Beautiful Pembrokeshire: Puffiny Loveliness!

Ooh dear, yesterday evening and today have been a bit stressy, a bit unpleasant. I have done my best to help the situation, but with no positive results. As there is nothing else I can do, I thought I would post this about puffins. Those gorgeous little critters are guaranteed to cheer me up a little :)

On our second day in Pembrokeshire, my friend Sarah’s oldest boy was going to be busy dog-sitting for his dad. He doesn’t really like boats after a hairy experience when he was younger (although he does enjoy other water-based activities) so he wouldn’t have wanted to come with us, but my husband Adam, friend Sarah, her youngest boy and me took the boat over to visit Skomer Island.

Skomer Island is run as a nature reserve, and is most famous for its seabirds, particularly the beautiful puffins. Puffins are similar to guillemots and razorbills, which I had seen a few of when I was in Cornwall. However, while these other two bird species nest on the steep rocky cliffs, which are available all over the coastline, puffins nest in burrows directly on the coast. Use of burrows means that they are more limited in habitat availability, and also makes them vulnerable to disturbance from land-based predators, human activity etc, further narrowing down the habitat they can make use of. Skomer is therefore a really significant nesting site for them in the UK.

Visiting Skomer is a multi-part expense – the car park is National Trust, so we didn’t have to pay the £5 fee as we are members, but we did have to pay the landing fee for the island of £10 (This has a fair pricing structure, with discounts for students and retirees, and free for Trust members and children. The money goes to the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, which maintains the island) and also the boat fee of £11 for adults (£7 for children, babies free).

Although this money does add up, the island is so special that for me it is totally worth it. To make it even more worth it, there were still loads of puffins on the islands! I had really hoped to see puffins again before leaving for Australia, however they only come into land for their breeding season, and are normally back out at sea at this time of year. For very horrible reasons though, many puffins still remained: the storms earlier this year caused a lot of damage to the auk populations, causing what was named an auk wreck. So many of these birds (puffins, guillemots, razorbills) were killed in the storms, and those that did make it had had such a battle for survival that they arrived at their breeding sites late and in very poor condition. They therefore started late, and also required extra time to get healthy again. Very bad news for the birds, so difficult for me to be too happy about still being able to see them – though seeing them is such a joy.

The puffins are so wonderful that I think it’s best if they take over for the rest of this post, do enjoy their cute little faces and their sweet loveliness!

Why did the puffin cross the road?

I hope you enjoyed the puffins as much as I did! (Although admittedly that would tough ;)

Camping Near the White Horse

Wow, wedding preparations and forgetting to take my laptop have left me really behind on things!

I had wanted to write more about our camping trip, when I went down to Newbury to meet with my best friend for our friendship tattoos. That was over a week ago now - getting on for two weeks!

We met up in Newbury for our tattoo appointment, and then afterwards she drove straight to the campsite with her boys, while I first shopped for a few extra supplies (mainly marshmallows for toasting!)  We were camping at Britchcombe Farm, a basic campsite at Uffington, near the famous White Horse, but ended up only staying under canvas for one night. We had wanted to camp for longer, but it rained really hard on that first day, and it turned out that the tent leaked really badly!! So we decamped to a hotel for the first night, returning to camping for the following day which had better weather. Returning to camp included having to bail out the tent, and towel down the ground sheet!! A good job we didn’t try sleeping there with the kids!

Littlest lad was very upset to stay in a hotel, he wanted so badly to camp! The only thing that cheered him up on that first night was taking him out for Italian food – he is a little fussy with food flavours, so he chose a margarita pizza. He’s only 9 so he doesn’t eat lots, but he really tucked in to the pizza with gusto! Then, when dessert was offered, we all led each other astray and each chose a naughty dessert… Littlest lad chose the profiteroles, and made very short work of them!

The next day, littlest lad was very excited when we finally headed back towards the campsite, and all of the possibilities for lighting fires and playing football. My husband, Adam, had joined us by this point, so we had another tent to put up while the boys played ball. 

Then we all headed off to the lovely tea rooms associated with the camp site. They served teas and coffees and delicious homemade cakes and scones.

I love the giant tea cup planters!

Inside, they also had a lovely display of handmade studio pottery for sale. I love the little dotty mug with the heart! 

While looking around outside, we spotted this pretty moth on a wall, a white ermine moth. Littlest lad wanted to see it closer and in his enthusiasm he knocked it off the wall onto the floor. It wasn’t hurt, but I decided to pick it up and out it somewhere safe – and I took the opportunity for a closer look and some more photos. It was so fluffy and cute! (My husband thinks it’s very odd that I find moths cute!)

We enjoyed our tea break in the lovely garden area. We didn’t sit at this table as it was already occupied when we got there, and there weren’t enough seats for us anyway, but I did think it looked so attractive with that lovely bunting behind!

Refreshed, we then dragged the kids on a bit of a walk, under much protesting that they wanted to go back to the campsite to play football…  We saw these amazing succulents growing on the roof of this barn – I thought they looked brilliant! I really like succulents…

Then we came to field with lambs, and littlest lad spent a fun few minutes baa-ing at the sheep, and being highly amused when they replied!

We walked up a hill to a bit of a ridge, up through lovely meadows full of buttercups. We got great views of the campsite as we walked up. Our tents are those blue specks next to the 2 red cars.

We carried on towards the White Horse. The walk became more fun for the boys as we turned it into races to different points. I’m sure this would have been easier for me without my bag and camera!

Finally we got to the White Horse. We had hoped to be getting to a view point, but we actually got to the White Horse itself. 

We took in the views from the hill

Watched with amusement as the sheep ran in to gather behind this vehicle – feeding time!

Then we decided to walk down the hill to find a view of the White Horse. Some of us did a bit of rolling down the hill too :)

Unfortunately, this was the best view we could get from where we were. I was up for walking further to find a better view (I had seen a good view while driving to the campsite, so I knew it was possible!) but I was the only one interested, so instead we headed back to the camp site for football.

Back at the campsite, we decided to have a proper camp dinner as the weather had become so nice, so while the boys played ball, husband and I headed off on a search for a shop that was open on a Sunday evening, and selling supplies for a BBQ… Between a couple of different shops we managed to get pretty much everything we needed. The marshmallows, biscuits and chocolate had come with my friend and the kids – eldest lad had a plan for smores (I’m not 100% sure I’ve remembered that name right…) These are created by toasting a marsh mallow, then sandwiching it with chocolate in between 2 biscuits. My friend thought putting a toasted marsh mallow between 2 chocolate biscuits would have been much simpler!

I prepared the disposable BBQs by propping them up on metal tent pegs to keep them off the grass. I did check them to make sure they were sturdy before we lit them! Then my husband manned the BBQs to cook our burgers and sausages, he is the main cook out of the two of us anyway, but he does love a barbie!

While the food was cooking, littlest lad was itching to get a proper fire going. While we had been off getting food, they had bought a bag of logs for a camp fire – in the evening a guy in a landrover came around selling the logs – so when most of the food was finished I put littlest lad to work creating a spot for the fire. He did a good job, and once it was ready I showed him how to build up the fire and get it ready to light. We cheated a little – the heavy rain meant that there was no kindling, so I had bought something to help get it going, and soon we had a lovely little fire.

We used some of the logs to build a wind break to help the fire get going, and once it was nice and hot we began toasting the marshmallows.

Eldest lad showed me how to make the smores (or whatever they’re called!)

But I think that I preferred just a plain toasted marsh mallow

We had a lovely evening, all sitting around the campfire. Littlest lad was having a whale of a time just being outside, camping and having a fire and marshmallows! We lost track of time and he was very happy with that as he got to stay up later and enjoy more camping! He even came up with some great ideas for games we could all play together around the camp fire – my favourite was playing a game where you each take it in turns to say 1 word to make up a story, although we had to adapt this a little (1 sentence each instead for a bit, followed by 2 words each, which worked best for us) as he was getting too excitable to follow the story properly, and it didn’t seem to be working too well to begin with! We really had some giggles, it was such a lovely way to all spend precious time together :)

Tyntesfield - Gardens

This is the post I was talking about here when I couldn't upload the photos! 


We’re still packing!! Although the pace has slackened since my mother-in-law left yesterday… and now my husband has also left to work over the weekend, so it is just me here to get everything ready for the moving truck on Monday morning. Not a task I am relishing!

I have decided that I want a break from thinking about packing, plus there really is no point writing another blog post about packing! Then I remembered that I still haven’t written yet about our visit to Tyntesfield a couple of weeks ago, when we went with my Aunt. We had gone to Somerset to visit my brother-in-law for a birthday/house-warming celebration, and so on the way there we stopped with my Aunt and her husband for a couple of days, as they live in Somerset too.

I had told my Aunt that we were now National Trust members, and so she recommended a day out to Tyntesfield house and gardens. There are loads of places around Somerset to visit, but I had never been to this particular place before.

Tyntesfield is a Victorian Gothic Revival house in gardens and parkland, created by one of England's richest commoners, William Gibbs. Gibbs had built his fortune on importing guano, perhaps not the most glamourous way to make a fortune, but seemingly effective!

The estate remained in the Gibbs family over 4 generations, from the 1800s until 2001. The National Trust launched a big campaign to raise money to buy the property when it came onto the market after the death of Richard Gibbs, raising millions of pounds from public donations, private donations, plus £17.4 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The National Trust opened the house to the public almost as soon as they took up the keys. Some of the Estate was also sold off separately as part of this deal, so the Estate as a whole no longer exists. 

My aunt has visited Tyntesfield at various stages of the development of the property, and she was able to point out to us as we walked around various areas where things have been restored to give us an idea of the work that the Trust have done there.

Most of the work taking place to restore and reconstruct has been in the gardens, which is where we began our visit, so I thought that for now I will show you some pictures of the gardens, and then I will show the house later. If I’m honest with you, I’m kind of too tired to write too much right now! (plus I don’t want to bore you too much all in one go… haha)

I loved these yellow flowers on this tree:

There was white blossom too

I loved how these leaves looked with the sun shining through them:

Then we caught sight of the Rose Garden:

We went into the Rose Garden

This arched walkway has been covered with carefully trained roses (gardening trained - they can't do tricks or anything!) which I'm sure will look gorgeous when they bloom, not to mention the fragrance you'd get walking through a tunnel of roses!

At the end of the garden are some flowers, not roses though - but still beautiful:

A view from the top of the rose garden:

Then our walk took us towards the House, down a driveway lined with topiary:

It wasn't time to go inside yet, so we admired the flower beds instead. I've never seen hyacinths this colour before!

We also admired this palm tree, a strange tropical/temperate mix with those daffodils around the base!

There were more flower beds around the corner...

...with brilliant views of the facade of the house

Work was underway to reshape the trees in the Yew Tree Walk after they had grown wild - a sign explained that they seem to have been hacked back quite harshly, but the yew trees will regenerate well from the bare wood once the light gets in. The sign made it seem that only yew trees can do this, but I think lots of trees can send out new shoots from woody parts to carry on growing - think of coppicing and pollarding?

The grounds had some lovely trees, both native and exotic. Collecting exotic trees and plants from around the Empire was popular in Victorian times, amongst those who could afford it.

I used to love monkey puzzle trees when I was small!

I can't remember the name of this type of field divider!! It's really bugging me, but I have spent all the time I can afford on Google already without finding it... If anyone can remind me that would be great!

It's a very clever design, as you can see the land is cut down gradually on one side, before rising again to the normal level - but this time vertically, reinforced with a wall. This vertical wall provides a barrier for livestock to prevent it coming onto the gardens, while the whole structure is not visible from the direction of the house. Therefore you can keep the animals off your beautiful garden, while gazing out of the windows from your country pile without an ugly fence spoiling your view ;)

 

Walking down the gardens, we come to the kitchen garden with its glass houses.

The flowers are gorgeous, but I have a real fondness for succulents - I haven't seen ones like these before. They look like the low-growing ones like Sempervivums, but these have tall stems. Very cool. I will definitely be having more succulents in Australia!

After this the time has come for us to visit the house - the tickets are timed so that they can control the stream of visitors through the house. This makes things easier for them, better for the house, and - as long as it's not raining and you are happy to enjoy the gardens while you wait - better for visitors as it is less crowded. 

We walk back up the road to get to the house, and I will share some of those pictures in another post :)