going far quicker than I had catered for. The hardest part was the long stretch down Chesil Beach – pebbles all the way. Gotta hurt!

Anyway, here are some pictures from this fabulous weekend.

Up the hill on the right, round the island and along the spit

Portland Bill - as the lighthouse is called

Chalk, blood and sweat

After a long number of years I finally decided to give climbing a go. Granted this was bouldering so it was a lot closer to the ground for my liking. I really enjoyed it however my muscles are currently still aching (hurts to type). My teacher (Steve) was fabulous. I think he was more impressed that I actually listened to him and took on board all that he suggested.

Usually I would be rather argumentative and try to impose my own take on the situation but I figure he has been doing this for a very long time so maybe it would be wise of me to pay attention and listen. It worked! I’m not dead and he managed to coach me to the top of some of the climbs. OK so they were the easiest routes in the centre but I’m a chicken what can I say 🙂

I am quite keen to try it again once the swelling in my fingers go down and I can successfully left my arms above my head without debilitating pain. Other than this, it rocked!