Little Green Fingers

We have spent the last so many weeks tidying up the overgrown acres of our new home. Its been a lot of graft, digging, weeding and planting.

We now have a huge vegetable plot, which has numerous types of things growing, we have a beds containing, Herbs, onions, beans, salad leafs, potatoes, pumpkins, strawberries and another that contains a whole variety of crops.

A Green house that resembles the little shop of horrors.

We have had our first produce, Mushrooms which are growing in abundance in a box under the sink. (I have a great Mushroom soup recipe)
We are now at a point where the garden just needs general maintenance and continued seeding of plants to ensure continuous supply of vegetables.

Yesterday for the first time since moving in we were able to sit relax and enjoy the evening sun without worrying that there was work to be done in the garden.

Wales and Winkworth

Bank holiday weekend, unfortunately the weather didn't come through, and we ended up postponing our Snowdon plans due to high winds. We still headed to Wales,

and were joined by a few friends for three days kayaking on the Tryweryn and even found time to hike in the rain and wind. It did stay fairly dry whilst we were on the river though.


Andy and Kev showed us how to maximise enjoyment on the Tryweryn, I've never caught as many eddies in a short river.



Between kayaking, we found time to climb a nearby hill, well most of us anyway, before retiring to the local pub to dry out.

Last weekend, we headed down south to meet up with Simons siblings and cousins, plus assorted small children, many of which we'd never met. We had a lovely picnic at Winkworth Arboretum, a National Trust property


followed by a BBQ at Owen's house. Propane beats charcoal any day!!

Green fingers and Wet feet..

We still haven’t got internet at home (thanks BT and Sky!!! why oh why is it so difficult!!!!) so we apologize for the lack of updates…

We have now fully settled in to our gorgeous cottage in Wrockwardine. The Garden has proved to be a monstrous task.. even more so by Si leaving for a week to go to the Alps…more on that later.

Cheryl hard at work in the garden!

After removing lots and lots of weeds, we now have a beautiful vegetable patch all seeded and planted up ready to give us its fruits in a few months time. We have planted over 20 different types of veggies..
Not just content with veggies we have also planted a few flowers, herbs etc and we are really pleased with the results.. considering we have never had a garden before. At times it felt a little overwhelming. Next up chickens, a cow and a few pigs.....

There is a nice 'hill' nearby, with good prospects for mountain biking - the Wrekin, which is a good afternoon stroll up to the top.

Cheryl managed to escape to the Tryweryn river which amazing is little over 1 hour away from the house and is a fun little river. (by US standards) By UK standards it is a raging whitewater torrent!!

While Cheryl only managed to get a day away, Si some how managed to blag himself a weeks holiday after only starting work 2 weeks ago.

The Italian and Swiss alps were the destination, and a great holiday it was too.
We paddled lots of great rivers, with good friends. There was a low swim count (more importantly no swims for me!) Levels in Italy were a bit disappointing, so we headed out to Switzerland, and stayed there most of the time.

The runs were characterised by deep deep gorges mostly away from the road, with most takeouts being must-make eddies above more even deeper deep gorges, even further away from the road.... I'm not joking.....

We met a friendly swiss paddler - the force was with him..

We did have one section that had no convenient roadside takeout, and had to slog up hill out from the takeout bridge for an hour or so before being reunited with our cars.

Highlight of the trip has to be the big drop / slide on the Ribo river!!! Great fun, very intimidating, but straightforward. There were a fun stunned looks rolling up after this one!!

The "famous flair drop" Is this the most photographed drop in Switzerland ? (usually from above). We'd initially dismissed it as a chossy drop, not worth running. We climbed back up and ran it. It still wasn't worth the bother, but once some of us had run it, we all had to... I'm sure it looked bigger / better / fun in the pictures.

It’s a great destination, and one I’m looking forward to getting back to.

The rivers were truly world class, everything from narrow Vermont style canyons to big water rapids, big falls, to cali style slick bedrock. Amazing!! No suprise there are so many UK boaters out there.

It wasn't all paddling (ok it was), but we still had to eat....

The villages up in the hills were amazing. We constantly asked ourselves "what do they do up here!!!"

The house is pretty much ready to accept visitors, and we have plenty of overflow camping space, so come over for a weekend!!!

Flurries of all Kinds

Two weeks ago we left the wintery south and headed up to Sunny Barrow.

Our first river was the Leven (Cheryl: after paddling this little gem I can't believe I lived on its banks for so long and never paddled)

With not many days before we returned to work we decided to have a short holiday because we needed it in Scotland. Scotland however wasn't quite so inviting....

While Cheryl stayed toasty warm in the car sniffling into tissues, Si braved the cold weather to run three of Scotlands ditches, The Kinglas, orchy and Nevis falls.

Following Scotland we have had a busy week. We have both been offered positions at BAE Telford, and start on Tuesday 15th. We have found a stunning little cottage in Wrockwardine, and move in next Friday. Cheryl found a perfect kayak mobile, Pip Squeak!!

To top off all our good news Portsmouth have made it in to the Cup final ..YEAH