As 2006 comes to a close

It has been quite a year for us. In 2005 we decided that we had done as much as we could with the garden, here in Penysarn. When Spring 2006 arrived, there I was erecting a new greenhouse on a cold day. Shortly afterwards I had to force myself, in changeable weather, to put the glass in. Now we could make a start with growing lots of flowers from seed. So we set to and began sowing seeds in trays. By the time we had finished sowing both lengths of staging were full of trays filled with what looked like just compost. Weeks later we had the joy of visiting the greenhouse to view the progress of the seeds which were growing heathily.

As time went on we reached the point at which we planted the results in the garden where they continued to grow. By Easter we had decided to dig some flower beds to a design we liked and suddenly we had a very neat looking garden with the first plants nicely settled in. The photograph shows the garden at the end of May. By this time I had added stepping stones from the house to the greenhouse as can be seen. Some of the seeds were vegetables and these were planted out in a newly dug plot at the other end of the garden. The early potatoes were affected by late frosts and heavy rain so they ended up being harvested as late potatoes!

As the growing season accelerated I realised I was having problems keeping up to the lawns. They are small but, as I have asthma, the front lawns which are sloping were very hard work and made me ill sometimes. So, another decision was made: we bought a self-propelled petrol lawnmower. This meant that I could now cut the grass at the front without concern over how to push the mower up the slope. I just engaged the gears and off it went! But the biggest problem of all was the strimmer. It died on me the first time I took it out for use. Off I went to Bangor to buy a new one. The new one was an updated design with twin lines for strimming. The problem was that the line was used up within minutes and pieces of line were all over the garden. The manufacturers knew what was wrong and sent me a new part to install. It went wrong again - twice. After three failures I was very annoyed and bought a strimmer from another manufacturer and this gave me the same problem. Even today I have no reliable strimmer available to me.

During the summer when we enjoyed high temperatures, we bought and tested our new snorkelling gear ready for our holiday in September. Living on an island with countless beaches is great! We were able to spend a great amount of time outside by the sea. In September we set off to celebrate our Ruby Wedding anniversary on 1st October in Greece. There we visited other islands and really enjoyed our time away. Our celebration on the big day was very leisurely and set in a beautiful place. Two days later we flew home with wonderful memories of a great holiday.

Since then the weather has been often quite extreme. Temperatures have been up but so too have winds. As I write I can hear the high winds blowing from the south west. But it is not raining so I shall not complain. Tomorrow will be the start of another New Year on this lovely island of ours. The day after this will see the world return to normal after the long Christmas and New Year break. I am looking forward to this. The unreal period from Christmas to New Year is a strange experience indeed. It is often difficult to remember what day it is as they are so similar.

Here's to 2007. May it bring us all good things. HAPPY NEW YEAR!