Saturday, 23 March, 2024#
One of the good things about staying in Llanrhidian is being able to see my brother acting just a few minutes down the road from me. Stepped out after the play to an amazing night's sky!
Showing posts with label Gower. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gower. Show all posts
Down in the Dump
Wednesday, 20 March, 2024
"I'm beginning to feel like I live down the rubbish tip.
I know I promised to stop taking pics of gloves, lol, but I couldn't resist snapping these. I don't think that this particular pair were lost tho - just waiting for action:
I twinged my back today getting things out of the house and down the dump. North Gower didn't disappoint and the caravan park we are staying at gets some to temper my aches and pains:
The Soosh
Monday, 18 March, 2024
Work on clearing our belongs and taking fire, geat and smoke damaged items to the tip is progressing. There is not much catching my eye enough to take my mobile phone out of my pocket now and photograph the place, but these two images seemed worthy of capturing:
 |
| Our landing ceiling with burnt detectors and lightshade |
 |
| Sunset at our burnt house |
On the way back to the caravan, we stopped off at the layby near my old childhood home in Penclawdd and took these pics to share with you all:
On the Road
Friday, 16 March, 2024
It seems like we are continually on the road these days. The commute from our temporary accommodation to the house is becoming a chore despite the scenery en route. The landlord wants us to empty the house of our belongings so he can start work on the place, so we have to box up anything thing that is remotely salvageable and take everything else to the dump. Despite masking and gloving up, our chests are beginning to suffer, and we have had to remind the landlord that we can't "spend every spare minute in the house clearing things" as he would like. We have our health to think of, as well as laundrettes to visit, rubbish dump trips to undertake, food shopping etc. I can feel my resilience lowering with each successive day...
Anyway, here are some road videos and photographs I've tried to entertain myself with today.
The daily drive to our house:
Pics taken en route to the rubbish dump:
Driving home:
At least there were two rays of sunshine to lift our moods today. The first was meeting a couple of friends from my work, who gave us an amazing gift to help us through our trying times - thank you, I love you all. Secondly, there was the more literal ray of sunshine. For the first time since all this nightmare started, the sun came out:
Moving On and Settling Down
Wednesday, 13 March, 2024
We have now moved into this trailer, which is located very close to my childhood home in Penclawdd:
Last Day in Mumbles
Tuesday, 12 March, 2024
This is our last day at the Mumbles Airbnb. We picked up the keys to cheaper accommodation today on the other side of the peninsula before heading to our house and clearing more of the damage to make it safer for the builders who start work there next week. Fudjcat has settled in nicely here, so I hope the upheaval tomorrow doesn't upset her again. We've transferred the last of our Japan savings (we have had to postpone most of this year's planned trips), so we can hopefully afford to stay at the caravan/trailer until we can move back into our home. This should help ease fudjcat's anxiety and let her settle for longer.
Loathe to post here without any pics, so here are some parting pics of Mumbles, all taken from the car as we drove to and from this particular let. These include some daytime shots of that strange scene I happened upon the other night. Onwards and upwards!
 |
| fudjcat chillin' |
 |
| Nothing takes you out of your stressful situation better than putting yourself into someone else's. Continuing work on my 2025 novel, Familiar. |
Carnage
Monday, 11 March, 2024
Here are a few pictures of the carnage. The worst part of today? Having to throw shelf after shelf of signed books, collected over many years and at great expense, into the bin! |
| Burnt to a char and still a smile on his face. I'm gonna be keeping this fella no matter what he looks like after a scrub. |
 |
| The cause of the fire - faulty electric socket wiring |
 |
| Our digital clock |
 |
| Our once bejewelled bedroom ceiling light |
 |
| Our bedroom TV |
 |
| The view from the bed |
 |
| The plants in the front porch, however, loved the burst of heat. I've never seen this Jade looking so good! |
Caught the highest tide of the year briefly as we drove back to Mumbles after house-sorting:
We saw something strange as we approached the Airbnb then. Dont Ask! But it ended with a furious dog chasing me from the scene:
Accommodation Decisions
Saturday, 09 March, 2024
We've settled into the little bungalow we have hired for a few days whilst we find somewhere slightly longer term to hang out whilst the landlord does whatever landlords do to get their houses fit for human (and cat) habitation at times like this. Who knows what the next few weeks will bring,.. "We've had an idea of how to make the best of things whilst away from our home, but we'll need to see if our son agrees when he comes back from his overnight stay with friends today. I'm hoping he agrees, though.Anyway, it is certainly a time to count our blessings, so I will start with gratitude for the fact that we live in such a beautiful part of the world. As a photographer, the joy and comfort I receive from the landscape are immense, so I thought I'd close this update with some of the locations where we have been making our decisions these past couple of days. I am in no way a religious person, but despite everything that has happened lately, our family is still blessed.
This is the village where I grew up. My Mum's house has poor internet, so we parked up here to search for temporary accommodation where we can recuperate from life:
We have moved to this side of the bay for the next few days. Our usual home is on the other side of this bay (see the land to the left of the pic in the background.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)