Every Picture: Spring Squill

I'm going to blog every single day in February be it short or long and the theme shall be 'Every Picture Tells A Story' which is a blog title I've used on three separate occasions. 

It's been a difficult three months only alleviated by friends, family, food and Christmas. The thing is, I got very caught up and upset by the Trump thing and still am. And I hadn't even recovered from the Brexit thing and now there is the ongoing Trump and Brexit thing and the Stormont thing and it looks like the vote in North Antrim might be split and not in a good way. But at least I'm used to disappointment in Northern Ireland politics.

To ease my agitated mind, I've become obsessed with my photo archives, the animated series Archer and low-brow novels that I pick up from a charity table in Tesco. Also alcohol. I'm sipping on a wee Laphroaig as I type this and very soothing it is too.

Spring Squill

So, moving on. The first pictures in the Every Picture blog series were taken in Anglesey in May 2009. Bert, Clint and I had spent a few days at the Royal Welsh Smallholder and Garden Festival in Builth Wells. At the time I wrote a blog post about how Clint fell out with the entire Welsh population but revisiting my picture archives reminded me of another aspect of our brief time in Wales. It was as simple as this - if all had gone Clint's way we would have sped our way from the Marches to Holyhead but it was not to be and we missed our ferry crossing by about five minutes and had several hours to kill. Downtime rarely happens in Clint's company so that was a bit of a treat. We ambled around Holyhead for a while then decided to go check out the coastal area, At some point, we found ourselves close to RAF Valley where Prince William was stationed for a while. No sign of the prince but we did see some very fine jet planes. Bert and I had a wander around the little stony beaches. And it was there on the dunes that I saw, for the first time Spring Squill, scilla verna, a beautiful little coastal plant. I've since found that it grows in some parts of Ireland and is actually the county flower of County Down. I really should try to track it down this spring. 

A pebbly beach

Now I'm off to watch another episode of Archer.

Gŵyl Tyddyn a Gardd Frenhinol Cymru

Please God I am not making a fool of myself and that title actually does translate into the 'Royal Welsh Smallholder and Garden Festival', which is where Bert, Clint and myself spent last weekend. It was my first visit ever to Wales and I was very impressed with the country. It may be wet but it is beautiful and the people are lovely.

Which is not what we'd been led to expect from Clint. He regaled us all the way over with stories of the sheer horridness of the Welsh people. His dislike of the Welsh stemmed from his experiences driving tankers of Irish milk to a cheese factory in Anglesey. What did the Welsh do to him that drove him to take umbrage with an entire country you may ask? And I did. It appears that a canteen lady in the Welsh cheese factory in Anglesey wouldn't give him a cup of tea saying curtly that the canteen was closed and that he could get his tea from the machine. Meanwhile there was a group of employees sitting at a table nursing hot steaming cups of proper tea and they were all glaring at him. What did Clint do? I asked him this. It seems he told the canteen lady to stick her tea and then flounced out. Now there is an entire cheese factory in Anglesey that thinks Northern Irish people are perfectly hateful.

The Garden and Smallholder festival was all about flowers, pigs, woodcraft, pigs, goats, pigs, vintage farm machinery, pigs, vegetables, pigs, cattle, pigs, farmer's markets, pigs, dogs, pigs, country clothes, pigs, sheep, pigs, camelids and pigs.

And did I mention the pigs? They were far and away my favourite part of the show.

While I was away I picked up a new Facebook friend. Her name is Mavis and she is a Berkshire pig. She's got a brother who lives and works here, in the Ministry, in the AI section. Tough job but somepig has got to do it.