Did anybody watch the final stages of the Wales Rally GB from Brenig last weekend? Blowing a Gale and pouring down with rain, typical Brenig weather when I've been there fly fishing in the early spring. I should add that I only watched it on TV, I'm not quite so hardy (foolish) these days,
Colin
Spring is nearly here!
Re: Spring is nearly here!
Missed it Colin, visiting in laws over at Dolgellau last weekend.
Sunday night returning home we saw heavy snow on the Arans down to the roadside in places and tops of the Carnedds also but surprisingly very little on Cader Idris.
Passing LLyn Tegid early evening about a half mile past Llanucwchllyn we saw a bright almost full moon just risen from behind Moel-Y-Geifr reflecting eerily silver onto flat calm black water with the snow capped Arans brooding and dark in the distance, just picture-perfect!
We also saw our first gritters out this first winters weekend, all three of them! busy between Bala and Ruthin.
Monday morning was bright with our first really hard frost and I could see the first sprinkling of snow on the Clwyd's but my car defrosted itself by 9.30 am then back to the interminable Novembers rain and more rain; ad nauseaum; ad infinitum!
My koi are mostly all clamped down on the bottom with just one or two making a desultory glide around pond but feeding is effectively stopped for now over this last week.
What's also stopped, terminally! is the computer I bought about 6 months ago, it never was 100% but now its 100% caput.
Bought as 'refurbished' it finally gave up the ghost over two weeks ago so now I'm on my other half's laptop until the nice young geek from the computer shop installs my brand new state of the art computer tomorrow morning.
Sometimes in this life, however hard and painful; you just have to grasp the nettle!
Sunday night returning home we saw heavy snow on the Arans down to the roadside in places and tops of the Carnedds also but surprisingly very little on Cader Idris.
Passing LLyn Tegid early evening about a half mile past Llanucwchllyn we saw a bright almost full moon just risen from behind Moel-Y-Geifr reflecting eerily silver onto flat calm black water with the snow capped Arans brooding and dark in the distance, just picture-perfect!
We also saw our first gritters out this first winters weekend, all three of them! busy between Bala and Ruthin.
Monday morning was bright with our first really hard frost and I could see the first sprinkling of snow on the Clwyd's but my car defrosted itself by 9.30 am then back to the interminable Novembers rain and more rain; ad nauseaum; ad infinitum!
My koi are mostly all clamped down on the bottom with just one or two making a desultory glide around pond but feeding is effectively stopped for now over this last week.
What's also stopped, terminally! is the computer I bought about 6 months ago, it never was 100% but now its 100% caput.
Bought as 'refurbished' it finally gave up the ghost over two weeks ago so now I'm on my other half's laptop until the nice young geek from the computer shop installs my brand new state of the art computer tomorrow morning.
Sometimes in this life, however hard and painful; you just have to grasp the nettle!
Re: Spring is nearly here!
Re-reading your post Colin, particularly the reference to fishing at Brenig reminded me of winter fly fishing in that sort of weather with Nigel last Boxing Day in Snowdonia, but substitute rain for freezing driving sleet and a very dark day 1,200 feet above sea level and you've got the scene.
Despite the sleet freezing in the rod rings the fishing was excellent, one of our best there to date.
Hope the weather is not a repeat of last year as its now become an annual event.
I've bought an extra supple new Snowbee 6wt just in case!
Despite the sleet freezing in the rod rings the fishing was excellent, one of our best there to date.
Hope the weather is not a repeat of last year as its now become an annual event.
I've bought an extra supple new Snowbee 6wt just in case!
-
roselanekoi
- Posts: 322
- Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm
Re: Spring is nearly here!
I've had problems with the rod rings icing up when fishing at Brenig in the spring but it's never been accompanied by the success you had last Boxing Day.
I visited Bodnant Gardens last Wednesday for a guided tour by the new head gardener, the tour was supposed to take place a week earlier but was postponed due to the gale force winds making it unsafe to go walking about under the trees.
He only took over earlier this year and was outlining all his plans for the future. Main point was the intention to open up the rest of the woodland at the bottom of the site in March 2017 and he gave us a look around this area which is currently out of bounds to visitors.
They have had over 200,000 visitors at Bodnant this year and it costs around £1.5m annually to maintain the gardens. Annual membership of the National Trust cost £60 per annum which is very good value considering the number of places to visit in North Wales.
I visited Bodnant Gardens last Wednesday for a guided tour by the new head gardener, the tour was supposed to take place a week earlier but was postponed due to the gale force winds making it unsafe to go walking about under the trees.
He only took over earlier this year and was outlining all his plans for the future. Main point was the intention to open up the rest of the woodland at the bottom of the site in March 2017 and he gave us a look around this area which is currently out of bounds to visitors.
They have had over 200,000 visitors at Bodnant this year and it costs around £1.5m annually to maintain the gardens. Annual membership of the National Trust cost £60 per annum which is very good value considering the number of places to visit in North Wales.
Re: Spring is nearly here!
Bodnant has been one of my favourite gardens to visit over the years Colin, particularly in spring when the azaleas and rhododendrons are in flower, spectacular show there.
Don't know if you are aware of it Colin but there is a lake in those woods that belongs to the Bodnant Estate down from the gardens called Llyn Syberi.
It has some very big wild brownies in, the fishing was controlled by Bodelwyddan Game Anglers club who issued either day or annual fly fishing permits for the lake but they have since amalgamated this 1st October with Denbigh and Clwyd Angling Club so I don't know who issues them now, well worth a trip there though.
Don't know if there is a link there? but opening up the lower woods at Bodnant in March coincides with the brown trout season re-opening!
Don't know if you are aware of it Colin but there is a lake in those woods that belongs to the Bodnant Estate down from the gardens called Llyn Syberi.
It has some very big wild brownies in, the fishing was controlled by Bodelwyddan Game Anglers club who issued either day or annual fly fishing permits for the lake but they have since amalgamated this 1st October with Denbigh and Clwyd Angling Club so I don't know who issues them now, well worth a trip there though.
Don't know if there is a link there? but opening up the lower woods at Bodnant in March coincides with the brown trout season re-opening!
Re: Spring is nearly here!
Iago Prytherch his name, though be it allowed
Just an ordinary man of the bald welsh hills
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud,
Docking Mangels chipping the green skin
From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin
Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth
To a stiff sea of clods that gleam in the wind-
So are his days spent, his spittled mirth
Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks
Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week.
And then at night see him fixed in his chair
Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire,
There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind.
His clothes sour with years of sweat
And animal contact, shock the refined,
But affected , senses with their stark naturalness.
Yet, this is your prototype, who, season by season
Against siege of rain and the winds attrition,
Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress
Not to be stormed, even in deaths confusion.
Remember him, then, for he too, is a winner of wars,
Enduring like a tree under the curious stars.
The Reverend Ronald Stuart Thomas 1913-2000
The above Welsh poet was introduced to me by a fellow fly angler from Manchester who rated him alongside Dylan Thomas despite the fact that he supported Meibion Glyndwr who back in the 60's were very actively engaged in burning down holiday cottages in North Wales owned by English landlords/families.
The ironic joke at the time, courtesy of British Gas I believe was; 'COME HOME TO A REAL FIRE!' buy a holiday home in North Wales!
He did write (in English) some excellent very evocative poetry though. Born in Cardiff he only learned to speak Welsh in his thirties as a parish vicar on the Lleyn.
I thought his poetry reflects the dour sombre aspects of this miserable November weather of late, but, three weeks from today its the shortest day, oh joy; then it starts to get lighter!
Just an ordinary man of the bald welsh hills
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud,
Docking Mangels chipping the green skin
From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin
Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth
To a stiff sea of clods that gleam in the wind-
So are his days spent, his spittled mirth
Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks
Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week.
And then at night see him fixed in his chair
Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire,
There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind.
His clothes sour with years of sweat
And animal contact, shock the refined,
But affected , senses with their stark naturalness.
Yet, this is your prototype, who, season by season
Against siege of rain and the winds attrition,
Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress
Not to be stormed, even in deaths confusion.
Remember him, then, for he too, is a winner of wars,
Enduring like a tree under the curious stars.
The Reverend Ronald Stuart Thomas 1913-2000
The above Welsh poet was introduced to me by a fellow fly angler from Manchester who rated him alongside Dylan Thomas despite the fact that he supported Meibion Glyndwr who back in the 60's were very actively engaged in burning down holiday cottages in North Wales owned by English landlords/families.
The ironic joke at the time, courtesy of British Gas I believe was; 'COME HOME TO A REAL FIRE!' buy a holiday home in North Wales!
He did write (in English) some excellent very evocative poetry though. Born in Cardiff he only learned to speak Welsh in his thirties as a parish vicar on the Lleyn.
I thought his poetry reflects the dour sombre aspects of this miserable November weather of late, but, three weeks from today its the shortest day, oh joy; then it starts to get lighter!
Re: Spring is nearly here!
More local Welsh poetry to cheer you up again on this dark miserable wet December day, one of the gloomiest yet to set the mood!
Hope you like this one Colin
Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
Accompaniment to the black kettle's
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me, not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
R.S. Thomas
Because of all the recent rain we went to see the falls at Betws-y Coed yesterday as they can be pretty spectacular after heavy rain and particularly in the autumn when you can see migrating salmon and sea trout leaping their way up.
No fish seen but the tons of white water a second roaring through makes the stone bridge vibrate, awesome!
The signs of progress (exploitation) are more apparent as the car park there now charges £2.50 for 2 hrs. parking and 20p to have a pee! male or female.
Driving back home via Denbigh moors we passed the Sportsman's a once famous public house, now closed down and up for sale.
Its former glory is now reduced to an empty lifeless scruffy pub with peeling neglected paintwork, it looked just unloved, and unwanted!
Such a sad sight on a wet winters day, its bare unlit windows are like vacant eyes staring out over vast acres of bleak desolation that is the windswept moorland surrounding it.
It must have been its very isolation that saw its demise due in no small part to the 'drinking and driving' laws.
Last time I was in there enjoying a pint was in 1986 when I went with a friend to look at the ruins of Lord Mostyn's shooting lodge which is situated up on the Denbigh moors just about a half mile up a rough track from the back of the Sportsman's.
Stan, this old friend of mine had showed me the stamped steel joists used in the old lodge that were made in 1910 by "Henderson and Glass" an engineering firm he used to work for back in the 60's.
He had seen the plans for the shooting lodge in the drawing office so was interested to actually see them 'in situ' from all those years before.
Hope you like this one Colin
Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
Accompaniment to the black kettle's
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me, not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
R.S. Thomas
Because of all the recent rain we went to see the falls at Betws-y Coed yesterday as they can be pretty spectacular after heavy rain and particularly in the autumn when you can see migrating salmon and sea trout leaping their way up.
No fish seen but the tons of white water a second roaring through makes the stone bridge vibrate, awesome!
The signs of progress (exploitation) are more apparent as the car park there now charges £2.50 for 2 hrs. parking and 20p to have a pee! male or female.
Driving back home via Denbigh moors we passed the Sportsman's a once famous public house, now closed down and up for sale.
Its former glory is now reduced to an empty lifeless scruffy pub with peeling neglected paintwork, it looked just unloved, and unwanted!
Such a sad sight on a wet winters day, its bare unlit windows are like vacant eyes staring out over vast acres of bleak desolation that is the windswept moorland surrounding it.
It must have been its very isolation that saw its demise due in no small part to the 'drinking and driving' laws.
Last time I was in there enjoying a pint was in 1986 when I went with a friend to look at the ruins of Lord Mostyn's shooting lodge which is situated up on the Denbigh moors just about a half mile up a rough track from the back of the Sportsman's.
Stan, this old friend of mine had showed me the stamped steel joists used in the old lodge that were made in 1910 by "Henderson and Glass" an engineering firm he used to work for back in the 60's.
He had seen the plans for the shooting lodge in the drawing office so was interested to actually see them 'in situ' from all those years before.
Re: Spring is nearly here!
'Now is the winter of my discontent
Made fair by this son of York
W.S.
Well hurricane Desmond did its best to spoil Christmas for a lot of folks this week; and, more misery to come it would seem.
My nephew phoned this morning from Lancaster quite relieved to say his electricity supply has just been restored; been off from Saturday morning, phoned again 3.00pm, back off again!
The Elwy finally topped its banks and flowed through the footpath arch in St Asaph on Saturday the 28th November, just a day after the third anniversary of 'The Flood'.
It never got high enough to flood the town again but left the footpath covered in mud and silt so we couldn't walk the dogs until Monday.
On the positive side it finally moved the large tree trunks jammed against the centre pier on the stone road bridge for the last few weeks.
Just weird the weather this year; because it was such a nice sunny day after the appalling weekends storm I spent most of today tidying up the garden.
Busy with my pruners I found to my surprise that the unusually warm weather has got the Forsythia flowering early and also flowers on a gooseberry standard and leaves flowers and buds on an autumn fruiting raspberry, what next?
Swarms of midges drifting about the pond surface about 11.30am today attracted a grey wagtail.
Fascinating to watch it flit a sort of gyrating dance across from side to side snapping them up. Its such a pretty dainty little bird, always a welcome visitor to my pond.
I was busy flushing out my Nexus again when it arrived.
Its the second time in 5 days I've cleaned my filter because of the large amount of leaves and detritus blown in by 'Desmond'.
I had to fish masses of leaves from the surface and also a large heavy Bonsai tree in a pot blown in by weekends storm, it took me a good half hour trying to hook it out with a rake and a net!
The brick setts are still in there somewhere? I put them on the Bonsai pot to weigh it down because of strong winds, never worked obviously.
Made fair by this son of York
W.S.
Well hurricane Desmond did its best to spoil Christmas for a lot of folks this week; and, more misery to come it would seem.
My nephew phoned this morning from Lancaster quite relieved to say his electricity supply has just been restored; been off from Saturday morning, phoned again 3.00pm, back off again!
The Elwy finally topped its banks and flowed through the footpath arch in St Asaph on Saturday the 28th November, just a day after the third anniversary of 'The Flood'.
It never got high enough to flood the town again but left the footpath covered in mud and silt so we couldn't walk the dogs until Monday.
On the positive side it finally moved the large tree trunks jammed against the centre pier on the stone road bridge for the last few weeks.
Just weird the weather this year; because it was such a nice sunny day after the appalling weekends storm I spent most of today tidying up the garden.
Busy with my pruners I found to my surprise that the unusually warm weather has got the Forsythia flowering early and also flowers on a gooseberry standard and leaves flowers and buds on an autumn fruiting raspberry, what next?
Swarms of midges drifting about the pond surface about 11.30am today attracted a grey wagtail.
Fascinating to watch it flit a sort of gyrating dance across from side to side snapping them up. Its such a pretty dainty little bird, always a welcome visitor to my pond.
I was busy flushing out my Nexus again when it arrived.
Its the second time in 5 days I've cleaned my filter because of the large amount of leaves and detritus blown in by 'Desmond'.
I had to fish masses of leaves from the surface and also a large heavy Bonsai tree in a pot blown in by weekends storm, it took me a good half hour trying to hook it out with a rake and a net!
The brick setts are still in there somewhere? I put them on the Bonsai pot to weigh it down because of strong winds, never worked obviously.
Re: Spring is nearly here!
A DAY IN AUTUMN
It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees' shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening
In the lawns mirror. Having looked up
From the days chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.
R S Thomas
More cheery poems from our local clergy to brighten another dank miserable wet winters day.
THISTLEDOWN i.e. raining heavily
I think I've worked out the weather patterns over the last few months,
it seems to fall into a fairly predictable formula.
We experience heavy rain for two or three days quickly followed by strong to gale force winds for a couple of days with intermittent rain showers then a morning (or afternoon) of relative calm to lull you into believing we are in for better weather!
Just kidding; spake the Great Architect Of The Universe!
More rain showers quickly develop building up to a peak three or four days later as the prevailing North Westerly wind increases back to storm force once again.
The wind then moderates and backs to South West, this vacuum thus created brings in more heavily laden rain clouds from South Atlantic that are waiting in the wings and pushed north by backed Sou'wester.
Precipitation follows as we are mightily dumped on once again.
The empty rainclouds are then dispersed up north by the relatively warm Sou'wester wind to collect more rain in cold polar regions.
And so a predictable? weather pattern emerges, the by now heavily pregnant rainclouds are pushed south once again by a veering and increasing North West Wind.
And so we UK residents are dumped on heavily again!
So on and so forth; Add Infinitum
The bottom line is we shall be wet from every direction west this winter so be glad that while its windy warm and wet there's no snow or ice or fog!
It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees' shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening
In the lawns mirror. Having looked up
From the days chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.
R S Thomas
More cheery poems from our local clergy to brighten another dank miserable wet winters day.
THISTLEDOWN i.e. raining heavily
I think I've worked out the weather patterns over the last few months,
it seems to fall into a fairly predictable formula.
We experience heavy rain for two or three days quickly followed by strong to gale force winds for a couple of days with intermittent rain showers then a morning (or afternoon) of relative calm to lull you into believing we are in for better weather!
Just kidding; spake the Great Architect Of The Universe!
More rain showers quickly develop building up to a peak three or four days later as the prevailing North Westerly wind increases back to storm force once again.
The wind then moderates and backs to South West, this vacuum thus created brings in more heavily laden rain clouds from South Atlantic that are waiting in the wings and pushed north by backed Sou'wester.
Precipitation follows as we are mightily dumped on once again.
The empty rainclouds are then dispersed up north by the relatively warm Sou'wester wind to collect more rain in cold polar regions.
And so a predictable? weather pattern emerges, the by now heavily pregnant rainclouds are pushed south once again by a veering and increasing North West Wind.
And so we UK residents are dumped on heavily again!
So on and so forth; Add Infinitum
The bottom line is we shall be wet from every direction west this winter so be glad that while its windy warm and wet there's no snow or ice or fog!
-
roselanekoi
- Posts: 322
- Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:38 pm
Re: Spring is nearly here!
It's raining again today (Saturday) and it's forecast for the day.
I'm beginning to think a sprinkling of snow and a few frosty mornings might be preferred to all this rain.
I'm beginning to think a sprinkling of snow and a few frosty mornings might be preferred to all this rain.