Vagabonds or crabs

The last week has raced by, leaving me in a bit of a daze. The site that we are on here at Criccieth got quite busy but has now become deserted, I have to say, I like it like this. On Friday, my brother Ian came in his motor home, on Saturday morning our daughter Sarah came with her two daughters and stayed overnight. On Saturday evening Ian's friend Maria came to join in the fun. It was great to see Sarah and the girls, I think that they all enjoyed themselves, it is just a shame that the weather was not a little warmer for them. Sunday saw Sarah head off back to home.

I have been trying my hand at a little fly fishing for trout, needless to say, I have been no more successful at that than any other form of fishing. I must say however, that I have really enjoyed it. I have no idea what I am doing but it feels good none the less.

Monday saw heavy rain and we went for a drive with Ian and Maria, we headed for Abersoch. Well I can honestly say that I have no idea what everyone raves about. It is overpriced and overcrowded, I doubt that we will be in any hurry to return. From there we drove to Portmerion, another disappointment, at £7:50 per person to enter the village they can go and whistle, I never liked "The Prisoner" anyway. By 1500hrs Maria could stand the rain no more and departed, 1700hrs Ian followed, 1800hrs Pat's brother Anthony arrived with his new girlfriend Sharron after getting lost and stuck in the mud in some field en route. 1930hrs and they too were off, leaving us now alone on an empty site.

Today, Pat and I walked the mile to the beach where we were on the look out for sea glass and driftwood. We want the sea glass to make some jewellery and the driftwood is an idea that I have to add another dimension to our occasional craft stalls. This is where the fun began. The beach was completely deserted, thank heaven, because Pat and I must have looked like a couple of crabs mooching around the beach and rummaging in the shingle. I found the first piece of glass, which turned out to be the only piece. We moved our attention to the driftwood, we had several carrier bags for our haul and soon had filled two of them. I really wanted to find some Ivy, it looks so intricate the way it has wrapped its way around a host. Well we trudged along the beach for about a mile stuffing more and more into our now bulging bags as we went, then I saw it. A half of a tree, complete with a six foot twisted shroud of Ivy. "I am having that" I said. The only thing was, that the tree was "Y" shaped and the Ivy was all around it. I wanted to keep it's full length, so out came the pruning saw with eight inch blade to cut through a tree trunk of nine inches or so. I took time to study where to cut, so that I could slip it from inside the strangulation hold of our quarry without causing any damage. Two hours later, the tree fell in two and between us we removed the two pieces leaving our prize in tact. It is a lovely piece of wood, more than two inches thick in places. All we had to do then was carry our salvage back the two miles to the truck. We must have looked like a couple of refugees, carrying all of our possessions in carrier bags with a huge bundle of firewood that was taller than I, on my back. Any way, we made it OK. Upon our return I set about washing our rather large haul in the river and scrubbing away any sand and dirt. Whilst back in a crab like posture standing in 9 inches of fast flowing water, two Hawk trainer jets flew over head at about 200ft, I nearly shit myself and stood up a little too quickly, looked up, went all dizzy and almost did the weeks washing at the same time. I used the Ivy as a crutch and avoided a cold dip. I am now thoroughly knackered, but I bet I go to sleep smiling.