welsh hills again

Oh no it is raining again. A couple of days ago we had such a lot of rain the path in front of the house turned to a stream. The land drains worked a treat and all the water from behind the house came spurting out and rushing down the hill. Let's try to take a positive approach here: the hills are a glorious green. The vegetable garden does not need watering, including the new beds in the field which require the humping of heavy watering cans. The onion crop for some reason is the best ever. The hens are all laying, the Welsumer and the Frisian bantam having at long last given up their joint attempt at going broody, much of which involved sitting in the nesting box together, taking turns to sit on each other's head. I am about to go and see my daughter and son in law and my parents, which, as Ian and I are both going, will mean a lot of my favourite people all together. The roof is not leaking (fingers and toes crossed here). But I do long for meals outside under the yew tree a

A great blog from Around my Kitchen Table about invisibility in older women and the sacking of Arlene Phillips has got me thinking. Get over to her blog for some fascinating thoughts on both of these subjects and apologies to her for nicking the idea as a topic for a blog. It just struck such a chord with me and is something I found myself thinking about quite a few times as I have grown older. When you are a teenager the last thing you want is invisibility, unless your parents are being excrutiatingly embarrassing. My best friend and I used to walk our family dogs after school every evening and when we were about fourteen we used to wear our shortest shorts (this was New Zealand so it was warm!) or tiniest skirts and the aim was to see how many wolf whistles or beeps of car horns we could get on our circuit. Looking back there seems an innocence about it. Look at me, look at me! our behaviour said but we hated it if anyone actually stopped or tried to talk to us. That was not the gam

It seems so long since I blogged about anything other than walking so time for a general catch up. It's four weeks since I got back. A week of frantic revision for my Welsh exam took care of the first week. The second week involved a flying visit to London to visit younger daughter and to see her new flat with her first garden, full of pots of flowers, tomatoes and strawberries and an unconscionable amount of ground elder. Week three brought elder daughter and her husband to stay. She is expecting her first child and struggling with sickness extending way beyond the traditional early three months. It was lovely to see them and to indulge my need to look after her a bit. By the time she went she was still feeling nauseous in the mornings but was a little less tired in the rest of the day and her voice had lost that thin, exhausted quality. Then we had friends to stay last weekend and people have been coming in and out of the holiday cottage every weekend. This weekend we have young

Wednesday 20th June Four Crosses to Carreg y Big 13 miles, 1091 calories used, 8.45 to 4.30 No more rest days now, just five days of walking to the coast. I was fired up with the knowledge that on Friday night I would be sleeping at home and we both felt stronger and fitter. Five days walking, no problem. To Llanymynech took us along the Montgomery Canal, about as different from the hills both behind and ahead of us as could be - ducks, swans, irises and water lilies, beautiful houses with gardens stretching down to the water. Then we began to climb, unable to see the views today in the haze. We were passed as we climbed by three walkers going at what seemed to us an unsustainable speed, the woman at the front setting a scorching pace, a man who seemed to be her partner just about keeping up and another man puffing at the back who looked as though he would far rather have been walking with us! By lunchtime it was raining again but not too hard and we trudged on to Carreg y Big . Grea

Sunday 7th June 9m miles, 698 calories used, 9.00 to 2.00 Another morning of pouring rain, too wet to see, too wet to stop, we just slogged on through the rain, water bouncing off the roads, swelling the paths with puddles, too wet to stop for our ten minute rests. The whole world was streaming with water and that included me, right down to my underwear. We found a tumbledown shelter for our lunch, a brick shed with an old tin roof with a hole in it. We sat on some logs just out of reach of the splash of the rain through the gash in the roof and ate our sandwiches and changed our socks again. There was nothing to do but walk and to walk at speed so we arrived at Heath Cottage near Forden way too early to a warm and easy welcome. There was a boiler room to hang our sodden clothing in and newspaper with which to stuff our boots. There was a warm lemon cake and tea and, after a shower, a fire in the living room and newspapers to read and a chat. Bliss. Monday 8th June Forden to Llanymynec