Lle Llywela

I've not been around much lately. For this blog, that's not such an unusual thing, but even in my other online hangouts I've been much less present over the last six months or so than I used to be. There's just been a lot going on.

The main thing is that my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer last September, after a long summer of shuffling back and fore between various different doctors for a battery of tests. He's on hormone therapy and doing well, the oncologist is optimistic that he still has a few years left in him, but it is a terminal diagnosis and as such came as a bit of a hammer blow. We're still coming to terms with it.

In Other News, it's been just over a year now since I got my allotment (a year and a week, to be precise!).

It's been a strange sort of year, in many ways, and I find it disheartening sometimes to look at other allotments on social media and see how much more they seem to have achieved in the same timescale, so I have to remind myself that those are influencer allotmenters who all have much more resource than I do - they are working their allotments in pairs or as extended family groups, they have greater financial resources as well as manpower, easy access to transport, and admit to receiving lots of freebies from suppliers in exchange for a shoutout on social media. I don't have any of that, so everything I've achieved has been done by myself, by hand, mostly on foot, in stolen moments when my time isn't taken up with other responsibilities - and when I think about it like that, I think I'm doing okay, really.

My plot has gone from this (photo taken the day I first got the key and installed my lockbox for tools, ready to get started):


To this (photo taken last week):


Not bad, if I do say so myself. I've got leeks ready to harvest as and when they are needed, garlic and shallots overwintering and doing well, overwintering seedlings coming on in the greenhouse, fruit trees neatly pruned, thicket of self-seeded saplings all chopped down, the overgrowth has been tamed, new compost bays built, and new growing beds set up ready to be uncovered for planting.

(The plot behind mine is completely abandoned, though, mine ends just behind the black box and green bin you can see in the photo, so I'm going to have to make an effort to keep clear space between that and my plot this year, now that I've unearthed the row of blackcurrant bushes at the back of my plot from all the brambles coming over from behind.)

It's been another mild winter, mind, so let's all keep our fingers crossed we don't experience another Slugageddon like last year!

Had a lovely week in Devon last week with the whole family - parents, siblings (and in-laws), nieces, nephew, the whole shebang. We stayed in a big converted barn on a flower farm - the flower farm in relatively new hands and looking a bit neglected, sadly, but still lovely. We could have lived without all the flies and wasps of mid-August, but had a great time hanging out together and sightseeing around and about.

It was a Monday to Monday holiday, unusually, so after arriving home on Monday I headed off to the cattery to collect Poppy, and while I was there, the lady who runs the cattery (Angharad) asked if I knew anyone who wanted a kitten. It turned out that at the end of last week, they'd got up one morning to find that someone had dumped four kittens (approx. 5-6 months old) in a taped up bag and bin by the side of the road at the bottom of their driveway - there isn't even a pavement there and it is a busy road, so it was a horribly dangerous position for the poor little things to be in.


Two of the kittens, from the bag, were slightly injured and were taken in by the local Cats Protection League, but they didn't have room for all four, so the cattery had kept the other two, who were in good health, and were looking to rehome them. Both girls, we think, although not 100% sure.

Well, as it happened, my sister C and my parents had promised the Oldest Niece a kitten for her 8th birthday next month (how is she that old already?!?!?!), to live with Niece and my parents at their house. C had made a tentative arrangement to take a kitten from one of her flatmate's colleagues, but it wasn't definite. When I told her about these abandoned kittens, that was that, we were having one.

I spent most of yesterday morning on the phone to the cattery to discuss our interest in the kittens, and made an appointment to go and see them at 6.30. C and her flatmate K both came with me, with Dad. One look was all it took, and that was that - both kittens came home with us! One has been given to Niece as an early birthday present, to live with her at Mum and Dad's house. She has named it Emerald, because it has lovely green eyes:


And C and K have taken in the second kitten, which they have named Midnight:


Both kittens have had a good first night and first day in their new homes, and are settling already. Welcome to the family, fur babies!

There's some family stuff going on at the moment that I want to get off my chest, but it's likely to get quite long and complicated, so I'll put it behind a cut. Please feel free not to read. I'm just venting.

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just learned that my Aunt Lesley passed away at 4am this morning - she's the aunt who was moved from Cardiff to a nursing home in London during the pandemic. Her health has been deteriorating for a long time, so it isn't unexpected, but still desperately sad

my poor dad has now lost two siblings in under three months

My uncle died peacefully in his sleep on Christmas Day, New Zealand time, late Christmas Eve, UK time.

We were expecting it, but. We'd only been expecting it for a few days. From excited to be going on holiday to see the grandchildren for the first time in 4 years to in hospital with covid and other issues to inoperable aortic aneurysm to dead in under 2 weeks was one hell of a rapid downhill trajectory.

We're all slightly in shock still.

Also, my Lil Sis and her girlfriend both had covid for Christmas, so.

It's been a very downbeat holiday, all round

Congratulations to my cousin J and his wife E on the birth of their 5th child, a beautiful little girl. Their older children are aged 16-25 - they are already grandparents, even - so the new baby is in the position that is usually called 'the afterthought', yet she is anything but, this is very much a planned and wanted child, despite the large age gap. Four years ago, J lost his beloved baby brother to cancer, the whole family was devastated, and the decision to try for another baby was made then. It's been a long road from there to here, they are both over 40 now and had a miscarriage along the way, which makes this weekend's news all the sweeter. May their new little girl have a long and happy life!

After working hard to stay safe for almost two years, the plague has finally reached my inner circle. Layla-May had exactly two days back in school last week, developed symptoms on Sunday while she was with me, and then tested positive for covid on Tuesday.

Her mum doesn't usually see her at the weekend, but she made a point of coming down for dinner on Sunday as she hadn't been able to visit during the week before. Talk about sod's law. Chelsea has now tested positive as well, and she hasn't had her booster yet as it has to be scheduled very carefully around other treatment she's receiving, which is tricky.

The rest of us, so far, seem to be in the clear; my LFT was negative, and so far so good for mum, dad and my brother. Chelsea was quite unwell for a couple of days but seems to be improving now. For Layla it has mostly been headache and fever, but she is very upset that quarantine means she can't have her usual weekend with me this week - our Friday nights are so set in stone that she even came to me still on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve!

Out of 30 children in her class, 11 had tested positive before term was a week old. And that's just one class.

What a time to be alive.

So this weekend brought with it the news that my Nan, who will be 90 next month, has caught covid.

She's barely left the house in two years. She's been to the doctor a handful of times, and came to family gatherings in the park exactly twice,to meet my sister's kids, and that's it. She doesn't leave the house, she barely even sees anyone, the family have reduced physical contact to a bare minimum. But she can't be completely isolated, not without going stir crazy, and she has to have her weekly shopping, so...

My Uncle Marcus and Aunty Linda have been doing the shopping for Nan, every week without fail. Linda recently went on a coach holiday with her sister. They both had to have negative covid tests before they could board the coach, so they figured it was safe. They had their trip to Blackpool, came home, and then Linda went with Marcus to deliver Nan's shopping, as usual. Twenty-four hours later she was pinged by Track-and-Trace because someone else from the coach party had tested positive. So Linda was tested - positive. Another uncle, Robert, was taking Nan for her covid booster jab on Friday, but because of the contact she couldn't have the jab, had to go for a covid test instead. And tested positive.

Her main symptom at the moment is a chesty cough. She's double jabbed. But she is almost 90. We just have to hope and pray that she is protected enough and will get off with a light case - and Linda, too.

It's been a while since I posted, which means it's about time for an update. Where to begin? With today's news, I suppose.

Some of my friends will know all about the ups and downs we've experienced with my little sister, tempestuous force of nature that she is. For the last two years or so, C has been living with her best friend, K, and K's dad, who has a small flat a couple of towns along the coast. It has been a good arrangement for C - K and her dad have been a really positive, stabilising influence on her, sorely needed as she is highly vulnerable and has been taken advantage of in the past.

Last night, C and K returned home after visiting my parents and found K's dad lying dead on the bathroom floor. Heart attack, Elvis-style. An awful experience for the two girls, really shocking. And it is too soon just yet, of course, for them to even begin to think about what to do now, whether they can stay together in that flat or not. They are with K's mum for now, as C didn't want her little girl (who lives with my parents) to see them upset.

In other news, after homeworking for 14 months, my status has finally changed. I am now categorised as 'blended home'...which just means I am still working from home, but am allowed to visit site from time to time to do bits of work there, mostly site checks and room inspections. Well, it's an occasional change of scenery, at least. Which is much needed, quite frankly - when I went for my first covid vaccination a couple of weeks ago, I had to travel to the other side of town for the first time in over a year and felt like an animal in the zoo being given enrichment! Whole buildings had been demolished and rebuilt since I last saw them! So it'll be nice to get to see something other than my own four walls once in a while, although I'll be honest, I don't really fancy going back full time. Which doesn't, in fact, seem to be entirely on the cards - a 'better ways of working' programme has been set up and it looks very much as if a blend of home and site working will be the way forward. We'll see.

And in other work news, my boss is retiring this summer - hoorah! Ahem. She's, um...challenging to work with, shall we say. Anally retentive, nitpicking control freak, to put it mildly. The deputy who will be stepping into her shoes is much, much more pleasant to work with.

Last time I posted, my garden wall had just collapsed in a storm and I was in despair over the fate of all the plants in my main border, buried beneath the rubble. It is now rather more than two months later and my landlady has just today, finally, had a quote approved by the insurance and appointed a builder...who is not available to start work until mid-end June, although they say they will come sooner if they can.

So it is just as well, really, that my dad came around with a lump hammer a few days after the collapse, broke up all the bricks and piled them up in the middle of the lawn. The lawn is completely ruined, of course, but it meant I was able to dig up all the plants from the border and transfer them into temporary housing until the building work is complete. If they'd stayed buried beneath the rubble all that time, I'd have lost everything! As it is, the herbacious perennials have inevitably fared rather better than the shrubs. There were a few notable casualties - I've lost my beautiful winter-flowering coronilla and my enormous, so dependable erysimum 'bowle's mauve', both so popular with the bees, the fennel and the big rosemary are gone, one or two others that were badly damaged remain on life support, as it were - but the vast majority were salvaged and are now recovering.

It was a busy couple of weeks, spending every break and lunch hour digging the entire bed up into every container I could beg, borrow or steal from a variety of generous donors! Bird food tubs, plastic crates, vegetable grow bags - all of these and more have been pressed into service. And because it was so early in the season, not all of the herbacious perennials had started to shoot, so I had a couple of weeks where every time I thought I'd finished, something else would suddenly poke its head above the soil to let me know it was still there! It was lucky the end of March and April were so dry, really, while this horribly wet May has at least spared me the onerous task of keeping so many pots watered.

This is what the garden looks like now:



And that isn't even all the pots - a lot of the smaller ones, including all the spring bulbs, are around the side, where it is shadier so they won't dry out as quickly. I also gave a bunch of them away to a community garden project at a homeless hostel, since some of the larger clumps came up into three or four pots each so I had plenty to spare! Exactly where I'm going to put them all next month when building work begins I'm not quite sure yet - there is going to be a considerable shuffle and squash, that's for sure.

When I think what it looked like this time last year, full of flowers and bees...but it will be beautiful again, eventually!

Also, yes, my neighbour and I can now just wander in and out of one another's gardens, if we choose. Before the rains set in, in fact, I was going into their garden daily to water the pots, as the old man had gone into hospital for a hip replacement and his wife is disabled! Before that, I had to get used to having old Dennis waving at me from his garden every time I wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on, as he likes to sit out back to smoke his pipe! It's probably a good thing we get along so well, really.

I am now working on a recovery plan for the lawn...

Today, the 5yo should have been seeing Santa.

The event was organised by a local community group, based out of an old stately home near where I live. The initial plan was a masked-and-distanced in-person meeting in the very beautiful reading room at the house, but then with covid cases locally beginning to spiral, that plan shifted into a personalised video call with each child who’d booked.

Then on Saturday evening this latest lockdown was announced with almost immediate effect, only a few hours warning. And a little later we received an email from the very upset organisers to say that they were going to have to cancel the event and issue a refund, because the Santa Suit and video equipment are all locked away in the house (community centre), which because of lockdown they are no longer permitted to enter. There wasn’t time on Saturday night to retrieve it. So all those kids won’t be getting their call from Santa today after all.

Such a shame. Luckily we did get to wave to him on Saturday, as a different version of him did a masked-and-safely-distanced walk around the neighbourhood, accompanied by an elf I went to school with!

Also today, my brother rebelled against his work.

He works in a telephone support centre, taking calls from people having technical issues. They switched to homeworking back in March and that worked fine for months.

Now, this job has never been ideal. It is in another town and Bro doesn’t drive, so he has always had a really long commute on public transport, working unsocial and constantly changing shift patterns, so the move to homeworking was a blessing for him. He could work his shift without a 90-120 minute commute at either end, without having to worry about missing the last bus, without having to leave the house at 5am to get to work for 7.30.

At the start of December, with covid cases locally already beginning to spiral out of control again, the company abruptly decided to recall all service desk staff to on-site working, claiming they weren’t answering enough calls. The entire management, however, continued to work from home. This has been a nightmare for Bro, who has asthma and generall fragile health, once again condemned to hours on increasingly flaky public transport every day (a lot of services are no longer running, so getting to and from work is extremely difficult), as well as hours spent in a poorly ventilated building with a whole bunch of other people, in a town with soaring virus figures. Government advice still says that anyone who can work from home should continue to do so, but the company got around that one by claiming call centre staff as key workers.

Now this week, we are back in full lockdown with a new and even more highly transmissible form of the virus circulating generally. The company is still insisting that all service desk staff must continue to work from site, while their managers remain safe at home. The service desk staff have all been complaining, lodging health and safety appeals, to no avail.

So today my brother rebelled. He decided not to risk his health on public transport. Instead as his shift began he logged on at home to carry out his shift in safety. How the company will react remains to be seen. But they were endangering his life. He doesn’t need to be on site to do his job. If they try to sack him, he has a strong case to take to tribunal. And I will be behind him all the way!

(ETA: Apparently the entire team independently made the same decision this morning! Only one person went in, and that was just to collect a headset. Mass action for the win! The company will have a hard job sacking all of them!)