Misty Morning Towy Valley

The above painting of the Towy Valley sold today. Meanwhile I was in the gallery in Llandeilo decorating.

I always end up doing the ceilings I suppose I am always going to be covered in paint so it may as well be me. Anyway job done. Tomorrow I have been asked to judge a Halloween pumpkin competition, which is different.

I was a bit worried lately as I have all of a sudden taken an aversion to wine! Not through any bad experience just haven't felt like it or enjoyed drinking it. Not that I would let this bother me. Now I have been drinking bottled bitter when the occasion demands. Its funny how your tastes change.

As a youngster my mom and dad would leave us outside the pub and come out with a packet of crisps with the little blue bag of salt together with glasses of cider for us. When I grew older I started going into pubs and I drank warm mild beer at one shilling and ten pence a pint ( about 9p in new money).
Occasionally I would have a sweet milk stout like a Mackeson. (Incidentally my grandfather had beer delivered at home in the form of Davenports Stout).

On a school trip to watch King Something Something by Shakespeare in Ludlow we stopped off at Clee Hill for a view of the countryside. A couple of us found a Public House that would serve 14year olds with bottled cider and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

I later changed my taste to Bitter Beer which again was always served warm. Ansells Brewery was near my school and you could always smell the hops. When trends dictated that lager and beers should be served cold or ice cold I turned to wine.

We used to brew our own wine as it was too expensive to buy. We would ferment anything and always had a stock of several gallons. We had big plastic barrels for fermenting. On one occasion we had a large barrel of apple wine fermenting in the airing cupboard of a police house. The barrel literally exploded when the air vent got blocked with apple. There were several gallons of apple wine over the walls floor and ceiling. We failed to cover the stains with blocker. At one time we gave up bottling it and used to syphon the wine straight into jugs. Fortunately I was unable to drink for about 3 weeks in every four due to my shifts so drinking was never too much of a problem! Even so we decided it was perhaps a bit over the top and stopped fermenting our own.

Anyway to keep you up to date I bought a bottle of Rioja yesterday and I may sample it tonight and see how it goes.