Extreme moorhen enthusiasts; petrol almost-theft; Caversham musings

The OU contains at least one member of staff (possibly more) who's really looking out for moorhens. At least two notices have been posted on the noticeboard over the last couple of weeks warning staff not to drive over roaming moorhen chicks on their way off campus. There are already two 'Moorhen Crossing’ signs (left) by the ring road near the church, which have been in situ for as long as I’ve been at the OU; I noticed that several more, more temporary looking ones (right), have recently been added. Can't say I've yet seen any moorhen chicks on campus, but given the level of interest I imagine any driver who squashed one would be hunted down and made to pay.

While booking a hotel room via Premier Inn's website last weekend, I noted that Ruth's company Capricorn Writing appeared in the drop-down list of addresses in our street, against our house number. How official. Also noted from the list that 'Berkshire & Oxfordshire Massage' appears registered at number 51, next door to us. I think it's all perfectly respectable - Terry, the owner, is a physiotherapist and I believe knows his tenants through work.

Also on the theme of small businesses, Ray told me at breakfast on Monday that he has now wound up Home Counties Turf Care and is just calling himself 'R Clark Landscaping'. More down to earth, I guess.

Amusing snippet from the latest job hunt: the University of Reading are looking for a Lecturer in Clouds. Cute.

Following up my 14p windfall from Intelligent Finance: my financial good fortune continued last week with a £5 win from the Cats Protection League weekly lottery. (Actually they're now just 'Cats Protection' - apparently the name was changed in the late 1990s, so I'm behind the times.) I signed up for a regular donation to CP last year - unusually, at the persuasion of a man with a stall in the Oracle - and have been waiting to win something ever since. Ideally money, but a cat would be acceptable.

Went for dinner last Thursday at my colleague Rebecca’s new-build house in the new Redhouse Park development in the north-east of Milton Keynes. Rebecca has recently moved into Milton Keynes with her two daughters, after some years commuting in to the OU from a village somewhere up near Towcester. Spent some time admiring the wonderfully light, clean interior with, I’ll admit, a touch of envy, especially given its freedom from rabbit droppings and puddles of wee¹. Rebecca had cooked a vegetarian curry for Matt and Guy and a chicken dish for herself and me. I pondered that it must be quite unusual for the two women to be the meat-eaters.

Compensated for having to spend much of the weekend completing a report on the OU’s performance in this year’s National Student Survey by getting today off in lieu. My job does not officially entitle me to TOIL, but Judith is understanding about such things on an occasional basis. Feeling revitalized after a super day breakfasting at Carluccio’s on coffee and a Breakfast Bread Tin, then a few hours retail therapy followed by a swim and steam room session at the leisure centre at Wolverton, which I have now switched my allegiance to as it’s cheaper and nicer than Bletchley and seems more geared up for adult swimming.

Did, however, start the day by doing something I have never before done in the over 25 years I have held a driving licence. Stopped at the BP petrol station at Emerson Valley to fill up. Filled up, opened driver’s door as if to get handbag, got in, started up and drove off back out onto the H8. Immediately I’d pulled out on to the dual carriageway I realized I’d missed out a crucial stage of the process. Sped up in the outside lane to the next roundabout muttering “Shit! Shit!”, returned to the forecourt and presented myself in the shop to pay. The man seemed understanding and assured me diplomatically that I wasn’t the first person to have made that mistake in a moment’s inattention. Relieved, though also realize I probably now project such an air of middle-aged respectability that I’m unlikely to be an obvious suspect for criminal activity.

Local (Caversham) news, mixed with a few architectural notes:

Plans for a new free school – The Heights Primary School – in Caversham Heights are causing local controversy. The new school is to be located temporarily in a site quite near us, on the old Caversham Nursery premises off Gosbrook Road. It’ll be fine as long as no one expects to be able to park in the immediate vicinity … Came home on Friday to a invitation to a public meeting on 6 August re the plans for the school’s temporary location. As the public meeting was on a week night, I duly sent an email to the representatives of the new school, intending just to issue dire warnings about not thinking they can park anywhere on Falkland/Westfield/Cromwell Roads, but inadvertently then veering off into further commentary including use of the word 'snobbery' and the phrase 'undermining the state education system'. Possibly should have stopped at the parking bit.

The Heights Primary has been started by a group of parents (of course), supposedly to address the lack of primary school places in North West Caversham. (There are in fact a number of primary schools in Caversham, but it doesn’t help that everyone seems to want to go to Caversham Primary on Hemdean Road. Bring back catchment areas?) The core of the controversy appears not to be local objection to the free schools programme but the plans for the school’s permanent location. The Education Funding Agency has bought a site in Upper Warren Avenue, one of Caversham's most exclusive roads, to locate the school subject to planning permission. The site currently houses a split-level flat-roofed house which I've always rather liked, but sadly it would seem to have been sold off for development. A group – Caversham Residents Against Inappropriate Development (CRAID), or perhaps better named Caversham Residents Against Development In My Backyard (CRADIMBY?) – is fighting the building of the school on the UWA site. Nimbyism aside, the site doesn’t seem an ideal location for a school, as UWA is a dark road with no pavement. There would however be ample room for parking – perhaps this is how most of the hyper-concerned parents involved propose transporting their lovelies.

Also of interest to those of us (i.e. me) fascinated by domestic architecture: I noted that a large Arts and Crafts house on St Peter's Avenue has recently come up for sale. See right; pic borrowed from Davis Tate's brochure. Not sure why planning permission has been granted for a two-storey extension, as this will surely spoil the proportions of the house, which seems amply large enough already. Wonder if the disused swimming pool will be brought back into use? A Google Earth browse of Caversham Heights shows that a few houses there have pools - would be nice I guess, though bracing for most of the year.

To finish off the architectural notes: Reading Post recently published some interesting pictures of Caversham Park Village in its earlier (and probably hey) day. CPV is less posh than it perhaps sounds from the name; it’s a 1960s-built housing development that was built on some land formerly belonging to the Caversham Park estate. The article has a link to Davis Estates’ somewhat self-congratulatory brochure from the period. The Reading Post article has some interesting pictures and links, including this piece about the older house Caversham Place that remained standing for a while while the estate was constructed around it. Don’t know where the public house was, as there isn’t one now on the estate – perhaps it was never built. CPV has some OK housing, but I find the estate a bit odd because of its strict adherence to the Radburn layout, which is a nice idea in principle but in practice, having to walk along footpaths out of sight of the roads (there are no pavements throughout much of the estate) can be offputting. The estate’s shopping precinct off Farnham Drive is now dreadfully run down with most of the shop units empty, which is a pity. This blog has a few more recent pics of the estate.


¹ Rabbit wee.

Hols

House at Llanunwas

Spent 19 to 25 July on a fairly last minute week away in a holiday cottage on the Pembrokeshire coast. We had only booked it a couple of weeks beforehand, at some (probably correct) insistence from Ruth that we should have a week away somewhere. After a relatively minor exchange of words over the fact that my passport expired a couple of years ago and I haven't as yet bothered to renew it, Ruth recalled that she had enjoyed the weekend we spent in Pembrokeshire for Dad's 70th in 2012. We managed to book Wood Cottage at Llanunwas near Solva, via Coastal Cottages of Pembrokeshire, at a bit of a premium given that it's the school holidays but it had been reduced by a couple of hundred pounds as we were so near the date of our intended stay. Llanunwas is an estate fairly close to the coastal path that has evidently been converted into a number of smaller properties, several of which seem to be for rental through Coastal Cottages. The estate house is a bit grim but the outbuildings (which include what is now Wood Cottage) are cute.

On the way there we stopped off to visit the National Botanic Garden of Wales near Camarthen, partly because our Coastal Cottages booking had come with a voucher that got one person in free. The Botanic Garden was opened in 2000, apparently the first such to be created in the UK in nearly 200 years. It was based on the site of the Middleton Estate, a 17th-century estate later transformed into a Regency water park in the late 18th century by one Sir William Paxton, who also built himself a grand new house, Middleton Hall. The grand new house burned down in 1931 and only the former servants’ quarters, now known as Principality House, remain standing. We wandered round various gardens, including the Double Walled Garden and the Tropical House, and the Bee Garden, where one can view the honey bees at work from behind the glass of the Bee Interpretation Hut. Had a brief walk around the lakes, where we saw a heron fishing. The centerpiece of the Botanic Garden is the Norman Foster-designed Great Glasshouse, the largest single-span glasshouse in the world and containing a variety of endangered plants from Mediterranean climate regions of the world.

We were plagued entertained throughout our walk around the gardens by folk music and troupes of folk dancers – initially by the entrance, but also within the Great Glasshouse and another by the Stable Block, where we stopped for ice cream. By the third troupe I was put in mind of the line from Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch. Ruth stopped at one (quiet) point to listen to some birdsong, but the moment was scuppered by an accordion promptly starting up again.

On the Sunday we walked into Solva along the coastal path from Llanunwas and had lunch at the lovely Lavender Café tacked on to the side of the Raul Speek Gallery, sited in the Old Chapel. Speek, a Cuban artist, was himself in evidence, playing the piano inside the gallery for the whole of our visit.

The village of Solva is in two halves: Upper Solva is a regular-looking collection of houses and seems to contain Solva’s only convenience store, Bay View Stores, a cheery little establishment with various signs outside mocking Tesco. Lower Solva, around the harbour, is a chocolate-boxy tourist village with brightly coloured houses, several pubs and a collection of shops selling paintings, pottery, hand-whittled sea birds and other crafty bits. Solva harbour is very pretty and full of little boats.

On the Monday we drove into St Davids where I did an hour’s work in the café of the Visitor Centre. We then walked up to the cathedral and paid Cadw’s entrance charge for a look around the impressive ruins of the Bishops Palace. We followed this with lunch at The Bishops, then visited the nursery on the way back out of town to the Visitor Centre car park, where Ruth went in for a quick browse and came out with two bags full of plants, which she was then obliged to tend and water for the rest of our stay.

We then, at my (fairly quickly regretted) suggestion, walked the mile or so from St Davids to Whitesands Bay intending to then do a short walk around St Davids Head that I had found on a leaflet in the cottage. We only did the additional walk because I had refused to drive to Whitesands car park because of its probable extreme crowdedness (confirmed on our arrival), but the walk out of St Davids along the country road and then along the B4583 proved extremely hot and distinctly unrewarding. We sat for a moment looking at the packed beach, then trudged back to St Davids, though I did manage to persuade Ruth that we might try the coastal walk the following day.

Coetan Arthur

We drove to Whitesands' car park early the next morning and walked down the almost-deserted beach, populated only by a few early-morning power walkers, before setting off on a circular walk of St David’s Head. It had rained heavily on Monday night and was still overcast and misty for most of the walk, though this made for pleasanter walking than the heat of the previous day. As is often the way on coastal walks, we walked out to the tip of one headland before realizing that St David’s Head was actually the next headland over. Sat for a while near Coetan Arthur, a Neolithic burial chamber dating from 4000-3000 BC. Ruth tried to set up her camera to take an auto-shot of the pair of us, with varying degrees of success; on one occasion the camera fell forwards into some moss, which it then photographed; on another Ruth rushed back to sit down next to me in time and sat down on the flapjack I had brought along to keep our blood sugar up.

The second part of the walk, back towards Whitesands, went over the slopes of Carn Llidi, apparently the highest point on the St Davids peninsula at 594ft. We walked partway up the slopes, viewing the two small Neolithic burial chambers on the slopes and the brick and concrete evidence of the military use of Carn Llidi during both the First and Second World Wars. St David’s Head, and particularly Carn Llidi, do apparently offer spectacular views as far as the coast of Ireland, though they weren’t to be had on the day of our walk. We had lunch in the Bwthyn Y Bwyd cafe in St Davids where I had a delicious scone with clotted cream and jam and Ruth had an apparently overcooked omelette.

On the Wednesday we did what was intended to be a short relaxed walk northwards from Llanunwas along the coastal path; however due to inept map-reading on my part we went past the point at Porth y Rhaw where I had intended to turn off and make a neat circular walk out of it, and ended up at Trelerw, which we were hoping might contain a café or pub but which was little more than a collection of houses. Walked back the direction we had come along a baking hot country road and then back down to the coastal path to Porth y Rhaw, communing with ponies and cows on the way. After some difficulty finding the right path, managed to arrive at Nine Wells and the A487, which we walked along at some hazard to life back to Llanunwas. Turned in at the path with the National Trust sign saying ‘Llanunwas’, but that seemed to be leading away from the house, in a manner that appeared to bear no relation to what was on the map. Eventually arrived back at cottage, vowing never to holiday in countryside again but to restrict myself to city breaks and Center Parcs-style holiday developments. Later that afternoon, drove out to try to find Crochendy Studio Pottery, but after a few miles driving in the heat over what appeared to be a disused airfield, we both decided that none of it was worth it/we had lost all interest in pottery, and returned to the cottage. Declined to visit a nearby woollen mill, on the grounds that it was too warm to think about woolly things.

Things looked up on the Wednesday evening, when we went on a fantastic boat trip through Thousand Islands Expeditions Wildlife Boat Trips, booked through their office in St Davids. We picked the Puffin & Shearwater Cruise, departing at 6pm from the St Justinians Lifeboat Station a couple of miles from St Davids, and spent an hour and half taking us out into Ramsey Sound, past the Bitches and around Ramsey Island, before going out to the Bishops and Clerks, other clutches of rocks. We saw several seals, three lying on one of the small beaches on Ramsey Island, and the heads of several others bobbing up and down in the water. Our trip was on a particularly sunny calm evening, so we were not asked to wear life jackets though the guide cheerily told us that we could put them on if we liked. As we passed through Ramsey Sound he pointed out the areas of fast current which can apparently be dodgy for boats in poorer weather, due to concealed rocks.

The guide pointed out the absurd cluster of plastic puffins up on the shores of Ramsey Island, together with recorded puffin noises, which are a deliberate attempt by the RSPB to attract puffins back to the island, after they apparently vanished from it for 100 years thanks to rats getting on to the island. We did see a few real puffins later in the trip, though not very close up – but did see a few bobbing on the water a little way off. Ruth had expressed an interest in seeing puffins but had refused to buy a pair of binoculars, regarding that as too middle-aged, so was stuck with peering at them from a distance. I pointed out that several others on the trip did have binoculars, even though none were significantly older than us, so perhaps she may change her mind for the next trip. At the end of the trip we saw a clutch of manx shearwaters returning to the islands – we were told that, thanks to being clumsy on land and at risk of becoming prey to other birds (I forget which ones), they stay out at sea all day and only return to the islands under safety of dusk.

On the Thursday we drove a little way south to Newgale and spent some time walking and paddling up and down its magnificent length of flat sandy beach. Ruth spent 45 minutes or so lying on a towel, but I get bored with that quite quickly and eventually managed to prise her off it with reminders about the ageing and withering effects of the sun. My family took one or two holidays in a cottage at Newgale when Dave and I were quite small (possibly pre-Hannah, though I'm not sure) and I was interested to see if I could identify which house it was, though my memories of it are patchy. Did succeed in identifying the property that I think it was (later confirmed by parents), helped by the fact that it was one of the few older houses around in the village. Had a not bad lunch in the Duke of Edinburgh on the sea front.

In the evening we walked down into Solva and had a pint at the Harbour Inn, which is indeed by the harbour but unfortunately has a view largely of the intervening car park. Followed that by dinner at the Cambrian Inn, which Dad says used to be more of a pub-type pub but is now a smart establishment that looks largely set up for dining. The surroundings and ambience were nice but the food, while OK, didn’t quite live up to them. We were driven back to Llanunwas by a cheerful chap from the St Davids Taxi Service, who told us it was hotter than he remembered it.

Decided to start our journey back on the Friday, in deference to the lengthy drive and various jobs to do at home. Took the more cross-country route from Camarthen on the A40 all the way back to Abergavenny, via Llandovery and Brecon. Had tea at The Old Printing Office in Llandovery, which has a lovely café with outdoor courtyard and delicious crumpets. Stayed over with Mum and Dad on the Friday evening. Pleased to see that Lydia is now going out regularly and was apparently enjoying rolling around in the patch of earth that Dad has cleared for his impending new lawn – the following Tuesday was prominently marked TURF DAY on their calendar.