March – Spring might be on the way but an icy wind reminds us that Winter is not fully over. On such a day there nothing more comforting than a bowl of traditional Welsh Cawl (kawl) served up with fresh bread, farmhouse butter and some good Welsh cheese. Eaten during the winter months the original…
Author: Linda
Pontarfynach – Devil’s Bridge
Sitting comfortably? – here is the legend of Devil’s Bridge, a famous landmark and tourist attraction in the northern part of Ceredigion, 12 miles from Aberystwyth. The Devil visited Wales around the 11th Century. He had never been there before and had heard that the scenery was breathtaking. He met an old lady who seemed…
Guest Blog – Tregaron Walking Weekend – by Julia Schoon
This week we have a special Guest Blog Post by one of our cottage owners. Julia Schoon owns the delightful Llety’r Wennol at the foot of the Cambrian Mountain range and here she tells us about a great walking festival in Tregaron, close to her cottage. The Cambrian Mountains @ Bro Tregaron Walking Weekend Tregaron…
Welsh Winter Safari
January in West Wales – snow has fallen and the white landscape reminds me of a wonderful winter day out, a few years ago, to the Cambrian Mountains, nicknamed a ‘Welsh Winter Safari’. In dim, very early morning light we set off in the Landrover towards the old market town of Tregaron on the western…
Afal y Dydd – An Apple a Day
Afal Ynys Enlli, Trwyn Mochyn, Pig Aderyn – its the time of year when these unusual names are heard in Wales. These ancient varieties of Welsh Apple (Afal) are once again being harvested and prepared for storage over the winter or turned into delicious apple juice or cider. The most famous of these, Afal Ynys…
Two Storey Nature Reserves
A distinctive feature of the West Wales countryside is the ‘clawdd’ (plural ‘cloddiau’). Literally translated it means hedge, dyke or embankment. Although sometimes used to mean all walls the term really refers to our ‘stone hedges’ – stone faced earth banks built as stock proof boundaries to fields or to divide land. Patterns of stonework…
Foraging in Wales
What could be better than walking to a West Wales beach on a fine and sunny Sunday? Not much! – but if the walk includes foraging for lunch under the watchful eye of an experienced guide and heading back to the woods to cook over a camp fire then that really is a special Sunday…
Welsh Cakes
St David’s Day (1st March) is nearly upon us and it’s time to make some celebratory Welsh Cakes (pice bach, cacen gri, pice ar y maen). Traditionally Welsh Cakes were cooked on a bakestone or cast iron griddle (a planc or maen in Welsh) and they are sometimes referred to as ‘bakestones’. The bakestone or…
Sheepish Tales
Driving along a lane near our smallholding in West Wales, we stopped on occasions to admire a small group of black and brown sheep grazing in the valley. The sheep were very striking, with white socks, white faces and very distinctive white tails. Asking around (a risky thing to do if you are a smallholder)…
Green Fair 2011, Newport Pembrokeshire
Something about living in West Wales has made me more aware of our precious environment. It could be the beautiful countryside and coastline, living on a smallholding or the fact that the area is alive with projects, people and businesses encouraging us to go ‘green’ and stay ‘local’. On a mission to find out more,…