welsh hills again

It's been a big day today for realising how easy it is to take things for granted. Today is normally going to London day but this week I have rearranged my diary so that I am home today and will be away on Thursday. I woke just before eight and padded through to the bathroom. After a couple of weeks when the mornings have been golden and full of sun, it was dark and gloomy. I went to turn on the light - nothing. Downstairs as well was dark and dead: a power cut. My first instinct was to go back to bed and as nowadays from time to time I can, unlike most of my life both as adult and child (see last blog!), I did. Half an hour later I had another try. At the moment you can barely see in our kitchen because the not too large window is almost totally obscured by a tower of fittings for the new utlity, by the water tank, shower cubicle, pumps and boxes of fittings. A narrow strip of window shows palely above the pile. Without the light on it is like living in a cave. I grop

It was my birthday yesterday. Since the 11th September now has a meaning all over the world which is not just my birthday, the date itself has been hijacked, so the day after seems a better time to reflect on getting older. It is a beautiful day here, the sun warm through milky cloud, the air very still, hanging between summer and autumn. The cats are sunning themselves outside on the path and the stonemason has started to build up the wall of the utility, slowly and methodically sorting the stone. I like the fact that this is the stone which grows here as surely as the trees, our own stone from our own land. It is the stone which prevents you from growing delphiniums or roses, but allows penstemons and salvias to flourish with cistus and helianthemum. It is good to see a building which so surely belongs to its place. So it is a good day here to be alive. I am not working, the sun is shining, there is a lot to do in the garden and the day stretches ahead of me, my own time to do