We have had a busy time this Summer, which is wonderful, of course. When filling in a form earlier this year I was amazed to note that 60% of our bookings were repeats which is lovely, but we also love to welcome new guests.
Now that the bank holiday is over and the new school term has begun, Autumn isn’t far away and the weather has been a blend of blue skies, warm sunshine, showers and wind. Our Victoria plum tree is giving masses of fruit, we have a glut of raspberries and the apples are ripening in the orchard. It’s time to collect blackthorn berries to make a new batch of sloe gin ready for Christmas. What a beautiful season.
Over the weekend Holyhead was lucky to have good sailing weather despite a daunting forecast. Holyhead Sailing Club played host to a fun weekend of beautiful old gaff rigged boats, sea shanties, much socialising and a parade which included the Battle of Holyhead – played out in the outer harbour.
Daf and I spent Saturday night and Sunday on our boat in the centre of the festivities and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Seeing the gaffs in full sail is a wonderful thing and they came in all shapes and sizes.
Much love and a great deal of work goes into mainting these lovely craft and I can recommend looking out for this event next year.
One of the fun, and educational, things to do was rope making and Daf and I made a length of flax rope which has now become our skipping rope and is helping to keep us fit. We also watched as some little girls concentrated very hard on learning to make lovely fish and lanterns from willow, while a young woman used a spoke shave to prepare strips of oak to make spelk baskets. There was also a coracle maker and someone smoking fish. Lots for everyone to see and do. We were quite taken with a shanty band called Blackbeard’s Tea Party and came away with a CD.
Dorothy Russell
Sept 7th 2010