Now that significant storms are named it is much easier to assign blame; e.g. “That horrible Bert did so and so” is much more descriptive than “the storm of November 2024 did so and so”. The trouble is, at the current rate they’ll run out of names before the end of the season.

We actually started before any names, when on October 16th, the stream burst over the road as the culverts were unable to cope with the flow. For those who have visited in the summer, you may find this quite surprising as the Nant y Bedd is more often a mere trickle than a raging torrent.

Fortunately we were on it fairly quickly and managed to stop any of the silty water getting to the pond. Small bale straw is very useful!

But that was just a trial run. This was was we woke up to on the morning of Storm Bert. It was possibly higher during the night. It wasn’t possible to stand in the road by our gate as the water would have been over my wellies – and going at quite a lick.

Fortunately the damage was mainly confined to the area around the front gate and the garden room, but it was all a bit concerning at the time. A friendly neighbour with a digger and dumper truck removed over 6 tons (yes, tons) of rubble from the entrance to the culverts under the road before the water level was able to fall. He then shifted another 9 tons from the road. In places the washed down silt was nearly a foot deep.

Then as if that wasn’t enough for one year, we got Storm Darragh. Fortunately this didn’t cause much damage in the garden, but it left us cut-off for 4 days and without power for 5, so it was candles and boiling kettles on the top of the woodburner for a while.

I know that many of our visitors enjoy the drive up the valley. Well, it will look a bit different next Summer. About a mile of forestry trees, mainly huge ones, fell on the road, taking out power and telephone lines, looking in places like a giant had emptied a box of matches. Apparently it made the BBC News!

It was like this for a mile until …

Despite all this we will be open and looking great in June 2025. Booking for visits and for workshops are now live HERE

Have a wonderful Festive Season and we hope to see you here in 2025.