Tenby, Winter Wrap-up and a Coat Of Paint
This has been the third year in a row for us to take an end of year break at Tenby. We like it there and have had different locations around the town each time. This time we stayed in an apartment on south beach which offered lots of hi tech facilities, unfortunately quite a number needed repair. I don’t like to complain – honest – but when you pay over £600 for a week you expect things like the bathroom extractor to work, electrically operated blinds to function, the washing machine to spin, the tumble drier to dry and an iPad based entertainment system to function (which users aren’t allowed to touch coz it’s faulty!) The kitchen area had a wall to wall fire shutter that comes down in case of a fire, but it activated when a bit of toast caught and with only a tea towel to waft at the sensor – while trying to open said shutter – and protect my withering hearing, caused a few choice words. The night before a random alarm sounded when I entered the kitchen area in the dark – I was expecting more of a STEP AWAY FROM THE SINK AND PUT ON A LIGHT warning – but the iPad system was duff.
Tenby is a great base to see Pembrokeshire and we had days out to Haverfordwest and Milford Haven, wandered around Tenby and walked on the beach collecting driftwood and shells. The view from our balcony looking across to Caldy was never tiring and always something to watch. A mere 15m across from the apartment was Salteys – a small restaurant which hosted a Beaujolais night on our last but one evening. Having been quiet for the week, the restaurant was fully booked and we were glad we had too. The food was superb and we weren’t rushed in any way as the table was ours for the night. A few people arrived in French style clothes and berets and a saxophonist played ‘guess that tune’ in the background.
We had a visitation from the Air Ambulance flying overhead one morning, landing and then taking off a while later. It turned out to have been a builder who fell two floors off some roof scaffolding about 400m away from the apartment. He was taken to Cardiff University Hospital by air.
It seems that the time to vacate the apartment was 09:00 – a never previously experienced exit time. I had taken one suitcase down to the car and pulled my back in the process so I was stretched out on settee waiting for pain killers to kick in when there was a knock on the door. I was greeted by a brace of cleaning ladies. They very kindly gave me 10 mins to collect our remaining items, not realising June had gone back to sleep with a cold cup of tea at her bedside. It took about 20 mins for her to get dressed and me to take the remaining chattels down. In our hastened exit, June slipped on the stairs, but fortunately landed on her derrière preventing damage to herself and the stairs, and was promptly helped by the cleaners in carrying her bags down. We will avoid apartments with stair access in the future as we’ve grown soft living in a bungalow and I won’t be getting a stair-climber exerciser for us.
With winter looming and some plants needing some TLC against the cold, I invested in some bubble wrap for the poly tunnel (PT). I overestimated and ordered two 50m rolls – one too many! Anyway, plenty for next year or perhaps I’ll do the greenhouse as well. I decided to move all the strawberry plants into the PT so that I can extend the fruiting period and keep the blackbirds from eating our crop. I have also put a load of pots with bulbs in so we can hopefully have some earlier spring colour in the tubs. I gave the lawn a high cut on a fine day as I can’t see much happening for a few months. Some daffodil bulbs have already started to appear in the front lawn – a bit early me thinks. Some of this years plants have been moved to fill in dead space in borders with the hope of flowering again next season. The celeriac are filling out nicely and will be harvested for Christmas, but I might pick one before to ensure the quality is acceptable – or at least edible.
We’ve had the outside of the bungalow painted by Mark as I don’t think it was done for many years. The finish is really great and I added a black band below the damp proof level to tidy up the mixed rendering/brickwork finish. Mark had some issues in reaching the apex of the roof over the conservatory, but other than dodging the un-forecast showers, did a sterling job. We used 12 tins of Granocryl – Mushroom, one tin of waterproofing for the exposed stone and two tins of waterproof black paint. Dead ivy had to be removed off the garage wall using an electric drill with a wire-brush head and various pipes and cables had additional sealant added to make good. That’s it for another 5 yrs, I hope.
