First quarter, 2008 !

Today is a beautiful day - the sun has real strength, both in temperature and light. But more cold and wintry weather is forecast for the week-end. The season is on the cusp.

Time, at least, for a quick evocation of the first quarter of 2008 here in Clees Lane.

For the first weeks of the year, we virtually hibernated. The weather was predominantly wet, and we've inclined this way in recent years, and now we can give way to it without guilt. We got the fires lit, and played lots of snooker on the 6' table I gave Nina for Christmas. She did quite a lot of family history online. I got stuck into extending my understanding of Midi control, particularly in the context of playing live. Talking of the snooker, Brindle has evolved her own routine ! She's always been 'big' on balls, especially tennis balls. Now, when we 'set up the balls' , she appears (from sleep, quite often) with a ball in her mouth, and if we make sure she has a second one, she has her own game under the table while we play - a sort of football with her front paws, but there must be a ball in her mouth for it to start. What I find interesting is the social dimension of it - there is such an undoubted sense of 'this is what I do while Nina and Ian are playing on that table.'

As we got into February, it became easier to find work to do. I began the process of rescuing the pine-end of no 5, adjoining our house (partly visible in the background of some of the photos published here in August). Work with lime mortar is very satisfying - it is a markedly more 'organic' material than cement mortar, despite being caustic. Inside no. 4, Nina stripped back the original lime 'plaster' (and some later cement patchings) of the stone wall beside the stairs, and re-clad it in lime, and she is now following on onto some of our adjoining plasterboard surfaces.

Jenny and Alex came down for a night so we could all go to Y Polyn again (Alex's first visit) for St David's Day lunch - it was deemed well worth the trip - and we touched base at Allt Y Capel (Alex's first sight of that, too) . Later, Nina and Brindle and I went down to Guildford, where we and Jenny went to see an excellent (Peter Hall) production of Uncle Vanya, with Neil Pearson as Astrov. Brindle and I came home next day, leaving Nina and Jenny to jet off for a week at Sharm El Sheikh.

I've 'had a skip' and emptied the garage of number 2 (untouched for 20 years, I should guess), and am making some basic fittings and repairs before we repatriate our stored possessions to this new space. We've also snatched several of the best days for trips to the wood. A new 'big beast' chain saw has been inaugurated (demonstrating again, that in the case of tools, bigger and sharper can, properly handled, also mean safer). And Nina has at last mastered the starting of the smaller saw. Anyway, several good days (going to the woods always feels like touching base - it puts everything else into perspective) and several goodly loads of fire wood.

Yesterday Nina had a small operation as a day-patient in Singleton Hospital to tackle a cyst near the opening of her Eustacian tube. She is for the moment recuperating quietly. I can hear 'Lorna Doone' quietly behind me.

These months are 'the' time for evening classes and similar activities. I'm taking a Photoshop course on restoring photos, and at the Ystalyfera Heritage Society we are finally in full process of archiving old photos and other paper artefacts from the locality. So some weeks I've been out three evenings.

When we judge spring has really come, there is work to do in the garden (the potatoes are chitting quietly in waiting), and then no 6 awaits - we'd like to get a floor and roof done before next winter.

Sir Francis Drake as aesthetician ?

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Cymru am bydd!

The insert that I sent out with Christmas cards this year concluded with the following rousing

reminder that the Tawe Valley, where we now are, is, despite its industrial past, very different from 'the Valleys' as the English usually think of them. It's a beautiful and intriguing place, and, what's more, very convenient, for the Gower, the Brecon Beacons, and the southern reaches of mid-Wales - the Towy Valley and Brechfa Forest. A whole wide area which anyone with a taste for British landscape and regions should know. Come and see it / us!

If you come by train, it's better to head for Neath, than Swansea. We can meet you at the station.

This is how to find us by car.

From the M4
Take the A4067 Brecon from Junction 45 (it's signed A4067 N on the junction roundabout. The lane markings on the roundabout are a bit of a pain, but basically, coming from east or from Swansea itself, you need to end up in the middle lane.) Follow A4067 Brecon signs throughout these instructions as far as the Church Road turn-off, where you leave the main road. The signing will take you over several small roundabouts (getting into the right lane can be important at at busy times). When you pass a large Tesco, you're getting closer. When you then come to a set of traffic lights, go straight over, but now look out for the Ystalyfera name sign on the left-hand verge, and then immediately for a blue bus-shelter and a left turn into Church Road. Take the turn. Go up the hill and round the bends. At the top (virtually a right-handed hairpin) you'll get a 'Pant-teg' sign. Look out for a large chapel on the right, and then two blue bus-shelters. Turn down the steep little lane before the shelter on the right. There's a small lay-by a little way down. Park there, and come in at the gate a little way back up the lane.
From the A40 (Brecon / Hereford direction)
The A4067 branches off the A40 just before you get into Sennybridge, signed to Ystradgynlais and Swansea. Enjoy a very pleasant ride! Eventually, the A4067 threads between Ystradgynlais and Ystalyfera (it actually comes through Ystalyfera in a cutting, and Ystalyfera is 'bracketed' by roundabouts where the 'new' A4067 intersects with the 'old' A4067). After the second roundabout, look out for the Godre'r Graig name sign on the left-hand verge, and then immediately Pant-teg is signed to your right. You turn right into Church Road just in front of a bus shelter. Thereafter route as above. If you come to traffic lights, you've gone too far. See route from the M4.
There is a curiosity here : the Church Road turn is in both Ystalyfera and Godre'r Graig, according to the roadside name signs ! It's not altogether without meaning - there are many small touching communities in this part of the valley, and it's evident in several locations that the exact boundaries have shifted over time.

Christmas comes early

JENNY AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY

Back yesterday from our trip to England, nay, London even !

On Wednesday (19/12/07), Jenny gave an evening lecture in the theatre of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery to mark the publication of her book (see link top right). Afterwards there was a reception and book-signing. Not an easy assignment, given the (presumably) very mixed audience, but the girl carried it off with some aplomb, I think. Difficult for us to judge, given that she is our girl, and we knew many of the best lines already, but the audience seemed warm and receptive, and not anxious to rush off. We were told some 200 tickets had been sold in advance. I would guess the theatre was about 3/4 full, which probably implies rather more than 200 present on the night. Such is the wide appeal of Van Eyck.
A notable bonus of the setting was the gorgeous theatre-screen-size display of the pictures - not only the actual Van Eycks, but also some of the analytic/comparative detail (e.g. so many versions of what were probably just two or three original representations of the two brothers), and also the many 'popular' images Jenny has dug up, like a set of German 'chocolate cards', dating from 1904, or an engraving of the Arnolfini portrait from the Illustrated London News. To say nothing of the Habitat advert from last year !

I had hoped to lead this with a suitable photo, but all of ours (yes, every one!) have caught Jenny at the worst micro-second. We could have done with Ben's motorised super shooter.

On the Thursday, Jenny and I went into 'the Smoke' again, to meet a small group of her students and then, together at the Barbican, the curator of the current exhibition at the Barbican (of which no more at this point !). And then on Friday, the three of us had lunch at The Barn before walking on the downs with Brindle, returning to a take-away and sharing of gifts with Alex.
Altogether, a very happy three days.

Review of the Year

The year has been shaped by family concerns, to the extent that we have made less progress on 'the Street' (as local usage sometimes calls a row like 3 - 9 Clees Lane) than we would have hoped at the beginning of the year.

Nina's godfather Martin, one of her late mother's cousins, died suddenly in February, and we have been drawn into much closer contact with his surviving sister Barbara, with whom we now find ourselves somewhat in loco filio filiaeque. Nina took a lot of the responsibility for clearing Martin's cottage, and Barbara has not always been in the best of health. So there have been regular trips down to the New Forest and Gosport.

Emily gave birth to a daughter, Angharad, our second grandchild, in May, and Nina spent a month with them in Melbourne around June. And the autumn has been taken up by the renovation of no. 2 for my Mum (see previous blog.)

Nonetheless, the demolition of the old back extension of no. 4 and the clearing of no 6 (see two blogs back) has at least set the stage for positive progress next year, and our work in no. 2 has also reminded us what we are capable of , whetting our appetitite for our own spaces.

2007 has also been the year when I finally got into exploiting the computer for music purposes, allied to a strong burst of new interest in jazz. Again, at the moment it's a highly hole and corner business, setting up where I can, but the development of new spaces will give me the chance to set up a dedicated space.

We are currently looking forward to Jenny's book launch at the National Gallery, which we will combine with a pre-Christmas festivity with Jenny and Alex in Guildford. More of that when it's happened!

One of the curiosities of the year has arisen from 'the family' giving me a DNA (y chromosome) test for my 60th. It turns out that I am (haplogroup) I1a U-N in which the U-N stands for Ultra Norse. In other words, my n times great-grandfather (and thereon back) came from Scandinavia, probably Sweden or Norway. Or to put it crudely, I am (distantly) a Viking ! This may ('non-paternal events' - i.e. an unfaithful grandmother (not you, Dora !) - permitting) link with my surname i.e. Graham. Graham is generally derived from 'de Grantham' or 'de Graeg Ham', the name borne by a Norman lord who went north to Scotland in the 1120's. His father or grandfather was one of William the Conqueror's closer associates, so is quite likely to have been of Viking derivation. The finer details of this, which I won't go into, also mean that Tankervilles and Chamberlain(e)s may be very distant cousins. There was a Chamberlain(e) in my Methsoc group at Cambridge.................Hello, John !

Mum comes to Pant-teg

Our principal activity since sometime in September has been working on No. 2 Clees Lane to prepare it for Mum to move in, and yesterday (30/11/07) was The Day.

Rewind briefly to 18th May 2007. Nina had set off to Oz the previous day, leaving a library book for me to return. As I went up the Lane, I noticed a For Sale board at the gate of Nos. 1 and 2 - a pair of houses above (behind) us, about halfway up to the 'main' road. I made enquiries, viewed the next day, (Saturday), emails flew hither and yon, and I made an offer on the Monday. It was accepted, but it was not until September we actually got possession. Mum had first refusal, and did not refuse.

We have substantially refurbished the ground floor, so that Mum now has a ground-floor cloak-room, bedroom, and 2 reception rooms, plus basic kitchen facilities. We have recruited a care team, and here she is. There are also two bedrooms and a decent bathroom on the first floor, but Mum will go upstairs only accompanied, to bath. One of the bedrooms is still a tool store / mini-workshop for me, for the purposes of the renovation (inevitably, although all services are available, there are still some cosmetic details to complete). This room will soon become a spare bedroom in which e.g. Lesley and David could stay. The other bedroom is rather eccentrically 'ensuite' with the bathroom - i.e. you get to the bathroom through it - so of limited use as a bedroom at present, but I shall probably have a desk and some admin storage in there.

The first picture (above) is looking roughly south from the sloping green at the top of the Lane. No. 2 is the further of the two houses, and all the ground to the right of the main path goes with it. You can see the Volvo parked in a small pull-off space and the building to the right of the Volvo is the top of 'our' new ground, and actually a garage, althought the double door needs re-opening.

The second picture (below) is from the same spot but turned 90 degrees left, which brings our house and garage into view, and the view across the valley:

Next phase, August 2007

Well, it's been a long break since the last posting. The whole Ogmore Vale project went belly-up in the spring, due to unfathomable actions by the supposed vendors. The name remains in the title as a memorial, a bit like the 'Fisher' in Graham and Fisher.

Grand-daughter Angharad was born at the beginning of May, and Nina spent a month in Oz shortly thereafter. That's all been chronicled on Emily and Ben's blog, q.v.

We then had the wettest July for 200+ years......

This week, we finally got back into development gear.

(Captions usually relate to the picture below them.)


The old back kitchen - probably pre.1900 in its basics:

The team that were to demolish the lean-to were also contracted to clear No. 6 - but the contractor was (understandably) reluctant to send employees on to the roof. He would have simply pulled it down.
So I set myself to clear the remaining slates first - not as foolish as it sounds.

Progress at the back. You can see the internal divisions. The room under the window was a living kitchen to several generations - we stripped 6 layers of wallpaper off, including false dado strips. There was also a baxi-type stove with what must have been a very short chimney, providing hot water. But the back wall was slowly tilting into the path, the floor was erupting, and damp getting in everywhere. No conceivable option but to demolish.

The double section nearest the camera was a kind of scullery passage and a bathroom, added in the mid 1950's. The owner of no. 4 bought a 6' run of yard from the owner of no.3 on which to build the bathroom - and took 8' ! He paid £2 for it, with a full legal conveyance.

Here you can see the furthest internal wall has gone. The furthest section was a tiny scullery kitchen to no. 5 (through the door ), a 'flying freehold' from no. 4. There was a sheep skeleton in here when we first came, and I don't think the bones had been picked after being in the oven !

All gone, though not all clear. There was a back right of way along the right of the picture to all the further houses in the terrace, with a heavy stone retaining wall set against the slope.

Herself surveying the scene. Now what shall we do ? Cricket net ? Real tennis court ?

The sinews of war - keeping 4 or 5 men working on a hot day.

Back to no. 6. Front face stripped.

The view from the scaffold. The scar down the opposite hillside is a watercourse fed by a peat bog. After rain it quickly becomes a cascade or water-fall. After much rain, an absolute curtain of water. We can lie in bed and watch it. ( Well, we are both pensioners now.)

Two roof ladders save moving the tower - in any case, there's hardly room for it at the back.
But it's a bit of a stretcher straddling over the ridge.

Back face almost stripped.

Now the boys have moved on to No. 6. This is the tumbled mass of fallen rafters, beams and staircase after they moved it out.

And here is the underlying rubble still inside:

Looking up into what was once a bedroom. I've since rescued the door.

At the other end, there were actually saplings growing in the spare bedroom.........

A day and a half of hard graft later, we have the bare shell:

Reverse angle:

(In 1891 this was actually two houses. The three Jones children from the end you're looking at were playing in the other end when the Census enumerator called. He'd got their names in his book as part of the Rees family before he realised he'd got something wrong......You can still see his asterisk and little annotation on the scans of the Census. )

Nice little Victorian fireplace.........

And so full circle for this Blog - the view from the bottom of the garden again, with the roof open to the sky.

Now we have to talk to draughtsman and authorities to see what we can and can't do......