Aspire Channel Swim Update

Just a quick note to tell you that I have now swum 4.1 miles across the Channel. 270 lengths! Just a further 1146 lengths to go!

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As you know I am doing this to raise money to help people with spinal injury. £100 will buy a complete set of easy-to-hold crockery for an Aspire house suitable for someone with limited use of their hands. £250 will buy SmartNav technology for a PC to enable someone with a high level spinal injury to use a computer without the use of their hands.

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There are many more uses that the funds can be put towards to help these people and any help you can give will make such a difference.

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www.aspire.org.uk www.aspirechannelswim.co.uk

www.justgiving.com/Ann-Newman

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thank you

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Lavender Biscuits ...

If you have never tried them now is the time to do so. They are wonderful (as long as you love lavender). We tried them during a visit to The Botanic Gardens of Wales. I found this recipe and made them when friends came to dinner. They thought they were great.

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Lavender Biscuits
These are very crisp, short biscuits.

50g caster sugar, 130g butter, 200g self raising flour, 1tbsp lavender flowers.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the flour and lavender flowers and work until it comes together. Wrap and chill for 20 minutes, then roll out to about 5mm thick. Stamp out with a cutter, bake for 7-8 minutes at 180C or Gas 4.

(I found I needed a slightly higher temperature for mine and a little longer or they looked rather anaemic). Delicious with your afternoon cup of tea or at the end of a meal with a home-made chocolate!

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Narberth Food Festival

Apologies to everyone who is on a diet or trying to watch their eating habits (myself included), but I recently went to Narberth Food Festival. They hold it every year and it is growing in popularity, and very busy and the first time that I had been. Very colourful, very interesting and very hard to resist buying temping foody wares! Enjoy.

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The most beautifully shaped and coloured gourds I had ever seen.

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Now you know what to do with all that beetroot you grew. Cooked, sliced and put in a dish with sliced oranges and pomegranate seeds, with olive oil, salt and pepper added over the top. Amazing, and I jolly well forgot to go back to get some before I left the festival!
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Simply cooked, huge prawns. You can just smell them if you try hard.

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With apologies to all the vegetarians. He took 8 hours to look like this and there was always a queue to have some of him in a bun!

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What Turkish Delight should look like.

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I wish mine looked like this. The first lot only grew to about two inches and the second lot just haven't grown!

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Back on the diet.

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Aspire Channel Swim

This is me preparing to complete The Aspire Channel Swim. Yes swimming the Channel - BUT - in my local swimming pool. This is a a fund raising challenge from 13 September to 5 December 2010 to raise funds for people with Spinal Injury.

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I love to swim and having just learned that I have spinal problems of my own I thought I would use my love of swimming to help raise funds for those who are not as fortunate as myself. You can find out about Aspire at www.aspirechannelswim.co.uk .

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You can make a donation on www.justgiving.com/Ann-Newman . Thank you very much.

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Now more of a Silver Surfer!

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The Real Me!
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I started my swimming on 15 September. This week I have swum three times in a local 25m pool and at 40 lengths each time. My total lengths so far are 170 - (only 1246 to go!). The Aspire Channel Swim map informs me I have swum 2.6 miles across the Channel!
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End of Summer in our Garden ...

It may be the end of summer, but there is plenty of colour still in our garden.

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For our tea tonight. No cream, just home-made yoghurt!

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Still lots of late season raspberries to pick.
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Bright orange and very cheerful nasturtiums.

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These penstemons are such a bright blue, they can be seen from the bottom of the garden!

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Our James Grieve apple tree. Absolutely loaded with fruit this year. Not quite ready yet but can be eaten as a dessert apple or cooked. All our Laxton's Superbs have either fallen or been picked and most of those have already been eaten. A very successful second year's fruiting for our trees.

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A furry rhodedendron that neither of us can remember the name of at present. It is in our front garden and looks after itself very well. It survived all the snow and ice of last winter exceedingly well and we look forward to its delicate white flowers again this year.

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The colours on this climbing, trailing, leafy hedging is always particulary beautiful at this time of the year. Sorry, we don't know its name either!

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Some horizontalis amongst the other red, vibrant leaves. A most beautiful time of year.

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St Mary's Church, Begelly

St Mary's Church, Begelly, dates from the 13th century and was originally dedicated to St Bugail, which in Welsh means "Shepherd" and this may have been the origin of the name Begelly as many properties in the area had a connection with shepherds.

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The tower provides a striking landmark and is the oldest structure in the district. It is also apparently the tallest tower in the county. The tower contains a large bell made by Bailey of Bridgewater. It bears the inscription "My sound is good, my shape is neat. 'Twas Bailey made me so complete" 1760.

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Unfortunately the bell tower is in need of much restoration and the church was taking advantage of Church Open Day to encourage donations towards this restoration. There are also other fund raising activities going on in order to carry out the repairs. Hence our taking the opportunity to visit this church and take a look around.

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The burial grounds date from their consecration on 14 March 1877 when part was purchased from the Guardians of Narberth Union. A further part was consecrated on 28 October 1881 and was walled by Mr George Davies of Kingsmoor. The old Almshouse is thought to have stood on this ground.

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The old of 1881 with the present burial monuments in the background.
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A lot of the very old monuments were covered in lichen and seemed to lend themselves better to black and white photography, which I have not done for a long time.

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These old memorials were in the most peaceful part of the burial grounds.

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A very tranquil place. Like so many churchyards, a peaceful place to be.

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Trying Self-Sufficiency! ...

Every where I go and every blog I read, seems to be full of folk using the produce of their garden, allotment or smallholding and baking, preserving or freezing that produce to ward off the frugalities of winter!

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Thought I would give it a shot. Not done anything like this for years and years. Not since I made copious jars of Seville Orange Marmalade for the WI in about 1980!

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It was an act of dedication to make the Rosehip Marmalade. I got the recipe from the St David's Wild Food Show and picked all the rosehips I could find in the garden. I didn't realise how long it would take to cut each small rosehip open, (try to) take out all the pips and wash them before even beginning to add the other ingredients - 3 days!!! As you can see I made half a jar. Not tasted it yet. Will report back later!

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The beetroot was very easy by contrast. Easy to grow, pick, cut the tops off, boil for an hour or thereabouts depending on their size. Peel, cut up, put in the jar and top up with ready spiced vinegar.

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Plenty of raspberries, blackberries and apples still to go. So far made blackberry and apple crumble and two lots of mixed berries with sherry and served with yoghurt marmalade. The apples will need storing if we are to have any hope of eating them all, there are so many. I have memories of my Grandpa wrapping our London garden apples singly in newspaper and storing them in the chest of drawers in the bedroom that I shared with two of my younger sisters. Good gracious, that must have been just after WW2. Ours will have to go in the garage!

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We have also had rhubarb, spinach, red and yellow chard, tomatoes (still green even now) - I've told you all this already I think. I hope your self-sufficiency is going well too.

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Autumn at Picton Castle Gardens.

This was our autumn garden club meeting at Picton Castle Gardens. As well as looking at all the lovely things that are happening at this time of the year. Some of us were able to collect seeds to plant (or drop or throw) in our own gardens.

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Some of the colours just hit you in the eye, so I will let the plants speak for themselves.

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There is quite a lot to look at so I hope you enjoy them all.

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Magnificent blue hydrangea.

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Just beautiful and so delicate.
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Another astonishing flower. Absolutely wonderful.

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Nature's palette is incredible. Surely pink and green just can't go together!

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'Mrs Wilmott's Ghost'. Very viscious and spikey and absolutely full of seeds.

The story with these plants is that Mrs Wilmott used to put some of these seeds in her pocket and wherever she visited she threw some down. No-one ever saw her do it and so the plants just suddenly made a ghostly appearance. (That's the tale we were told by Roddy the Head Gardener.)

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Autumn Colours at Picton.

As always, I can't stop snapping when we visit Picton Gardens ...

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This clematis has the most beautiful seed pods ( see below).

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I don't think these are really seed pods. They are Barbie's wigs!!
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Ginger Lily (1)

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Ginger Lily (2)

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Ginger Lily (3).

All of these lilies had the most beautiful perfume. Faintly ginger of course.

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More Colour ...

These salvias smelled absolutely wonderful.
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The seed of a camellia bush. I never realised their seeds were like this!
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Maple tree 'helicopter' seeds. The true colours of autumn.
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Lovely pendulous autumnal flowers, loaded down with seeds for next season.

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Dylan Thomas, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire

Of course we could not go to Laugharne without visiting The Boathouse where Dylan and Caitlin Thomas lived with their children. (You should be able to read the visitors' information board quite easily.)
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The Boathouse is now a small cafe (which we filled completely with our group) and it also has various Dylan Thomas memorabilia and a small museum upstairs and the sitting room is laid out just as it might have been when he and the family lived there.
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The view through the window of the Garage where Dylan Thomas would sit and write his many plays - memorably 'Under Milk Wood'. There is even some beer on the table.

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Laugharne

Out of Pembrokeshire and into Carmarthenshire with our U3A walking group. We chose a very wet day to visit Laugharne. But all being keen walkers we were suitably attired and it did not worry us at all. Rupert the dog of course loved every minute, found every bit of mud he could and also every puddle!

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Laugharne Castle by the car park.

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Eleven of us set off away from the Castle on a 4/5 mile circular walk. I think this was by far the largest group that we have had, so it was very pleasing to see some more new members.

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The footpath took us past the salt flats, unfortunately almost totally obscured by mist.
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It all looked very ethereal, but even from the footpath we could see that there was plenty of wild life in the shape of sea birds paddling about in the low tide marshes. Particularly oystercatchers and godwits.

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Eggs Again!

This time Bluebell has laid us a huge egg. Did it contain a double yolk?

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It most certainly did and I had it for breakfast this morning. Thank you Bluebell.
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Car Boot Bargains!

There is a car boot held on Carew Airfield every Sunday morning. It is very popular and nearly always very, very crowded, especially on Bank holidays. Indoor and outdoor sales. I love it! Could spend hours there! Other half is not quite to keen!

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Latest bargains - £2.00 the lot!

A couple of nice dishes for the kitchen and some books to read to the grandchildren when they visit.

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Kilgetty Community Garden

Kilgetty Community Garden a small haven of tranquility, albeit next to a busy main road. It is well looked after by local volunteers and is open every day to walk around or sit in peace in the sun (!!) and read a book or newspaper. There are several remembrance plaques alongside plants or trees for various loved ones and also a memorial plaque for Kilgetty personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice during the 1914-18 War.

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Clever topiary in the shape of peacocks who wander about the garden.
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A willow Welsh Cob put together by some local special needs students. He is beginning to sprout a wonderful green coat.
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