welsh hills again

Cait, whose fabulous blog is at Cait O'Connor kindly agreed to be interviewed for her last blog. So on the basis of pass it along and as the interviewer now is Cait, here are her questions for me and my answers: How did you end up on the side of a hill in Wales ? Ah, long story. I grew up on the edge of the Pennines and then spent my teenage years in New Zealand . I always intended to live in the country as an adult but somehow found myself in London and Birmingham and then for years in Manchester, constrained by jobs and children and schooling. Ian and I said we would move when the children had left home but it was a sometime/maybe ambition until we went for a weekend to Ludlow, had a great time just wandering about and somehow came home with a crystallised sense of "What are we waiting for?" We started to search on the internet, wanting an older house and a bit of land, accessible to a train link to London for me and to a motorway to Manchester for Ian. This place...

The wonderful Fennie who blogs at Corner Cupboard mentioned the idea of people belonging to a tribe in her latest blog. It got me thinking and ruminating about tribes and belonging. I am not a joiner of clubs, never was. I was just about the only girl I knew who wasn't in Brownies, resisted my parents' attempts to get me to go to Youth Club and even now would recoil from the idea of being a golf club member or in the Mothers' Union. It is not an objection to what any of these groups stand for, more a sense that I am happier being uncategorised (is that a word?) and preferably uncategorisable. It is not that I am a loner or an introvert, indeed whenever work throws up one of those MyersBriggs personality type tests I am always an extrovert, admittedly one who needs large doses of solitude to balance out a love of company. It is more that I don't like to be identified with a set of assumptions. I am happier on the outside, making connections with all sorts of peop...

I do love contrasts - winter and summer, light and dark, busy and idle, even sad and happy on the age old premise that you need one to recognise the other. This week began with the coming to stay of adult children: first my elder daughter and her husband, arriving on Sunday and taking possession of the cottage. The two younger ones still have rooms in the house that we describe as theirs, even though they have long left home. The two older ones who have been away even longer tend to stay in the cottage when they come and I think like the sense of a place to themselves as well the company and the buzz of the full house. Outside it was cold as ice and stone, the wind cutting through your clothes in the few yards from house to cottage, and Emma came looking for a fleece to borrow. "I always forget you need an inside and an outside fleece to wear here." We smiled at each other. We don't get much time together these days and it is precious. A couple of days later younge...