A normal week will see me trooping into Mach (as we locals fondly call Machynlleth as it involves less spittle ending up on each other's faces) only once, to stock up on food at the Wednesday market and to post the latest exciting installment of this very blog to keep my vast global readership from rioting in frustration and possibly stalling an already wobbly world economy. The week just gone has been anything but normal as I have for one reason or another graced Mach with my presence every single day (except Sunday, the day of rest). Last Wed, I hitched there. Thurs, cycled. Friday, drove. Saturday, hitched. Sunday, rested. Monday, my friend drove me. And Tuesday, I drove, but petrol expenses were paid.
What precipitated this extraordinary turn of events? How is it I have suddenly become so Mach-centric? There is no simple answer I'm afraid, no unifying and illuminating truth, it's just the mutual congruence of a multiplicity of factors and forces that so determined my fate this week. Possibly.
Two of these trips, Thursday and Tuesday, I decided to go and volunteer with the local food growing outfit, Green Isle Growers (as featured in last week's posting). A few of us were sowing, planting and weeding on Thursday on one of their three plots, halfway up a hillside to the north of the town. Tuesday found us at the garden of George Monbiot's house which he lets them use, harvesting courgettes, spinach and blackcurrants in time for their weekly veg bag delivery that evening. I'd like to say George was out there with us getting his knees dirty but I hear he tends to live elsewhere now, writing his provocative but compelling books and articles (I've just finished his excellent book "Captive State").
One of the other volunteers invited me to a fancy dress party on Friday with the theme of Album Covers, so in I went as Johnny Cash's The Man in Black and was glad I hadn't tried anything more elaborate as most people hadn't bothered to dress up at all. Pretty good party though. The following day was Mach's Carnival which I hitch-hiked in for. It turned out the hitch-hike was more interesting than the carnival parade, not that it was a bad parade (brass band, lots of floats, costumes and strident encouragements to applaud from the too-loud PA system), but the guy who gave me a lift turned out to be a local carpenter who has a whole load of timber in his yard he offered me for free, and who even suggested I work with him in the workshop sometime for cash. I told you hitch-hiking is the best way to travel.
What with my friend Adam coming to visit for the weekend, with whom I visited Mach again on Monday and bought a splitting axe and a billhook, it's really getting quite familiar. So much so that today I'm posting this from the pub in Dinas Mawddwy, the next village along from me, which I've discovered has WiFi - happy days!
With Adam here I took the opportunity to don my luminous safety gear and take the chainsaw out for a spin, something I don't do solo in case I slice a limb off (Adam could just stitch it back on). Twenty of my Christmas trees have bitten the dust so if you want one, come and get one. OK it's not quite the season but as I'm not going to be here this winter, there seemed no reason to delay. The area I like to call the vegetable garden has now opened up a lot and is less shaded. Adam enjoyed hacking the branches off with the billhook. And the pheasants are loving to perch on top of the fallen trees for some reason known only to them, so everyone's happy.
P.S. The answer to last week's brain teaser is millipede. Well done.
You say you won't be there over winter, and I think you mentioned elsewhere something about how you have to work the land April -> Oct. What's that all about? Are you a tenant?
ReplyDeleteNo I'm not a tenant, I own the land. I decided to give it a six month stint as a kind of trial period - to see how I like living there, and how well I get on with it all, and to decide if there really is long term potential for growing there. Plus I didn't fancy spending the winter in that tiny caravan, so I'm heading back to Pilsdon in October for a few months.
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