Day Trip

On wednesday we had a lovely trip over to the north welsh coast near Pwlheli. The weather was perfect for a trip over the mountains with a beautiful blue sky, but abit of a chilly breeze still. We headed off in the direction of Welshpool then over the very snowy hills to our coffee stop at Merion Mill. After fortifying ourselves on cheese scones we took off for Dolgellau past some very deep snow drifts. The views were spectacular! I wanted to stop and take loads of photos, but there either wasn't a handy lay-by, or if there was one the view was behind trees. We got a lovely view of Cader Idris - 892m high - covered in bright glistening snow. Wow! Soon we were nearer the coast and the snow had dissappeared.
Suddenly we had arrived in spring! Criccieth is a lovely seaside town with a medieval castle overlooking the beach. The town was bathed in warm sunshine and the temperature was in double figures! We were amazed to see daisies and celandines in the grass verges, all the forsythia was in bloom. It was so warm.
After a short drive we had arrived at our journeys end -- the home of Patchwork Sheep.
I have been thinking for the last year or so of increasing my small flock of sheep but couldn't make my mind up as what breed to get. I needed something that would produce a nice fleece for spinning and my taste is for a longer lock and a fine fleece too. I didn't want to buy sheep that would produce the same colour fleece, 6 black fleece for instance would be too much.I also wanted a smaller breed of sheep that would be easier to handle as Trixie and Hubert who are my largest sheep can be very difficult to manoeuvre at times. Shetland sheep seemed to be the answer, but most of the ones I had seen advertised were pedigree stock for breeding, and I don't want to go down that route. However, playing on the internet as one does before bedtime!, I came across Patchwork Sheep who had loads of lambs for sale that were a cross between Jacob, Shetland, a little bit of Welsh Mountain and Soay. So I sent Lucy an email and arranged to view some lambs hence the trip. Boy did we have fun! It was very hard to choose which ones to have. Here a some photos to show you some of the lovely lambs I bought.

The little black one in the front is Treacle, a ewe lamb.

This is Cyril.

This is Baloo another wether lamb.

And these were bought by my Mum and they are called Cloud and Bubble. I've also got another wether lamb who was too busy rushing around chasing his mate Cyril and I couldn't get a good photo of him at all! He is called Dandilion - his mother is Burdock - and is a lovely milk chocolate brown. They will be ready for collection later on this summer when they have been weaned from their mum. I'm so excited!!
So after a very pleasant time looking and choosing sheep we headed back home via Merion Mill for tea etc.

Finally a couple of views back towards the mountains from near Porthmadog.