Monday, 11 January 2010

Winter at Min Yr Afon

Dear Friends,

A very Happy New Year to you all. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

We are currently writing from a very cold Wales!
(link to photos in post below)

Obviously all of Britain has been in the grips of a deep freeze - we hope you are keeping warm!
Our pipes are currently frozen and we have had no water for 4 days. Flushing the toilet involves breaking the ice on our river to fill a bucket! We are brushing our teeth with bottled water and have filled up two 25L jerricans for washing up/cooking. Washing ourselves involves Ffions baby wipes!! So we are now eagerly awaiting the big thaw before we get too stinky!!

We have managed to have some fun in the snow though! (video of Gaynor sledging... with a little help from Dylan - video here)

We had a lovely Christmas with family. Gaynors parents joined us from Merthyr and we were so glad to have Lloyd with us from Tunbridge Wells. The only thing that put a 'dampener' on things was a burst water pipe on Christmas Eve which involved a late night call out to a plumber with an emergency fee of £440. Who charges £250 per hour?!?!?

Last time we wrote we were waiting to hear from the Kent and Sussex hospital regarding Clive's operation. As most of you know, shortly after that Clive was admitted to Carmarthen hospital for a few weeks. After a weekend of pain and vomiting we took him to hospital late one night. A few days later he received an emergency operation to repair what was an obstruction caused by a twisted gut. At the same time his hernia was repaired (saving us a trip to Kent). After 16 days recovery he was finally allowed home and is still in recovery for a few more weeks.

Thank you so much for your prayers during what was a very difficult time for Clive and a tiring one for Gaynor and Menna.

The bat survey is being prepared for submission to the Welsh Assembly for a license to enable us to re-roof (you may remember in our last post that the builder was actually booked in to do this but we then found out that before we even touch the roof for repair we needed this special license from the Assembly!).

Please pray for:
*A favourable response from the Welsh Assembly and similarly from the Environment Agency re: the flood consequence assessment.
*Continued recovery for Clive (up to this point it has been fairly slow)
*And for no more burst pipes during the big thaw

Thank you for your continual support, financially, and in your prayers. It means so much to us.

Please do let us know how you are and anything we can prayer for for you.

Lots of love from us all x

Photos of Winter at Min Yr Afon

You can view photos here:

Winter at Min Yr Afon