First the bad news. The Brigand's Inn, my local hostelry on which I rely for its slow-but-steady WiFi connection and was eyeing up as a potential customer for any fresh produce I might happen to grow, is closing down in two weeks due to some dispute over business rates. They don't know if they will re-open in a few months, or years, or ever. This is quite a blow. It not only inconveniences me, it impoverishes the whole area. Before I'd even got to use it as a place for meeting the locals, it's gone.
Now I sense you beginning to panic slightly as you wonder if this means my blog will come to an untimely end as my internet connection vanishes in a puff of electrical smoke and I go truly off grid. Never fear, I will endeavour to keep this show on the road for a while longer even though it means greater sacrifices for myself. I shall just have to start going weekly to the Quarry Cafe in Machynlleth and post the blog up there (which incidentally serves better and cheaper coffee than the Brigand's Inn. And the connection's faster.) It may mean shifting the day to Wednesday as that's the market day in Mach. Hopefully we can all cope with that and see this thing through together.
(0) Onto the more positive, uplifting and generally more silver-lined section of this post. If you would like to hear about how I met some more people this week, go to section (1) below. Or if you would prefer to learn about the fledgling steps I've taken in market research, go to section (2). Alternatively if you're more interested in my attempts at foraging, turn to section (3). If you're read all of them, or at least all those you can be bothered to read, visit section (4). (Ah, this brings back happy memories of all those "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Fighting Fantasy" books I devoted large chunks of my childhood to).
(1) This week I received my first actual visitors, two friends I know from Dorset who were heading back there after spending a wet honeymoon together in Snowdonia. They couldn't stay long but I was able to provide cups of tea and a tour of the land, which they tell me they had been intrigued to see, and I felt a newfound emotion - a sense of proprietorship.
I have also now met my next-door neighbours, a very friendly couple in their late fifties who normally live across the border but make occasional stops at their Welsh plot of land which conveniently has a residence on it, an old toll house. Espying them from a distance I hailed them and was invited over across the little stream which forms the boundary, and made their acquaintance, ending up with a gift of some chicken-wire fencing they didn't need.
Return to section (0) and make your next choice.
(2) It's rare that market research boils down to getting on a bus and visiting the local market but in this case that's what happened, or would have happened if I hadn't missed the bus and been forced to drive my fuel-thirsty Suzuki instead. I was there on business to check out the competition in land-produced goods. I found a bustling couple of streets packed with stalls, including two regular fruit & veg outlets, a trendy organic one from Aberystwyth, and a local co-operative selling various home-grown and home-made goods for the benefit of its members. This latter stall told me that they tended to sell everything they put out. Also the Quarry vegetarian cafe claims to buy local produce.
Clearly I'm a long way from actually having any produce but it's helpful to begin to understand what channels exist for sales around here.
Now head back to section (0).
(3) Inspired by a book called Wild Foods I'd pinched from Pilsdon's library, I stepped out of my caravan on Monday armed only with a bucket, a pair of gloves and kitchen scissors and harvested a bunch of young stinging nettles that were merrily bursting forth around the awning. Once washed, slapped in a frying pan with some butter, salt and pepper and sauteed for quarter of an hour, they miraculously lost their venom and became something akin to spinach, although I confess my first bite was a cautious one. Since then I've eaten them for two more meals as it's a no-brainer - free tasty food on my doorstep, and according to Wild Foods they increase haemoglobin, improve circulation, lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar level and generally purify the body. Basically you never die if you keep eating them.
Back to section (0) with you.
(4) Well done, you have reached the end of your quest. And I've reached the end of my thirty-eighth year. Happy birthday to me!
Important Note: For the next two weeks I will be visiting Lammas, an eco-village in Pembrokeshire, helping a family there build a barn. I have no idea whether there will be any internet connection; if not then this is it from me until the end of May. Ta-ta for now, as they don't say around here!
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